S2 Ep15. Embracing Bold Career Shifts: Coaching Hearts and Global Giving with Pamela Barit Nolan

In this inviting episode, Pamela Barit Nolan joins Aderonke Bademosi Wilson on  ABWilson's Heart of the Matter podcast for a heartfelt conversation filled with wisdom on bold career shifts, compassionate service and spiritual growth. 

With decades in financial services, philanthropy leadership and now as a global coach and spiritual director based in Bermuda, Pamela shares her journeys, including epic world travels that sparked her passion for empowering others. Her stories radiate warmth, resilience and a deep faith that guides her work with clients worldwide through her practice.

Pamela opens up about her multifaceted life as a devoted wife of 32 years, seasoned coach, certified spiritual director and dedicated philanthropist championing education. She recounts daring transitions, like leaving a lucrative Boston career after 20 years for a 16-month global adventure that ignited her call to serve women and girls and later pivoting from leading Bermuda's Center on Philanthropy following a divine nudge during strategic planning. 

Pamela warmly details her self-care rituals, from silent retreats like her recent six-day Ignatian journey and yoga escapes to rowing with Bermuda Pilot Gig Club, weight training and meditative horse care, while embracing AI as a tool to enhance human connection in coaching. 

Listeners will feel inspired by her client transformations, Flow Game hosting for personal clarity and gentle nudges to notice inner meh moments, seek support and step bravely into joy-filled purpose.

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Aderonke Bademosi Wilson (00:02.069) Welcome to another edition of ABWilson's Heart of the Matter, a podcast that uses overwhelmingly positive questions to learn about our guests, where every episode uncovers extraordinary stories of triumph, growth, and empowerment. Hi, I'm Aderonke Bademosi Wilson, and my guest on today's show is Pamela Barit Nolan. Pamela is a wife, a coach, a spiritual director, and a philanthropist. Pamela, welcome to the show.

Pamela (00:35.093) Thank you, Aderonke. How lovely it is to be here with you today.

Aderonke Bademosi Wilson (00:39.116) So Pamela, let's start with philanthropist. Tell me about being a philanthropist and what that looks like for you.

Pamela (00:47.135) Hmm. It's a big word, as you know. When I used to run the Center on Philanthropy, our joke was, could you actually spell philanthropy or philanthropist? It's a tough word. It takes on many forms. And my role, I think, has evolved from running a nonprofit to now supporting two projects, I guess I would call them, close to my heart in Uganda.

So not only am I giving money, but I'm also giving time and my talent. I happen to have somehow gotten pretty good at fundraising. So I'm their sort of principal fundraiser and cheerleader. I run a couple of giving portals for them and encourage people to get in touch either with the Sunshine School, which is one of the projects, or with — well, Mugabe Ronald. They always say their last name first in Uganda, so I call him Ronald, but you can find him out there in the world as Mugabe Ronald, who is an amazing artist in Uganda. So those are the focus currently of my two projects in philanthropy.

Aderonke Bademosi Wilson (02:06.722) Can you tell us a little bit more about both the Sunshine School?

Pamela (02:12.199) Yeah, absolutely. So both of them are highlighted on my website. I would just say if anybody wants to go dig into them a little bit more, transformbda.com/philanthropy — I have those two projects there. Philanthropy is intertwined so closely just with my work around service and supporting of others. So it's kind of a natural outcropping of the work that I do in my day-to-day life. Sunshine School is a nursery and a primary school in the small town of Chihuahua in the Naksaki district of Uganda. It's about — well, on a good day, two hours outside of Kampala to the north and west. It started as a nursery school and had, when I kind of encountered it in 2019, just over 100 students in a very small campus abutting the hospital there, serving mostly the nursing staff of the hospital, providing care for their children. It's since grown to both a nursery school and a primary school that currently is serving over 600 students. And in the last six years, we've purchased two acres of property and built an entirely new campus.

And this year was the first year that we started offering P7 for 14-year-olds — so the last year before they head off to high school. So that's one project. And then Ronald, my other lovely young man — he's not so young anymore, he's over 30 — but he's a really talented artist painting with acrylics on canvas. His —

Aderonke Bademosi Wilson (03:48.014) Hmm.

Pamela (04:06.186) — breadth of presentation of those mediums ranges from really large pieces to some small intimate pieces. There are landscapes, there's animals, there's humans. His portraits are just amazing. And I've introduced him to, I think, over almost 200 people here on the island and around the world who have purchased his art. He was homeless one time, living on the streets as a young boy, and now is in the process of building a home for himself and hopefully one day a family, through the proceeds of selling his art.

Aderonke Bademosi Wilson (04:47.306) Hmm, thank you for sharing. You've also described yourself as a spiritual director. What does that mean?

Pamela (04:55.2) Hmm. Yeah, that word "director" isn't always a perfect description of what a spiritual director does. Some people use "spiritual accompanier," a "spiritual guide." So spiritual directors can be of any faith. I happen to be Christian, so I've trained at a college in the UK called Sarum College over two years.

