You're at the Coaching Inn, 3D Coaching's virtual pub where we enjoy conversations with people who engage in the world of coaching. Hello and welcome to this week's edition of The Coaching Inn. My name's Claire Pedrick, I'm your host. Remember to subscribe or follow if you want to get every episode as they drop. Absolute pleasure today to be having another conversation in our look at Coaching with Younger People.
And thank you, Mark Bickster, for making an introduction to Chloe Garland, who runs Quarterlife Coaching, which is such an amazing name. Genius. Welcome, Chloe. Hi, it's so nice to be here. In Barcelona? Yeah, yeah, I was just saying that I was came here for two weeks and funnily enough ended up being here for two years.
But yeah, the name was, I remember it was I was going through a similar crisis that comes from the quarterlife crisis and I was going through a similar crisis myself and we trademarked that. that name, quarterlife. I don't think I realized the impact that that was. I know I definitely didn't realize the impact. I wish I could say, yeah, it was all intentional. But I trademarked that name.
then so obviously if you get somebody who's kind of experiencing quarterlife crisis symptoms or just curious about it, eventually they'll find us. So the name was actually really important, even though was somewhat unintentional. Well, I looked at it and I thought, yeah, of course. Brilliant. So I'm not, you know, so there's a question about whether people will look for it, but actually what I love is that your name makes it clear who you're for.
So before we start talking about what you do, let's find out a bit about you. How did you get into coaching, Chloe? Well, I got into coaching probably in sort of an unusual way in that it was almost my first career. And I've often found that in coaching, it's, That's not usually the case. When I, so I started, I left university, I studied philosophy, which I loved.
But I always say to people that it kind of made and ruined my life because I left and I had all this ability to ask these questions, but then not much ability to have the answer to the questions. And I left and kind of had this sort of mini existential crisis of not only what do I want to do, but what does it all mean?
I got coaching at the time, just a session with an amazing coach called Roger Evans, who was a friend of the family's and somebody was like, why don't you just have a conversation with him? And I remember it like it was yesterday. I think this part of the story is typical because quite a few people get into coaching because maybe they've had an experience of being coached.
Anyway, I remember going to his house and sitting in his garden in this little sort of... garden outhouse whilst it was raining. And I was going with the question of like, what do I do? You know, I had no idea. I remember just thinking about the future and thinking it was just like this foggy question mark. you know, in true coaching style, he didn't tell me what it was that I should do, but he helped me understand what was important to me. And I remember the feeling.
was like, I remember tears come into my eyes and feeling so validated. And to be honest, it was the first time anybody has really asked, know, what is it that, what do you want to do and what have been the most important parts of your life and what's important to you. And I left that and I remember getting back in my car and thinking like every single person needs to have access to this kind of conversation.
And then I forgot about that realization and kind of just sort of kept going, bundling along. And I spent a while in South America. I worked in something called equine therapy where they use horses for the therapy at disabled children where I met a psychologist and other coaches as well. And I came back, kind of fell into a job.
And within maybe about three or four months, I was like, had that niggling feeling at the back of my mind of bringing coaching to young people, helping them navigate their first... decade of their career, helping them navigate what it is that's really important to them. So I was living at home at the time and I basically said to my family, was like, I I'm going to train to be a coach at the age of, I think was 22, 23, which is when I joined the MoCourse and went on to do Animas.
And that's really how it all began. I started coaching at that age too. Really? Yeah. So nice to meet somebody else. I think it's you. Chloe, I think it's you and me. Yeah, just does. That's so interesting. And so was it your sort of first career? I was a teacher for two and a half years in the night and then I was coaching, but I didn't know it was coaching for another 10 years, more than 10 years, because coaching wasn't an industry. So I was asking questions and helping people think.
Wow. Wow. Yeah, that's really, I've never, haven't met another one. So, and, and, And it's and sort the coaching industry obviously has changed so much. And I remember when I was doing my training or curious about it, I couldn't find any other people my age who were coaching on my course, was often on courses, I was often the youngest and maybe you felt the same.
And but now I have maybe what somebody every week reaching out to me being like, I'd love to talk to you about coaching and getting into and so I've because of the volume of people who are getting into coaching as young people, we put together this like WhatsApp group and I think there's like 50 or 60 people. And we do Zooms and one of the members organizes meetups in London and all that kind of thing.
So it's, at the time there wasn't very many young people, now I think that it's a career that's a lot more accessible and I think people are kind of understanding that it's not an option. Yeah, I remember as you're talking, way before lockdown, we were holding a question which is can a coach be formed young? And we still actually have two really low cost places on our coach training for people under 25. Yeah. To just give people the opportunity to try it out and see what happens.
