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About me

As a coach and trainer, I love helping people to understand who they really are – their true values and strengths – and then, based on these discoveries, to make fulfilling changes in their personal or professional lives. I felt called to this work having been through a long process of personal development, as a result of my own earlier struggles to feel good about myself and find meaning and direction in life. That's always work in progress, of course. See more on this backstory.

Qualifications/Credentials/Education

  • Professional Certified Coach (Executive Coaching, Leadership Coaching, Life Coaching)

  • Qualified Mindfulness Trainer (and a pioneer in the integration of coaching and mindfulness techniques)

  • Author of ‘The ABC Guide to Mindfulness’

  • First Class degree in Classics from Oxford University

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Before working as a coach and trainer, my background was in communications and project management in the private and third sectors. Outside working life, I love varied creative pursuits: most recently, stand-up comedy, and I’m currently experimenting in bringing together these two worlds of personal development and comedy (watch this space!). At various times I’ve also enjoyed writing, drawing & painting, music, and film-making. In 2018 I held an exhibition of my multimedia ‘Friends in the Frame’ project celebrating some of my closest friends. 

 

My approach

I describe my professional approach as ‘no-nonsense’ – a polite way of saying that I hate BS! It’s about cutting through complex personal and professional development theory, and directly accessing instead profound insights about yourself and the world around you, and energy to make changes that enhance your life and work.

 

In particular, I know from both personal experience and thousands of hours of client work how the mindfulness element in my work is very often the X factor, as it’s such an effective way to delve down beneath the mind’s ‘flotsam and jetsam’ surface layers, to get to deeper truths.

 

Recognising that the work of personal and professional development can easily become rather heavy and serious, I use lots of humour to lighten things up. My clients appreciate how I pay attention to the full spectrum of their experience – head and heart; mind and body; and how I combine sensitive understanding with supportive challenge. They say that this enables them to gain clarity, break through obstacles and achieve sustainable change.

My model of change and development

Everyone is different, to state an obvious truth. However, I’ve noticed a common four-step process of change and development that my approach facilitates. I've seen this both in myself and others. It’s not always as linear as this, but usually encompasses some or all of the following:

1. Self-awareness: deep knowledge and appreciation of one’s true values, strengths, and motivators

                                                          

 

2. Inner leadership: managing stress, organisation (time management, productivity), clear thinking

                                                         

 

3. Outer leadership: building strong relationships, communication, influencing

                                                          

 

4. Action: taking pragmatic, timely and effective action to bring about individual and collective change

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Personal backstory

Alongside my formal training in the field, my coaching & training services have been heavily influenced by my own life experiences. I had a relatively privileged upbringing – in a middle class, loving family, with a good private education. But from my teens onwards I struggled emotionally, for a number of complicated reasons. I learnt to ignore or suppress difficult feelings – or to hold ‘secret’ beliefs about myself that made some kind of sense of things, but which added an extra layer of shame and self-doubt.

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At university and in my twenties I self-medicated through alcohol and drugs. This kind of worked for a while, but eventually the demons wouldn’t be quelled any longer, and I reached breaking point (in several stages!). I got help from a marvellous therapist, who also encouraged me towards meditation and mindfulness as a vital support for wellbeing.

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And so began the journey of growth and true self-discovery. I am now in many ways a very different man from a decade ago. Of course, this is always work in progress. But I’ve learnt that it really is possible to change: to overcome deep feelings of inadequacy, and to step up to new challenges. And as I went deeper into this process, I felt I had something very useful to offer others. So I gave up my previous career in communications and trained as a coach and mindfulness teacher. Since then I’d like to think that my particular life experiences have enabled me to help people in many walks of life to unlock their deepest natural resources of resilience, confidence and wisdom. I believe this is possible for everyone when two vital conditions are there: awareness and compassion. It’s my job to help create these conditions for you.

WHAT MY CLIENTS SAY

“I was profoundly impressed by Tim‘s approach. He's highly perceptive, asking powerful question that open great insights. Honesty and integrity is the currency he trades with.” Giovanna Pisano, Change Manager at the Environment Agency

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