So for me, spiritual direction is for anybody — kind of, they have no faith, they're coming to faith, they're in the midst of their faith and just have some questions or want to deepen their faith. It's really an opportunity to come together. And again, because I'm a Christian, I always smile and say that God is the actual spiritual director in the conversation. So it's sort of a conversation between three: God, the person coming to seek, and myself. And I bear witness to where people are. I ask some questions like I would in a coaching session, but really allow the person to explore and just continue on their journey around faith, around prayer, in whatever way they need to.

Aderonke Bademosi Wilson (06:27.35) Hmm, thank you. And your wife —

Pamela (06:33.278) Hmm, yeah. So I've actually known my husband since 1978. We went to boarding school together, although he was a day student. We went to the same university together, albeit during that time at school and at university, we didn't really date. He took me on a couple of dates — let's say that — but we weren't very serious.

But we'll have been married 32 years on May 21st. And as you can well imagine, it's been a journey of laughter and of sorrow and of challenge and joy. And I'm thrilled to be a partner with him and look forward to the adventures ahead.

Aderonke Bademosi Wilson (07:26.712) Thank you, thank you very much. And so "a coach" was one of your four descriptors. Tell me about being a coach.

Pamela (07:33.09) Yeah, so after 20 years in financial services and 10 years running a nonprofit — or a little less — I had a coach and I felt like I was being called out of that space. I had re-encountered my relationship with God a few years before that. And it was in the middle of a strategic planning session for the Center on Philanthropy, and I felt God come and put his hand on my shoulders and say, "I just want to let you know, you will not be implementing this strategic plan." And I went, wait, what? I'd worked really hard to develop the team at the Center on Philanthropy and we were having some great success. But I went to a leadership conference in Nova Scotia and that's where I decided I ought to listen to what I'd heard. And I had to come back — gosh, when was that? June of 2012 — to tell my then chairman, Brian Medeiros, that it was time for me to move on. So I went through that transition process, had a coach of my own, and they asked me, "What is it that has brought you joy over your career?" And I'd gotten an MBA and a CFA, and I'd somehow stumbled my way through leading a nonprofit.

And so I had all these skills and resources, but what it came down to, pretty much my entire career, was the joy of watching people develop and finding their gifts and using those to create a better world. And my coach then said, "Huh, sounds like you want to be a coach." And I also talked about wanting to connect people, which is one of the first places we met — because he said, "It sounds like you want to be a host as well." I had no idea what hosting really meant, but with your help and others', I learned about appreciative inquiry, about the art of hosting. So coach and host. And so I left the Center on Philanthropy in 2013 and started on my journey of coach training.

Pamela (09:43.905) — and developing my skills as both a coach and a facilitator. You spoke with Veronica a couple of episodes ago. She is the leader of my coaching school and I have also been privileged now to return to New Field Network as a program coach. So there I'm both a coach and a mentor coach as people develop their skills as coaches.

I'm on contract with one of the largest platform coaching firms in the world called BetterUp. And then I have my own coaching practice here in Bermuda — albeit it's a global practice — and I'm grateful to attract clients from pretty much all over the world and have the privilege of walking alongside them as well.

Aderonke Bademosi Wilson (10:35.832) So two questions spring to mind. First of all, how can people find you? But before you even get to that — was it a difficult transition, even just making up your mind that you're going to leave one aspect of a career and move into a different space? What did that look like for you?

Pamela (10:56.865) So my first big jump was 20 years in financial services, right? That's what we do here. It's Bermuda, right? When I got out of college, it was like, well, I went to work for the bank. Of course I went to work for the bank because everybody works for the bank, right? I don't know how many people of my age — you know, if you're sitting in a circle introducing each other — will say, "Well, I started at the bank," which of course in those days meant the Bank of Bermuda, because that was the bank. Sorry, Butterfield and Clarien, but it was the bank in those days.

So at 40, I kind of woke up. I was sitting in a corner office in Boston, Massachusetts, working for a really well-known private investment management firm. And I realized I was living the life that my mother wanted to live — bless her soul and may she rest in peace. But she was of a generation where women didn't necessarily work. She did bravely, after my dad left, get her own MBA in a sort of correspondence program that was going on here in Bermuda. And she actually went into interviews for some jobs, one of which at a law firm that will remain nameless — but after getting her MBA, was asked if she could type. And she walked out in quite a huff and said, "Well, that's the last job interview I'm going to have." Because my dad had left, my mom and I were quite close.

I kind of followed her urgings and I loved my time in financial services — don't get me wrong. I was able to build a really successful team at Wellington Management, having worked at Vanguard's New York office before that. Again, before I probably recognized it was God, I all of a sudden woke up one day and said, "Well, I'm kind of done with this. I don't really know what to do." And I was like, are you crazy? You built this team. You've built a business. You're getting paid fabulously while you're living in Boston. So my husband and I agreed to quit. It took us 18 months, actually. So I bought a book at a bookstore across the street from my office called The Practical Nomad — which is not about where to go, but how to do it — by Ed Hasbrouck. I think it's still out there somewhere. He is a great guy in San Francisco. And my husband and I —

Pamela (13:22.624) — kind of started thinking about, what would that look like? And I remember a year later, I had to give three months' notice. He had to give only, I don't know, a month's notice at his job. We arrived at the morning — I said, "Okay, I'm going to do this." And I had just come back from a partner and associates meeting from this firm where they gave us a lovely little pocket atlas, because the firm was expanding all over the world. And I had to go into my office for my mid-year review and I said, "Diane, see this little book? Unfortunately, it's not about where you all are going, it's about where I'm going. So I'm going traveling." And I gave them my three months' notice, having said to my husband that morning, "If you don't quit in two months' time from your job, you're toast, because I will have just given up one of the most lucrative jobs I've ever had in my life."

