Coach’s Journey founder Robbie Swale and a team of hosts interview coaches about how they created a successful business and how they create impact for their clients.
Through these conversations, you can learn how each coach came to coaching, grew their coaching practice and found their way to the successful business they have today. Each interview, like each journey, is different. But each is also packed with insights, tips, suggestions and ideas to grow your coaching business and have even greater impact creating change in the lives of your clients.
Past guests include life coaches, business coaches, executive coaches, career coaches, leadership coaches and more. Some are household names; some are coaches you’ve never heard of. All of them share ideas on the key topics for creating a coaching business: money, fees, impact with clients, training and more.
About Robbie: Robbie Swale is a leadership coach, podcaster and the author of four books. He has trained with masters in the field of coaching and building coaching businesses, including Rich Litvin, Robert Holden and guests on the podcast like Katie Harvey and Myles Downey. He is the creator of The Coaching Business Flywheel, which attempts to boil down everything he has learned from many years supporting coaches to grow their businesses and interviewing amazing coaches on this podcast, into one simple, actionable model.
Subscribe and read more about the podcast, The Coach’s Journey Community and get the free ebook An Introduction to The Coaching Business Flywheel at www.thecoachsjourney.com
Last refreshed: ⓘ
Follow this podcast in the Metacast mobile app to refresh it and see new episodes.
Don't just listen to podcasts. Learn from them with transcripts, summaries, and chapters for every episode. Skim, search, and bookmark insights. Learn more
Imagine being able use your skills, expertise and resources in a way that makes the world a better place, while meeting all of your own needs as well. It is a bold, brave goal and one that Sarah Fox, founder and CEO of Do Good and Do Well has put at the very centre of her work as an EMCC accredited coach, mentor, teacher, trainer and facilitator. In this episode of The Coach’s Journey Podcast, Sarah shares the personal and professional experiences that shaped her vision for a company that helps ...
As a self-described introvert, it was a surprise to Susana Gonçalves when she found her calling in coaching. In our conversation in episode #52 of The Coach’s Journey Podcast, Susana explains how she experienced “an awakening” that led her forward from her background in IT, engineering and finance. When the organisation she worked for invested in team coaching, Susana witnessed first-hand the evolution of her colleagues as they worked with a coach, inspiring her to invest in her own development ...
Matt Thieleman admits that for many years he “wholeheartedly dismissed” the coaching industry. He also says he denied an important part of himself. Now, as the author of This Is Coaching and a renowned transformational coach, visionary and featured TEDx speaker on the topic of mindful leadership, Matt is adept at identifying when people and organisations have shut off vital parts of themselves. In this episode Matt talks frankly about the barriers he had to overcome to allow the hidden parts of ...
Heart-based leadership is an approach to solving problems, building relationships and creating flow that expert practitioner Marie Reig Florensa uses to transform individuals, teams and organisations. In this episode of The Coach’s Journey Podcast, Marie describes how, during 15 years as a producer on live television shows, she became adept at living in the moment and honed her intuition as she navigated the “big live opera” of broadcasting. Marie shares her journey of self discovery and how she...
Many of us live out our lives while tied to our careers, our homes, our families and our friends. This can be joyous, but for some it is stifling. Ray Martin lived that life and achieved great success, even being named Daily Telegraph Business Leader of the Year in 2002 as the CEO of a company that developed business leaders. But when his personal life changed dramatically, he realised his work was not making him happy and he set out on a mission to discover his authentic self. Now, as the autho...
Bill Small’s voice is a powerful creative tool that has been creating songs and conversations throughout his life as a professional musician, entrepreneur and business coach. In this episode of The Coach’s Journey Podcast, Bill describes the challenge of blending his passions for music and conversation in order to create the life he wanted, highlighting key shifts in his mindset that enabled a balance to emerge. During 35 years of performing and playing music and 20 years helping small business ...
Lindsey Lewis was a sensitive child. “The one crying about the bird that fell out of the nest,” as she puts it. Her intimate connection to living things was a challenge early in her life, but in this episode of The Coach’s Journey Podcast she describes how she harnessed the power of her sensitivity to become a passionate, brave and creative coach. Throughout her life as a magazine editor, communications consultant and now as the owner of a thriving coaching business, she has always taught and pr...
