How can we be free to do the work we love? This is the fundamental question at the heart of my conversation with coach, community builder and eternal adventurer Allegra Stein, who is navigating a crucial turning point in her multifaceted career. Following on from our first conversation on the podcast, in this episode Allegra and I tackle an issue faced by coaches at all levels: how to stay creative and uphold your values while carving out a viable business. After more than a decade in...

Jennifer Garvey Berger has a new book out, called Unleash Your Complexity Genius. It is the fourth published work by the co-founder and CEO of Cultivating Leadership, and when she says that her books are getting shorter there is a sense that it's because she's honing in on the rich essence of her life's work. In this episode of The Coach's Journey Podcast, Jennifer and I share a conversation that traverses adult developmental theory, complexity, vulnerability, and the transformative power...

Robert Stephenson no longer carries trinkets in his pockets. His need to wear crystals that represent his spirituality has lessened. This, he says, is because he has come to embody the meaning of those items in his very being. This shift has characterised an important period in Robert's life, in which he has departed from his role as director of Animas Centre for Coaching and launched his own coaching business, Fan the Flames Ltd. Robert talks about openly and honestly about why he left...

When Lucy Ball found herself throwing golf balls into buckets at Deloitte in the mid-90s, she became caught up in the first sparks of the corporate coaching boom that would sweep through countless industries in the decades that followed. In our conversation, she describes how the people she met during that time – such as GROW-model creator Sir John Whitmore – offered a new leadership pathway, which involved a departure from dictative models and allowed coachees to lead their own...

"Working online is not the future; it's today." These words from John Monks, the co-founder of facilitation and coaching practice Curve, will resonate powerfully with many listeners of episode #39 of The Coach’s Journey Podcast who, like John, have been bringing people together in an era of change. John, who along with Lizzie Shupak wrote Closer Apart, the definitive guide to running online workshops, wants the world to understand the problem-solving power of online facilitation, and to...

Last year I was totally delighted to appear on a podcast called The Coach's Compass, giving me an opportunity to dive deep into all things coaching with host Clark Luby. In the episode, Clark - a listener to The Coach’s Journey - turns my favourite starter question back on me by asking me to recall when I first came across coaching, and that takes me back to a crucial juncture in my life and career. From there, we talk through the support structures and containers that helped me through...

Conor McCarthy is the host of the First 10 Podcast, where he interviews business builders on their first 10 customers, sparking valuable conversations about how fledgling businesses grow their first roots. By inviting me onto the podcast, Conor offered me the chance to reflect on how my coaching practice began and how it evolved as a business, from my very first tentative steps through to where I am today. In the interview I talk about my own false starts and training pathways, and describe...

To use her own words, Jean Balfour "spectacularly failed" the assessment of the Ashridge Accredited Coach Training programme. But this setback fuelled a massive growth journey that led Jean to become clearer about who she is as a person and set her on a path to becoming a Master Certified Coach (MCC). In this episode of The Coach's Journey Podcast, Jean traces the steps of her career from training as a teacher, to developing leaders for local government, the National Health Service and...

At the end of last year I published a book called How to Start When You're Stuck, and since then I have found myself seeing everything through the frame the book presents. My book is about overcoming resistance, procrastination and fear through something I call 'The 12-Minute Method', and in this episode of The Coach's Journey Podcast I bring this idea into focus. I go back to the very start of my journey as a writer, to when I would find myself paralysed with my finger hovering over the...

In a world where the attention we give people lasts just 11 seconds on average, Anne Hathaway is a believer in the transformative power of listening and being heard. She compares the experience of being truly heard to that of being loved, and this forms the heart of her work as a coach, supervisor and leadership developer, providing people with generative attention and spaces in which to heal and grow. When Anne discovered Nancy Kline's work around the Thinking Environment, she saw her own...

The name listening ALCHEMY came to Raquel Ark in the middle of the night, evoking ideas of how art and science could combine to distil and purify the act of listening. Soon after, she was asked to deliver a number of workshops on listening, giving her the confidence to build a career around the subject to which she has devoted her life and turn listening ALCHEMY into a business. As her recent TED talk testifies, listening is the centre of Raquel's work as a communications coach, public...

Having achieved success running a popular clubnight in London and living his life by "trusting serendipity", Mike Toller wondered whether he could make more of a difference in people's lives. That thought was the beginning of his journey to becoming a professional coach and a psychodynamic psychotherapist. The world of coaching opened up to him through conversations with Phil Bolton, who trained both Mike and I at the very start of our coaching careers, and through some remarkable...

Myles Downey has been playing tennis all his life. But now, at the age of 62, he is relearning to play the game in a way that’s aligned with his identity and his unique take on genius. A global authority on performance, coaching and leadership, and the author of classic coaching tomes such as Effective Modern Coaching, Myles says tennis has been instrumental in shaping his view of people and how they learn. In our fascinating conversation, he describes the transformative experience of...