And yes, of course a coach can be formed young because it's about wisdom, but it's about a different kind of wisdom, it? Yeah. Yeah, I don't, I'm not sure what the answer to that question is. I think a lot about because obviously, the defining coaching is, you know, you don't have to have the answers. It's about asking the right questions and having the intuition. But intuition is often built with experience. I remember I found it quite difficult. Like in my very early 20s.
some challenges that people brought to me when I absolutely hadn't been touched by that challenge at all or hadn't even heard of anybody. I remember feeling like I wasn't quite sure where to go. But then actually as I had more training and I grew more confidence, I was able to navigate some of those challenges a little better. But I remember at the beginning, I think just because everything was new, having a career was new.
To be honest, think a lot of it came down to confidence rather than experience, or the two are intimate tied. So, like, that question is really, I find it really interesting, like how much impact does having experience of a particular issue actually impact your coaching ability? I don't know. I think it helps you maybe ask the right question, but then it could be more leading. So it's a really interesting one.
think as you were talking, the thing that came into my mind was how much do you wobble when somebody talks about something that you don't know anything about? Yeah. Because as people get older, the the amount of things that wobbled about reduces because you've experienced this or that or the other or you've been in the room when things have happened. Whereas you're more likely to have more things that wobble you when you're young. Yeah. And yes, there's the wobble effect.
And then there's also for if you have experience of it, are you more likely to lead and are you more likely to, you know, and if you're if you're young, if you're young and you haven't had that, you're kind of coming out from a completely I remember meeting somebody who ran a bit of a tangent, but I remember meeting somebody who ran a winery. when I was quite young, I was 11, I think we were in France or something.
And he was really curious about me trying the wines, obviously in small quantities, because he said, well, your palate will be very pure and you won't have that experience. And I wonder if there's a with coaching, whether you have a pure palate when you are younger because you haven't experienced that and whether that helps or hinders your ability such an interesting question. I'd to hear your comments or ping us an email if you're listening. So, quarter life coaching.
So we've got to you being trained by the Moe Foundation and Danamas, lovely people, in both. Then what? Well, the first few years were tough, I think, because... I was just so fresh out of university and school and I did my training and I think sort of I was like, okay, right, done, where are all the clients? And realized it wasn't quite that easy.
And I think everybody who, well not everybody, but a lot of people that run coaching businesses will know that at the beginning, it's just, for me it felt very, very messy. I hadn't got my head around, a lot of new coaches are so brilliant with their ability to navigate social media, Instagram, whatever. I didn't really understand that as a tool at the time. So I was, I literally was just throwing everything at the wall and seeing what stuck.
At the time, my business model was like, I want to be the bridge that academia or like the university or school and the workplace. That's the question that I want to answer. So I spent, I mean, I would do everything. mean, literally I would do everything. I remember one day, like, right, I'm going to contact every single university in London. was living in London at time. And I literally got Wikipedia up.
it was like, what is every single university, every single college, every single private university, maybe the excess that maybe they would have more budget. And I would just send emails constantly to everybody and I took that for like three days. So that's something that I would do.
I would go and do talks in my old school and other schools and I mean, honestly, everything other than leafleting people's doors, I really just tried everything, did free coaching for friends of friends, got people to send emails around, tried Facebook groups, would try social media, but I never really got my, as I said, never really got my head around it.
And little by little, over those first two years, I started to gain traction, but it was hard, it was so slow, and it was really scary because... everybody else around me was, you know, getting onto these jobs and, and moving out and, and as, as people listening to this sort of similar age when you're in your early twenties as well, you, it's just like the comparison is very, very powerful between yourself and other people.
And I, so, and I was living at home and it was just, it was just very, very challenging because I just didn't, I just didn't know if it was going to work. I think in some ways I was kind of blanketed by my naivety as well because I didn't really know what could go wrong or what the states were.
think maybe now it would be slightly harder because you would be, it's a bit like if you've ever done a sport when you were young and then you did it again when you're slightly older and then you realize, my gosh, how come I was so brave? So yeah, so the first couple of years were challenging and then... slowly started to gain traction. think, as I said, I think the name really helped.
And I remember getting, probably because of the name, getting a feature in an article in The Guardian for like a, and it was at the perfect time, perfect place, New Year's Day, which is obviously a very big day for the coaches, in print on the front page of a, of like The Observer, which is the magazine inside The Guardian. It was an article about a woman, name was Juliana Pisco, talking about her quarterlife crisis.
