Your Coaching Journey

Coaching can take many forms and, for the most part, it will involve a conversation where the coach is focused on the coachee. However, sometimes it's helpful for the coachee to draw their thoughts out on paper and for the focus in the coaching room to switch to what has been created.  Focusing on the coachee's artistic endeavours can reveal new insights and draw out aspects of a scenario that mig...

In this episode of our podcast, Helen will be talking to Dr. Hindatu Mohammed Tukur.   She is a Family Physician and a board certified Lifestyle Medicine Practitioner with the American College of Lifestyle Medicine. She works at the Federal Medical Center Abuja, Nigeria where she supports patients and communities through evidence-based lifestyle coaching.   A busy doctor, married with four childre...

"The Five Dysfunctions of a Team," (5DT) is a team dynamics model, created by Patrick Lencioni.  5DT outlines a powerful, interconnected set of potential dysfunctions that a team might fall prey to, and offers an insight into what the underlying causes of the dysfunctions might be. In setting out the 5DT model, Lencioni provides a simple way to understand why teams struggle to achieve their full p...

"Flow," often described as being "in the zone," is a psychological state of deep and effortless immersion in an activity, where you lose any sense of yourself, time and possible distractions.     It's a concept that was introduced by psychologist Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, in the 1970s and provides an important aspect of the Engagement element of Martin Seligman's PERMAH model within the world of po...

Stress is a normal and natural response that we have all experienced in our lives. It's also a phenomenon that frequently enters the coaching room.    Coaching is often focused initially on problems that the coachee wishes to resolve, and that is a natural space for stress to show up. Coaching is also frequesntly concerned with change that the coachee wishes to see, and a time of change is definit...

We love an exploration of the world of Transactional Analysis and this is our fourth episode that attempts to explain some of the concepts that have emerged from Transactional Analysis theory.    In this episode we're exploring the OK Corral, which provides a way of illustrating the idea of Life Positions, which emerged within the field of Transactional Analysis. The concept of Life Positions can...

Reflection is an essential aspect of any coaching practice and something that we actively encourage all of our students to do from the start of their coaching journeys.    Coaching conversations happen in the moment and the emergent nature of them means that they could go in many directions. Where the conversation flows is dependent on the thinking of the coach and the coachee in real time.  There...

In this episode Tom catches up with Dr Ira van der Steenstraten, one of our alumni, who completed the Doctors' Transformational Coaching Diploma back in 2022.    Ira is a trained psychiatrist, psychotherapist, systems therapist and professional coach with over 25 years of experience in various settings, and holds an MD and an M.Sc. from the University of Amsterdam.   Ira is passionate about empowe...

Presence is a topic that is often talked about in coaching and we shared our thoughts on the subject in podcast episode 107.    Hopefully, if you listened to that episode, you'll now have a handle on how presence shows up in coaching. But if we have a good idea about what presence looks like in the coaching room, what about the opposite, in the form of absence; how does that appear in coaching rel...

A topic that comes up time and time again in coaching is boundaries. And it is making a return to the podcast this week. Back in episode 5 we covered this as an area for coaching, and we said we would come back to it again, so here we are, this time hoping to help create a better understanding for our coaching doctors, and, in turn helping coachees to create better boundaries.    In this episode w...

Is anyone really uncoachable?   You may recall Tom saying on a previous podcast that he could have a good coaching conversation with Barack Obama but that he would probably turn down the opportunity to coach the current American president, and that perhaps he is uncoachable.    In this episode we explore this topic more deeply, looking at what might get in the way of someone being coachable at the...

This is our 20th episode focussing on coaching tools, and we thought it would be a good point to have a bit of a review of some of the tools we've covered so far and where to find them.   In this episode we will be refreshing our memories on some of the tools we've talked about already and signposting you to the relevant podcast where you find out more.   If you would like to suggest any other too...

