Nelson Miranda, EEC Alumni Protagonist of the Month | January 2024

Committed to his personal growth, a dedicated father and passionate about coaching. Nelson Miranda has managed to align his life around his vocation of service. From his experience as a single father and coach, he accompanies people to overcome obstacles and achieve their goals, all while continuing to improve in his field. For him, coaching is a transformative tool that brings us closer to authentic and lasting happiness.

Nelson, tell us, who are you?

First of all I am a Human Being, with all that this entails, the good, the average and the bad. I am a human being in body, emotions, mind and spirit. I mention this because it is a huge job to understand and align these 4 personal aspects, a job that I have been discovering and achieving by coaching myself.

Secondly, I am the father of two beautiful children, whom I raise on my own, they are my joy and my anger, and they are also everything to me. Thirdly, I am a psychologist and a coach, professions that I chose from my vocation of service and my talents. Today I dedicate my full time to coaching, because it is what I like, where my strengths are enhanced, where I contribute my grain of sand to a better society and also where I can accompany people to achieve their extraordinary life goals.

What is your passion?

My passion is my children, to see them grow up and become people is something unique in life. Secondly, my profession, coaching. When I got certified, I made a statement that remains true to this day, "I don't work any more, because when you do what you are passionate about, you enjoy every moment and give the best of yourself". And that is how my work has been during these years, vocation, passion and commitment in every sense. Always having the coachee as a priority, creating an environment where he/she can express him/herself, without judgement, and conducive to his/her growth.

What news would you like to hear?

Obviously there would be peace and understanding at the global level. Thinking about the reality of my country, Chile, greater security, stability and investment for it. And personally, to close contracts with companies and educational institutions that I am managing.

What has been your greatest achievement?

Being a single father of two kind-hearted children, who understand and know each other, in their own way. Along with this, I accompany my coachees to be the best version of themselves. The achievement is theirs, not mine, but my achievement there is only to accompany and together overcome the obstacles that life presents us with.

What is your biggest challenge?

Continue to build my personal brand. I love coaching, I'm passionate about it, I'm very good at what I do, but marketing and sales is something that doesn't come so naturally to me. That's why I've been learning from and leaning on people who do manage these areas. It has been a challenge to learn new skills and force myself out of my comfort zone.

Where do you see yourself in three years?

In 3 years I see myself coaching on a South American level, doing coaching classes, also lectures that can guide people towards personal growth and, as a lifelong learner, continuing to improve myself and learn more about coaching and neuroscience.

You got excited for the last time...

I get excited every time I watch my children grow up, when I recognize what I have achieved in my life and when I connect with myself. It is difficult to see oneself, to see what one cannot or does not want to see, but when I achieve it, I am excited to see what I have built, there is still a long way to go, but that does not take away from what I have already achieved.

You can't stifle a scream when...

When there is real love, from my partner, from my children, from my family, these are the most important things in my life. Also when I feel joy, for different reasons, I shout that joy to the world, so that it can be contagious and know that with effort things can be achieved. I also shout when I see that people around me achieve their goals or, even if it is small, an advance in their lives.

My friends say of me...

My friends say that I am a good, reliable and loyal person. They also say that I can be naive, passing up once-in-a-lifetime opportunities, just because I don't realise it. Good for conversation, even late at night. Passionate about what I do and protective of my own. And when they get to know me well, more than one of them is very pleasantly surprised by me.

What I do best is...

I have always found it very easy to be empathic, to understand the world as the person in front of me does, to feel it as they feel it and from there to understand the thoughts they may have. Along with the above, it is also easy for me to create an environment conducive to the support, confidence building and development of the coachee.

I would like to...

If I had a super power, to fly. As I haven't achieved it yet, I would like to be able to contribute massively to a mentally and emotionally healthy society, that's why I am in some projects, group and personal that are oriented to educate and/or accompany people on this path, but not one by one, as is coaching, but to be able to cover as many people as possible, in a responsible way obviously.

I never thought that...

That I would be passionate about coaching. I must confess that I entered the school in order to increase my CV. After studying I started to realise that I was very passionate about it and that I wanted to dedicate my life to this beautiful profession.

How do I recharge the batteries?

