Veronica Safoa Owusu at a glance
Studied: Masters in Educational Sciences, Poland
Works as: Online course creation strategist. Deep-dive mindset coach
At EduCom: Program committee member
When she slipped into her mother’s classroom as a 16-year-old, Veronica beheld her mother bewitching a class of 6 years old with her narration of a story. That moment awakened a desire in her to inspire people, and teaching was the most natural route for her to take.
Fast forward a few years, she was a teacher, a TELC examiner and an ESL teacher in Poland. She created English courses for Polish companies, structuring them according to each department and its needs. Veronica also ventured into the business world, running an import business and a web development company.
Back to inspiring, empowering and transforming
Veronica took the time to reflect on herself when her business failed. It meant reexamining the choices she made and taking responsibility for them, realising where she had detoured from what she truly wanted to do, and arriving at self-acceptance and self-love. From there, she gradually rewired her thinking, shedding her limiting beliefs and planting a stronger and healthier sense of self.
She shared insights of her transformation with others, which strengthened into a vocation of coaching people on their journey of self-discovery and self acceptance.
Going beyond personal development coaching, Veronica uses her teaching experience to help people design their own courses, and become ‘impact-preneurs’. “Other personal development coaches, consultants who want to make a difference in the world – I call them impact-preneurs. I give them clarity about who they are and help them package their wealth of experience, passion and knowledge into online courses and market it to who they want to serve.”
An important part of her coaching is to delve deep into a person’s subconscious to lay open its thought processes, and then leverage it to serve themselves and others. Through a series of questions, Veronica leads her clients to observe their limiting beliefs, shortcomings and mistakes, which she calls their ‘gold dust’. She then builds their confidence to accept and harness their gold dust to transform others around them.
“A big part of knowing who you are is to not attach somebody else’s opinion or let somebody else’s choices define you. And knowing that what you’re experiencing doesn’t define you. It’s about mastering your inner self. It’s about being self aware and using your highest level of consciousness to recreate and redefine yourself and what you want to experience.”
“Until you have compassion for yourself, until you respect and value yourself, and are at peace with yourself, you cannot give the same to others. Accept that we did what we did then based on the information, knowledge and the insights we had then. Who we used to be and the mistakes that we made then do not define who we are today. So let’s make today’s decisions based on who we are today, not what we did in the past.”
She cites an incident in 4th grade as an example of how she had let her past define her current self-view. Her performance in a dictation test and her teacher’s response led Veronica to believe she wasn’t smart. “That outdated story and misconception of who I thought I was held back my performance then onwards, till I realised that right now I’m doing well. Instead of letting a belief I had when I was 8 years old still define my present, I changed the way I think about myself.”
Evocation
When Veronica deep dives with her clients, she asks them questions that educe awareness and comprehension about themselves. Rather than advising, she leads people to discover their own answers by visualizing and asking questions that evoke self-reflection.
Similarly with children, Veronica emphasizes the importance of their learning through discovery and exploration.
When presented with questions and experiences that raise wonder and curiosity in them, children immerse themselves in unraveling and mastering those questions and experiences. This self-directed education is not only deeply absorbed and indelible, it contributes to exponential and transformational growth in character and skill.
Using her skills as a coach, and her story as an inspiration, Veronica wants to go to schools and open training centers for children to guide their inner growth.
Through discovery and exploration of their self, she would like to teach children to withstand outside pressures that try to fit them in a mould, and instead listen to their inner voice to find their own way and purpose. The sooner the seeds of self-discovery and self-acceptance are planted in children, the sturdier children would be mentally to withstand life’s rough winds.
“If we have a program that could help them develop a soft skill that would actually empower them to achieve their goals quicker, faster, more effectively, and we understand who they are and help them not lose their way like we did as adults. So for me, students have a very challenging task ahead of them because there’s a lot of pressure and expectations. And sometimes they are creating a future not based on who they are, but based on somebody else’s or the society’s expectations of what they should or shouldn’t be.
So it’s important for me to make sure that when they embark on this journey as students, it comes from a space of truth and alignment. That this journey is going to be fulfilling and something that they love and brings them joy. Which allows them to grow up beautifully, because it’s about blossoming right?”
Interview by Hajra Mirza