Sabrina welcome to the Charlie law podcast I've been trying to get you on pretty much since we started the podcast so thank you for giving in to my nagging yeah um and I know my listeners are really in for a treat today you're a professional certified coach working with both individuals and organizations on aspects such as leadership culture and psychological well-being I think it's fair to say I've checked out your website just to refresh myself that your cocktail party elevator pitch would be along the lines of helping people unlock their potential now you're the most highly decorated professional coach I know and trust me I've experienced quite a few coaches your CV is super impressive just to mention a few items you're accredited by the international coaching Federation you're a certified human potential and executive coach you're a member of the British psychological society's special group in coaching psychology oh I can I can stop you now ah because that as of two years ago amazing for the BPS which is the British psychological Society they managed to shift it from the special group in coaching psychology to actually being recognized as a full division in coaching psychology okay so now it's like a these are such pedantic things but I know for them they'll be like how do you division okay if you still how do you fit into that so I'm still a member and I'm I'm do the studying that I'm doing at the moment will allow me hopefully to become um like a more official student member but you have to have either a ba or a masters in Psychology to be able to get that got it which is why you're currently studying at MSC in Psychology with specialization in business at the University of strathclyde and I also saw that you're a fellow at The Institute of coaching at McLean Hospital and an affiliate of Harvard Medical School so clearly highly decorate have I missed anything out okay I think what's particularly special about you screener the sort of the depth and width of your your knowledge across coaching you like this sort of tree whose roots are tingling with diversity of wisdom and experience and you know your foundations cut across Neuroscience psychology philosophy biology spirituality and then you layer on top of multiple different schools of thoughts and Academia and research to ultimately inform different coaching and behavioral change techniques and modalities so you've got the whole suite and I'm fortunate enough to to see you you know operating um uh as a as a as a coaching client you know I've seen you in action and it's and it's amazing how you know depending on who's in front of you you know you can use different Tools in your Armory um to have the you know the most amount of impact on that person in that moment so I think that's quite special we'll come on to talk about more of that um in a minute I'd love to just understand a bit more about you and what's your sort of origin story why coaching what inspired you what happened you know what what's your story that got you into this yeah and actually I didn't like it's funny how you say that because I didn't actually I didn't plan to answer it this way but then when you say it it always resonates with me like the very first moment where you feel something and so I don't know if I was gonna say this so I'm gonna say it we're gonna we're gonna see how it goes but basically I was like incredibly dyslexic as a child and we're talking to the point where my parents were considering sending me to a special school just for like learning disabilities rather than being in normal education and I I pleaded and pleaded to go to a normal school however that did mean that I really suffered when I was there and that also may or may not have shown up as a slight rebellious streak and so I was getting into a lot of trouble by the time I was like 13 14 15 and I actually interestingly you get in trouble enough at boarding school you get sent to what they call compulsive counseling and so I was in compulsive counseling and weirdly I just really I really didn't find it very helpful what was really interesting is that what I really wanted instead of the counseling was someone to sort of be like okay Sabrina got your gcses coming up like we need to make a very good plan of how you are just going to pass these like this is where your focus needs to be you need to mobilize yourself towards this and that needs to be like the only thing that matters and instead you know I had this person wanting to talk about a load of painful things that I didn't really feel like talking about and it and I feel like even though their intention would have been good it really knocked me off kilter more in a in your GCSE year which is a really critical year for you to like bring it together and get this work done when you say painful things you mean so digging into the psychology piece oh and also just like stuff from your past from like when you're a child and like processing stuff like that and I really you know if you're if you're a kid and you haven't really you're 13 14 you haven't really you don't really have the tools to like reflect on this while also doing yeah it sounds like it wasn't the time of the place no exactly and I so I really when I grew up I very much so okay so I then laughed at school and actually one of the most memorable moments for me is that obviously my parents were like oh God you know like is she gonna be okay like is she gonna get a levels and my mum really sweetly were in an airport and we were in sort of you get those those bookshops be like the little stands where you walk through and there was this book that is probably so cheesy now but it's so good and it was called how to be brilliant change your ways in 90 days and my mum got it for me and she was like you have to read this as into like turn your life around like become an a student and all the rest of it and actually weirdly reading that book was my I would say actually my introduction to coaching as we would call it now it was very much goal focused visualization affirmations planning strategy mobilizing yourself you know creating accountability and I honestly think that that book was such a changing point for me to be able to get my a levels and actually you know organize myself and sort of pull it all together and so even though I totally abandoned any sort of idea that I would professionally become anything like this because again the dyslexia was massively showing up so when I was at sixth form they sort of helped helped me choose my a levels and my a levels were theater studies art and textiles because it had the least amount of reading and writing in those subjects so then my path was like very funneled towards like do art you know there's very little writing reading in in this direction and so it came out did you know fashion illustration at London College fashion pursued that route but I never lost excitement and enthusiasm for the idea of coaching and being able to feel lost and have everything kind of falling apart and then have these sort of methodologies that actually if you learn them and Implement them well you can amazingly make a shift and actually become more productive learn better feel better be happy and so that's why I think in 2019 I think I was just I I absolutely adored the idea of bettering yourself and not giving up and you know refusing to think that this is my Lane I have to stay in art like there's nothing I can do and so I found an amazing mentor who honestly also was a really pivotal moment who's called Dr Tara Schwartz um she's a got a PhD in Neuroscience she was incredible I saw her at um her book launch and I stayed afterwards and I was like I love you like what you do is so cool like please can we be friends um and she was amazing because I ended up she basically I said to her I really want to do Neuroscience I was so interested in it she gave me a link to the king's to King's College London and they do neuroscience but I had to do a diploma and then a masters to be able to get the Masters in neuroscience and I just was like oh you know what I haven't done science it's GCSE got a double D I haven't done maths since GCSE got a C in like intermediate like I don't look like I've got what it takes to be able to do hardcore science so I put it off and I said to her I really want to do coaching um but she said oh you don't need an you don't need a masters in Neuroscience to do coaching that's like really um so she was actually amazing because she really believed in me and I didn't feel like I had many other people who could who were really understanding why I wanted to sack in fashion illustration when it was going so well and really pursue becoming a coach it was there was sort of a lot of confusion being like but this is this is good and you know this is a good lifestyle and you really suited and you're really good at it so why would you you know change at 29 to a completely different thing where you're going to be starting like below scratch um and so she really championed me and that's when I took the plunge and I just you know just before covert started um registered with the human potential Institute to do coaching um and that was based in California and like the dedication that you get when you actually assign yourself to the thing that you're really interested in like that included lectures twice a week that ran from 12 to 1 30 a.m because it was on California time but I still stayed up and like went to every single one I just the enthusiasm for it and what it was and the psychology and learning all these things just sort of exploded for me and then that's what has now sort of capitalized The Continuous journey through it all the way to now which is now doing the Masters in psychology got it and I mean I I think uh that there's a book accelerating Excellence like I can't remember the the author but we'll put it in the show notes but he talks about