Kevyn Malloy
April 24, 2008
Striving and Thriving
As a young married woman with a degree in English Literature, Kevyn Malloy first chose the obvious path. She became a teacher, one of the few careers considered acceptable for women at the time. She could have stayed on that path and taught for decades. She could have risked just a little more ambition, taken her studies to a higher level, and become a college professor.
But the obvious path just isn’t Kevyn’s way. She doesn’t like to let other people limit her choices. She looks at what life brings her way, listens to her heart, and then chooses a plan. With her heart engaged and her mind set, she makes things happen.
That is how, with absolutely no experience or even the first idea about what she was doing, Kevyn left teaching and opened a restaurant. That became the second of four successful careers she has had so far.
The Second Career
Kevyn didn’t start out knowing what she was doing in the restaurant business, but she knew that she wanted to do it. The adventure and the challenge were exciting and new, so she opened and managed a seafood restaurant on the Jersey shore.
Kevyn is a resourceful woman, so she hired some of the staff who had worked at a prior restaurant in that location. She encouraged them to let her know when her way of doing things was different from the “old way.” At first she would default to the old way. With her staff as unwitting consultants, she learned all about running a successful restaurant so she could do it her way.
This adventure lasted for nearly twelve years. The completely unknown and exciting became more comfortable and manageable as she mastered all the necessary skills. Then it became a little too known, and less exciting. The restaurant business is hard work and demands long hours. With the adventure fading, she decided to move on.
The Third Career
As a lifelong lover of learning, Kevyn decided to go back to college. The first semester she signed up, she was open to new opportunities so she chose classes based on what was available. By serendipity, one of the available classes was Research Methods in Psychology. Although this was not a class known for drawing large crowds, Kevyn decided to try it out.
She surprised herself and did very well in the class, understanding statistics well enough to tutor other students. She took more psychology courses and eventually earned her second bachelor’s degree in psychology. She entered graduate school, earned her master’s degree, and received her professional license.
Four years later she was asked to come speak to psychology graduates at the school about working in the field of psychology. The head of the school urged her to pursue her doctorate. She hadn’t planned to do that before, but she was persuaded.
The doctoral program was challenging in some ways for Kevyn. She fought herself to keep going, especially working on her dissertation. The work was isolated and lonely, which is contrary to her nature. During this time her first marriage was ending, which made it even more difficult.
She finished her dissertation and received her doctorate. After two years of agency work she entered private practice as a clinical psychologist. She worked out of her home and was able to set her schedule. In the beginning, it was a very good life.
Time for Respite
But in time Kevyn started disobeying the rules she intended to live by. She got very busy with work and wound up out of balance. She wasn’t giving enough time to other parts of her life and wasn’t spending enough time with her new husband. She decided to take a six-month sabbatical to rest, explore new ideas, and clarify her direction. She prepared for months so her therapy clients would be able to complete treatment or transition to another therapist.
The second week into her sabbatical, Kevyn’s life was intersected by serendipity again. She ran into a friend and colleague who told her about a book she had been reading that thoroughly reminded her of Kevyn. It was Co-Active Coaching,
Kevyn heard about a presentation for therapists interested in learning to be coaches, given by Ben Dean, Ph.D. Ben is the founder of MentorCoach, an International Coach Federation Accredited training organization. Ben was a clinical psychologist who transitioned to coaching so the training program he described was tailor made for Kevyn and others with her background. She decided to enroll in the training program.
The Fourth Career
When her sabbatical ended, Kevyn returned to her private practice. She limited it so she could have time to build a part-time coaching practice. But being a therapist had lost its luster for her. Coaching was energizing. In time she realized she wanted to coach full-time and let go of her therapy practice.
Two years after she began coaching, Kevyn closed her therapy practice, tiptoed up to the edge, held her breath, and jumped in to the “coaching pool” full-time. The next month she was teaching her first coaching class for MentorCoach. Today she teaches new coaching students on a regular basis while maintaining a full and varied coaching business. Since she works from home, she and her husband are able to live half of each year in Pennsylvania and half in Vermont.
Kevyn says that she would never have guessed she would enjoy the areas of specialty she now works in. But she found them by being willing to try new things. She works with restaurant owners, a link to her distant past that brings her more energy and enthusiasm than running a restaurant ever did. She works with medical executives occasionally. She is one of a hand-chosen group of coaches working with MBA students at Smeal College of Business at Penn State.
Kevyn recently became the Director of Learning at MentorCoach. She helps mentor and lead the other trainers, and she helps revise and improve the curriculum for new coaching students. She is admired, respected, and loved in the MentorCoach community.
Dancing in the Moment
In the field of coaching, “dancing in the moment” refers to the coach follow the client wherever he or she decides to go at any given moment in a session. If the client has an ongoing goal of getting a project completed, but in the session she starts talking about spending more time with her daughter, the coach goes where she leads.
Coaches listen on many levels and must be flexible to respond to what is most important to the client. They must listen with knowledge, but they must especially listen with wisdom and intuition. They must hear the language of the heart, and they must see serendipity.
Kevyn has chosen to listen to her heart at key turning points in her life. She has been willing to follow the lead of serendipity, even when she was not sure where it would take her. By being open and willing to risk, Kevyn continues to have a life of adventure, happiness, and freedom.
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For More Information About Coaching
Kevyn Malloy, Ph.D., is a Certified Mentor Coach (CMC) and a Professional Certified Coach (PCC). More information on coaching and on her coaching business can be found at her website. Kevyn maintains a full practice but can occasionally accept new clients. She has a vast network of experienced coaching colleagues to recommend when she is not able to start working with a client right away.
Information about coach training is available through MentorCoach.
MentorCoach specializes in “Training Accomplished Helping Professionals to Become Extraordinary Coaches.” MentorCoach was started specifically to help therapists and other mental health workers build on their significant strengths and skills while learning important distinctions between therapy and coaching. The organization’s reach has grown to include students from a wide variety of backgrounds.
Posted in Striving and Thriving, Zine 8: April 2008, Zines in 2008
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