Aderonke Bademosi Wilson (14:11.946) You —

Pamela (14:16.872) Anyways, fast forward — he did. But what made us do it? We had no children, by choice, although people can do what we did and still have a family. The first chapter of Ed Hasbrouck's book is all about all the excuses you're going to make to yourself for not traveling independently. But my husband is a huge Boy Scout. He had all the spreadsheets and, you know, how we were going to do this. We had a whole room in our house to lay out all the things that we needed to think about and take with us on our journey. And so we did it. We quit in 2003. And the first part of our journey was around the US, which is not what Ed suggests. He says, do your cheap travel first before you do your expensive travel, because then you'll know how much money you have left for the expensive travel.

We did a huge figure eight through the United States over nine and a half months. It was supposed to be six, but anyways, a little thing kind of came up that we needed to stay in one place for a little while. And then we came back to our home in Massachusetts for the summer. And then the following fall, we left for six and a half months around Asia, Australia, and New Zealand.

And that trip was what made me shift from — okay, I'm not doing this financial services stuff anymore. I want to serve. I want to be doing more good in the world. And pardon me for saying this, but I loved the firm I was working with, but I was making older rich white men richer. And that just wasn't very fulfilling. So I decided I wanted to serve in a different way and primarily declared, because of the travel that we did, that I would love to do that for women and girls. That didn't necessarily happen immediately, but serving at the Center on Philanthropy got me into a service role and helping other organizations serve others. So that was my first big transition.

Aderonke Bademosi Wilson (16:23.31) And in your coaching practice — and let me just say this, I remember when you were doing it, right? Because I was — I remember that. And I just want to share something that I learned from you and it stayed with me for a very long time. Remember, so as you were doing your —

Pamela (16:33.97) You were one of my guinea pigs!

Aderonke Bademosi Wilson (16:52.182) — not an internship, but your practice. Yes. And you needed, you know, a coachee. And I remember saying, "Yeah, I'm happy to do that," because I don't think I had ever had a coach at that point. And so I was curious. I was curious to see what it looks like and what it feels like. And I remember — we started, I was in Bermuda and then I had to travel. And I was somewhere like —

Pamela (16:53.312) Well, it's my coach training, practical training basically.

Aderonke Bademosi Wilson (17:22.358) Malaysia, I think, and talking to you online, doing it. And one of the things I remember wanting to do at the time was to be able to have a steady exercise practice. And what you and I ended up figuring out that I should do was every other day. And I did that for years. I did that for years in that I would exercise maybe two, three days in a row because I was like, okay, if I can't do it tomorrow, I would definitely have to do it the next day. So my whole mentality was: do it today, do it today, do it today. And if something totally unavoidable comes up, I can take tomorrow off, but I have to get back on it. And I kept that up for years, years. And I don't think I ever told you that. And that was a practice that I learned through your coaching.

Pamela (18:23.058) Thank you for sharing that.

Aderonke Bademosi Wilson (18:23.31) So thank you. So thank you. Yeah, so thank you for giving me an exercise program — or helping me uncover one that worked and still does to some degree. Although my exercise program has changed, I still have exercise in my life because it's important to me. So thank you.

Pamela (18:34.997) Mmm.

Pamela (18:44.96) Thank you. That's a lovely story. I really appreciate it.

Aderonke Bademosi Wilson (18:48.694) And so how can people find you if they're looking for a coach?

Pamela (18:51.968) Yeah, so I have a beautiful website that got upgraded this past year and I'm really grateful to my website designer for helping me with that — Carrie Thornbert. It is www.transformbda.com.

Aderonke Bademosi Wilson (19:14.142) And I'll make sure it's on the podcast page so that people can click on it and find you.

Pamela (19:19.232) Thank you. Thank you, I really appreciate it.

Aderonke Bademosi Wilson (19:25.282) So Pamela, please share three interesting things about yourself that our listeners may not know and your friends will be surprised to learn.

Pamela (19:33.845) Hmm, well, we've talked about a few of them already. So I had a couple of those stories already lined up. One recent thing that I did — that I challenged myself with — was I went on a six-day silent retreat in the UK. I've done silent retreats before, but it's something I think I'll make a more intricate part of my life going forward.

It's a real gift, I think, to give yourself some period of time to be cared for, given the caring profession that I've chosen to go into, as have you in some respects. So I highly recommend it. I'm a committed annual retreat-goer. I also enjoy scuba diving — that's something that some know about me, others don't.

And I feel really fortunate that four years ago — yeah, four years ago now — completely spontaneously, my husband and I bought two properties on the island of Pico in the Azores.

Aderonke Bademosi Wilson (20:51.352) So I just want to go back to the silent retreat. Okay, what was that like? Like, did you have urges to talk, or did you just enjoy the silence?

