LIFE COACH & WRITER TO KNOW: REBBECCA BAKRE
REBBECCA BAKRE
Rebbecca Bakre is the Founder of Captivative Coaching, a mostly virtual coaching program based in Costa Rica helping high-achieving, aspirational women return to themselves by healing from emotionally draining cycles and oppressive systems. Becca’s coaching aims to uncover and resolve buried patterns of toxicity that women of color experience within their emotions and life decisions. In her developing role as an author, Becca writes to help women see their power and experience their fullest potential.
SHEER: Tell us a little bit about yourself.
REBBECCA BAKRE: I am Nigerian American and a Texas Native, raised in Houston.
SHEER: When and how did you realize you wanted to become a life coach? What was it like transitioning into that field?
RB: I had been told so many times by colleagues and family that talking to me felt like talking to a life coach. I cared so deeply about people and their happiness. Even in the workplace, I’d spend extra time checking in on employees and coaching them through situations happening outside of work. I knew that if things were well outside of the office, they’d show up and produce better when they were there. Happy employees, meant better outcomes and lighter days.
Eventually, it became clear to my employer that these conversations in my office were yielding results. In a professional development meeting, we agreed I would take coaching and workshop development on as a role to support other directors in the company.
I came across a coaching training that a colleague from another agency had recommended, and after the first powerful weekend of training, I knew that coaching was exactly where I needed to be.
The feedback from the trainers and participants in the training about my “natural gift” was resounding.
I returned to the company and let them know that I’d give them another year, but that I would then be leaving to pursue a career in coaching. I began taking on friends as clients to practice what I had learned in training.
In 2018, I resigned from my position there, went full throttle into coaching, and haven’t looked back since.
SHEER: Did you ever question leaving a more traditional path for the unknown? And how did you navigate that shift?
RB: I like many had my uncertainties about the industry of coaching and resisted the title when people suggested it. The Life Coaching industry does not get a good rap. It has a reputation of being mocked in television and other media. It’s a fairly new industry and is relatively unregulated compared to other professions.
But it was clear to me that I had a passion for helping people through their setbacks. And I had never felt more alive than I did in that hotel conference room attending my first training.
There was no question this was the path for me. I did fear the financial implications of leaving behind a full time job with benefits, but I knew I could not live my life wondering what if. It was more than worth the risk!
SHEER: How do your life coaching techniques challenge societal norms and expectations like constant productivity and distraction?
RB: My coaching technique places a major emphasis on stillness and getting the answers we need in the silence.
This is contrary to a society that rewards staying busy and overwhelmed.
I challenge clients to break away from the norm of constant noise, and retreat into themselves. This cultivates the self awareness necessary to improve our circumstances and get ahead faster, and with more ease.
SHEER: In what ways do you believe people of color can prioritize self over constant demands and expectations from work and survival?
RB: The most important thing is how you start. Starting your day, prioritizing and spending time with yourself, will have you considering yourself and your well being throughout the day. If you start your day with a mad dash to work, then you’re likely to succumb to the pressures and demands of everyone else.
We also teach people how to treat us. So if you enter a work relationship operating as if your needs do not matter, then you’ll grow resentful when that is how you are treated in the long term.
Understand yourself and your needs and give yourself a routine that honors both. You’ll live a life of ease and productivity and others will honor you too as a reflection of yourself.
SHEER: What was it like branching out to create your own coaching business, Captivative Coaching? And what are some qualities that are unique to your style and approach?
RB: It’s been fun! It’s a daring feat for sure. I didn’t see myself as the entrepreneurial type before. ‘Too much risk’, I thought. But I’ve always been a ‘starter.’ I love starting new things and seeing them to fruition. And with my own business, there’s almost always something new to start. So it feels like a perfect fit for my personality.
“I like many had my uncertainties about the industry of coaching and resisted the title when people suggested it. The Life Coaching industry does not get a good rap. It has a reputation of being mocked in television and other media. It’s a fairly new industry and is relatively unregulated compared to other professions.
