After nearly forty years of driving, I had never had any traffic offences, not even a speeding ticket. That was until this summer!

Whether you’re a driver, a leader or both, you are never far from coming unstuck by making assumptions about how to deal with what looks like a familiar situation.

A real-life personal story of how a dilemma over which flavour to choose revealed a self-reinforcing cycle of belief and experience, and ultimately led to a change in thinking.

There are many reasons for seeing a coach, not all of them driven by the person being coached. One of the keys to making coaching work for you is your level of motivation.

Here I compare three reasons: The Prescription, The Package and Purpose.

National leaders want to prove their worth in their first 100 days. For senior leaders in businesses and organisations, the only real difference is the size of their audience and the absence of media scrutiny. LinkedIn have reported that demand for external executive coaches is rising as businesses see how coaching can reduce the risk of new starters failing and avoid the costs of failure. Have you seen the light yet?

When you arrive at the next fork in the road of your life, career or business, how will you know which is the right path for you?

“Stress is a verb, not a noun.” How do you respond under pressure?

I've been recently been coaching a French client based in Paris who works for a global food business to discuss business issues and help improve his spoken English. Based on the 15 sessions which took place over a very intense few weeks, here are six top tips for working with clients across the language divide where it is clear that they also want to improve their spoken English. I can’t deny that the fact I speak French pretty fluently did help us both!

Exactly two years on from leaving the corporate world and setting up my own business, I have no regrets about becoming my own boss, in spite of the challenges. Maybe it’s time for you to do the same?

“Versatile managers are consistently regarded as the most effective leaders in their organisations.”

If this conclusion on research is true, then why wouldn’t you want to become more versatile as a leader?

How a strategy I worked with one client to develop has survived contact with the real world and is now delivering real business results.

I wonder, do you take any notice of the advice about getting away from your screen a few times a day so you can rest your eyes?

By refocussing on something just outside the window or across the office (if you remember those days), you flex your eye muscles and you reduce the risk of long-term eye damage.

When my wife and I celebrated a significant wedding anniversary a few years ago, we decided to visit Edinburgh for a long weekend. As we set out excitedly on our journey one bright, sunny morning, we closed the front door behind us.

A few hours later, we had successfully reached our destination, the suitcases were unpacked, and we were getting ready for our evening meal.

Your team needs you to bring light into their tunnel today. You can support and motivate them with some ‘jam today’, instead of them hearing only promises of ‘jam tomorrow’. What can you do to make a difference this week?

I regularly walk my dog in Coventry’s War Memorial Park. Though not as famous as New York's Central Park, it's the closest thing Coventry has to it - well-loved and well-used by the local community.

But going to the same place pretty much every day can, quite frankly, be boring. Sound familiar?

By asking yourself the right questions, you can discover the strengths and weaknesses of your underlying business assumptions, and help you respond flexibly in these uncertain times.

With the pressure on to make quick decisions so you can get ahead of the competition post Covid-19, it doesn’t always pay to trust your intuition. Recent history can shed light for us on a more effective approach to risk taking in a rapidly changing business landscape.

Adapting to the new normal under lockdown and beyond is critical for many of us. Ironically, at a time when we need to move from reactive to proactive thinking, the time and space we need to do this is becoming more and more difficult to find. Taking time out with a coach provides a fantastic way to help you create the time and space you need.

It struck me recently that listening is a bit like driving. What I mean is that most people would probably say that they are a good listener, in the same way they would probably say they are a good driver. After all, who would want to admit to being bad at either?