The Coach’s Journey happened by accident, really.

A client cancelled on me. I had a spare 90 minutes or so. Because I used to get so annoyed when clients cancelled at late notice, I had made a deal with myself that when someone cancelled I wouldn’t just do emails, I would do something cool. So I sat down and in that 90 minutes wrote most of an article about how I had built my coaching business, working full-time as a coach less than two years after beginning my first coaching training. I had kept feeling the call to write it and decided that the chance to write something with an honest but brilliantly clickbait-y title wasn’t one I was going to pass up.

That article went mini-viral, and has been read more than 8,000 times (that’s a lot for me).

People loved the story I told. They kept messaging me saying how useful it had been and thanking me for writing it. I had some amazing exchanges on email and on LinkedIn and - because one of the things I said I did in the article is have conversations with coaches who are further down the road - people kept asking me to have conversations with them about my journey. I LOVED those conversations and so did they.

Zone of Genius

At the time, I was doing work to understand my Zone of Genius, that sweet spot described by Gay Hendricks in The Big Leap: where our skills, what we love and the needs of the world meet. In my reflection on my Zone of Genius that article and the conversations with coaches kept coming up. Writing that article was almost certainly the time in my life when I had created the most satisfaction and abundance for time spent (one of Hendricks’ questions to help you articulate your unique ability) and I could happily have those conversations about coaching with new coaches all day and it would never feel like work (another of Hendricks’ questions).

Later that year, I joined Rich Litvin’s Prosperous Coach Salon, a group coaching programme. Seeing a master at group coaching in action, I had a thought one day: maybe I should give this a try. Perhaps this would be a way of creating more time for me in my Zone of Genius, as well as replicating some of the magic that Rich created and throwing in some of my own. I ran two trial calls with trusted coaches and mostly enjoyed them. I enjoyed them enough, at least, to go to the next stage.

Follow the Feeling

I ummed and ahhed about whether to launch my own group programme. I didn’t want to be pigeon-holed as someone who only coached coaches and I was riddled with Resistance. But in the end, I trusted the compass that I had followed throughout the previous few years, the feeling in me that had prompted me - among many other things over the years - to write the article about my coaching journey in the first place. I launched the programme. And it felt great. I surfed that feeling over several weeks, alongside the stress and strain of the tension between ‘It might work’ and ‘It might not work’. It worked. I ran the first Coach’s Journey Group Programme in 2018. I ran it in the way I run most things in my business: listen for the feeling, the compass. Take the next step. Then listen for it again. Until the final conversation of that first programme, I didn’t know if I would run it again. In that final call, the feeling spoke to me loud and clear and I decided that The Coach’s Journey programme would run again in 2019 and in 2020. Three years would be enough, I decided, to know if it worked and if I loved doing it.

To develop my understanding and support other coaches (and raise awareness about the second year of the programme), I created a series of videos about what I had seen to be the three key stages on my and other coaches’ journeys. You can watch the first one, about making the Commitment to coaching on this page. The second - about shifting to the belief that you can create the business and coaching that you want - is here, and the third - about how important it is to do your own work - is here.

The Warren Buffett List

Since 2017 the only tool I have used to decide on my priorities is based on a story about Warren Buffett (skip down to number two in this article by me, or read this one by James Clear, for the details). When I sat with my priorities for 2019 and listened for my compass, I realised that ‘The Coach’s Journey Podcast’, which had been on the list a couple of times before was going to make the top 5 this time. It felt right. It was a chance to - hopefully - get more into my Zone of Genius, having more conversations about coaching with great people. And it was a chance to share the stories of other coaches, the kind of conversations that had been so important for me as I found ways to believe that I could create a business that suited me. Plus, it’s a good name for a podcast.

The Podcast

So I did what I always do, I tested the feeling, followed where it led and then prepared to test it again. This is what I learnt from my coach Joel Monk when I found my way to practice writing and it’s what I learnt from podcaster Tim Ferriss, who knew he needed to schedule five podcasts at the start to make sure he didn’t just quit when he was embarrassed by the first two. I sent out invitations to people I knew who I knew I would have great conversations with. They would become season one of The Coach’s Journey Podcast. Then, well, then we’ll see what happens. And now we’re here. Those interviews and episodes are now being shared in the world via this website and all the platforms I could think of - and there are more each month. Some of them also appear on video on YouTube.

I made them to be the kind of podcasts I’d like to listen to, so they’re long. Enjoy them over two or three commutes or trips to the gym. They’re a mixture of the personal stories of fascinating and successful coaches and the tips those people would like to pass on.

I’d love to hear what you think: how you would improve them, what questions you wish I’d asked and who you think I should speak to next. If they’ve made a difference to you, please let me know. That’s one of the ways I’ll learn what is going to happen next.

The music for the podcast is the brilliant Eye On The Sparrow by My Good Man William and you can listen to that song and more on Spotify.

The Community

In 2020, several things happened. I realised there were a group of coaches who weren’t being served by the group coaching programme I used to run: those who wanted more flexible or less intense support at this point in their journey. And, with our first child due in January 2021, I realised I wouldn’t be able to run the group coaching programme in its normal spot, enrolling in January. This meant there were coaches who might want to take part in the programme who weren’t being served, and it meant I would miss the beautiful, enlivening experience I have when hosting calls of coaches. And so, the Coach’s Journey Community was born. It is a flexible, affordable (membership starts from about £10 a month) and powerful way to receive support with growing your coaching business and thriving as a human while you do that. It is an opportunity to receive coaching, mentoring and other support from me as your coach, and from a community of other people, who are passionate about their work. You can read more about the Community and sign up here, and you can listen to Episode #18 of the podcast to hear me talk about it - and how I create new ways of working - here.

It turned out that the Community has met my need - and the needs of coaches who wanted to work with me - far more than I could have imagined, and so the group coaching programme is still on ice, while the Community goes from strength to strength. Read about what members say about the community here.

The Podcast 2.0 and the Host Team

The start of 2024 marked the start of a new era for the show. Trying to solve several problems including wanting to scale the show and help it reach more people, my changing energy and interests and more, I had an idea. An idea that just felt right. To bring on a new team of hosts for the podcast. This allows us to record more episodes, to reach new people, to bring more perspectives and ideas to the podcast and to give the Coach’s Journey Podcast more of the texture and variety that has made it’s first four years so wonderful.

You can meet the hosts in Episode 56, and you can now listen to me interviewing them and them interviewing amazing guests on the show wherever you listen to it.