Pamela (21:00.704) So I got introduced to the beauty of giving yourself the opportunity to be silent at the Hoffman Process, which I took in 2010, where they would ask participants in that retreat to be in silence for a period of eight to ten hours. My entire career — whether it was in financial services, philanthropy, or now in coaching — is about talking to other people.

So being given permission to be silent is to me just a tremendous gift. For others, I understand it's really hard. For me, it's a huge gift. After Hoffman, I went in search of silence and I looked at Vipassana retreat — 10 days sitting on a cushion. Many Bermudians have done Vipassana retreats before, but at that time I was like, okay, that might be a little bit too much for me. I don't know that I'm ready to sit on a cushion for 10 days at a time. So I found Rolling Meadows Retreats — two beautiful people offering silent yoga retreats in Maine. Patricia, unfortunately, has since passed away, but her partner Suryav continues to offer retreats, not at the place that I went to, but in Vermont, in Maine, and also in other global locations.

And that was a cadence of social silence — so no talking really outside of the yoga studio. We had three times of meditation, two yoga sessions. And then they asked you not to use your electronics, not to bring every book that you'd ever needed to read. And also, interestingly, not to journal. Really to just be in this space — beautiful property, plenty of trails to walk on, hammocks to lie in, grass to sit on, saunas to take if you wanted one. And amazingly, all the cooking they did was Ayurvedic cooking. So just — I don't know, it was like a beautiful pool to dive into and I loved it. On that retreat, if you felt that you really needed to work something out, you could ask one of them to spend some time with you. And I think I did two of those retreats.

Pamela (23:23.26) — one of them, I did want some support that needed a verbal connection, and they were happy to provide that. This one had a very particular structure to it because it was a Christian spiritual center based on the Jesuit Ignatian spirituality, and so it was mostly silent, but every day you met with a spiritual director. And so you had 45 minutes a day with your spiritual director to kind of work through what was going on for you. And at the end of the day, there was a worship service where you used your voice — you just weren't talking to people, you were worshipping. So really only 45 minutes a day. It's a little bit different, but still a fabulous experience.

Aderonke Bademosi Wilson (24:16.664) So can I — I just want to dig into that a little bit more because I'm curious. Do your — and this might be a weird question, so you could say it's a weird question — but do your thoughts become louder or quieter, or both? Or neither?

Pamela (24:26.656) Hmm.

Pamela (24:34.172) Yeah, so I think it depends on the style of retreat you go for. I think in the former — the Rolling Meadows retreats — I became much quieter and stiller. There was no, in that space, to me, no real agenda. It was caring for your body through food and movement and then giving your mind an opportunity to rest through the meditation, through the walks. Their invitation that continues today under Suryav was really just: sit and be. This last retreat, depending on the time of day, sometimes my thoughts became much louder. And most of that was because I was wrestling with God, to be quite honest. My spiritual director and I were looking for places and parts of me that perhaps weren't as deeply connected to my faith as I might have thought they were. And so through scripture, through activity — whether it was walking or praying — there was a lot of dialogue going on in my head.

At the same time — so that might have been part of it — the first day I was there, I slept the whole day because I had been caretaking for my husband who'd had surgery in November. So I was actually really tired and that was fine. I slept all day. Nobody worried about me. Other parts of my days, I would go walking. They had tons of marked trails as they do in the UK, as you well know. So lots of trail maps. And when I was out there — I didn't have as nice a camera as you, Aderonke, but I took pictures — and you weren't really supposed to be using electronics, but your phone is your camera these days. So I would love to go out. The daffodils were everywhere. Taking pictures of the sheep and the cows and the daffodils. And then my thoughts were quite a bit quieter because I was just being.

Pamela (26:53.3) They also had an amazing labyrinth. I love labyrinths. My mission is to build a labyrinth in Bermuda. There used to be one at Cambridge Beaches — it is no longer. I'm going to find a place to build a labyrinth. To me, walking a labyrinth is probably one of the most meditative practices I know, and I love it. So, a little bit louder sometimes in the day, a little bit quieter in other parts of the day.

Aderonke Bademosi Wilson (27:20.44) Thank you, Pamela. Thank you for sharing. Can you tell us about a recent accomplishment or success that you're particularly proud of?

Pamela (27:31.104) Well, that's one of them — surviving a six-day Christian spiritual retreat. Also, pardon me — so this practice of spiritual direction came about after I was actually exploring ordination in the Anglican Church and was called off of that by an encounter I had with God. And I was a bit challenged by that, but found spiritual direction and really felt at home there, given that it aligns so well with my coaching practice. And so I embraced it, took this course, and I'm like, yeah, come on, I want people to come for spiritual direction. It hasn't — well, in my way of thinking about it, it hasn't been an abundance of people that have approached me for that. Now, God has a funny way of offering what you think you want, because all of a sudden a lot of my coaching clients are Christians. So it's coaching — however, when I hear the word "pray," "church," you know, "God," I then sort of quietly say, "Do you want God to be part of our conversation?" And often they will say yes. So in fact, that becomes spiritual direction.