this idea of getting your sweet spot and it feels like you've got your sweet spot it's that idea that when your interests and your your passions and your strengths all come together and you take a swing it's like hitting The Sweet Spot on a on a golf club or a or a baseball bat the ball just goes much further you know and so you you're going to outwork the competition because you enjoy it there's some there's some great lines so I can definitely see that and I've seen I mean I'm even surprised to hear that you only got into it really in 2019 I didn't realize that and you know you've obviously made huge strides since then and I'm guessing there's there's a bit of this um uh belief um uh your your shift in your belief systems you know you you were believing that maybe you couldn't do this or your dyslexia and whether it was your Mentor who helped you overcome that or you going going that way you unlocked the fact that you could actually do these things and so I I'm guessing that's a big part of you know what the problem do you want to solve for other people as well totally and what's really interesting from my experience is there's there is a real difference between doing the surface level belief that you can do something so you can put it on a vision board you can write about it you can give yourself the affirmations but it does not compare to the Deep shift that happened when you actually hit the first Milestone that you actually never thought you could and that for me happened when I I'd reach my second training I was with the Academy of Executive coaching doing an advanced practitioner diploma in Executive coaching and part of that was having to write quite a long thesis like theoretical essay which would show all the psychological underpinning for your method and I was like this is not going to go well this is my first bit of really long writing that I have had to do since GCSE and you know I'm sort of self-stoved studying so I'm not at school I don't have any help and the rest of it and I just I absolutely thought this is going to be my comeuppance like I'm not going to be able to get around this and so I wrote it and then I just remember having it on word and like highlighting the whole thing having headphones in and just listening you can click read aloud thank God I like I was listening to the whole thing being like does that make sense is this like a normal sentence structure you know is that the wrong word and I put so much work into that and when I got the mark back that it was a distinction I like basically I burst into tears I think my husband burst into tears a couple of my close friends cried because it was there's such a there's it's quite hard to like maintain like okay against logical odds I want to do this thing and if we look at it on paper it's not gonna look like it would necessarily be successful but then there's this thing that happens where if you work really hard and you persevere it's it's amazing when people can reach those Milestones where it actually does make a shift and now they have real evidence to show that it can be different and I think yes to your point having an experience for them that for myself I feel it it's absolutely like imperative to who I am if I can help create that for other people because it's I think it's so important and now if I ever see someone who I think has got really amazing potential but just isn't believing in themselves enough to create that perseverance to be able to go for it it's sort of like a it's a very deep um feeling that you you just like I want to create a space for them so that they feel that they can go and make that shift as well what would you call yourself in terms of maybe you can just give us a little like 101 of like coaching we've got life coaches executive coaches um business coaches what would you call yourself and can you just break down the different segments yeah so I call myself what I feel like I'm trained in so you could call me a human potential coach because I've done that course and been through and that's sort of like you know high performance on both mental and physical uh Plateau I obviously would call myself an executive coach because I've done an advanced practitioner diploma in it and so I feel quite confident with that it's also based on your clients and what they come to you with but saying that if we're talking about strict coaching or pure coaching I know we've used that term interchangeably and we're talking about the how you would qualify coaching through a level of core competencies like what the ICF has then it actually there is very little difference probably between all the coaching if you're doing pure coaching because it's non-instructive it's non-expert it's partnering it's mostly Socratic questioning which is that it's quite a questioning it's sort of very um bigger picture open questions to allow someone to sort of challenge their way of thinking of how they are currently problem solving a situation so everyone has a signature way of solving a problem and Socratic questioning is uh a questioning type that tends to one of the easiest ways to know if you're asking an open question is that it's going to begin with why how what and if you start it like that it means that the person's going to elaborate a lot more than if I say do I'm with you I'm with you is that it's like we had another guy on here a coach a while ago and he's totally the opposite to you I call him the radical coach I don't think he's got any qualifications and he's like just mate dump your girlfriend or do this or do that right um and I think it's important for people to understand that sort of pure pure coaching and that's what you're just explaining it's the sometimes I've been on the other end of it it can be something quite frustrating and and slow and you know come on just give me give me some answers but but in my experience with you that's not quite how you operate it feels more Dynamic with you so so where where are where are you on that so I'm it's it's a really interesting one because of course clients depending on their personality type sometimes they'll just go to a coach and they'll just push for advice and so I think it is really important that you clarify with them if they wanted advice they should go to a consultant if they wanted life experience they should go to a mentor and if they want coaching they should understand what coaching is to go to a coach and certainly they shouldn't be trying to find therapy and coaching so there is that importance of having a distinction in between however I think there's You Know Carl Rogers was the father of um humanistic psychology and he very much was of the idea that it's about being authentic with the client holding them in a non-judgmental space um and giving them sort of a lot of positive regard which basically means like liking them believing in them you know not being judgy and sort of you know I know better than this client like they're stupid whatever and I think as long as you for me very much I believe that if you hold those very true and that you try and show up very authentically in the relationship you know if they if they really know that you've done something and they're pushing and saying I would really like your answer and you're really really frustrating me actually that you won't answer it yes you can go down the route of is this a pattern do you only ever make decisions based on external information and do you ever dive in and look at your own intuition but there's also as a coach you mean no as the coach the coach the coach the coach could ask that to the coachee because if someone's pushing you and saying I need your just tell me what I should do Sabrina that is in itself really interesting because why did they not trust themselves to answer it but why do they think that they are not resourceful enough to go and figure this out by themselves and why do they think that the coach has the answer because the coach will have their own life experience they'll have their different life experience I always say that what happens in a coaching conversation is a grain of sand on the context of what's going on for the client so even if a Coach ever gives advice it's based on a grain of sand it's not based on the bigger picture where does the coach really fit in from mentorship speaking to your friends and family a psychologist you know because a lot of people will be like well I don't need a coach you know sit around a kitchen table and have a good conversation with my wife or my husband can you just touch on that a little bit yeah and so first of all I think talking to your wife husband and friend is extremely important and I would I would say 100 do that however like all humans they are going to bring their own life experience perspective belief systems to your problem and so what you get when you receive advice from someone normally is a reflection of who that person is shining their light through a filter on your situation what a coach is trained to do is to not do that which is very hard very hard right so they you're gonna bring your thing and there they have a multiple of tools but their main objective is for you to find a congruent answer from within yourself to solve the problem reason that's better sometimes is that you end up feeling more resourceful your self-efficacy which means your belief and your own ability to meet the task at hand will go up you might grow uh your internal locus of control that means that you grow in your ability to think that you can handle things all of these sort of stacked psychological principles happen when you allow the client to Resource themselves which is which is why going back to the the other side of this the the spectrum that pure coaching that's why it's designed because if you can get the client to come up with the reasons themselves it's normally more powerful yeah yeah and of course for