Sarah swaps London's rat race for a calmer pace

As a solicitor with a large London law firm, Briton Sarah Cooper dreaded joining the gray-suited rat race for the daily office commute. She switched from the legal profession to working in the charity sector, but still felt something was missing.

Browsing the website of a respected career coach some years later, Cooper chanced upon the image that would inspire her own major life change. "Amongst other things, she delighted in the view of cows she had from her window," Cooper recalls of the website's author, Valerie Young.

Two years ago, Cooper realized a long-held dream to live overseas when she arrived in Beijing with her 3-month-old daughter, Elsa. She trained as a career coach, and decided to take the plunge and run her own business, helping expats find satisfying work in China.

The view Cooper enjoys from her desk in the capital is of a Chinese date tree. But she gave her business the quirky name, Cows From My Window, after the image that spurred her search for personal fulfillment.

Cooper says her clients range from new arrivals struggling with the "challenges in acclimatizing," to people preparing to repatriate after an extended stint abroad.

"People who have been here for 10-plus years, after that much time they have found their niche, but they perhaps don't know how to go around exporting that new career," she says.

Expat women whose husbands were posted to China for work can also benefit from coaching.

"Typically, but not always, it is women who may have given up the professional identity they had in their home country, or maybe the move coincided with motherhood and they haven't worked recently for that reason," she says.

"They may be reconsidering what they used to do, and wondering what they can do now, especially that they are in a foreign country where they don't know the ropes."

As a new mother herself, Cooper says she can particularly relate to other women searching for a meaningful return to work after having a child.

"I came out here by myself - I've seen how losing a part of that past identity can really knock your confidence, and I can also relate to not being in the work you want to be doing," she says.

On arriving in Beijing, Cooper found work in marketing at an international school. But she soon realized making the big overseas move with her tiny daughter had given her the confidence she needed to pursue her other big dreams.

"I never thought that I was the sort of person who could run their own business, never thought I'd have the confidence. But I was gaining in confidence," Cooper says.

She offers one-on-one coaching, as well as workshops called Finding Work You Love, a four-week course designed to help participants understand their strengths and passions and work out a strategy for success.

"I work with them to help them gain more clarity, and to work out the steps they need to take to develop their goals and then reach them."

Cooper trained with global coaching organization, Coach U, and is an accredited practitioner for the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator Step 1 and 2 and the FIRO-B psychometric instruments.

For more information, visit www.cowsfrommywindow. com

(China Daily 10/12/2007 page20)