I believe that investing in yourself is the single most powerful thing you can do to master any aspect of your life.
When we invest in ourselves we discover our purpose, values and talents. We develop our mindset and master skills and abilities that gives us the confidence and courage that you need to pursue your goals.
During my career, I’ve been a leader and senior executive and I have worked alongside Ministers, CEOs and executive teams for many years and in lots of guises. I’ve established businesses, built high-performing teams and secured £M’s in commercial sales and funding for social impact programmes. In 2016, I decided to become a certified coach and use my unique skills to support talented men and women achieve the success they deserve in work and life.
MY JOURNEY
After several amazing roles, I was headhunted for a dream leadership job. I was thrilled and determined to make a complete success of it. But two years later I felt completely overwhelmed. I constantly compared myself to other people, who I believed were more capable, more effective, more impactful than me. I was running on my nerves, constantly attached to my laptop or phone at all hours of the day and night, and struggling to sleep.
My partner, family and friends were all asking me to slow down. They regularly expressed their concern; I felt frustrated that they didn’t understand. Though I couldn’t see it at the time, I was losing the ability to think clearly or prioritise effectively. I neglected my friends. I neglected my health. I poured more and more time into the job. Yet still I was exhausted. And still the pressure felt out of control.
With the benefit of distance and of perspective I can see that I was well on the road to burnout. The demands of my job had consistently exceeded the amount of energy I had available for almost three years. What did I believe? That I was not very good at my job.
Eventually, I realised something had to change and I sought the help of a coach. It was transformative for me.
My coach and I worked on defining my goals, we focused on my skills and strengths and identified and worked to eliminate beliefs about myself that were holding me back. I realised I had a talent for helping others to develop at work and so my journey to becoming a coach began.
By increasing our self-awareness and identifying our talents and strengths we are able to create a powerful formula for success that keeps us moving forward without repeating behaviour that may have reaped success in the past but is no longer useful in helping us continue to reach our goals.
I believe that coaching is one of the best investments you can make for yourself and am committed to helping people realise their full potential at work, in their career and in life.
MY CAREER HIGHLIGHTS SO FAR…
I’ve held senior leadership positions in commercial sales and partnership marketing and have worked with global brands and governments to tackle major health and social challenges, including mental health and wellbeing, childhood obesity and improving financial literacy and access to careers advice for young people. I’ve worked with political advisors, ministers, digital entrepreneurs and leaders from the world’s largest tech firms to create innovation-led solutions to policy issues. I also co-founded Tech City UK (now Tech Nation), leading the 10 Downing Street initiative’s spin out from to become a private company supporting digital entrepreneurs to start, scale and grow in the UK.
Caroline is an International Coach Federation (PCC) accredited executive coach on a mission to help people master how they live and work. She is a proud partner executive coach for EY, weare3sixty, Manageable and The Russell Partnership.
You can find out more about Caroline’s career and experience at LinkedIn.