some people you know one of the one of the most famous things I think for coaches to always live by and they do say this is that a good coach should be coaching themselves out of a job from the second they meet you because the objective is for you to not feel like you need a coach because you have got to a place of empowerment you feel resourceful you've got good self potency self-efficacy all these things and you're like oh I don't I'm I know how to sit down with myself and problem solve and expand my way of thinking or try a different strategy but I trust myself that I can do this whereas if you're so let's flip it right so let's say you go to someone and they make you feel like they have all the answers and you don't and they also make you feel that you need to ask permission or you need to someone else to validate your own decisions that starts to literally erode all those things that we talked about so your circle of control or locus of control will get smaller because you'll think you become more Reliant become more Reliant you might you know your self-esteem might go down to trust yourself for your own decision making and so all of those things that coaching was designed to do to build someone up so that they feel empowered and they can handle it and it's all good if you end up going into a into a situation where the person is literally just giving you advice and not only are they giving you advice but they are like I'm an expert I'm so clever I hold all the answers you know nothing this is not this is not great for actual the overall holistic view of that person um even if people push for it to happen it's still always going to be better to help the person grow into a person that they themselves can trust then and of course there are times where you aren't going to know the answer but then that's why people make these really clear distinctions where if you're going to do consultancy and coaching or if you're going to do mentoring and coaching you make it abundantly clear in a contract the difference between them and when you're doing when you're moving between exactly so and do you do that both you know do you sometimes contract with a client and be like I'm going to act as a mentor and and a coach and I'm going to let you know when I've got the different hats on exactly and then and you want to you want to try and keep them separate but there's going to be some times where if someone's come to you and that's what they want and you have contracted for it then there's going to be points where they're like I know you had this situation like can you just tell me you know how I register for the yeah come on I'm not gonna you know do this myself I think it's a good opportunity to ask about um I call it the Exotic cocktail story because you know you're obviously not allowed to talk about any of your clients I'm one of your clients and I'm cool about talking about it so I think there's a like a great case study or an example like I was I think it was last year I was struggling about you know what what am I going to do for my career and I got really in I used to be a commodity Trader you know I love that it was exciting didn't go very well entrepreneurial or tried a bunch of things and for whatever reason though you know I had a few failures and got really into the self-development staff and I got the book coming out and doing a bit of coaching Etc and um then I spoke to a couple of my mentors and they're like Charlie you know um I think if you just go down the self-development route I think that you know you might regret it you know you know building a certain type of life you know you like traveling and horses Etc you know you might not make enough money and you know you might you might get bored or whatever you know you love commodity trading and and Technologies of the future and they kind of reminded me of that because I sort of put it out of my mind like a belief or you know I don't want to go in that world anymore because it's it's full of crooks and cortisol right um and then I was like Sabrina I don't know what to do because I love the self-development stuff and you know I think I you know I do actually like the commodity trading stuff like I don't know what to do and I'd you know I've done all the exercises you know I've done all the meditations I'd read all the books I'd had conversation with with my mentors and my wife and my family and it was driving me freaking crazy because it's like I just wanted to go I just wanted Clarity and so we sat down and you helped me see that um it was a um an identity limitation I I wasn't able to let go of the commodity trading thing or the self-development thing because I'm like if I I won't be the self-development guy anymore or I won't be the commodity guy guy anymore um so I I wasn't making a decision and anyway long story short you help me see that I could create an exotic cocktail I could go into Commodities and Mining which I do have a passion for but do it the right way build wealth like that champion self-development um and I can have everything that I want and there were a certain type of way that you guided me through that that helped me help me see that and nothing else and and nothing else could so why am I saying this it's an example of how useful coaching compete in and around the family the mentors the psychology Etc but more of a question to you you've got people's lives in your hands you know like that conversation that I had with you has a major determining Factor on the next like two decades of my life where I put my energy and attention so like how how does that make you feel I think that's why for me it's about never never stop studying like you you have to see the responsibility and it's up to you and you other coaches but for me certainly it's about absolutely knowing by ethical guidelines very very strictly bang being extremely clear on having self-control in sessions because everyone has the propensity to be like I'd love to recommend this but you're like sorry yeah and so it's a it's a combination of understanding what coaching is what coaching isn't being very clear on the boundaries knowing the ethical guidelines and never never stop learning never stop trying to understand the framework that is underpinning the operation of what's happening in the session and there's it's interesting because there's a balance in coaching so they say yes do all this learning and then when you're in the session sort of be at peace with you know nothing and I feel like it's it's definitely one of those things that you have to nurture over time for everyone listening out there who might have a coach not be happy want a different coach or might want to get into Co you know get a coach um what would be your sort of advice around best practices how to choose one and is this sort of idea of fit interests me because I think how important is sort of background and cultural fit so your coach kind of understands where you might be coming from as opposed to someone from you know working remotely who's um in In Living on the other side of the world yeah so that's really interesting because again I think it's personal preference when I've spoken to other people not in a coaching capacity he's just friends um or acquaintances you know that you meet out a lot of people Express the wish that they would like to think that their coach shares a similar background or cultural understanding to them because I feel that clients feel like they don't want to have to explicitly explain everything that is going on for them they would like in a perfect world to feel like they're speaking to someone who just gets it and I feel that that means that they have a higher propensity to look for people who they feel would understand their situation further however there are people who are completely opposite to that and say no I really want to be with someone who is completely different from me so that they will you know they'll really like reflect back to me how individual my way of thinking is because the risk is that if you have someone very similar they're going to be blind spots that you both maybe have that you're both not catching whereas if you go and meet someone from a completely different cultural are bringing everything background they're going to be able to see and maybe bring to the surface a lot more of that implicit Norms that you might not be aware of blind spots that you might it's the same as having a real in a in a team at work having a real cultural diversity so you get different minds and and different angles and different beliefs that that makes a lot of sense where does one go to start looking for a coach and in terms of like there are different types of life coaches who've been taught and studied different modalities and techniques so what should people sort of look out for and is the number one goal to find someone like yourself who has a suite of techniques and modalities that in their toolbox so answering the first question where you would go so there's something called the life coach directory isn't that amazing there we go there we go that easy um but then obviously you're on there and you want to qualify how what coach you would like to see of course I there's there's a problem with what I might say first thing I'm about to say is that for safety reasons I would prefer for people to go with accredited coaches because they okay so here's the wonderful thing about an accredited coach let's say you don't like coaching with them you can call the accreditation you can complain about the coach and the coach will receive a ramification too not being a good coach if someone is not with any accredited body there is no complaint line so you don't have a good experience with that coach having some sort of ramification or safety or you know anything around it like I don't know what ethical standards they would hold themselves to unless they've