The Coach

learn about coachingWhen you’re faced with change it can be daunting.

Whether it’s because change has been forced on you by circumstances, or a new opportunity opens up to you, the way ahead can be unclear.

If you want to learn a bit more about me, here’s a little about my story of how I came to become a coach.

What should you expect from a Coach?

Early on in my career, I met with a creative coach to focus on my transition into a new role. I was moving up to Producer, a role I had all but taken in a previous role, but now I needed to really take the helm of a production. The sessions I had with that coach were disappointing. I felt no progress, no recognition of my goals, no ANSWERS. On reflection it was largely because the coach didn’t explain the coaching process and what to expect.

I was expecting the coach to tell me the answers.

I was too busy trying to extract them from her to listen to her guiding me to my own answers.

If they had given me a better understanding of how coaching works, I would have gotten far more out of it.

What will coaching do for me?

I came back to coaching about five years later, by which time I had set up my own London video production and animation studio. The experience was very different. I had an older ear and the coach was far better at guiding me through. They helped:

  • Understand define my goals
  • Explore what my options were, and helped me open up new ideas
  • Engage me with a range of different exercise to help structure my thinking (I stole these for my own use!)
  • Listened, and challenged me in times when I couldn’t identify “what’s holding me back‘?

I found the experience so helpful that I started to use coaching techniques within my company. Both our staff and clients felt the benefit.

I formalised my skills through training, and started to see clients from all creative works of life. These have included photographers, editors and events organisers.

I thoroughly enjoy working as a creative coach, and giving clients the space to think clearly and creatively about their challenges. I’ve found 90 minute sessions are the most productive. Any shorter isn’t really enough to fully interrogate an issue or challenge. Any longer and the steam starts to run out.

Still want to learn about coaching?

If this story resonates with you and you’d like to know more, get in touch. We can have an initial chat over the phone to see whether I think I can help you,