And at the very end of the article, she had referenced me and put the name of the business and there was a link to it that you can access it. And I think that was a bit of a turning point. That was the first little break. And then from then, you know, it's amazing, isn't it? You get written in a book or in magazine, suddenly people start trusting you, even though you're doing absolutely nothing different to what you were doing before.
I started from all of this like wild messaging to universities, I got a contract with a few universities to go and coach some students, started doing workshops, would work in schools. So I worked a lot in schools delivering like training around what you want to be doing. You know, I remember like getting up at sort of 4 o'clock in the morning and driving to the other side of the country to do a talk with a bunch of 16 year old boys who really didn't want to listen to what I was trying to say.
It was pretty small to start, but I really feel like if I can present to that group, can present to anybody. yes, so little by little, still kind of a one-to-one coaching practice. I worked with organizations that would help young adults from disadvantaged backgrounds getting into higher education or getting into their first job. So partnered with an amazing organization called the Urban Scholars, and that's what they do.
They're a social grassroots impact program that supports a young person from the age of 12 to 18 and even beyond. It is an incredible program because I moved country and I'm not that affiliated with them anymore, but they're still running and they're fantastic. So we'll go in on Saturdays and do like trainings and coaching and it was fantastic. So slowly but surely started to build.
And then when COVID hit, I was increasingly reached out to by HR people and and CEOs of companies that were basically like, really need someone to help us with our young people. And, and that was really interesting, because then we sort of moved into more of a B2B. Well, it was still just me at the time, where we would connect with with organizations and basically support their, their, cultures of their young people. So at saying young people, it's quite patronizing.
And so it's just like those in their 20s. We would kind of go in, try to understand what are motivating driving the young adults in their organization, and then deliver coaching programs and training programs. And then we kind of refer to other companies. And now we've got a team of maybe seven or eight coaches and it's still very small. We like it being small. We like having very deep connections with fewer organizations.
And, and yeah, we work with maybe kind of four or five companies in loads of different industries, whether it's tech, whether it's finance, architecture, and, and essentially, what we do is we go into these companies and every year, they'll give us sort of 5060, coaches, and then let into them in total, and then we kind of connect them with our coaches and deliver training. And so that's where we are now we've got, we've got like a B2B model.
and a B2C model as well as some group coaching and things like that. So still very much focused on young adults between the ages of kind of like 18 to 35, but in different scenarios, in different contexts, which is something we really like, it's got a lot of variety. You said so many interesting things. I love your story about crossing the bridge and really acknowledging how how difficult that can be and how you were a bit random.
We've actually got a podcast coming up called Crossing the Bridge. nice. Because it's such an issue. And I think that the three guests that have signed up so far, one hasn't quite. One is mid-bridge and one is just about on the other side. So that's going to be fascinating. But I love the idea that you said I threw a lot of things at the wall. But what I heard you say was I was a bit unattached and tried a whole load of different things to see what would stick.
Yeah. And what interested me most and what you said was that the thing that unlocked the gate wasn't something that you'd done. It was somebody else writing about you in The Guardian. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. And it was it was quite random. It was quite random. And Because one of the passion, one of my passions is to help or support other young coaches getting into the industry. The first question that everybody will ask is that how do you find clients as a young person?
And the answer to that sometimes is like, it can be really random. keep plugging your way in your best variable, it's time. And sometimes exactly what you said, it would be something that you can't control. or that's not in your control that happens quite randomly. And it will sort of, I suppose, like, the break will find you sometimes rather than you finding it, you just got to keep trying, keep and I really, I never set out to be a business owner.
I never thought I wasn't the kind of person trading suites in the playground that I really didn't, I didn't see myself as that kind of person. And therefore I was never like, I never had that sort of entrepreneurial spark, I don't think. But it was just persistence. It was really just persistence and the luxury of having time. mean, I have the luxury of being able to live at home. So I could do this pretty much full time for nearly a year. And that's a privilege. eat.
Yeah, yeah, and eat, exactly. And my parents wanted me to be there, you know, and that's not something that many people have. So I always have to caveat that with how privileged I was at the beginning to be able to have that time, to be able to have time because that was one of the most powerful variables for me. As you were talking, you said that often people ask, what's it like coaching an older person?
