I’m a barrister, a coach, a teacher, and a writer.
Outwardly, I was exceptionally good by the profession's measures of what that means. Inwardly, I was a complete mess. I personified the invisible suffering of many professionals.
The light bulb moment was understanding there was a relationship between my upbringing, my personal dynamics, and the way I was doing my work. It sounds obvious now. At the time it was a complete revelation.
And when I saw this, and attended to it, things shifted. I came back to the bar. I fell back in love with life and work again. I began performing far better with less stress and more joy.
That’s what I help people do.
I work with people in the helping professions, including lawyers, consultants, the housing sector, creative industries and public service, usually mid-ranking to senior leaders. They all have one thing in common: they offer their expertise in service of others.
The dynamics that get activated in that kind of relationship tend to be quite similar, whatever the industry. The surface pattern is: I’ll give you my expertise in return for money. The underlying pattern is something more personal — and that's where the real work is.
My work bridges the space between the personal and the professional, attending to both so that you can prosper.
At a peak of my legal career — prize-winning barrister, recently appointed KC— I collapsed on a train.
I’m trained as a coach in the conventional sense — forward-looking, working on challenges and objectives and what's possible. But there’s more.
I’m also trained in systemic therapy, with a particular specialism in systemic work focused on how family systems and transgenerational dynamics shape the patterns we carry into our adult lives. I use this work both 1:1 and in group workshops.
To complement my practice I teach this approach alongside senior psychotherapists, primarily to therapists, counsellors and coaches who want to incorporate it into their own practices. I trained in it myself because I saw first hand how uniquely effective it was in helping me in my time of need.
This depth of working offers particular value: an understanding of personal and family weight, of ties to culture and history, and how these surface in professional life. This gives insights into unseen dynamics happening in a boardroom, a client relationship, or a team. It enables us to work from the roots up while including the things that matter.
In my personal life I am a divorced father of two adult and one teenage mixed race children, and am mixed race myself. Life has allowed me to live immersed in diverse cultures and belief systems, and to combine polarities which convention would keep apart. I bring this wide embrace to my work.
I’ve never forgotten the feeling of helplessness, the loneliness of not knowing where to go for help. Having come through the journey myself, I hold the fundamental belief that no matter how low somebody feels, with the right help, and if they wish it, they have the capacity to bring themselves back.
If you’ve found your way here, have a look around. Read something. And when the time feels right, get in touch.
