For twenty-eight years, Okike Offia had poured his life into ministry leadership with The Navigators in Nigeria. By 2023, after a decade as Country Director, he’d reached what most would consider the pinnacle. The kind of role people spend careers working toward.

But Okike felt something stirring – a restlessness that wouldn’t quiet. “I needed to give my career a boost. I did not want to stagnate.”

He’d served faithfully at a national level, but his heart was pulling him toward something bigger. Not for ego, but for impact. Could coaching be the door to serving on the global stage?

He already had some coaching credentials – certificates in Facilitative Leadership and Business Coaching. But he sensed there was something deeper he still needed.

When Okike discovered PCCI’s Essentials of Leadership Coaching, the timing felt both perfect and impossible.

The concerns were real: the financial investment, the time commitment. Some lessons started at 1 AM – in the middle of the Abuja night. He’d be bleary-eyed but determined, joining a global cohort while his city slept.

But Okike has always been a calculated risk-taker. He did a worst-case scenario analysis and the conclusion was clear: “There is nothing to lose but failure.”

So he said yes.

What surprised Okike most wasn’t the curriculum – it was the instructors themselves. “I was deeply impressed and impacted by the character and quality of instructors,” he shares. “A life model is a great message any day.”

Then came the breakthrough.

Okike knew his listening skills were mediocre – maybe a 3 out of 10. He could hear people, but was he truly present with them? The turning point came when he learned about the gift of presence in active listening.

It wasn’t just a technique. It was a posture – a way of honoring the image of God in every person sitting across from him. He learned that people may have issues in life, but they are not the problem.

That shift changed everything.

Today, Okike runs TOCM Development from Abuja and continues serving as Missions Mobilization Director for The Navigators. But now he coaches professionally – with confidence.

“These days in conversations I hear people comment: ‘You are a good listener,'” he says with a smile.

He works with several clients, guiding leaders through fog into clarity.

One client recently moved from “very confused about life direction to clarity and certainty.” Now they’re working together to transform muddled family relationships into something meaningful and God-glorifying.

Perhaps most telling: after completing his training, Okike wrote and published a book – Dream Aspire Achieve: Beyond Limits – a personal development guide built on coaching principles. The training didn’t just add a skill; it unlocked something already growing inside him.

“I am at that place in life where you know – you are in the right place, heading in the right direction in the right company, thanks to coaching,” Okike reflects. “I have not changed what I am doing, but I am doing it with greater confidence and visibility.”

When Okike thinks about someone considering coach training, he doesn’t minimize the obstacles. The time, the money, the 1 AM calls – those concerns are legitimate.

“But with a little bit of planning, it is doable,” he says. And then the words that make you stop: “You should have done the training 10 years earlier.”

That’s what he’d tell his past self. Ten years of greater impact, deeper conversations, clearer direction – not wasted, but multiplied if he’d taken the leap sooner.

If you’re sensing God might be calling you to coaching, Okike would tell you this: “Walk in obedience and answer the call.” Not because it’s easy, but because the world needs what you’ll become on the other side of this training.

The ceiling you’re feeling? It might just be the floor of what’s next.