Paul Molyneux has been a consultant neurologist for over 20 years and was, until recently, also a Medical Director. Paul now supports senior doctors with their wellbeing through coaching and mentoring, helping them to thrive and find fulfillment in their working lives. Paul has a special interest in the organisational drivers of burnout and in supporting doctors in taking positive steps to reconne...

This year we launched our Advanced Transformational Coaching Diploma programme and we're now into our fourth iteration of the course. Although the Advanced Diploma programme is just for the graduates of our initial diploma programme, we thought it was worth letting our listeners know how they might move on with their learning once they have completed their first coaching training course with us.  ...

So, you've learnt to coach, you've got some tools and techniques under your belt, and you have some experience of coaching. You are putting your coaching offer out there to the world and ready to take on clients. But what does your coaching look like? Do you take an emergent approach to your coaching or do you have a structured coaching programme to offer to potential clients.   Whilst Tom is a ve...

How do you see yourself as a coach? A newbie? Experienced? Professional? However you see yourself, it is likely that your coachees see you in a way that makes sense for them. And whilst there may be some crossover in your perceptions, there may well be some differences. And with those differences may come differing expectations, or even challenges to look out for. Tom recently saw an article about...

Coaching is not something that can be learned by reading or talking about it. Coaching is not something that can be learned by us telling you how it is done, or even demonstrating it for you. Coaching is a practice and it takes practice to become a competent and confident coach.   It's also important that you receive regular feedback on your coaching. This will help you to improve your awareness o...

This week we are at the British Society of Lifestyle Medicine's annual conference in Brighton: Cue noisy seagulls.   This is our third year at the event and it's wonderful to meet so many doctors and other professionals who are wishing to make a difference by helping people bring about changes in their lives, health, and wellbeing using a Lifestyle Medicine approach.    In this episode we thought...

We often collaborate with the team at Wild Monday, the organisation responsible for the 'You Are Not A Frog' podcast. Both of us have been lucky enough to have chatted to Rachel Morris on their podcast. This week we returned the favour and invited one of their team, Dr Sarah Coope to have a conversation with Helen.   Sarah, a former GP, is now an executive coach with a focus on conflict resolution...

Is the universe conspiring to bring us what we want in our lives? Probably not! Are we able to focus our attention so that we notice previously unnoticed objects and information. Most certainly! Does the Reticular Activating System guide our attention to the elements that are important for our lives.  Contrary to popular opinion, absolutely not!   In this episode Tom airs his frustrations about an...

Having different internal parts of our psyche has been provoking interest in great thinkers for thousands of years. The Greeks and the Romans had the theory of us all having different humours   Freud had his id, ego and superego, and psychologists ever since have been playing with different theories about the different parts that we may possess and how best to integrate them into our overall ident...

You may have heard us talk about interrupting coachees on previous podcasts, but we see and hear so much from other coaches talking about this topic online that we thought we'd set our stall out in a more thorough and robust way.   We have also noticed an increase in very visible coaches rebadging interrupting as interjecting, and saying that it's ok, even necessary. So, we thought we'd talk throu...

We believe that one of the most important aspects of coaching is the generation of new thinking on the part of the coachee. Before we get to focusing on the options that the coachee has, or how they might forward, we need to explore their situation with them and allow them to assess it in an objective and coherent way.   In order to do that we will probably need to challenge the client to engage i...

Not all change is created equal. Some change is easy and some is hard.   All qualified coaches should be well equipped to support coachees when they are contemplating easy change. When it comes to hard change, coaches adopting straightforward coaching approaches might not cope so well with facilitating this change for coaches who are finding change more of a struggle.   What makes the difference b...

What is 360 Degree Feedback and how might we use it in the coaching room?   In this episode, Tom shares his wisdom and experience of 360 Degree Feedback, sometimes called Multi-Source Feedback. Tom has been working with this type of report for the last 15 years and has sat alongside hundreds of clients as they have received their feedback.   Tom understands the very human reactions that individual...