FAQs
About coaching and mentoring
Coaching is about helping you find your own answers. I’m not here to tell you what to do rather I’m here to ask the questions worth asking, hold the space while you think, and help you work out what’s actually going on and what you want to do about it.
Mentoring is more direct. It’s me sharing what I know about time management, habit stacking and the operational side of running a small business You’ve got a problem, I’ve probably dealt with something similar, let’s sort it out.
Therapy is typically designed to help with understanding where things come from, processing difficult experiences, working through mental health challenges. It’s important work and there are times when it’s exactly what’s needed.
Coaching looks to move you forward towards achieving a goal. We start from where you are now and work out where you want to get to and what’s in the way.
I’m not a therapist and I won’t try to be. If I think you’d be better served by talking to someone else, I’ll say so.
Tell me what’s going on and we’ll work it out together. That’s partly what the first session is for.
A rough guide: if you’re feeling stuck, overwhelmed, or like you’ve lost the thread then that’s usually coaching territory. If you’ve got a specific operational problem that needs solving and you want practical input from somewhere who has been there, done that that’s usually mentoring.
My training is in cognitive behavioural coaching which is a practical, evidence-based approach that looks at the relationship between how we think, how we behave, and how we feel.
It’s about working out what’s actually going on, what you can change, and what you can stop spending energy on.
In plain terms: you can’t always control your circumstances. But you can control how you respond to them. That’s what we work on.
No. And I’d be suspicious of any coach who said they could.
What I can tell you is that if you show up, do the thinking, and are willing to be honest with yourself, things tend to shift. I’ve seen it enough times to be confident in that. But the work is yours to do. I’m here as a guide. I'm not here to do the thinking for you.
Working together
We start. That sounds obvious but it’s worth saying: the first session isn’t a long preamble or a discovery call dressed up as something else. We get into it.
We’ll talk about what’s going on, what you actually want, and what feels most useful to work on. By the end we’ll have a clearer picture of of further sessions are needed, if I'm the right person to provide those sessions and what working together for the period of our engagement is likely to look like.
It depends on what emerges in that first session.
Some people, one session is enough. Others come for a handful of sessions to work through something specific. Others find it useful to have an ongoing thinking partner as their business changes.
I don’t push people to commit to more than they need. We’ll agree what makes sense as we go. We will review progress and value at each session. At the six session mark, if we haven't already we will reflect and see if we need to recontract.
No. There’s no standard package because there’s no standard situation. After the first session we’ll agree a number of sessions and cadance that that suits you — whether that’s regular sessions, occasional check-ins, or something else entirely
Then we say so, and that’s fine. The short call before the first session exists partly for this reason: it’s a chance for both of us to get a sense of whether this is going to work. Coaching only works if there’s trust and a rapport and I’d rather we worked that out early.
Everything you share in our sessions stays between us. I won’t share anything you tell me with anyone else without your explicit permission. The only exceptions are the standard ones: if I had serious concerns about your safety or someone else’s, I’d have to act on that. If appropriate, I’d always try to talk to you first.
I’m also bound by the ethical guidelines of the Centre for Coaching and the International Academy for Professional Development.
Practical questions
Sessions are £150 per hour. A typical session lasts an hour or ninety minutes.. We agree what works for you and you’ll always know what you’re paying before we start.
If you’re based in Southampton, UK I am currently offering a local rate of up to 75% off. Same sessions, same commitment just a rate that reflects where we both live. Mention it when you get in touch.
Online via google meet or face to face at a location arranged by you. Walk and talks are a particularly powerful way to benefit from coaching. Let me know if you'd like to learn more about walking while coaching.
Bank transfer payable one week in advance. No subscriptions, no platforms, no faff.
I ask for 48 hours’ notice to cancel or reschedule a session. Cancellations inside that window are charged at the full session rate. I know life happens and I’ll always try to be human about genuine emergencies but I do need to protect my time as a small business owner myself.
Everything you share in our sessions stays between us. I won’t share anything you tell me with anyone else without your explicit permission. The only exceptions are the standard ones: if I had serious concerns about your safety or someone else’s, I’d have to act on that. If appropriate, I’d always try to talk to you first.
I’m also bound by the ethical guidelines of the Centre for Coaching and the International Academy for Professional Development.
Experience and credentials
I hold a Certificate in Coaching from the Centre for Coaching, part of the International Academy for Professional Development.
I'm a member of the Association for Coaching and committed to my own ongoing learning and development.
As a member of the Association for Coaching I subscribe to their Code of Ethics, which sets out my commitments to you around confidentiality, professional boundaries and acting in your best interests.
've been a sole trader and worked with small businesses for fifteen years. Before that I worked as a consultant for a Big 4 firm, in private practice, and for local government.
Which means I've sat in a lot of different rooms - corporate, public sector, tiny kitchen-table businesses - and I have a reasonable sense of how all of them actually work from the inside.
This is it. Worked. is my business. I'm not going to pretend I've built a seven-figure empire but I know what it's like to keep something going while everything else in life is also demanding your attention. I've also worked a freelance business manager for clients in the coaching and educations space - I know how small businesses work from the inside out.
Possibly. Here's an honest way to think about it.
I work best with people who are ready to show up and do the thinking. Not people who want to be told what to do, or who are looking for someone to blame the world with: there's plenty of that available for free on the internet.
My clients tend to be people who know things aren't quite right, are willing to look honestly at their part in that, and want to take back some ownership and control. They're collaborative, they're not flakey, and they're prepared to actually do something with what comes out of our sessions.
If you want a space to think clearly, work hard, and move forward we'll probably get on well.
If you're not quite ready for that yet, that's fine too. I'm here when you are ready.