L. Danyetta Najoli, M.A., MCBC is a native New Yorker.  She has over 11 years of management, client service, training, public speaking, and leadership experience.  Danyetta worked as a corporate manager at Saturn Corporation and Deutsche Bank (formerly Bankers Trust Company) before pursuing her life-long passion of life coaching.  Danyetta's life coaching practice centers around the concepts of human potential, fulfillment, vision casting, awareness, and motivation.  Danyetta coaches individuals, groups, young adults, caregivers, and leaders. 

 

Danyetta specializes in working with people and groups who want to design an excellence-based life that is full and meaningful.  She is an expert in Human Potential and Strategic Leadership.  Her signature program, Excellence-Based Living has been experienced by many.

  

In 2004, Danyetta served as a content consultant in the development of the Biblical Coaching Academy.  She successfully led the Biblical Coaching Academy from 2005-2006 and currently serves as Dean.  Danyetta served as a board member for two non-profit organizations and has consulted the state of Tennessee on issues around mentoring staff and serving a more culturally diverse population.  She has authored several behavior guidelines and plans for people with intellectual disabilities.

 

Danyetta earned her Master's degree in Organizational Leadership from Regent University and her Bachelor's degree in Business Managementt and Administration from Fisk University.  She graduated from the Zenger-Miller Front-Line Leadership Development program.  Danyetta completed the Coaching for Results eCourse at Harvard Business School and studied coaching at the Graduate School of Coaching.

 

When Danyetta is not coaching, she works with her husband at the Better Life Company as COO and serves in her community.  Danyetta is married to Kenyan author and motivational speaker, Herman J. Najoli and they have a beautiful son.

 

 

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In their book, Built to Last: Successful Habits of Visionary Companies, by Collins and Porras illiustrates the concept of a Vision Framework.   Companies that have been around for over 100 years, like 3M, Merck and Johnson & Johnson, have organizational elements that neatly fit into this framework.  However, the authors also indicate how "a number of people have reported that they've found the key concepts useful in their personal and family lives." (p. xviii) I am one of those people.  But I didn't stop there, I also find it useful in my coaching practice:

 

 

Dear Potential Client:

 

Many people often ask me how I became a life coach. Mostly, they are intrigued because the field is still so relatively new and rapidly growing; they're simply interested in meeting an actual life coach face-to-face. In order to answer that wonderfully loaded question, I have to go back pretty far, even before I knew that what I was doing was actually called 'life coaching.'

 

I officially hung my life coaching shingle in 2000 after a culminating series of events led to an epiphany or ah-ha moment. Prior to that, I had been working in a Corporate America as a manager and, seemingly out of the blue, I became suddenly unfulfilled.

 

Well, maybe not suddenly.

 

I had just been promoted to a client services officer of a global bank and when my manager and her manager brought me into a nearby conference room to share the "good" news with me, I was visibly unmoved. Even my manager commented, "you don't seem very happy about the news." This was certainly not the kind of behavior I had ever displayed, in fact, it was quite the contrary. By then, I had been promoted 3 times within a 5 year period and I was undoubtedly heading for upper management based on the path I was clearly on. Still, I could not shake the feeling that I was reaching my fullest potential and even worse, I was disillussioned by my current life.

 

After a few attempts to overlook my inner nudgings, I finally decided to let them lead me. At the puzzlement of my friends and family, I resigned from my corporate job and took a couple of years to make room for, and become clear about, my God-given life purpose.  I made the decision to work in a completely different field: intellectual disabilities/developmental disabilities.  It was an extremely challenging time for me because I knew unequivocally what I didn't want in my life, but I wasn't exactly sure what I really wanted or what I was supposed to do with my life. At the same time, it was an extremely fulfilling time because the work I was doing was making a difference.  So, I knew I wanted to rekindle my love of helping others as I had done for so many years as a child and teenager working in my godmother's Harlem dance studio, Sounds In Motion.

 

During that period of exploration, I read countless books about spirituality, personal development, and inspiration holding myself up in a room, allowing myself the gift of silence, and becoming so empty that I filled my life with this quest for light. Let's just say that my library card and my favorite bookstore's card became my most valuable cards in my wallet.

