Seventeen years of walking with people while they figure out who they're becoming.
— and it still comes down to one thing. I do it for the moment you finally see yourself clearly.
Book your Alignment Conversation →The coach
Lody Serfontein
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Certification
Certified Unleash Your Strengths Coach — trained by Eddie P. Villa -
Framework
Working in the Gallup CliftonStrengths framework -
Experience
Seventeen years in youth development, leadership, and coaching -
Based in
Pretoria, South Africa — working internationally via Microsoft Teams
You've built something real. And you can feel there's more available.
That's the quiet conversation most of the people who find JŌY are having with themselves.
The career is solid. The responsibilities are met. The life looks the way it was supposed to look. And underneath all of it, there's a clear, persistent sense that you're not yet living from the full version of yourself.
That gap — between functioning well and living from your full capacity — is where this work begins.
My own version of that gap
I spent years believing that if I worked harder, gave more, and stayed faithful to every responsibility, fulfilment would eventually catch up.
It didn't.
What changed wasn't another productivity system or another goal. It was the moment I stopped trying to perform a life I thought I was supposed to live, and started understanding what I had actually been built for.
The breakthrough wasn't a new skill. It was finally seeing the strengths I had been given to do this life — and learning to lead from them rather than around them.
That's the work I do now. And it isn't theoretical. I've been in some version of it for over seventeen years.
Seventeen years of walking with people
Long before this was a coaching practice, I was doing the work.
Began working in youth development. Learned how people grow when they're finally seen for who they actually are, rather than corrected for who they aren't.
First leadership role. Led teams, and learned what good leadership costs and what it gives back.
Stepped into leadership development. Began training and equipping others to lead from strength rather than from performance.
Started coaching and mentoring informally — friends, colleagues, and leaders who needed a thinking partner more than they needed another opinion.
Returned to leading teams. Experienced first-hand what misalignment felt like from the inside — and understood for the first time why so many capable people quietly underperform in roles that were never built for who they actually are.
Focused pursuit of strengths and alignment. Certified. Practicing. Building JŌY Coaching as the work I was always moving toward — helping people close the gap between who they are and how they're living.
Seventeen years of being in the room with people while they figure out who they're becoming.
Credentials
Two anchor credentials at the core of every engagement, backed by seventeen years in the room.
Certification
Certified Unleash Your Strengths Coach — trained by Eddie P. Villa
Certified in the Six Levels of Mastery methodology — the activation framework that turns a CliftonStrengths report into a life people actually live from.
Framework
Working in the Gallup CliftonStrengths framework
Gallup's CliftonStrengths Full 34 is the diagnostic instrument used with every client. The Unleash Your Strengths methodology is how that diagnostic becomes something you actually live from.
Accreditation
SETA Accreditation in Facilitation
South African qualification in adult learning facilitation.
Coaching Training
Udemy Certified Life Coach Training (2026)
Foundations in coaching ethics, structure, and the client journey.
The 10 reasons I'm a natural choice
to help you with your transformation
My top 10 CliftonStrengths show how I will naturally support you in this work.
You're not getting one or two of these. You're getting all ten in the same room with you.
What I actually do
JŌY Coaching exists to close one specific gap.
Most people who have completed a CliftonStrengths assessment have a thirty-page report and no clear idea what to do with it. They know the names of their themes. They cannot yet feel those themes working in their day.
That is the post-assessment gap. It is the largest unaddressed need in the strengths world — and it is where I work.
I use Gallup's CliftonStrengths Full 34 as the diagnostic. Then I use Eddie P. Villa's Unleash Your Strengths methodology to do something most strengths work never does — activate the report.
It's a structured journey through six levels. You learn to release what was never yours to carry. You learn to recognise the patterns that quietly drain you. You learn to lead, decide, and live from the part of you that was always meant to be at the front.
Who I walk with
Three groups, each through a dedicated journey.
Who You Are
Adults carrying senior responsibility
Leaders, executives, founders, professionals, and caregivers who have outgrown the version of themselves they built in order to get here.
Explore 1:1 coaching →Who They Are
High school students at a crossroads
Grade 9, 11, and 12 students making early decisions about subjects, careers, and identity — who deserve a strengths-based mirror before the world hands them a generic one.
Explore The Alignment Session →Your People
Teams and business owners
Owners who want a culture where people work from what they're built for, rather than against it.
Explore Team Coaching →What you can expect from me
I will not try to fix you. There is nothing to fix.
I will not motivate you. Motivation is a poor substitute for alignment.
What I will do is sit with you in the work of becoming clearer — about who you are, what you have been carrying that was never yours, and what becomes possible when you stop performing and start aligning.
That is the entire project.
Your transformation is what makes this matter.
You were designed for more than you're currently living.
Most people never discover why. You've known something was missing long before you found this page. The only thing left is to do something about it.
Book your Alignment Conversation →