About Gay Cunnigham

As an executive coach, Gay has great capacity to distill the “real” issues from minutia and coached me to model likewise. This was a paradigm shift from my typical “crisis” style management. Her open-minded approach made me feel at ease and though not all projects end as well as we hope, her positive perspective and discussion helped me to see what was gained and learned from the experience. Gay challenged me to look deeper, helped me to clarify my goals and develop plans and models to accomplish them.

Coaching has allowed me to present my best self in many ways. Gay helped me to have a better understanding of how I am perceived by my colleagues and ways to improve their perception. Through strategies, tactics and repetition, Gay helped me to build a new habit of exploring my options (and thinking outside of the box) before selecting a course of action.

Working with Gay is impactful because her professional background is exceptionally well-rounded and diverse. She is an excellent resource and has a wealth of knowledge to share that many can truly benefit from. She is well-spoken and able to communicate her thoughts decisively and with precision. She has a welcoming professional and measured approach and as a result she is easy to open up to. She follows a consistent coaching method which makes it easy to anticipate what’s next, while building new, successful habits. Additionally, she reliably checks in to ensure that the sessions are achieving desired results.

Working with Gay I’ve learned a lot about self-reflection and mindfulness. The coaching sessions and challenges really pushed me. By doing so I was able to become more aware of how certain situations made me feel which allowed me to better handle difficult situations. I was able to explore areas of strength and weakness and received help in maximizing strengths and further developing weaknesses to overcome them. I learned ways to help me be better organized, so that I am able to dedicate the time needed to the “must haves” of my job.

Coaching sessions helped me to lay out an achievable plan to transition into a new role while managing and decreasing the stress I felt associated with the change. Gay was great at asking thought provoking questions that challenged me and pushed me to self-reflect and explore feelings, emotions, barriers, etc. She allowed me to set my own course and helped me to keep on track with the goals I set for myself.

Our sessions would conclude with a re-cap allowing me to commit to specific follow up items or tasks and practice accountability. Her coaching style included relaying back information to me to ensure she understood my position and benefitted my greatly by providing me the opportunity to hear what I was saying through a different perspective.

As a professional coach Gay provides a safe, respectful, and healthy environment where I can freely share my ideas, knowledge, concerns, and worries. She listens intently without jumping in to provide a solution to the problem. She gently prods me to think deeper and helps me categorize and prioritize issues, ideas, or questions according to my goals. This gentle nudge, in turn, strengthens my problem-solving skills, communication style, and supports me in building strong relationships.

Gay’s experience and knowledge base cannot be matched by just any executive coach. She brings extensive life experiences, wisdom, heightened awareness, genuine compassion, targeted goal planning, evaluations and outcomes tracking all together in an individualized program that is focused on what each individual wants to achieve.

Gay sharpened my thought process and helped me focus on the things that I had control of; this reduced my anxiety and helped me lead a more fuller life. Through our sessions, I have learned the value of speaking up and sharing my views regardless of differing opinions. Because of our work together, I feel proud to be in my “own skin” and confident about my strengths and weaknesses.

Gay continues to encourage me to grow and excel because she sees potential even when there have been times I could not see it within myself.