Henrietta Nelson has always been interested in people’s minds. She describes how, during a decade spent working as a solicitor specialising in insurance litigation, she would study her colleagues’ faces, observing their drives and motivations. After a friend recommended a two-day course at The Coaching Academy, Henrietta felt the pieces begin to fall into place. Becoming a coach has given Henrietta fresh perspective. In this episode she talks about facing down feelings of impatience, and shaking...
In this episode of The Coach’s Journey Podcast, I invited a true master of the art of listening to interview me about my own journey and the transformations that have happened – and continue to happen – along the way. Raquel Ark, the founder of listening ALCHEMY , deftly opens up a conversation in which I share what it was like to realise that my life was not what I wanted it to be, and how the pain of that realisation prompted me to look at uncomfortable things. I now know that an experience be...
Claire Pedrick was speaking at the ICF Conference in 2019 when a publisher approached her and said: “Have you got a book in you?” That book is Simplifying Coaching , and in it Claire offers a rallying cry for filtering out the noise of the coaching industry and honing in on the very human essence of transformative conversations. In this episode of The Coach’s Journey Podcast, Claire traces the steps that led her into a burgeoning coaching landscape around the turn of the century and reflects on ...
How can we be free to do the work we love? This is the fundamental question at the heart of my conversation with coach, community builder and eternal adventurer Allegra Stein, who is navigating a crucial turning point in her multifaceted career. Following on from our first conversation on the podcast , in this episode Allegra and I tackle an issue faced by coaches at all levels: how to stay creative and uphold your values while carving out a viable business. After more than a decade in which she...
In this episode, Jennifer Garvey Berger, author of "Unleash Your Complexity Genius," explores how adult developmental theory helps us navigate change and complexity. She distinguishes between complicated and complex systems, advocating for "simplicity on the far side of complexity." The conversation delves into the importance of "unpolished vulnerability" and "fierce friendship" in fostering genuine connection and driving personal and organizational growth, even amidst life's inherent uncertainties.
Robert Stephenson no longer carries trinkets in his pockets. His need to wear crystals that represent his spirituality has lessened. This, he says, is because he has come to embody the meaning of those items in his very being. This shift has characterised an important period in Robert's life, in which he has departed from his role as director of Animas Centre for Coaching and launched his own coaching business, Fan the Flames Ltd. Robert talks about openly and honestly about why he left Animas a...
When Lucy Ball found herself throwing golf balls into buckets at Deloitte in the mid-90s, she became caught up in the first sparks of the corporate coaching boom that would sweep through countless industries in the decades that followed. In our conversation, she describes how the people she met during that time – such as GROW-model creator Sir John Whitmore – offered a new leadership pathway, which involved a departure from dictative models and allowed coachees to lead their own development. Whi...
"Working online is not the future; it's today." These words from John Monks, the co-founder of facilitation and coaching practice Curve , will resonate powerfully with many listeners of episode #39 of The Coach’s Journey Podcast who, like John, have been bringing people together in an era of change. John, who along with Lizzie Shupak wrote Closer Apart , the definitive guide to running online workshops, wants the world to understand the problem-solving power of online facilitation, and to believ...
Last year I was totally delighted to appear on a podcast called The Coach's Compass, giving me an opportunity to dive deep into all things coaching with host Clark Luby. In the episode, Clark - a listener to The Coach’s Journey - turns my favourite starter question back on me by asking me to recall when I first came across coaching, and that takes me back to a crucial juncture in my life and career. From there, we talk through the support structures and containers that helped me through early co...
Conor McCarthy is the host of the First 10 Podcast , where he interviews business builders on their first 10 customers, sparking valuable conversations about how fledgling businesses grow their first roots. By inviting me onto the podcast, Conor offered me the chance to reflect on how my coaching practice began and how it evolved as a business, from my very first tentative steps through to where I am today. In the interview I talk about my own false starts and training pathways, and describe the...
To use her own words, Jean Balfour "spectacularly failed" the assessment of the Ashridge Accredited Coach Training programme. But this setback fuelled a massive growth journey that led Jean to become clearer about who she is as a person and set her on a path to becoming a Master Certified Coach (MCC). In this episode of The Coach's Journey Podcast, Jean traces the steps of her career from training as a teacher, to developing leaders for local government, the National Health Service and investmen...
At the end of last year I published a book called How to Start When You're Stuck , and since then I have found myself seeing everything through the frame the book presents. My book is about overcoming resistance, procrastination and fear through something I call 'The 12-Minute Method', and in this episode of The Coach's Journey Podcast I bring this idea into focus. I go back to the very start of my journey as a writer, to when I would find myself paralysed with my finger hovering over the 'post'...