And then I was — yeah, for coaching and for spiritual direction, you get supervised. And I was in a supervision session with a group of people and another woman there also was feeling a bit dry about her spiritual direction practice. And our supervisor challenged us to say, "Well, what is it? How do you define spiritual direction? It doesn't always have to be two people sitting in a room." And so I left that session and went to my priest, who is managing or running the Anglican Theological Institute of Bermuda here for those that want to study theology. And I said to him, "Well, you've got these 12 students doing an Exploring Theology class. Might I offer them group spiritual direction?" And so I've embarked on that. However, he said, "Great —

Pamela (29:46.592) — why don't you come to our session on February 24th, where you can teach a class about reflective practices and run the worship?" And I'm like, wait, what? I'm not sure that's exactly what I signed up for. But I taught my first class at the Anglican Theological Institute of Bermuda and it was well received, and it's something that I never imagined doing.

Aderonke Bademosi Wilson (30:09.71) Congratulations. Please tell us about a time when you made a difference in another's life. What were the circumstances? Paint a picture for me.

Pamela (30:10.802) You —

Pamela (30:21.535) Yeah, so — gosh, I have — I'm looking over here because I journaled about some of these things. As you can imagine, in my profession, being a coach and a spiritual director, I have the privilege of disrupting people's lives, if you want to call it that. And occasionally I get feedback about that, which — as coaches, we love getting feedback. It's not always available, but in the last few weeks I've gotten some really lovely feedback. So — one — a nonprofit worker here in Bermuda that I was invited to coach, with the support of her organization, which is just tremendous. And those types of professional development funds are not always available at our local nonprofits, but in this case thankfully they were. And the organization asked us to kind of look at her way of leading, of collaborating, and of looking at how much she was saying yes to and what she might need to say no to. And so I did a series — a package of sessions — with her. They came to an end and we had a meeting with the organization and she made a request to continue her coaching, which I'm grateful the organization decided to allow. And before we started our next series of sessions, she sent me a note — could I read that to you?

Aderonke Bademosi Wilson (32:18.893) Yes, please.

Pamela (32:20.913) It says: "Dear Pamela, this is just a small token of my gratitude as I begin another chapter of coaching with you. I'm excited for what continues to be possible. Your kindness, steady presence, and belief in me have awakened" — and then she put in brackets, "my own awakening" — "a deeper courage and self-awareness than I knew I had. I know and believe I'm growing into a braver, more aligned version of myself because of our work together. With deep appreciation."

Aderonke Bademosi Wilson (32:53.044) Hmm... Hmm...

Pamela (32:55.066) Ha ha!

So I'm really fortunate to be able to — I don't get those notes all the time. Sometimes it's just a little sentence that says, "I'm very pleased we met and that you are helping to guide me through this journey." Or "Thank you for all your coaching. It is taking me to new heights and challenging myself." So those are smaller snippets of notes that I've received of late. It's a really privileged place to be able to serve.

Aderonke Bademosi Wilson (33:34.156) And so what do you think are the key strengths and qualities you rely on to make a difference — first of all, for the woman that wrote you that beautiful note, and others?

Pamela (33:49.024) So one of the things — well, a piece of feedback that I've gotten often from clients is that somehow when they either connect with me online or come to this beautiful office that I'm sitting in, they find a place of peace and trust. I can't explain those other than perhaps God has gifted me with a quiet sort of nature, a quiet spirit — although I can rowdy up with the best of them. And I can make my clients dance to music they never thought they would. But my first desire is to create a safe space. Again, you and I are both practitioners of creating spaces and holding people in spaces. And it's quite a privilege to do that. I think, again, both of us have that sort of gratitude and gravitas just to say, we know this is a serious thing that we're embarking on. And because of that, we need to hold people in a very special way — as much as we can without bias, as much as we can without our own story interfering with how we're working with our clients. But my purpose really is to find these gifts that people either have seen and are afraid of, or don't see at all, and help them bring those to the surface and find ways that they can enhance their own lives. As my coach said, you can't have a purpose statement without being in it yourself. So to help myself appreciate my gifts, but also help others bring those gifts into the world and make it a better place.

Aderonke Bademosi Wilson (35:57.272) Thank you. Can you recall a situation where you overcame a challenge that led to personal growth? What did you learn from that experience?

Pamela (36:09.661) Yeah, there are a lot of things that have been challenging, but maybe one that's really quite relevant for today's world is the advent of AI. Oh my gracious. Like, a few years ago when people started talking about AI, I was like, hey, no, don't talk to me about it. It's a crazy thing. I'm not getting involved. Don't want to hear about it. And it's going to have an impact on my profession, and people are going to end up talking to machines instead of human beings. And that was really sad for me and scary. So since then — wind forward a little bit — thankfully through the organization that I'm on contract with in the US, they've offered their coaches some AI classes. I've connected with some others whose businesses are in AI.