like written their own or that whole thing so of course there's that safety immediately saying that I have to put a massive caveat in there are incredible coaches who have phds who have written books who may not have been bothered to go and get an accreditation because they're so highly decorated and so of course then you know I'm exactly going back on what I've just said because they're going to be an incredible coach they may not have accreditation whatsoever so with all things you just want to become really Savvy like if someone doesn't look like they have lots and lots of experience and they have very high qualifications you're going to want to look for someone who's accredited just as a little bit of a safety and the and the main schools for that are the AC which is the association of coaches the ICF which is the international coaching Federation and the EMCC which is the European mentoring coaching Council I might be getting that wrong but it sounds similar yes um and to do with obviously there's lots of different modalities of coaching there's lots of different Frameworks and stuff like that at the end of the day I think you just have to read people's descriptions and you just have to push for a consultation call and most coaches will give consultation calls for free and really you just want to use that hour or however long they give you to ask every single question that you feel that you need to and really try and get an idea of like what's this person's personality like how do I feel like they're going to work with me you know do I like how they ask questions do I like like how they Pace the session you know you could have let's say two two ends of a spectrum you could have someone who is extremely high energy and they are you can feel they're like pumped for you to like get your goal they really care oh yeah yeah and then you can have someone who adores like really long silences for you to fully tune into what's present in the moment for some people this is going to drive them insane you know and for other people they're gonna be like that person was super pushy I didn't have time to think so again it's finally the right fit it's like choosing a personal trainer or whatever totally yeah can I ask you to give some like abstract examples of scenarios where you've really helped people but you can't really talk about like I would like not to do you know yeah yeah only because it's like I just you know I I think the reason I ask is because I think a lot of these things it's quite easy to talk kind of around it all but I mean we use that one example of me like trying to figure out what I wanted to do and I and I think sometimes it's quite difficult for people to think hang on what would I actually speak to a coach about like if I've ever got a problem I might speak to my friends or my family or whatever um you know if I'm super unhappy maybe I should go and see a psychologist if I needed advice about work and stuff I might go and see my boss or one of my mentors or I'm in that Mastermind like where does coaching what you know why does where does it come in like why why do I need a coach what kind of situations would I need a life coach in well also I think you hit the nail on the head that not everyone needs a life coach maybe or you know if you if everything is going well and you are really happy and you you have your progress you haven't received any negative feedback from anyone like no no complaints why why go pay for a coach like you could but you know it's gonna spend money and there's there's you know you're gonna go to them and they're like what's your goal and like to be consistent well I'm already really accountable for myself so that one may be you know don't but I I feel like what so I can I can mainly talk to my experience and obviously I've had you know coaching peers who've coached me in training and the rest of it and so I can talk about that and I yes I use these but I'm I don't want to talk about individuals that's when I use them so for me I think the most useful things is the real value of coaching is when you discover A New Perspective on your situation that you maybe could not have found or seen by yourself and that unlocks a plethora of possibilities and it creates a huge shift and that's when I feel that people really flourish in coaching is that they have a goal there they've struggled to attain the goal by themselves they would like the coach to help them move towards the goal and through that process they discover multiple things about themselves their way of thinking their way of processing that actually means that they grow like psychologically as a person so that they can handle higher mental complexity that they have better metacognition which is that they're not just thinking and they're fused to their thinking but they can actually see themselves thinking and think about how they're thinking that's quite hard to that point of not thinking alone yeah that's quite hard to do by yourself because you're thinking and then trying to also think about your thinking and not catch yourself fusing with that thinking are you fusing with your metacognition thinking about your thinking and so it's just it's one of those things where that's why I think the relationship matters so much if you're in coaching and you don't like your coach everything they do is just going to end up annoying you let's say they reflect back something or you're getting the really long pauses that you didn't want or you know you're always going to try exercises that sometimes don't work fine but if you have a coach that you really resonate with and there's trust there and they're very skillful some of the things that you do so whether that's something called Gestalt chair work tends to have like a really changes with people's perspective you can either take yourself and someone that you are having a fight with or someone that you need to sort of have a serious conversation with and you you pretend to be both people and you improvise but what that does is it allows you to unlock really stepping into their perspective and get the theory of mind on that person and like empathize I think so many times if we are fighting with someone and we can't get past it it's almost a refusal to empathize with them it's like I won't I don't even want to know the best side of the situation and and maybe left your own devices you're not going to but it maybe if it's something that you bring to coaching and they offer this and you do that exercise then you might leave being like wow I can completely have a new perspective of where that person was coming from this has unlocked the possibility that now I feel solution focused and that I now feel empowered about a decision that I might make to go and become this way with this person to make our lives better and all of those sort of things is very very hard to do by yourself another key example of something that really works in coaching that's really hard to do by yourself is something called an embodiment exercise which is the idea that it's that whole you know you've done too much thinking with your head and it's not getting us anywhere so you sort of allow the person to get into a relaxed State and then you sort of completely abstract the feeling that they have by using the body which is going to be giving them the bottom up signals of how they're feeling so you would close your eyes and then the classic questions are you know if can you feel this thought in your body where is it what does it feel like can you describe it more and by doing that you unfuse from the feeling and you abstract it and then you normally ask something like if this feeling could speak to you what would it say sometimes in those moments you just say stuff that you had no idea you were gonna say and really sometimes that can create like an emotional sift sometimes it can create a hard moment but again all of those things I would say a really really difficult to do by yourself because it's you it's very hard to guide yourself while you're also trying to relax and do something else so there's a hundred percent a case and a purpose for coaching but I wouldn't go around waving the flag being like everyone needs it all the time I'll be like you really part of they call it Readiness for change is that you shift into a position where instead of feeling that it's something that's available but you don't really care it's something has shifted for you and you're like I actually really want coaching because I want this thing bad enough that I want someone else to help me figure it out and go and get accountability for it and that means that you're in the right spot for it because you've shifted into like an action-orientated attract I want this service to help me do this if someone's like oh I just gave coaching a go I didn't really want it you're gonna get you're gonna it's gonna be such worse it's not gonna have the same effect as if you had shifted into that other stage of Readiness and so on the consultation call what other advice about red flags to look out for and good questions to ask yeah anything else um things things that people I think don't know you're 100 and you're right ask the person CV it's never happened this never happens but you you know you can totally say can I see your CV because you want to know where their training was like how long was it you know coaching unfortunately is one of those really mysterious things where someone can call themselves a coach with no training someone can call themselves a coach with a weekend training or someone could have done a PhD in coaching psychology and it's like you know so just just saying someone's a coach or someone's you know some sort of title might not be enough you might want to really qualify how long was that training how thorough and and whether you trust that uh obviously ask people if they have insurance I think it's