Hi, I'm Kim
For most of my life, I've been pretty good at following what lights me up.
The work that made me curious. The opportunities that pulled me somewhere new. The quiet knowing that said go this way, even when I couldn't explain exactly why.
Long before I had language for self-trust, I was practising it.
And then I got very good at being capable.
My Story
Somewhere along the way, I stopped hearing myself as clearly.
My first real opportunity to lead people almost didn't happen.
I remember reading the job description and thinking:
I like everything about this except the people part.
Not exactly the origin story you'd expect from someone who would eventually become a leadership coach.
But something about the role pulled me toward it. And once people were entrusted to me, I wanted to do it well.
I studied leadership. I got curious. I learned that I didn't need to have all the answers and that one good question could sometimes do more than ten minutes of advice.
Over the years, I moved into increasingly senior roles and eventually became an Executive Director. I learned to make hard decisions, navigate complexity, build teams, have hard conversations, and carry significant responsibility.
I loved the work.
And I became very, very good at being the person who could handle things.
Leadership has a way of showing you where you're not yet free.
The more capable I became, the more complicated my relationship with being capable became.
I could make the decision and still second-guess it. Care deeply about people and take responsibility for things that weren't mine to carry. Look calm while working very hard on the inside to be calm.
Somewhere along the way, I had learned that strength meant containing what I felt. That uncertainty needed to be resolved. That other people's disappointment was mine to prevent. That if I was struggling, I should work harder at not struggling.
The ways I had learned to succeed were beginning to get in the way of how I wanted to live.
I didn't need to become more capable.
I needed a different relationship with myself.
I learned to notice what I was feeling instead of immediately trying to change it. To get curious about the patterns that had helped me succeed instead of judging myself for still having them. To care without carrying. To let someone be disappointed. To feel uncertain and still make a decision.
And I started to trust myself again.
Not because I became certain. Because I trusted my capacity to meet what came next.
Kim Mintenko Coaching is located in Treaty 1 territory, on the ancestral lands of Anishinaabe, Ininiwak, Anishininew, Dakota, and Dené, and the National Homeland of the Red River Métis.
Then I had to live it.
After almost 20 years, I found myself looking at a career I genuinely loved and knowing I was finished.
Nothing was terribly wrong. I had meaningful work, people I cared about, and a career I'd spent two decades building.
And still I knew.
I had nothing more to give it, and it had nothing more to give me.
But knowing what's true and being willing to act on it are two different things.
Eventually, the question became simple: Do I trust myself enough to follow what I know?
Eventually, I did.
That's why I do this work.
The people I work with rarely come to me because they need more information. They're capable, thoughtful, self-aware people who have already thought about the problem from twelve different angles.
Sometimes it's a leadership challenge. A conversation. A decision. A career that no longer fits. Or simply the persistent feeling that I don't want to keep doing it this way.
I know what it's like to be too deep inside your own story to see the whole picture.
So I listen for what you aren't hearing. The thing you move past. The assumption you've stopped questioning. The emotion underneath the explanation. The story that has quietly become fact.
And together, we look underneath.
Not because something is wrong with you.
Because there may be something there worth knowing.
You don't need someone to tell you who to become. You need space to hear yourself clearly enough to choose what comes next.