And I have been able to kind of sit down and go, okay, so what is this thing? And how can it enhance my offer to the world? So one of my first breakthroughs — I think where I finally just sort of said, okay, I'm in, I'm going to figure this out — was last summer, almost a year ago. I facilitated a debrief session for Out Bermuda after their Pride Week. And the result of that sort of half-day we spent together were 10 to 12 flip chart papers that all had a million sticky notes on them — some written by them, some written by me. And I came back to my office and I'm like, oh my gosh, okay, so here we go with the four-hour sort of transcription of all these sticky notes. And I paused and I'm like, I wonder. I took pictures of all of the flip chart paper, fed them into ChatGPT, and five minutes later I had them all transcribed. I had to go through and fact-check them, because there were a few where the handwriting wasn't very legible. And then I was like, okay, I'm going to figure this out. And in one of the classes that I took through BetterUp, the gentleman offered — he said, you know, kind of write down your entire day —

Pamela (38:33.863) — and think about: where can I automate using AI, where can I enhance using AI, and where do I protect — preserve — only the unique things that I can do as a human being? And I thought that was just a lovely invitation to look at this tool that isn't going anywhere, so we can't ignore it, and think about how it can actually make us do what we do even better. And that little exercise — automate, enhance, preserve — has helped me tremendously to embrace AI and use it for good with some of my clients.

Aderonke Bademosi Wilson (39:26.402) Do you find that you're able to — and I'm looking at "enhance" or maybe even "preserve." How do you get it to preserve? That's what I'm curious about. I think we can see automate and enhance, but can you articulate the preserve piece?

Pamela (39:42.825) Hmm.

Pamela (39:50.601) Hmm, hmm. Yeah, so a really good example. One of my clients — CEO of a company — wanted me to interview a few of his senior colleagues to get some input about his leadership style. So I said great, thought about how I wanted to execute that. So I recorded each of those sessions. I then uploaded them into — I might have used Claude for that, I can't remember, ChatGPT or Claude — anyways. And each time — I did eight interviews — I uploaded it into ChatGPT and asked the LLM to find similarities in what they could see in the written word, right? So only using transcription. And it was really helpful. It brought to the surface several things that I could look at with my client. When I did the report — the final report of that — the things that AI cannot see are physical movements and emotional demonstrations, whether that's in a tone of voice, in a visible sign of an emotion, of a declared emotion — although it could try, I guess. But AI works on facts, right? You give it some words, it gives you a result. It can do all the research, it can find everything that's out there, but it can't look at emotions and semantics. So what I could do at the end of that report was say, okay, this is AI-enhanced. I used it to surface some common commonalities in what was said. But here's my perspective. And then I was able to pick up on certain themes that I saw in emotion and body, and also my impressions of my client — how he presented himself in our coaching sessions. What did I intuitively feel about how he was showing up at work? Perhaps making some assumptions —

Pamela (42:08.08) — and then getting validated when he read the report and we debriefed it.

Aderonke Bademosi Wilson (42:16.952) Thank you. You are listening to ABWilson's Heart of the Matter podcast. Welcome back to ABWilson's Heart of the Matter. My guest today is Pamela Barit Nolan. Pamela, we've talked about your work as a coach, as a spiritual director. We've looked at the various silent retreats that you have taken over the years and how you bring yourself to your practice. As you've said, you disrupt lives. How — what self-care practices or strategies help you to sustain your energy and motivation while navigating your journey?

Pamela (43:17.602) So until last November, my biggest self-care strategy was caring for a horse for 16, 17 years of her life. Unfortunately, at almost 34 years old, she passed away in November. But that was a time and a place for me to basically go and meditate. I mucked out the stables — there were two horses there. I took care of them, fed them, and believe it or not, for whatever reason, shoveling manure was really meditative for me. Thankfully, there's a remaining horse there and his owner has asked me to continue to care for him once a week, which is good. It's helped me shift chapters. Letting go of my horse also came at a time where I needed to care for my husband because of his surgery and recovery. So it was an interesting time for that event to happen. So I've really had to reevaluate, in the last few months, how am I caring for myself, given that that element had gone away. I had already been going to the gym once a week — I'm fairly committed to that here. And when I'm in the Azores, there's a gym in my town that I've connected to, and I go once or twice a week there.

One of my trainer's biggest things is that as we age, the most important thing we need to be doing is weight-bearing exercise. So he challenges me with all sorts of squats and lifts. And if anybody needs some help with that, Spencer Brown is your guy. His PhD is in injury avoidance in people over 50. So go give him a go.

Aderonke Bademosi Wilson (45:08.654) Is he in Bermuda or the Azores? Okay, just checking.

Pamela (45:09.886) He's in Bermuda. He currently works out of Waterfront Wellness, but his practice is Island Rehab Hub. He's a really great practitioner. So in the gym once a week, and then I love the water. We're here in Bermuda. Owning a boat is not in my kind of economic bailiwick, but I get out and row two to three times a week with the Bermuda Pilot Gig Club. Love it. It's an opportunity to get into a boat with five other rowers and a cox. The people that are part of that club come from all walks of life, all ages, locals, expats. It's really a fabulous club and you can, when you join, row in Somerset, St. George's, or in Hamilton, which is really lovely. And when the weather — like it has been this year — is horrible, I slide into a yoga class either at Spirit House or at Salt Yoga.

Aderonke Bademosi Wilson (46:14.766) Thank you.

Pamela (46:16.059) Hmm.