a massive red flag if they don't obviously because they should have it to be practicing but that will really help you if someone says no that would be a giant red flag for example um other questions to ask is so what are they what are they learning at the moment are they accredited if they say no I'd love you know ask them why not some people have reasons if their reason is why I'm I'm I've got a PhD in coaching psychology I didn't think it was necessary like that's gonna be a much better answer to I don't I don't want to sign up to it because I haven't had enough hours yet and you're like how many hours you know how many hours do you have underneath you you can ask that obviously with accreditation they tell you so if you're PCC you've had 500 client hours if you're ACC it's 100 so that's one way but you know you'll you'll want to know has this person seen a lot of people or am I their third client and this is their eighth session sort of thing does that make any sense no it makes it makes a lot of sense and I remember you talking about that idea of the client you know never lose that sense of agency and you know don't you know if if you're having a coaching session and exercises aren't working you know say or or if you don't feel this is right change and you know you're I think you said that you loved a quote um if you are not your own doctor you're a you're a fool like ultimately I'm guessing it's like don't don't put all of your eggs in their basket and just say like you know I'm in I'm in your hands now is that right and it is and it was really interesting when I was typing the answers to that one because I first answered it and then I realized there was a caveat so the first answer is ideally you want to be your own agent you want to take responsibility for your growth and that means that you should keep a critical mind you should you know analyze whether the people you're about to work with are any good you should want to feel invested and responsible enough to to check things um that said that works perfectly in coaching in a perfect coaching scenario I was gonna say like it's a difficult dance to to dance because a lot of the time you get coaching because you've got a problem and you kind of want to put yourself in someone else's hands for help so you kind of need to trust to an extent but it's I suppose it's just keeping that antenna really isn't it is that what you're saying yeah because that's the caveat that is totally not the advice that would happen I suppose if you're looking for therapy because you're not how how can you feel like totally looking after yourself and responsible if that is exactly not the feeling that you're feeling you're going to go look for help so the best time to find the most amazing coach is when you don't need one best time to find an amazing doctor is when you don't need one because you have the time and the resources to be able to qualify multiple people and you know do some research and figure it out the worst time to go and find someone is when you feel that you're in dire need of their help and then you're just gonna you want to take you just you're in a you're in a very short time zone you just want the first person to be able to fix the problem so not that I really see this happening a lot but that would be the best advice is to if you think you ever want coaching in the future but you don't want it now now would be a good time to go and pinpoint the coach that you want because you have plenty of time you're in no rush and you can really qualify it but if you suddenly feel like everything's not working and you're lost and you need some goal Direction and oh you know now I'm I'm not going to be able to feel so level-headed and be able to qualify everyone as good the most important thing is that you're engaging in a sort of what they would call a partnership in coaching especially so this this person is going to basically be your thinking partner your accountability partner they are going to be holding a space for you that you feel that you can best work in towards the goal that you have and it's sort of like you're basically giving people job interviews for that role so it doesn't mean that you have to just accept someone who's got the most qualifications it's also about you know do you feel that you can work together well you know is there humor like whatever your preference is for how you want to qualify someone that should be really important for that person to feel that they can justify their choice based on that I want just before we come on to the business and executive stuff I just want to talk about sequence because sequence is something that I'm I'm big into you know like when you're making change or or doing engaging in personal development I think one of the the biggest things that I've learned is that sequencing is so important you know there's no point trying to create your long-term goals or Vision if you know you've got some psychological things like getting in your way because you're not gonna you're not gonna get them or equally well there's no point signing up for a psychologist and you know uh understanding the inner workings of your mind if you you're biologically and Physiology your physiology is not right you're dehydrated you're eating crap you can't get out of bed anymore you're not doing exercise you know those kind of things um no point in going to see a coach before you've seen a psychologist if you're in that minus and and not you don't have some sort of basic foundation so how important is sequencing to you around you know this general you know generally personal development and coaching yeah I think I think hugely important um as you know total nail on the head is that if you're in need of therapy you should probably do therapy before you put yourself in coaching there are people who will have therapy and coaching together but I think that's a very delicate dance then between a therapist and the coach to not be creating conflicting Frameworks between the two especially if a person feels that they have completely conflicting accountabilities that they want to achieve in each one in between like one of them's rest and the other ones like go-getter you're like you know now you have a you have a week until you see both of them and which one are you gonna choose so that one's a little bit difficult um but definitely the whole point is that some things will challenge you and you'll need to be fit enough to take the challenge and some things are there to help restore you to a happy place of like homeostasis of like happy functioning and you there's something actually really famous called as Kurt Lewin was this amazing psychologist um who forced Fields analysis and he basically said that when you're changing it's really important to lessen the things that are holding you back or where you are before you increase the tension or the things that are pulling you forward because if I don't lessen these things pulling me back and I just increase the tensions of the things pulling me forward I'm being stretched you know the tension that I'm experiencing is going to be really really strong and so I think sometimes when people want to ignore the things holding them back they want to look at the things pulling them forward but they actually will be creating undue tension for themselves and so there's definitely the sequence that you would want to do is that whatever's holding me back whether that's Health whether that's my psychology whether that's my environment my job whatever if I really want to go get this thing I will want to loosen the hold of these things that they have on me before I go and push in this direction and so I think that's always really important to remember because I think I'm definitely someone who I understand the sort of pleasure that comes with fully going for a goal and really really loving it but that's almost like you get a little dopamine dopamine kick out of thinking about the things that you really want to start like the new shiny project but it's the same thing like you need to finish the other projects that you have otherwise you're going to become extremely stretched and then that's not going to be very good so I 100 to do with sequencing is that you will want to get yourself to a position where you're not feeling tension for where you've been or holding you back or feeling tired or dehydrated or all those things before you increase tension to up the challenge and get to another level and all those things it's so you you know there's a nice upward like Smooth line like this rather than like a sort of yanking someone apart slowly talk to me about the world of Executive coaching going to businesses really fascinated to to know about that in particularly what does it even look like when you go to to companies I think you worked for um you were in-house executive coach at a quite a major company seriously I did um I was part of a group of external coaches who worked with management and Leadership at Cisco and then I also worked as a psychological coach at actor but I also work individually with Executives Founders leaders also also sort of individual Freelancers whatever um I think the main thing that's really interesting when you go into an organization that's different from coaching people who aren't part of organizations is that you start you start having to apply systems theory because this person isn't I mean of course no person's an island but when you see someone individually then that it's not like they have tons of direct reports and how they show up is immediately affecting the emotional space of other people okay so is I'm guessing systems theory is the sort of interoperability of like you're not just dealing with one person it's how they affect and how they're being affected by their culture well just taking is bearing that in mind yeah so one of the best analogies I've heard for