What We Do
We think there are two different ways of approaching flourishing. There is the experiences and circumstances approach and there is the becoming a better person approach.
The first approach emphasises the importance of finding a new set of circumstances, a better job, possibly having a better salary, finding a different community, moving house, changing career. All of these things can be helpful to flourishing and to developing potentially good goals.
Our focus is very much on helping clients become better and more capable people – people who can flourish
However, we believe that they often miss the more significant source of flourishing – becoming a better person: becoming someone who is more able to build deep relationships; someone who has perspectives and qualities that underpin flourishing, such as being productive and purposeful, knowing the kind of roles and contexts we are suited to and those we aren’t. It’s about having a generosity of spirit, developing wisdom and intelligent decision-making, working at building deep relationships and being a person who collaborates well with others in community. This ‘becoming a better person’ approach also means learning how to have a rich emotional and thought life, one that promotes resilience, and generates high levels of consistent joy and peace.
So our focus is very much on the organic process of helping clients become better and more capable people – people who can flourish. And the beautiful consequence of this is that they can then develop the skills to be able to shape their experiences and circumstances more. Time after time, we have seen people flourish more and in doing so have gone on to live lives of very high performance and achievement, often building much more effective teams and organisations.
Specifically, there are three different ways we help people. We help people through professional development coaching which helps those in work roles who want to develop the skills of flourishing in the working world. We also provide personal development coaching work for those who want to focus more on their whole lives, and who especially want to combine this with looking at areas such as establishing stronger life purposes, and strategies of whole life flourishing such as building a stronger emotional life. Many clients choose a mix between personal and professional development coaching. And lastly we help people through running small group workshops where we look at various aspects of flourishing and combine up to date teaching with group discussion and skill development.
Professional Development Coaching
We help people develop key work skills and perspectives. We have worked with professionals across the globe helping them find their “sweet spots” – the place where personality, background, gifts, passion, context and sense of deep down purpose all meet and out of which comes a flourishing vocation. We help people become better leaders, stronger at building relationships, more able to do difficult conversations, more able to experience and transfer positive energy to others, more able to communicate effectively and find sustainable fulfilment in their work.
Personal Development Coaching
Many of our coaching assignments have been focused on helping people flourish more, both inside and outside of work. We have worked with a lot of people who are successful at work, but who have found that this success at work has not been matched by feelings of enjoyment, fulfilment and flourishing across other aspects of their lives. We have helped these clients build a more constructive emotional life with less anxiety, anger and guilt, and more joy, confidence and grounded optimism and hope. These assignments have also included helping people work through life transitions at various stages of life.
Workshops
We run a range of small group workshops on subjects such as: what is flourishing?; the key skills of flourishing; developing a healthy relationship style; having great conversations that matter; handling disagreement; becoming a strong community person; spirituality for flourishing and many more.
Choosing the path of flourishing
Flourishing doesn’t happen automatically. We need to choose to pursue it, recognising the many smaller choices which help us move towards a more flourishing life. Knowing what most nurtures us, gives stability and helps us grow is a very individual journey, but we also need to walk with others on this way. The top image reminds us that the path to flourishing often requires slow, long term growth and development in character, just like trees which grow ring by ring, year by year. It is often the slow, gradual process of change that leads us down the path of greatest flourishing, and this is one of the reasons why most of our assignments are long term. The bottom image reminds us that we often need guides who help us find pathways that we may not initially see ourselves, guides who have a breadth of experience and training.