Aderonke Bademosi Wilson (46:18.178) How might sharing your experiences of success and growth create a positive ripple effect in your family, community, the world?

Pamela (46:27.416) Yeah. As I said, being a coach and a spiritual director — again, in both of those settings, it's not about me. But there are occasions where I might ask permission to share some of my story. And also, people either coming to my website or perhaps reading my profile on the BetterUp platform are often just intrigued by the fact that I left two big careers and ended up working for myself, which I always said I could never do — I always needed to be working for somebody else. So people are intrigued about how I made these transitions and how I'm able to — as you experience this every day too — how is it that we possibly managed to make ends meet in this crazy, very expensive place called Bermuda?

So I'm often willing to share, either just in conversation on a walk, over a cup of tea, or in the appropriate places with my clients. And I believe that when I have shared those instances, it perhaps gives people a little bit more courage to say, "I can," rather than "I can't."

Aderonke Bademosi Wilson (47:50.828) What guidance would you give to somebody who is considering a career transition — maybe hasn't fully made up their mind or hasn't fully handed in the resignation note? How would you guide them and support them as they're going through just making that decision?

Pamela (48:04.646) Hmm.

Pamela (48:11.998) Hmm. So in both of the instances where I kind of made my leap, I did have a coach. So I highly recommend coming alongside of somebody. It's scary. Maybe there are some people that like to jump out of planes, but it's usually helpful if you have somebody holding your hand. But also — you know, the one thing that I noticed initially when I stepped out of the investment management firm is: pay attention to what's going on with you. And I would say in both times, I got to kind of a plateau and was physically feeling, I would say, a little flat. Like, I didn't feel like I was giving my best self in either of those instances. Not that the quality of my work had gone down, but just my level of passion had maybe kind of stepped down. And many practitioners in leadership or strategic planning or whatever will talk about the flow. And if your people are not in the flow, you're probably not getting the best out of them. So first of all, pay attention to yourself. Like, what's going on here? If I'm feeling just a little meh, what is it that's missing?

So get really curious. And I happened to, actually this morning, be working with a client who loves where he is, loves his company, but his leadership is kind of making him feel a little meh. He doesn't think he wants to leave, but I sort of said, "Well, what's the harm in going to have a couple of conversations with a recruiter? You don't have to commit, you're not quitting." But I sometimes invite people to do that. Just go have some conversations, right? Explore. And I am privileged to be fairly well connected, both in this community and others. So sometimes if I'm invited, I might reach out to some of my connections and say, "Hey, one of my clients is kind of trying to figure out their next chapter. Would you have a conversation with them?" And luckily I've found that most will. And sometimes those conversations have helped people decide to stay in or to move out.

Pamela (50:32.666) It doesn't necessarily mean they're going to pull themselves out. I remember one woman here who was one of the first people in her family to get a professional credential as an accountant, a CA. And she woke up and figured out she hated it. And she didn't know what to do. Her parents had worked themselves so hard to get her to have this opportunity. She ended up — so I sent her off. I think I sent her off to speak to an event planner. I sent her off to speak to an executive director at a nonprofit. I don't know — she went and had like six different coffee conversations with people. And she came back and said, "That was all really interesting." And we debriefed it. She said, "I can't do it. I can't give up on this profession that I've spent so much time in." I said, "Okay, so how do we enhance what you're doing?" So the first step was to get out of the Big Four and move into a corporate setting that provided probably a little bit broader work. She was still an accountant. I think she ended up moving out of an audit firm into a controller role. And in a corporate environment, they're doing lots of things — so they might be doing a staff appreciation event, or they might raise money for a local nonprofit. And she could get onto these various committees while preserving her role in the financial area of the company. So there's always different ways to scratch your itch, if you want to call it that, or light that flame within you. If you're feeling a little meh, it doesn't necessarily mean you have to blow up your life.

Aderonke Bademosi Wilson (52:15.618) Yes, yes, thank you. What exciting opportunities do you see on the horizon? How do these opportunities align with your passions and aspirations?

Pamela (52:27.75) Yeah. So the first thing I've been trying to put out into the world of late is to offer to host people in something called the Flow Game. So this Saturday, I'll be offering my first Flow Game — not that I haven't used the tool before, I've just never brought it out into the public domain. And I'm going to play, actually, with a group of Ugandans. Thank you so much, Jean. And at Treehouse, in their living room, which is just such a beautiful place. That game at the moment is full, but I'm going to offer another one the last Saturday of April. And I'd be happy to send you the flyer about that if you want to put it on the podcast as well.

I haven't yet put up a page on my website about the Flow Game. But it's a great introspective, reflective tool where you approach it with a question that is on your heart at the moment. It could be: what do I do about not being excited about my job? Or it could be: what needs my attention in the next month as I transition from one place to the next? It could be: how do I bring more joy into my life given my current circumstances? Any sort of question that you're really wrestling with, that you would like some wisdom around. So the game — the individual game — can offer six people at a time the opportunity to come together around their individual questions. And then there's a structure by which we — there is no winner in this game, by the way — except you hopefully walk away from a couple of hours — two, three, four hours of playing. We're going to play for two hours this Saturday, with some more enhanced insights about your particular question or challenge. So I'm really excited about that. I've used it with clients. There's —

Pamela (54:44.914) — an opportunity to play it as an individual. I have also used it with corporate clients because it can be used in a team setting. And then there's actually a family version of the game, where if a family system wants to get together to think about legacy and ways to be together better as a family unit, there are ways for them to do that as well. So I'm super excited about that. I'm struggling a little bit with how to introduce the Flow Game to this community. But I've been chatting to some good colleagues about that and hopefully people will step into the unknown and take up one of my offerings around that in the coming months.

