As a Psychologist, I approach coaching through a psychological lens. Accordingly, much of my coaching covers similar ground to my therapy: What are you feeling? How are you feeling? What sense are you making of the situation you’re in? What are you learning? What do you not want to acknowledge? The difference is that coaching is focused on a professional or avocational domain.
I bring over fifteen years of experience working with leaders/executives/founders facing many different organizational settings and challenges.
In particular, I am excited to coach people who are creating, developing, or leading organizations that seek to innovate how they manage psychology, based on a recognition that prevalent organizational practices have significant shortcomings. I am inspired by Ben Horowitz’s line: ‘By far the most difficult skill for me to learn as CEO was the ability to manage my own psychology.'
I’m not high woo, unless you consider systems thinking to be woo. .
I’m good at making terrifying levels of self reflection and the practices of change feel entertaining, productive, even inspiring.
(See the Psychotherapy page for more info on how I work.)
Specifically, I help with:
1) Designing flows that don’t cannibalize you
For example:
Workflows: What is your job and how does it work? How can you clarify, fine-tune and when needed totally revise how you work? What factors inside you and outside you prevent this evolution?
Lifeflows (aka work-life balance): What is the collection of projects that define your life? What balances need to be addressed, how, and at what pace, so that you build the life you envision?
2) reworking relationships and communication
For example:
Personal Evolution: ‘What got you here won’t get you there.’ Everybody has blind spots, especially very clever people (e.g. executives). High capacity people’s blind spots are often hard to spot and hard to change until the right clarity is in place. I work with people who are ready to evolve or at least ready to spar about why they might or might not want to evolve.
Connection Trouble-Shooting: Things aren’t quite right. So your spouse or team says. Or they’re very clearly not right. Maybe you’ve been mostly single for 20 years. Let’s figure out why and what to do.
3) Navigating transitions so that you end up better not worse off
For example:
Sabbaticals: Taking a break because you need a reset? How do you actually recover and step back in to a better flow?
Divorce (of whatever type…corporate, marital): Whether you are the leaver or the leavee, whether you want to vomit or moonwalk, you can learn from this.
I work exclusively via video-conference sessions.
“Gareth is an incredible coach. He has a unique ability to reflect what is happening beneath the surface, help identify practical next actions, and cut through the complexity of dynamic situations with precision. In just a few sessions, he identified an unhelpful pattern of mine that I’ve carried unseen for years. Now I can sense early warning signs and avoid playing the pattern out. Gareth’s other super power is attuning to the interplay between individual behavior and the organizational context in which one is operating. As a result, rather than superficial tricks or tactics, he supports personal change at a deep level that also drives organizational success.”
“The work has done more to free me from my self-limiting behaviors both professionally and personally than anything else I’ve done.”