In a world where the attention we give people lasts just 11 seconds on average, Anne Hathaway is a believer in the transformative power of listening and being heard. She compares the experience of being truly heard to that of being loved, and this forms the heart of her work as a coach, supervisor and leadership developer, providing people with generative attention and spaces in which to heal and grow. When Anne discovered Nancy Kline's work around the Thinking Environment, she saw her own life'...
The name listening ALCHEMY came to Raquel Ark in the middle of the night, evoking ideas of how art and science could combine to distil and purify the act of listening. Soon after, she was asked to deliver a number of workshops on listening, giving her the confidence to build a career around the subject to which she has devoted her life and turn listening ALCHEMY into a business. As her recent TED talk testifies, listening is the centre of Raquel's work as a communications coach, public speaker, ...
Having achieved success running a popular clubnight in London and living his life by "trusting serendipity", Mike Toller wondered whether he could make more of a difference in people's lives. That thought was the beginning of his journey to becoming a professional coach and a psychodynamic psychotherapist . The world of coaching opened up to him through conversations with Phil Bolton , who trained both Mike and I at the very start of our coaching careers, and through some remarkable discussions ...
Myles Downey has been playing tennis all his life. But now, at the age of 62, he is relearning to play the game in a way that’s aligned with his identity and his unique take on genius. A global authority on performance, coaching and leadership, and the author of classic coaching tomes such as Effective Modern Coaching, Myles says tennis has been instrumental in shaping his view of people and how they learn. In our fascinating conversation, he describes the transformative experience of reading Ti...
It's surprising to learn that one of Phil Goddard's earliest memories is of standing on the fringes of a playing field, away from everybody else, on his first day at infants' school. He has since focused his life and career on building intimacy and connection but he recalls that early memory with affection because, he says, it reminds him he has always been a people watcher, fascinated by what makes people tick. As a coach, speaker, leadership consultant and the host of The Coaching Life podcast...
Fiona Setch has faced seemingly impossible situations in her life. From caring for terminally-ill patients during the HIV/AIDS pandemic of the 1980s, to experiencing a devastating loss to COVID-19 through a nursing home window in 2020, life's biggest challenges have, she says, changed her. Those hardships have given Fiona the gift of being able to be present when faced with death, and a rare ability to talk about it. As a professional coach and trainer with vast experience, she now brings a coac...
When Inga Umblija received an innocuous email from a recruitment firm over 10 years ago, she could never have known the impact it would have upon her life. The email contained a message from Phil Bolton ( Episode #2 ), in which he outlined his strategies for career change. Inga took the bold step of reaching out to Phil and set in motion a conversation that, over the years that followed, became filled with ideas too powerful not to share with the world. Those ideas are made manifest in The Abund...
Saying yes has shaped Robert Stephenson's life. Accepting opportunities and seeing where they took him propelled Robert as he became a trained actor, a narrative coach, and the director of Animas Centre for Coaching - one of Europe’s largest coaching schools. While this optimistic disposition has guided him through a career that he thinks of as "a quest", he has not shied away from difficult conversations around diversity, inclusion, and even climate within the coaching space. He shares his own ...
Coaching in your flow state is like playing jazz, according to Jacinta Jiménez, who has devoted herself to studying the psychology of performance and behaviour change. Striving to become a dancer at a young age taught Jacinta invaluable lessons about flow, drive and resilience, and her passion for the arts spills forth when she speaks about how it almost consumed her. Jacinta, driven to keep others from having to defer their dreams, has channelled her experience of what she calls the dark side o...
Kim Morgan has a mantra for everything she does. It's about the learning space, and its power as a vehicle for change. That space is one she grew up in, with parents she describes as very psychologically aware, and Kim went on to train as a humanistic person-centred therapist before finding herself in need of "something grittier". Via Freudian psychotherapy and neuro-linguistic programming, she discovered her gift for developing training and experienced a revelation when she realised that not ev...
Profound moments of connection and belief illuminate the story of Jeffrey Wotherspoon's life, which has taken him from a crossroads of uncertainty to becoming an executive and life coach, international trainer and conflict resolution specialist. It's a journey he reflects upon with happiness and pride, having overcome loneliness, conflict and despair to pursue a calling that has instilled him with purpose, and earned him a reputation as a unique leader, motivator and instigator of change. From w...