It's surprising to learn that one of Phil Goddard's earliest memories is of standing on the fringes of a playing field, away from everybody else, on his first day at infants' school. He has since focused his life and career on building intimacy and connection but he recalls that early memory with affection because, he says, it reminds him he has always been a people watcher, fascinated by what makes people tick. As a coach, speaker, leadership consultant and the host of The Coaching Life...

Fiona Setch has faced seemingly impossible situations in her life. From caring for victims of the HIV/AIDS pandemic of the 1980s, to experiencing a devastating loss to COVID-19 through a nursing home window in 2020, life's biggest challenges have, she says, changed her. Those hardships have given Fiona the gift of being able to be present when faced with death, and a rare ability to talk about it. As a professional coach and trainer with vast experience, she now brings a coaching approach...

When Inga Umblija received an innocuous email from a recruitment firm over 10 years ago, she could never have known the impact it would have upon her life. The email contained a message from Phil Bolton (Episode #2), in which he outlined his strategies for career change. Inga took the bold step of reaching out to Phil and set in motion a conversation that, over the years that followed, became filled with ideas too powerful not to share with the world. Those ideas are made manifest in The...

Saying yes has shaped Robert Stephenson's life.  Accepting opportunities and seeing where they took him propelled Robert as he became a trained actor, a narrative coach, and the director of Animas Centre for Coaching - one of Europe’s largest coaching schools. While this optimistic disposition has guided him through a career that he thinks of as "a quest", he has not shied away from difficult conversations around diversity, inclusion, and even climate within the coaching space. He shares...

Coaching in your flow state is like playing jazz, according to Jacinta Jiménez, who has devoted herself to studying the psychology of performance and behaviour change. Striving to become a dancer at a young age taught Jacinta invaluable lessons about flow, drive and resilience, and her passion for the arts spills forth when she speaks about how it almost consumed her. Jacinta, driven to keep others from having to defer their dreams, has channelled her experience of what she calls the dark...

Kim Morgan has a mantra for everything she does. It's about the learning space, and its power as a vehicle for change. That space is one she grew up in, with parents she describes as very psychologically aware, and Kim went on to train as a humanistic person-centred therapist before finding herself in need of "something grittier". Via Freudian psychotherapy and neuro-linguistic programming, she discovered her gift for developing training and experienced a revelation when she realised that...

Profound moments of connection and belief illuminate the story of Jeffrey Wotherspoon's life, which has taken him from a crossroads of uncertainty to becoming an executive and life coach, international trainer and conflict resolution specialist. It's a journey he reflects upon with happiness and pride, having overcome loneliness, conflict and despair to pursue a calling that has instilled him with purpose, and earned him a reputation as a unique leader, motivator and instigator of...

In the Coach’s Journey Podcast, host Robbie Swale speaks to coaches who are creating a business and life which fulfils them. Through these conversations, you can learn how each coach came to coaching, grew their practice and found their way to the successful business they have today. Each interview, like each journey, is different. But each is also packed with insights, tips, suggestions and ideas to grow your coaching business, have even greater impact creating change in the lives of your...

Daphna Horowitz gets bored easily. And it is boredom – or rather, the rejection of it – that has taken her to the top of Mount Kilimanjaro, helped her build a global business, and turned her into an eminent coach of CEOs and future leaders. Inspired by her former career as an actuary and her thrill-seeking instincts, Daphna blends an analytical approach to coaching with a desire to connect authentically and help her clients find their ‘why’. The unique way in which she provides help to high...

Described as "a breath of fresh air in the coaching industry", Allegra Stein is a self-styled coaching misfit. With a background in wildlife biology and a career that included two years as a fishing conservationist in Bulgaria, Allegra's is a unique and captivating journey into coaching. Her coaching community, Misfit To Maverick, challenges what she calls "The Coaching Industrial Complex" and offers an alternative path to success that is built around authenticity and self-knowledge. She...

With over two decades of coaching to her name, Kala Flynn’s journey began in the early 90s long before the more recent rise of coaching. She trained in counselling and later coaching, NLP, and psychometric assessment tools and has since gone on to become a highly sought-after coach, author, mentor and speaker. Kala was recruited to participate in Ashridge Business School’s first coaching masters course where she completed the five-year course in just two years. The course was a life-changer...

Giovanna Capozza is the co-founder of Blue Hive Health and a Master Life Coach, Spiritual Teacher, Mind/Body Expert and Podcast Host. She dedicated most of her twenties to exploring what makes us sick and what helps us heal, and as part of this she grew a thriving alternative medicine practice. But in 2012, suffering from caregivers fatigue, she left her practice behind and found herself on an extended trip in Mexico reassessing her life direction. From there she trained to be a coach and...