Vulnerable Me

I’m a Performance Coach and have established and built an entire career on understanding and getting the best out of people. It’s what I love to do and to see individuals and teams flourish is where I get my enjoyment and self-belief from.
From being a tennis coach at 16 years old, a ski instructor at 18, studying Sports Psychology & Exercise Science at The University of Exeter to managing and leading teams of 60 with the responsibility of multi-million pound budgets, my belief has always been that if you truly make it about your people amazing things can happen in a very short period of time.
In one of the most cut-throat and performance related industry sectors (recruitment), I have built a reputation on being able to substantially increase individual and team performance. I put numbers aside and concentrate on skill-sets, the working environment, the positive impact of well-being and happiness and most importantly what makes every individual tick.
Help Me…
Back in 2015 I was working in a FTSE 250 brand where on the surface it looked like I had everything. I was 31 and the quickest in the company’s history to be promoted to Director. I’d gone from earning 25k to 130k in 4 years, I’d won awards and was winning and succeeding in almost every aspect of the job. I was being spoken about as a potential CEO of the future.
On the face of it everything was incredible, however, behind my eyes and in my head, I was f***** and when I say f*****, I mean really poorly. I had a wife, a three year old son and a little girl on the way. I had given everything I had to this company and they were rewarding me for it. I gave them all of me and everything I was, there was nothing left for anyone else. I would get home shattered by the job and the mask I was wearing and feel completely guilt ridden because I couldn’t look at my wife or son in the eye anymore, because of what I’d become.
My wife gave birth to my little girl on Boxing Day 2013. I can barely remember it. I was thinking about work and succeeding at work. It had become my life and ultimately how I quantified myself.
If you had spent a day with me at this period in my life, I feel confident that I could have made you envious of my perfect lie, but inside I was spiralling into some of the darkest places I have ever known.

Performance…
Reflecting back on every aspect of my life, from my first conscious memory to the present day, I have realised that to feel and accept vulnerability and to have found a way to talk about it would have benefited me in so many ways.
What I wanted was someone impartial, not family, not a really close friend, not a boss, not a psychiatrist, just someone who might be open and understanding of what I might be going through. I wanted a sounding board, someone to stimulate my mind, someone to challenge my skill-sets and my beliefs.
Instead of wanting someone to tell me what to do, I wanted someone to discuss my goals (and any successes or disappointments) with and give me the autonomy, confidence and self-belief to make decisions and changes without fear – ‘human to human’.
Understanding how I felt and what I wanted from someone has enabled me from a young age, to coach, manage and lead people in this way.
A Sales Director once said to me, “I have absolutely no idea how you do it, but you get 30% more out of me than anyone else I’ve ever been managed by and I haven’t felt this happy in a long time.”
The secret – This person was talking to me about how they felt!
If you’d like to talk…
I would love to hear from you, so please feel free to either email me directly or send me your details and a short message.