But it was clear to me that I had a passion for helping people through their setbacks. And I had never felt more alive than I did in that hotel conference room attending my first training.”
SHEER: Love that Captivative Coaching is based in Costa Rica. Why did you decide to move there and how has that impacted your perspective?
RB: Before coaching, I’ve always wanted to be a traveling author. I’d see visions of me writing near the beach. This was always attractive to me when I saw it in movies. At the top of 2021, I signed up for a writing boot camp to complete a book project I had put on hold for years. Upon registering, I knew that I wanted to be in an environment where I would have the peace and focus to complete it in 21 days.
Costa Rica was always a destination on my radar for major milestones like engagement or marriage. I love nature and I am at my best when surrounded by it.
Costa Rica is exactly that. A rich natural environment with a climate made just to my liking. It occurred to me that it made no sense making it off limits until then, when life was happening now. I had already done the research and found that it was an ideal place for digital nomads to work remotely.
I looked up flights and found one that was super affordable, and it just felt, ‘meant to be.’
In those 21 days, I completed two and a half manuscripts. Turns out I was right about it being an ideal location for me to focus. In that time, I also met a lawyer who helped me file permanent residency. That gave me the confidence to continue to trust my journey here and stay longer.
Living in Costa Rica, surrounded by nature, gives me the peace and clarity I need to show up powerfully for my clients daily. Costa Rica has also created the perfect avenue for me to pursue a vision I’ve had for a long time of hosting one-on-one retreats for women in leading roles. It all feels so divinely aligned. It all just makes sense.
I imagine I’ll come back to the states eventually, and use Costa Rica as my destination for hosting retreats and taking personal writing retreats when I have projects to complete. I’m so glad I took the leap. It’s given me a lot of freedom to design the life I want to lead and actually live it.
“My coaching technique places a major emphasis on stillness and getting the answers we need in the silence.
This is contrary to a society that rewards staying busy and overwhelmed.
I challenge clients to break away from the norm of constant noise, and retreat into themselves. This cultivates the self awareness necessary to improve our circumstances and get ahead faster, and with more ease.”
SHEER: What advice do you have for anyone who may feel out of alignment in their careers or creative paths but afraid to explore the unknown?
RB: I highly recommend getting a coach. There are tons of coaches with niches around helping you shift careers. But even more importantly, coaching creates the perfect environment for you to go within and understand yourself so that you have the clarity to make better decisions in service of yourself.
Coaching helps you uncover the confidence to step into the unknown boldly. It also helps you see those blind spots that are limiting you, whether it’s your own thoughts, people, or others.
But even if you do not invest in a coach, understand that you were brought into this world with a mission. And if you don’t feel like you’re fulfilling that mission, life can feel very miserable. I do not believe we were brought here to be miserable. So find your mission.
Do everything you can to find your mission and avoid anything or anyone getting in the way of it.
Hint: You can usually find clues in your childhood for what you were called to do. We’re often persuaded against it, especially if it’s something that does not guarantee a large salary. For me it was writing. I wrote scripts, children’s books, mini-fiction novels, poems and had tons of journals growing up. But society trained me to feel I’d be broke pursuing that because there were enough out there.
Coaching gives me the freedom and stability to write. Truly I’m a writer. Whether people read my writing or not, I’m a writer. What is that thing for you? The thing you’d do even if no one cared about it? Find a way to do that. Even if it’s working a job or building a hustle that affords you the opportunity to do so.
There’s no perfect formula. But start somewhere. And trust yourself. Trust why you’re here.
SHEER: What is the lasting legacy you hope your coaching will have?
RB: I want the women I coach to recall the truths uncovered in our coaching sessions together, and years from now think, “Wow, that really helped me!”
I want them to look up ten years from now and think, “Wow! I did it all. I’m here.”
I want them to look in the mirror every day and know that they are already HER.
By Tiara Starks
Zhané Aliya is a content creator based in the Nashville bringing her own flair to the fashion, lifestyle, and DIY beauty content niches while speaking in-depth about her experiences as a Black creator navigating the platform’s ever-changing algorithm.