My Work Story
I have 20 years of experience as a coach, along with a career in training, teaching and facilitation that spans 30 years. I’ve worked as a youth worker, a school teacher, a volunteer project manager for a local adult education association, a health and fitness coach, a retained fire-fighter (yes, you read that right!), a community development practitioner, and a training and development specialist (heavy manufacturing and brewing sectors).

In 2005, I set up Humans Resourced, a training and coaching business which offers 1-1 coaching, NLP* training, hypnosis training and storytelling training. I’ve run training programmes in the UK (even in the Shetland Isles!), Ireland, Abu Dhabi, Kuwait and Israel. Since 2011, my business has been based in Northern Ireland, offering open courses in both Scotland and Northern Ireland, and bespoke courses for organisations in many parts of the UK.  I currently sit on the Board of Advisors for the International Association of Coaches, Therapists and Mentors. You can find out more about Humans Resourced by visiting the website here. * You can find out more about Neuro-Linguistic Programming on the Humans Resourced’s explanatory page here.

In 2015, I founded Women Aloud NI, an initiative to raise the profile of the women’s writing scene in Northern Ireland. I was the overall project manager for the organisation from December 2015 – April 2018. During my tenure, I project-managed the delivery of more than 50 literary events! You can find out more about the initiative on the Women Aloud NI website here.

My Creative Story
Musician : My musical career started over 40 years ago.  I’m both classically trained (piano, violin, flute and the full recorder family) and self-taught (folk guitar, singing and djembe-drumming). From the mid-’80s until the late ’90s, I spent time travelling and/or working in Germany, France, Denmark, Belgium, Poland and the Czech Republic. Wherever I went, I took my guitar with me and learned local folk songs and the stories behind them. Wherever I went, I sang the songs I had learned in other places. I shared the stories of how I got the songs and the stories inside the songs themselves. Even though I play and sing a lot less than I used to (I’m mostly an in-my-own-living-room-guitar-strumming-sad-song-singing kinda gal these days), rhythm, musical key* and an instinct to ‘pass the story on’ still lie at the very heart of all my creative work. *Spoiler alert – there’s a fair bit of D minor in everything I do. In fact, I’d go as far as to say that my soul is tuned to that key 😛

Storyteller : I’m a huge fan of oral storytelling. I think that when we tell stories (and listen to stories), it helps us to connect to each other and to the places and history out of which the stories grow. I was brought up on the Brothers Grimm, Hans Christian Andersen, Ladybird books and real-life adventure stories that my grandparents told me. I studied German and French (Modern and Medieval Languages and Literature) at university, developing a special interest in Old Norse sagas and fairy tales. My folk-singing and travelling years provided a great platform for learning and telling stories : where there’s a folk singer, you’ll always find a storyteller (and a fair few pairs of dodgy sandals too 😛 )! Storytelling now takes centre stage in my work as a trainer of Neuro-Linguistic programming and Ericksonian hypnosis. Since 2006, I’ve been doing my bit to keep the oral tradition alive by delivering specialist storytelling training programmes.  Since moving to Northern Ireland I’ve performed stories for Big Telly Theatre Company [for the Ballysally Cornfield Project and for their regular Big Sunday event in Portstewart], for Causeway Museum Service [Sam Henry Project], at the Aspects Festival [Kiltonga Tales in Newtownards] and at the Grand Opera House [Christmas Ghost Stores and Tall Tales]. In June 2018, I’m taking my two-man storytelling show, The Wonder Tales, on tour!

Writer : I write original, dark faerie tales which follow many of the conventions associated with traditional oral storytelling. I’ve been writing short stories as gifts for friends since 2003 and the more I write, the more I believe that words can be played like a musical instrument.  I also think that we can ‘re-mix’ our language to help readers get closer to the ‘heat’ of the stories we write. (And I know for a fact that stories can be magicked out of the very ground that we stand on.) The Faerie Thorn and Other Stories is my first published collection of short stories. You can find out about upcoming residencies here.

Some Of My Best True Stories
A Long-Running Story (Or A Long Running-Story 😛 )
I ran solo, and unsupported,  across the Scottish islands of Islay and Jura in 2010. I covered 203 miles in 9 days, carrying everything I needed on my back. I cried a lot and I drank plenty of very good whisky.

 

An Adventure Story
On January 1st 2014, I started a project called “The 365 Days of Adventure”. By the 31st December 2014, I had completed 365 adventures and video-blogged about every single one of them. Over the course of 12 months, amongst many other things, I :

• Memorised the entire contents of the periodic table (handy, I know 😛 )
• Composed a choral piece for 3 voices
• Learned to play chess
• Followed a training programme for astral travel (it was pretty ‘far out’ )
• Hosted my own 9-episode TV series
• Wrote 3 chapters of remarkably bad romantic fiction, which included 4 grisly deaths and no romance at all
• Ran a collaborative poetry project involving 13 poets (we wrote a 25-verse renga poem)
• Went faerie-hunting (well, yes, I actually did – and that’s how the story of The Faerie Thorn came about!)

You can check out all my adventures on my blog over on janetalbot.com. 

My Enchanted Story
Since 2011, I’ve lived close to a faerie thorn in County Antrim, Northern Ireland. I haven’t always lived in this part of the world, and I don’t usually stay put for very long, but I suspect that the magic of this place will keep me here for a good while yet.
My Educational Story
BA (Double Honours) : German (special subject Old Norse) & French – University of Manchester
Diploma : Engineering Business Management – University of Warwick
Post-Graduate Certificate : Education (PGCE – secondary : German & French) – University of Warwick
Coaching For Improved Performance – BMW-Rover Group in-house programme
MBTI Practitioner (Myers-Briggs Type Indicator) – OPP
Practitioner of NLP – NLP Scotland
Master Practitioner of NLP – NLP Scotland
Ericksonian Hypnotherapist – NLP Scotland
Master Hypnotherapist – NLP Scotland
Humanistic NLP Coach –  John Overdurf and Julie Silverthorn, USA
Trainer of Neuro-Linguistic Programming – John Overdurf & Julie Silverthorn, USA
Trainer of Humanistic Neuro-Linguistic Psychology  – John Overdurf & Julie Silverthorn, USA
Trainer of Hypnosis – John Overdurf and Julie Silverthorn, USA