systems theory is that it's like a mobile that hangs above like a cot and the idea is that if you pull one end of it the whole thing will move got it and so you're not suddenly in this what could be feels like a bit more of of a straight line when you're doing individual coaches and let's say it's you know yes that person has their family and their friends and the rest of it but it doesn't feel as complex as sometimes the systems theory that you apply to people who are working in an organization um and so and obviously what comes into coaching a lot is relationships with other workers and either you know someone's looking at how to motivate people on their team or how to speak to someone above them and so immediately a lot more of the focus is actually relationship based rather than an individual who's not working in an organization might actually do a lot more deeper self-reflective work in coaching because they're not constantly being part of an emotional people system but the organizational psychologist side of things is less to do with the individual and more to do with the organization as a system so that's to do with how do you um you know about like safety cultures or how to motivate a Workforce what are the different levers that you can move to do with um whether people perceive that like they are getting Equitable value exchange from the business in in terms of their service and what they give and there's this thing called the psychological contract which might not be in the actual contract between employers and organizations but it's this sort of unspoken understanding that if I do this I'm expecting this behavior from you and if that's met it tends to lead to high psychological well-being for both employees and organizations if it's breached then you can have all sorts of problems go awry um you know where people might you know there's so many terms that have been coming up to do with like silently quitting or you know all of those times where people they're either disengaging or they're actively sabotaging that would obviously be terrible um you know there's a whole array of again it's that systems theory it's like you move this one thing like let's say I want to you know an intervention that you could do is create a specific uh token economy where different teams might get a specific reward for certain performance but we already know from goal theory that if you set a performance goal you're going to become more competitive if you take that too far you might cheat might actually go beyond ethical guidelines to meet that whereas if we set like a learning goal which is it's not Performance Based it's whoever can you know be Innovative with it but it's about us learning together and sharing knowledge then that's gonna avoid that propensity to cheat and become hyper positive so it's it's sort of their job is to work with organizations to help them understand that whole psychological aspect and this is what you are um training studying to become and your title will be industrial organizational psychologists industrial organizational psychologists so work psychologists so previously you've been doing leadership and executive where you go into a company and you're speaking to the individuals yeah coaching coaching yeah coaching um once you finish this degree you'll be going in and looking at the environment culture Etc when you go into any of these companies with either hat hat on do you have to have a conversation with the boss the CEO the chairman first to understand and get a feeling for the Nuance of you know how he wants the culture and his people to operate and where we know where that range is between all sorts of things I guess that's an obvious question when you're looking at the culture and the environment but how much does that influence your conversations with the individuals when you're doing the leadership in the executive yeah so that there's a whole thing to do with coaching and organizations and really what you're doing at that point is you're part of a three-party contract because you'll have what they call the sponsor who's the person paying for it which is normally the organization any of the coachee who's the person in your session with you and you you know there are plenty of examples that coaches are trained on to do with the messiness of confidentiality and what you have contracted for and so obviously tends to be that everyone understands that you don't you're not going to be breaking confidentiality with Cochise to give information to the sponsor that's just you know sure it's very much about I think actually when we had the sports guys on here um Ben Earl's and and and and Callan the head of uh psychological performance at saracens that was a similar point because they they were talking about you know when he's talking to the players about what's really going on and and how can we we help and and getting into the you know some difficult conversations or struggles and things previously I think um historically the com some of those conversations were going back to the manager or the coach and it wasn't doing the the players any favors and so I think that confidentiality is is so important so it's not used against you right totally and I I think it massively affects how a coachee will show up in coaching because of coaching for sure do you think exactly is being fed back how your ability to be authentic and you know explore things that you know classic in an organization is that if you think something's gonna be fed back you don't want to seem incompetent but becoming incompetent and saying like I don't know how to do this is part of the first unpacking of a problem to reorganize it to start so they're not going to open up they're not going to open up are they okay so I mean I I find the subject of culture performance human motivation fascinating you know there's obviously like a lot going on in the world now with obviously it doesn't help with people remote working but a team corporate team what what what are you seeing and and what are the levers that you can pull to um motivate um and you know ultimately enhance performance of a team and change that change culture so with with Team specifically so I I also did um a certificate course in systemic team coaching which is really really interesting and with that we we used a case study example of just after an acquisition you've got a leadership team of a company that isn't enjoying gelling well that's a great example isn't it and so now you've got a problem because if this team doesn't figure out a way to and that's the whole force field analysis right it's you know they that you they couldn't essentially be really holding on to how things were and how they were better and if they don't if there isn't a sort of like closing this chapter having peace with it and and really being like that that was there was a previous plan that we were working to now we're in a new plan happy to go forward with this then you've got forces trying to pull them into like come on you know new business new setup let's go this way and you've got them holding on and that's going to create in team tension which is not going to be good for any of them and then you you know you start to create tension for any sort of system you're going to start to see sort of like ruptures of stress happening and then people lash out and the whole sort of psychological safety is going to come down so this is a systems theory um so really you know where coaching I think works quite well is is very much in those situations especially with teams is that the team has been requested to adapt to something that is not their norm and actually they have they have the pressure of still doing the day-to-day job but also then the added pressure of figuring out how they fit maybe in a new hierarchy how it works with new processing maybe they all are collectively having to learn new I.T and then that's going to have all sorts of frustrations and it's not that the coach again ever is an expert or is telling them what to do but it's that person who's been trained to be non-judgmental to hold that sort of space to allow people to feel held that they can work things out in a designated space that leads to higher team collaboration and understanding what are some of the levers you know what are the the sort of things that bosses and and leaders can do with you know the culture is not very good at the business you know people are turning up for the paycheck they're trying to put the bonuses and the incentives and you know they're just still clocking off at five o'clock and you know people are kind of running their own races um people aren't being very radically transparent with each other you know that there's not so much alignment there's High turnover in the company like let's just assume that the promised land is to have everyone you know where wearing the company's badge on their arm you know they're they're grafting their incentivized they're really enjoying it you know the culture's great there's a very positive optimistic culture you know and the company the company performance as a result of that is doing really well like what would be some of the things that one would look at to try and you know bring the culture from over here to over here yeah I mean that's such a that's such a I mean there are so many ways to answer that question so I'm not gonna say that this is the answer yeah but this is one just nuggets is I think a lot of times there is a huge amount of influence that trickles from top down in an organization I think lots of people looked to leadership to understand how they should behaving what Behavior does the organization value you know they're looking at these people as role models who have been selected to lead essentially and be someone you know who that they think they should be emulating and so that's why I think there is a lot of you know