Aderonke Bademosi Wilson (55:32.366) Thank you. Thank you very much. Pamela, what brings you joy?

Pamela (55:40.713) Oh, so many things. Serving my community and my clients and God in particular brings me tremendous amounts of joy. I am amazed — you mentioned as we got on today — that I am amazed that I get to wake up every day and connect with people all over the world in helping them tease apart whatever challenges they're working with and find a new way for them to be in their own worlds. And that just really fills my cup. And then I really love being — I mean, we're so fortunate to live on this beautiful island. And then I have this other island that I can go to. But anytime I get to be out in nature, with my camera or without, and just see the beauty that we're surrounded by — especially in these rather difficult times, where in other parts of the world life is not so safe and not so beautiful — I'm very grateful for that.

Aderonke Bademosi Wilson (56:51.586) Thank you, Pamela. As we near the end of our conversation, what book recommendations do you have? It can be a book that you've read recently or something that has stayed with you over the years.

Pamela (57:04.518) Yeah. So the first one that just leapt to mind when I saw this — and it kept me company while my husband was having surgery in November — is The Girl from Montego Bay. And it's an autobiography of Rose Hudson-Wilkin, who is an amazing woman leader and somebody that I'm privileged to call a friend. She was — or is — the first Black woman bishop in the Church of England, and she serves currently as the Bishop of Dover. And it's just an amazing story of a woman that has faced lots of challenges in her calling, as well as in her personal life growing up in Jamaica, moving to the UK, and answering God's call to become part of the Church of England, which — when she first started that journey — didn't welcome women into ordained ministry. So I highly recommend that book.

It's a very easy read. On a different sort of spiritual map, it was also published last year — The Good Karma Refuge for Elephants by David Michie, M-I-C-H-I-E. And I would say any of his books, actually. I first encountered David in his Dalai Lama's Cat books — there's a series of those. And his writing is just — he does write nonfiction, but I've kind of stuck to the fictional stories that he offers, which are infused with Buddhist wisdom, which I appreciate. I'm very much a Christian, but I appreciate the Buddhist sort of wisdom and ways of being in life. And David is a masterful storyteller. The Good Karma Refuge for Elephants was his most recent publication. But dive into any of his books — the Dalai Lama's Cat, the Queen's Corgi. He's writing one — or he has a Substack — and so he's developing one called Mary Magdalene's Cat at the moment. So his stories are generally told from the perspective of —

Pamela (59:25.586) — the cat. Not so much in The Good Karma Refuge for Elephants — that's about a human, but elephants are involved.

Aderonke Bademosi Wilson (59:27.031) Hmm.

Aderonke Bademosi Wilson (59:33.612) Okay, all right. Pamela, thank you for sharing your books. Thank you for sharing your perspective on life, on how we can show up through coaching, how coaching has supported you, but how you have supported others. Is there anything else? Do you have any final thoughts?

Pamela (01:00:00.873) Just — I encourage people to pay attention to every molecule that you're made up of. Don't be afraid to notice when something doesn't quite feel right physically, emotionally. Don't be afraid to reach out and ask somebody to take your hand. It's helped me over and over again — whether that was a physical person or God — to find a place where I feel that I am of service to others but also to myself. So be brave, be bold, have some fun, and don't be afraid to ask for some help.

Aderonke Bademosi Wilson (01:00:46.542) Mmm.

Aderonke Bademosi Wilson (01:01:04.034) Thank you, Pamela. Thank you so much for your time today. And some of the appreciation nuggets that I'm taking away with me are —

Aderonke Bademosi Wilson (01:01:23.074) The fact that you are drawn to silent retreats — and that always intrigues me, I will tell you. And your sharing of the thoughts that you had at different types of retreats I found intriguing. And the work that you do with your clients in terms of helping to disrupt their lives, but also giving them guidance on how to maybe not change out of a career, but shift how to do things differently so that they do get more joy and more fulfillment out of their life. And another nugget that I'm taking away is how you yourself have been able to transition — not once, but several times — over your life and over your career, and how each time you've been able to step into something that has called you, and then recognized when it's time to leave. And I think that's important as well, right? That as you're moving and changing and growing, you recognize, "Well, this time is over and there are other opportunities that are there." And so I truly appreciate you sharing your journey and what your transitions have been like and how you have supported others. Thank you for taking the time to join me on ABWilson's Heart of the Matter, a podcast dedicated to asking overwhelmingly positive questions as we uncover incredible stories and wisdom of people you may know. Pamela Barit Nolan, thank you so much for your time today.

Pamela (01:03:11.689) Thank you, Aderonke. It's been a huge pleasure.