As a supervisor, often when something comes up, when I'm working with an older coach coaching a younger person, I'll ask the coach, how old are your children? good question. Because, because often that actually can be an issue the other way around. if it isn't, because actually we're people, aren't we? You're a person, I'm a person. When we have coaching conversation with somebody, we're a person having a conversation with a person. There's not an issue with that.
unless one of us turns the other one into something we're not. Yeah, yeah, beautifully put. I have been really surprised by how little people have cared that I was young. I cared more than they did, for sure. You know, it was a me problem. It wasn't to do with them. Maybe it's come up once or twice. Nobody's ever asked. When people have found out how old I am, I'm 29 now, how old I am or was, it was like, wow, that's great. Maybe if they thought something different, I wasn't aware of it.
I worked for a fantastic architectural school once, I want to buy a client. the humility of one of the heads of the schools to turn around and be like, I love the coaching session. And to really, I was so nervous. I was nervous about it. And because I was like, gosh, how, am I, can I, you know, the pen for the, I don't like the term post syndrome, but it was like that, that people understand.
And, but I really admire that humility from somebody to be able to be like, yeah, I'm gonna be coached by somebody. They don't know how old I am, but I've been really pleasantly surprised. with how little it's mattered. Because people meet, you said your people, you see the person and if you are confident and you care and you're giving people your attention, it doesn't really matter. It's only it matters as much as you make it, I think.
Yeah, it matters as much as you make it and that goes back to wobble, doesn't it? Because if you wobble a lot, then it matters a lot. Precisely. Yeah. So what's your hope for your business, Chloe? it's such a good And what are you going to do when you get old? Sorry, that's question that's been in my head all the way through this conversation.
You know, it's something I've been thinking about a lot recently because quarter life has got to a really lovely place where I like how I like the size of it. love working with like Mark who've had on the podcast before has been brilliant. I've got actually Mark was my trainer. He trained me on the mo course and same with Kat Kat the person I've never met Kat we have to get you to the coaching and yes for sure. Yeah, she's just epic.
She's such an incredible coach and so so inspiring and we've got Alyssa and Caitlin and and the team has grown a little bit and everybody has just added so much. So in answer to your question, it's got to a point where I really like where it is. And maybe we will start working more with other organizations and kind of do a similar thing to some of the clients that we're working with right now. think the short answer is that I don't know, to be honest with you.
And that's, that's kind of a place where I'm learning to be comfortable with the discomfort of not knowing what exactly is that the end goal of the coaching is. What I can tell you is some threads that I'm currently putting. I'm in a period, I would say of expiration. And that kind of period of feeling a little bit uncomfortable because I'm not quite sure. So when you're in that lovely period, it's like fertile ground to do a bit of introspection, a bit of thinking.
So I am really, really interested in existential coaching. It's like a very small, there's not many existential coaches out there. I don't think it's, seems like a small world. And I, every, the quarter life crisis, people come to me and they say, okay, I want to change career. I would say maybe 10 % of the time, that's the thing. The rest of the time, it's people, the first time in somebody's life where they look up from what they're doing and they think, my gosh, this isn't me.
So therefore what is me? What does it mean to be me? They ask themselves these deeper questions. That's why I'm so fascinated by this particular period, because it's the first time somebody's like, my gosh, who am I? What does it mean? What does it mean to make decisions? These aren't career questions. These are existential questions. And so it was through the work. And I think I studied philosophy at university. like, always been super curious.
And every, when I make decisions in my life, Claire, it's ridiculous. It's like moving to Spain isn't just pros and cons. It's thinking like, okay, well, what does it all mean? You know, what? what does it mean to live a meaningful life and does living in Spain and by the sea is that, it's so seeing, trying to see things, every decision I make is like, is put in this larger framework.
But I've always found that very helpful because it means that it gives you context to the day to day, the tangible things. The way I described it yesterday was like, I'm reading, I'm reading a really just like trashy fantasy trilogy. And It's a bit like, well, Harry Potter's not trashy, but it's kind of, if you read Harry Potter, it's similar like flow. It starts with like the story of the protagonist and the family around them. And this is a small, small story.
And the second book, you realize actually they exist within a bigger context. There's more going on. And then the third book, it exists in an even bigger context. that's what I see kind of existential coaching as. It's like, if the client wants to go there, it's trying to understand the sort of context with which they are in and how they understand the world. So this is an area that I would really, really love to go into. done a few courses.
I've just applied to a course at the Existential Academy in London, which is an amazing, like an association that sort of brings together lots of different types of courses and leaders in this space. Obviously, Yannick, I don't know whether they've ever come across Yannick. Yannick's coming soon to the coaching. fantastic. I want to say he's just so epic. just did his online introductory course to Excentral Coaching, which I really, really recommend if anyone's interested.
