I have always been great at storytelling. From my childhood, I could regale my friends and family with stories and be guaranteed a captive audience. This talent is the core of my success as a trainer and coach.

Like many young people, I breezed through secondary school, but academia was not my thing. I wanted to be a model, an actress, or a flight attendant because of the glamour associated with these professions. I was so fixated on my glamorous careers; I would dream of myself strutting
down the aisles of the then Ghana Airways planes in uniform!

Shortly after finishing form five at Holy Child School in Cape Coast, Ghana. I didn’t do so well in my O Level exams but I selected to go on high school study American Field Service(AFS) abroad program for a year in Denmark. With my natural flare for talking I aced that AFS interview and off I went to Denmark. Upon my return, I hadn’t done well enough to back to my alma mater for sixth form. My parents (my father, a professor in psychology, and mother, a teacher) sat me down and said,“Sika, we think you should be a teacher.” My heart missed several beats. “Teacher?” I was devastated; teaching had none of the glamorous qualities that I had often dreamt of. For days, I pondered what I was to tell my friends who had continued on to the sixth form; going to a teacher training college at that time meant I was a loser.

This was my first “Stop. Strategize. Succeed” moment, that moment when all my frantic indecisions and anxious thoughts came to a silent Stop and I had to Strategize by weighing my options and capabilities to Succeed. Yes, I was going to be a teacher, and my three years at the Aburi Presbyterian Women Training College was a game changer.

Till today, I thank my parents for that “Stop. Strategize. Succeed” opportunity, when my parentslaid bare my innate skills, coupled them with my career options, and set me on the path tosuccess. On this path, I have learnt that success is not a one-time event; it is not a signpost or adestination. Success is a process, a journey, if you will. Through this journey, you make stops at various points to enrich yourself with additional education and growth opportunities. To
succeed is an active process; you must work on it and grow it. You don’t see Coca-Cola resting on their laurels because they sell 1.8 billion bottles of Coca-Cola a day! You work at it to stay the best in the game!

I continued to succeed though acquiring practical experience as a teacher and guidance counselor at Ghana International School for 13 years, where I introduced a host of counseling and career services, which helped parents and children Stop and Strategize to Succeed. In 2005, I set up Self Search Ghana Limited to focus on corporate training, career development, and coaching.

There is a wealth of self-development opportunities that as a professional one has to seek and engage in. I have grown to love learning and I am still learning.

The best part of learning is when I interact with people of diverse ages, backgrounds and professions and we identify decision-junctions and visualize how to get to desired