leadership development and Leadership coaching is because if you there are so many different leadership styles and everyone acknowledges that yes there are going to be different situations where different leadership styles are going to be useful but collectively sometimes most of the time you would say that a transformational leadership style would be ideal and that borders a very close line with something called like a very charismatic leadership style sorry transformative leadership yeah what is that so that is basically where you know people feel that they believe in the leader they like the leader they respect the leader that they're working not for the compensation value exchange but because they believe in the company's Vision they believe in the company's Mission they are invigorated by the leaders uh dedication and people are inspired to put in above effort not because they think they're going to get some transactional reward for it but because it's starting to become innately rewarding to work as a group towards that end and that tends to be you know when people give examples they talk about like Martin Luther King or all these people but that's ideally what I think most leadership tries to aim for in getting behind a cause and a movement and a purpose yeah and having you you know if someone you will know if you have someone who you feel like that about in your life whether you actually know them or not like maybe it's a famous person a celebrity for some people you know when I ask them like what's your favorite example of a of someone you would like to be led by you know they might give like like Roger Federer or some sort of like someone that inspires you exactly yeah yeah and so that's that's like ideal leadership style because people are you know the effort is low people are naturally drawn you're naturally magnetic people believe in the cause they want to work everyone's happy the flip side is that it can get very close to like not narcissistic charismatic leadership um or that you create such a die-hard culture that becomes like a cult and that's sort of like the dark side of transformational leadership is that you inspire almost too much dedication far beyond the well-being of the individual employees and so there's a fine line there to balance and so if you wanted as you said to get the whole organization working and one of the levers that you can pull is really digging into what is what is the current leadership style at the moment what are they using is it transactional is it transformational do we have any narcissistic charismatic leaders working and you know sort of taking a sort of snapshot of where it is now and then where do we think if we implemented either Executive coaching leadership coaching maybe some leadership and development there are all of these different modalities that you can do for leaderships to like make a shift selecting what you think is the correct one for that and then having that become like a top-down change in an organization is one of many but you want to know no no no I like it I like it I mean that leadership is obviously so powerful right I mean throughout this conversation I I feel like I'm speaking to a professor sometimes you know you've got so much knowledge and there's clearly a huge Drive um and you know clearly there's a lot of ambition there and I can see you know the um there's a lean now towards the business corporate corporate stuff like what why what what Drive what was driving you and where do you want to be and you know who who are your um who would be your ideal sort of clients so the thing thing that interests me the most is like solving complex problems I know that's gonna sound really weird but actually it was really funny when I was before coming here I was rereading my dyslexia report because I know that there was going to be the origin journey and the question of that and what's really interesting is that I had my dyslexic like analysis done when I was 20 because my first one was when I was five and then they were like we need to retest you because come come a long way since then and what was really interesting is yeah it's okay reading and spelling were in the like how bad I was was only present in like one percent of cases for my age so we're talking like horrendously bad um but what was really interesting was that problem solving and generating ideas was in the top two percent of anyone my age for that test wow and there's just something about organizations for me that there are so many moving parts to it it's so Dynamic and it's so complex that I naturally find it quite fascinating and stimulates you more it's a heart the harder it is the more rewarding it is potentially right and what what's the nice thing is that an organization or a business has you know attempted to fix some sort of problem that customers experience whether that's through a service or a product and their mission is to deliver that to people so you know they've already got a goal like they're already a goal directed entity but what you then add into it is that inside of that goal directed entity are multiple people with different personalities and individual Dynamics going on both individually and socially that then need to work out so that everyone has high well-being but also that performance goals are met and that's my that's my favorite problem solving scenario but all of those budding coaches life coaches people are thinking that they might quit their job and change and go into this as a career what advice would you give them and what's the supply and demand like at the moment is there a glut of coaches out there I know obviously that if you're really good you're going to find people but particularly starting out might be difficult and his demand equally as high with you know people looking to this type of thing more and more so it's interesting because I think people in the UK looking for coaches has never been this High because I honestly think five years ago it was way more present in America than it was here um however I do think there seemed to have definitely been a move over covid where maybe a lot of people felt like they needed coaching and also coaching became for a lot of people a way of working that Suited being stuck in a house and not being able to leave um and so that was a transition I definitely think that coaching is quite saturated at the moment I and it's one of those things where you do end up existing in an echo chamber so I constantly see new people becoming coaches and new coaching things and and the industry growing but I'm in it and I'm super sensitive to spotting it if I see something like that happening um at the same time I do think there is an increase in people wanting coaching but I want I think people okay so here's something that I would caution people I think it's very easy for companies to Market people to become coaches because what they're going to do is they're going to sell them hey come and train with us come and have this and is there a credit accreditation company not even that this is just coach training and some of them might be accredited some of them might not but they'll say Hey you know do you want to work from anywhere in the world just from a laptop there's a picture of you on the beach in Bali right and like do you want your work to be like deeply fulfilling as you help other people achieve their goals and like some of these coaches are earning like What a Wonderful World and you know if you're thinking becoming a parent or if you want to have a side hustle like you know it then becomes this like would you like to have a filling job that allows you to work from anywhere the dream situation here coaching that's that's the answer and I think people uh need to use a critical mind against that kind of marketing and understand that that is their prerogative to convince you that you need to buy their service which is coach training so you need to sort of be a bit more of your antenna yeah exactly have your antenna oil and just you know don't allow yourself to be convinced that coaching is the right thing for you to do you more want to be that I in a I could do other things and maybe I would like to do other things but I'm cool to this so much so that I'm happy to work really hard for it to have it be really uncomfortable and go through hard times because I I deeply believe that it's important for me to learn to do this and be of service to people and I for me I can't pull away from it it's really important to me and I'm actually okay if I don't become Tony Robbins or you know whoever it is I don't become this hugely successful person it's more that I'm so passionate about what the actual job entails than me thinking that it allowed me to work on holiday or all of those other things does that make any sense if the former is the case can you give any guidance into you know a good certification progress program or or accreditation so yeah totally I think the best way to do it is to reverse engineer it so before you even look at a training I you can go to the ICF website and you can see which trainings are recognized by the ICF you don't want to spend tons of money doing coach training people obviously have done this and there are trainings that don't aren't with the icfo with other people and so you know I'm just using a small example but you know I think it could be frustrating if you have aspirations to work in organizations for example and let's say some organizations might only recognize by a level PCC and above from ICF you will want to know but then before you go and pay for Coach training whether the training that you're about to do is going to get the outcome due to that place so it's sort of about where do you envision yourself working in coaching what what's the sort of path in between where that is and where you are now and then figuring out where are the different levels that