The exact date is unknown, but sometime in early 2000 I discovered the field of personal coaching while I was doing some cursory internet-based research. It was a pivotal moment when I realized that a life coach was what I had been my entire life. My mind went back to countless times friends and family members would regularly seek my opinion on tough decisions or delicate matters that affected them. In those times, I never wavered or felt unqualified to respond in my own unique way. In fact, I had a strong desire to affect them profoundly. My intention was never to fix their situation but to guide them along a process that resulted in them responding (or not responding) in the way they believed was the next, natural, and necessary step; even if that step was simply to do nothing. My uniqueness usually included depth of thought, the ability to articulate their often complex problem, the use of humor and prayer, and a strong commiseration of what they were going through.

I had also been comfortable making hard decisions and dealing with real situations at an early age. My mother passed away when I was five by comitting suicide. A year later, my father passed away by the same presumed method. My middle sister and I discovered my mother in our apartment. The reason I share this is because, although I do not recall specifically doing this, I must have crossed an invisible line that caused me to make the decision to live my life on purpose from that point on. Now, when I look back on my formidable years, it all made perfect sense. Life coaching was my God-given purpose that began to flood the space in my life I had cleared for it. It was indeed a high calling; something for which I would do even if I was not receiving pay. Although I would not realize this until well in my adult years, because of my mother's death, I sincerely desired to create healthy lives and toxic-free relationships in each of the lives I touched. I belived I could make a difference.

In my days of working for in Corporate America, I recalled being exposed to coaching - but from a strictly business perspective, not personal. For example, when I was a buyer at Saturn corporation, I attended a strategic negotiation training program where a business coach was hired to lead the sessions. Throughout the sessions, he would challenge us to think bigger and more intentionally about our negotiation process therby making us more successful. As a senior corporate employee at Deutsche Bank (formerly Bankers Trust), I was selected to attend the Zenger-Miller Frontline Leadership program which had an entire module entitled, Coaching Others For Optimal Performance. Although these two coaching encounters were primarily of a business nature, the fundamental coaching model was consistent with what I now do routinely in my private coaching practice. That's about where the similarities end, though: My more adventurous clients may find me belaying them as they climb an indoor rock climbing wall doing things they never thought they were capable of, beginning an undeniable transformation process into the person they aspire to be. Contrastly, my clients looking to build reserves and replenishment might find themselves meeting me at the nearby beautiful gardens of an historic bed and breakfast so they can begin taking stock of things in a candid, yet gentle way.

My gratitude for all of my professional and personal experiences to date, is immense. Each experience makes me the life coach I am today. My work with people with intellectual disabilities steadily continues as I am able to facilitate conference workshops and training sessions to help employees in this field be the best they can be.  I also have the benefit of working with leaders of community-based agencies and associations to facilitate best leadership practices within the field, as well as a variety of related projects. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. once said, "Make a career if humanity...and you will make a greater person of yourself, a greater nation of your country, and a finer world to live in." What is most precious to me is being able to give of my time to help people with or without disabilities live their best lives.  Many of my friends have disabilities and I have been deeply inspired by their ability to not only survive, but thrive in life. 

 

My coaching clients are very satisfied because what they get is a coach who is present in the moment with them and who understands the concept of 'be, do, have (in that order!).' In our robust and provocative conversations I am able to, among other things, help my clients A) think through or reframe a situation with the benefit of a having thinking partner and B) become more challenged to act because they know I will lovingly, yet firmly, hold them accountable.

Becoming a life coach is only second, in my book, to becoming a spirit-filled Christian in terms of my significant life events. My sincere wish is for everyone to find their purpose. Yep, you guessed it: I am essentially working myself out of a job! But somehow, I don't think that will ever happen. There are too many people who are seeking more meaning in their lives and those that aren't, right now, will probably do so in the future.

When you are selecting a personal coach to walk along side you as you journey through the various paths in life, it is important to know where your coach has been so you can determine if she will truly be able to effectively coach you.  Let's have a conversation to see if we can collaborate towards creating the life you want......

 

Click here to see how Danyetta gets involved in her community.