By spending time with me, it is a priority to find time for myself each day. Whether it's exercising, meditating or chatting with me, it's very important to have that time for me, with myself, plus I find myself very enjoyable. My other way of recharging my batteries is the mind blank concept, whether it's watching a movie or series, playing a game, or reading something simple, I switch off and manage to relax both body and mind.

And finally, following my beloved football team, despite the bad results, makes me feel alive, I discharge my energy, both positive and negative, and I can allow myself to be more caveman in a sense, it frees me and I feel lighter after shouting so much.

What do I need to be happy?

Personally, I believe that happiness comes from within, and can be stable. Sometimes more intense, sometimes less, but always present. Therefore, I don't need anything to be happy other than to be at peace and in agreement with myself. If I have that, I know I'm walking towards where I want to go, and I know I'm going to get there, I also know that I'm doing what I need to do to be well, that I value what I have, I miss what I lost, but I keep moving forward in life. So to keep being happy, I have to keep having myself.

I wish that...

To continue to enjoy life, with its good and bad things. To continue to be in control of my life, knowing that I am the driver of my own train. Yes, I would like more people to feel that way, and that's why I do what I do, one of the general aims of coaching, in my opinion, is that each coachee ends up being the driver of his own train, and from there face the challenges of life.

Through coaching I learned...

I went deep into myself, I discovered myself, I saw what I couldn't see, also what I didn't want to see and from there I started to build myself into the person and professional that I am. I learned more about myself in coaching than years of experience. And from there, I learned to accompany my coachees to discover themselves, so that they can achieve their important goals.

For me, coaching is...

It is one more path to real happiness. Of course, for me it is a very important tool, and I value it very much, but I also understand that all human beings are different and understand life in different ways, so there is more than one path to self-knowledge and happiness.

Considering the above, yes, coaching is a path that brings us very close to being happy, really happy. To having inner peace. Making these feelings stable on a daily basis.

It is a great tool to achieve the life goals we have, it shows us those invisible walls that prevent us from moving forward, and not only that, but it also shows us how to overcome them, sometimes the solution is much simpler than we think. Coaching, by understanding how the body, feelings and mind are and relate to each other, brings us much closer to that, to be happy, to have peace and to achieve what we set out to do.

It sounds simple, but it is a path that we don't know what we are going to find, it is difficult, but the prize at the end is very big and worth it, because it is oneself, that is the prize.

In which groups would I like to apply coaching?

Today I am mainly focusing on three groups. Business leaders, because, through working with them, you can impact a work group, a management and even an entire company, bringing many more people closer to happiness at work. It is nothing new to see the influence of leaders on their teams, which is why I enjoy working with them. Besides being a great challenge, it impacts many people indirectly.

Another group is that of people who are retired or about to retire, I have been able to work with several of them, and I am very passionate about it, I can't give a particular reason, but there is simply an extra, unique motivation. The processes we shared were successful, but they started with a very big fear: "I'm going to be useless"; "a burden for society"; "my life is over". These are some of the fears I heard.

Nowadays they are people with a lot of vitality both physically and mentally, with a tremendous contribution to society, which is why I am passionate about working with them. And, last but not least, with people who are separated or in the process of separation, because having the experience of having been divorced myself, I can accompany them in a much closer way, understanding the anger, the pain, and the fears that separation produces, as I have experienced them first hand. At one point in my life, I found myself in a social situation, and I thought that there is a group there that I can support as a professional.

What could you bring to the EEC Alumni community?

He has a special vision of the human mind, in school we say quite a lot that people lie to each other and believe these lies, or that we have characters that help us to survive, and that one minute we have to say goodbye to them. Well, in his theory, he has a name for each of these things, and many more cases. Concretely, by applying it with coaches, it is easier for them to identify those obstacles in their life, and a deeper paradigm shift is achieved. I would be happy to share this knowledge with the alumni community.

What question have I missed that you would like to ask and answer?

What do you think could be improved in the EEC? Generate more community and communication between interested alumni. In these years of experience I've met different coaches from different schools, and almost none of them have the EEC's stamp, both professionally and personally. I believe that as alumni, if we work together, we can achieve many professional goals, benefiting the school itself. Encourage collaborative work between us and follow up on what each one of us is doing, see how we can support each other and if we need any guidance.