you need to go to to knock those off to get the green card to go and work in that environment and but for all different types of things it will be different but it just that's what I would do instead of just going and doing the most snazzy one because it you might decide that you want to go work here and actually maybe this is trading is not recognized At All by these people and so now you have to do another training it's just annoying so um it's it's figuring out where you want to where you want to ultimately be and then reverse engineering what the path looks like to that the better question almost is that what what do you wish existed for yourself because maybe it isn't a coach maybe you wish there was an army of mentors in like uh coding for women um and that you wish that existed you don't want to then try and pursue a career of how to be a coding coach you might want to actually organize an organization that has multiple women coders who Mentor other you know agree it's if you do want to be a coach yes I think that's a great question is what kind of Coach do you wish you had and I feel like you will be very authentic and congruent if you stay true to that on what you wish you had rather than trying to be a coach that someone else would want but maybe that's not what you would want personally and that might feel a bit sort of sticky um but also you know to do with that whole bigger question of finding what's your purpose what you want to do as your sort of Eco guy or you know that whole thing that fits into what someone will pay me for what I you know love doing and all the rest all your values what you're good at exactly is that it sometimes comes out of not pre-labeling what it is but more about drawing what it looks like and then saying well actually this isn't this this is something else so you could have someone who's like I'm super passionate about Wellness um I really want to be a nutritionist but when they dig into it no they don't they actually want to be a personal trainer um because they're much more excited about working with someone's like musculoskeletal system then that you know so it's it's more about uh authentically asking yourself what you know because with these things I really feel like there's a really famous saying where some phds are pH me's and it's that people um are solving their own problems exactly and I feel like even if you're not doing a PhD that sometimes if you tend to be an entrepreneur or you really lean into like the questions of what's my purpose what do what would be the most aligned work for me to do it often is you fixing a problem that you have that you have but that's super interesting because you see a lot of that in entrepreneurship and a lot of people say that's the way that you should go you know this is the book that I wish I you know existed for me or this is the coaching program or this product that you know wasn't out there on the market so I created it for myself but what you're saying is that sometimes that might not be the the right way to go and just because it might be a problem that you're passionate about and there's purpose there you're going to get bored of doing it every day for the next five years is that what you're saying well I'm saying what is it really interesting that you took that because I think what what I'm saying is that like you've basically got to resonate with what you're doing yeah if you're doing purpose-driven work I would say coaching is purpose-driven work but I have seen plenty of entrepreneurs fix problems amazingly that aren't their own problems either so I think the whole thing is that it depends what your superordinate goal is let's say your superordinate goal is to like classic example like make a lot of money you might be better off strategically evaluating what the market needs and what is the governance in between creating a product that would solve a very large problem to someone who's superordinate goal is to become really aligned with their work and feel fulfilled and Purpose Driven and then it's it's different questions like okay well this is more personal now because it's for you it's your purpose so what is it that you wanted to exist for yourself and then answering that question so again like all of my answers you know you're being like she's not being very close no no but it's true but and basically that's why it's so important to bring in these different elements because if you're just thinking like oh what's my purpose and this you know you might choose that but then you might real you know you might forget that actually what's the thing that's really important to me if I could only have one thing it's something else and that choice of Direction isn't going to get you what you want necessarily or it might be harder Etc so like I totally get it yeah and actually weirdly the thing that I think always fits with this the best is if you think of like it's sort of like Maslow's hierarchy of needs you know when we talk about the purpose-driven job at the top that would be with self-actualization which is you want to become the most authentic potentialed version of you but it depends where your needs are like you know you might not be wanting to pursue that if you'll need to like food shelter and water are much more apparent than you picking you know the most purpose-driven piece of work that you can do so it's about figuring out where where are your needs and your needs are going to be individual to you and then that's more what you're probably going to go after and you're going to have a whole different set of approaches and questions based on that but I think what happens so much is that when you listen to people who are working self-help or self-help gurus or self-help books or all that sort of stuff is that that person's already operating from the top of the self-actualization need and so they will give advice from that they might forget about the you know the struggles of where they've had to come from and what other priorities they may have had to have made beforehand and so that's the whole point of the you know getting a coach to not give you advice is because it's going to be colored from that person's perspective and someone who is trying to figure out their safety and like you know basic needs is not necessarily going to flourish from advice from someone who's at self-actualization at the top and just talking about people following their bad cells because maybe doing the like value-driven thing that is maybe not profitable at all um is actually much better done at a later date while you've sorted yourself out and your basic needs are met and everything is in place first last question okay where can people find you Sabrina because I think you know that this will sort of inspire a lot of people um where can people find you to get in touch about coaching and who are your dream customers you know who do you get really excited about coaching um so I get really excited about coaching is it gonna sound so cheesy but like people who want to be coached but I think the really sad thing is if you ever work in an organization you get given someone who doesn't really want to be there and it sort of it just it doesn't feel great and it's it's it's it's sad and you know like you don't want to spend any time like convincing someone that they should want something that they don't feel like they need so my favorite person to work with is someone who really has a goal in mind has something like feels like they're ready to put in a lot of effort that they are of course you know at zero or above they're fully functioning there isn't anything that they feel like they need to be addressing in therapy or anything like that and that really it's it's I get really excited about my clients goals so I really love being like having a client who's also excited about their goals and yes you can be lost and you can think oh I don't know where I want to go and I'm really really confused but it's the excitement to figure it out and that willingness to try things and be a bit open and want to go after stuff I think that's my favorite person to work with and particularly entrepreneurs business people or the personal staff um any preference I really I really like um I've had a couple of Founders and I really like Founders because again it's the complexity and so there's so much going a lot going on yeah um otherwise you know otherwise it's like leadership and organization otherwise because again it's the same it's this you know Founders it's a much much smaller but like maybe more more Dynamic change engine complexity this one has less Dynamic change in complexity but they both are the similarities the similarities are quite the same and they tend to already there these are people who are high functioning who want to function even higher who have very clear goals in mind but have a lot of unknowns that they might need to discover in order to find out yeah exactly so that's kind of my favorite one because there's so much richness with all of the things that are going on to sort of keep in mind and try and think you know do I know any interventions or things that they can try or thing you know specific questions that might unlock something you know it me the figuring out of that one's the most exciting and then where to find me um LinkedIn just Sabrina person yeah my Instagram is Sabrina C Percy um and then my website is www.sentian.co.uk we'll put it all on the on the show notes Sabrina I had high expectations for this conversation and you've exceeded all of them so thank you very much indeed for uh coming in and um wish you all the best with your with your career and life and and everything thanks a million well thank you so much for having me I really appreciate it I was very nervous because it was my first podcast but you are an excellent host and um I really enjoyed it thanks very much amazing thanks Arena