He's just not only an incredible coach, but just like a really, really fascinating thought leader in this space, I would say. His book is great too, Introduction to Excentral Coaching. So I would like, I have a feeling that maybe it's something heading in that direction in terms of like the content of maybe what I might do.
In terms of like how it's laid out, you whether it's more in companies, whether it's more individuals, whether it's running more like in-person retreats, whether it's, I'm not sure, but I'm just that the existential thing is the thread that I'm currently trying to put on. That's really interesting. So I've done quite a lot of conversation with them. colleague about second life work, which isn't for now for you.
But second life is you realize when you've got, I can't remember if there's a really great quote, there's a loads has been written about second life, but it's when people realize that what they did in their first season, they did for good pragmatic practical reasons. And actually, they don't have to do that anymore. So it's like there's a second life. That's beautiful. There's a guy called Richard Raw who wrote a book called Falling Upwards, Spirituality in the Second Half of Life.
There's loads been written about it. Yeah. But what you've just described is discovering meaning in the first life. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And somebody once said to me that the first half of your life was about getting and the second half is about giving. And I think it's quite, maybe it's hard to do both at the same time, where you're, you know, in your twenties and thirties, you're trying to establish if you're living sort of the traditional life, you're trying to establish everything, your home.
mean, everyone in their twenties will say the same thing. It's like, how do you do it all? Because it's like, and this is even maybe without the responsibility of having children or having whatever. You know, people are told, I've got to make the most of my 20s in travel, but also you've got to really build the career ladder and you've got to keep climbing. And that's confusing.
So people come to me and it's like, should I work in finance or should I go and work in a sloth sanctuary in Costa Rica? what do I choose? then it's like, I've got to have a really, really flourishing social life because these people that you meet now are going to be your friends forever. And you've got to meet the love of your life. And then you've also got to think about like buying a house, which is basically impossible if you live in a big city like London or New York or whatever.
And it's like, everywhere you look, have these different messages. And it's like, is it possible therefore to do this deeper inner work, philosophical work at the same time when you've got all of this other stuff? I think anecdotally, I think there's a gap for it. I think that... I've noticed maybe in like 20 % of the people that I work with that there is this yearning for the deeper questions. And obviously it's not right for everybody.
You can't just force existentialism down people's throats when they come to you. But it would be really nice to be able to offer that as a place that you can go if they feel grounded, if they feel that they can. I think there's a place for it. I think everybody has always wanted meaning in their careers. But I think that this generation, what is so beautiful about it is they want it sooner. Because it's your career no longer is just about like, I need to pay the bills.
It's your career is being substituted. Well, I think your career is substitute for a lot of things we've lost religion, community. So all of the things that we used to get from those particular pillars. Now we're like, well, my career has to do that. And all my partner needs to give that to me, which is big boots to fill to fill. But what that means is that people are looking for meaning, people are looking for like fulfillment.
And so that means that people are asking sort of slightly deeper questions, especially around the age of 27. 27 seems to be like where most of my clients are, but men and women, it's like, well, I'm getting close to 30. It's really, it's really funny. I always ask, okay, well, where are you in 20s? it's like 27. And so that's just kind of an interesting, interesting age. I think I went on a bit of a tangent there, but... Fascinating.
though it's absolutely fascinating and I love the way you talk because it bounces off all sorts of things and I know that our listeners will be going, let me think about this this and this and this, which is a beautiful thing. So how do people contact you if they want to pick up the conversation, Chloe? Well, they can send an email, well, they can check out our website, which is www.quarter-life.co.uk or they can send me email at cloe at quarter hyphen life.co.uk.
And I think there's a for that there is a form on the website. So you can send it through that. So you can just sort of check out or LinkedIn. And my numbers even on this, you send me WhatsApp voice notes, which is really nice to hear from people. But yeah, if it cool, if it calls to anybody and they feel that they're they resonate with any of the things on that they read or that I've I've heard it's even just to have a conversation.
think some people reach out because they just feel like, thank God I'm not alone. There's other people in the same boat, which I think is just being validated, realizing that you're not alone, I think is one of the most powerful. Well, actually, that's an existential theme. Something that a symptom of being alive is the fact that we will inevitably be alone. And it's very, very difficult for people to navigate that.
So I think actually when... people realize there's a community of other people that are going through the same challenge. It's like, thank God, you know, it's like a little antidote in that. Well, Chloe Garland, thank you for coming to The Coaching In. What a pleasure to talk to you. Thank you so much, Claire. It's wonderful to be on here and what a wonderful conversation. Great. And thank you for listening, everyone. We'll be back next week with another episode. Bye bye.
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