My first coaching experience was forced on me by stealth!

I was going out for few drinks with my great mate Hayley. We met in London and were due to go for dinner with a few of her friends. She’d been working hard that week and was knackered. So knackered we decide to go back to her friends flat and they’d cook us dinner. Hayley lay on the sofa with her head in my lap, I stroked her hair while she dozed. Clare poured me a beer and cooked while her partner Mandy and I talked. I didn’t know but Mandy had recently quit her big fancy corporate role and had retrained to be a coach.

Mandy asked me questions about my work and my life, we talked about purpose, fulfilment, values and more. It was just the two of us in a bubble of conversation. That chat left me buzzing. I felt more alive at midnight on the train back to Reading than I had done in ages. I felt lit up with possibility. For the first time in my life, I started to question what I was doing.

Was I happy? Was I doing what I wanted or was I doing what I thought I SHOULD be doing?

The next morning, I called Hayley and asked for Mandy’s number. I wanted more conversation like that. Mandy suggested I use a coach in Reading, who was local to me, and this way there was no cross over between our personal lives. I started being coached by Claire Mackinnon, an amazing woman who really helped me find my voice at work.

I’d spent the first half of my career trying to blend in, to perform in the way I believed a corporate role demanded. I did well at it. I was earning good money, wasn’t ever out of contract, but I often had the Sunday night blues dreading Monday mornings. After working for six weeks with Claire all that changed. It felt like magic.

I got clarity on what was important, I gained more self-belief and realised that many of the skills I had, like being good at making connections with people, creativity, enthusiasm, and finding the fun, were skills that were useful in a workplace. Instead of hiding these attributes I was able to show them. As a result, my work life started to flow. I got to choose the contracts I wanted. To pick companies where I could work with great humans, where people come first. (One had a policy of not hiring ass holes – this is my kind of policy!) Coaching worked! I went from being nervous (not that’d you’ve have known it) to confident, and life just felt better.

I had gone to Claire to focus on career, but our time together also shone a light on other areas of my life that could be improved. My relationships.

At the time I wasn’t ready to look too deeply at those areas. I felt way too scary. But it felt empowering to choose to park that work. It was an active choice. But I knew I’d come back to it at some stage when the time was right.

Looking back, that night in London was a real sliding doors moment. If Hayley hasn’t been knackered, we’d have had beers at a bar, and all the usual girl chat. Instead, in that moment, a chain reaction started, with ripples galore….

As I sat stroking my friend’s hair, her friend unwittingly changed the course of my life for good.

Isn’t life brilliant?

Coaching is amazing.

Give me a call and see what it can do for you.