• Today marks a threshold for me.

    After a five-year hiatus, a deep journey into business leadership, some life-changing events, and several months of preparation, I’m re-opening my coaching shop.

    I feel so grateful and happy to be here once more.

    But to explain why, I need to tell you a story.

    When you drift off track

    Have you ever noticed that life has this way of helping you out when you drift off track? It throws stuff at you to help you find the way again. The twist is that the help doesn’t always feel helpful at first. It can fuck things up, make it harder.

    And yet help it is, and back onto the path it ushers us, whether gently or forcefully.

    Over the last year, I’ve been given a deep lesson in this principle. Because boy did I drift off track.

    It’s easily done. And in fact (and perhaps infuriatingly) it turns out that drifting off track is also the path too. Because all the detours you take and the circles you spin in, are of course part of the journey. We have to go off track to rediscover the track.

    It was in 2020 when I finished up with my last coaching client. I knew I needed to step back for a while. I loved my clients. They were feeling deeply served. Yet, somehow I couldn’t fit myself into the same box anymore, and didn’t know what the new box was.

    So I stopped coaching. And I stopped writing.

    I always planned to come back to it when things settled down and got easier. Which (spoiler alert) never came!

    This was the same year I stepped in as co-owner and co-leader of Coaches Rising, a company two friends of mine had founded together, and for which I’d run the marketing since 2014.

    Coaches Rising is an amazing company. It was an early pioneer in online programs for coaches, creating advanced coach trainings on transformational topics, led by world-class faculty. Thousands of coaches take its training programs every year

    Growth and divorce in business

    2020 and covid turned out to be a big year for Coaches Rising. As the world sheltered in place and turned to the internet for social connection and deeper experience, our programs exploded.  And my coaching fell firmly out of sight as the workload increased.

    Then in the autumn of 2021, one of my partners (and co-founder of the company) told us he wanted to step out of the company and move onto new things.

    None of us had expected this, and we went on a steep learning curve as we learned how to do “business divorce”.

    One of the things divorce means, is a difficult negotiation of value where the party that’s leaving inevitably thinks the company is worth more than the party that’s staying.

    Alongside this is the emotional letting go, and the gaping hole that this person leaves behind in the work of the company.

    This takes months. And meanwhile, there’s still a company to run. Any business owner who’s been through this experience knows how hard it is.

    We made it. We remained friends on the other side. We all moved on.

    Which for me and Joel (the remaining co-founder) meant the challenge of taking the company into a new phase.

    I should say who Joel is, because he is not simply the founder of Coaches Rising, he’s my soul brother. We moved to Amsterdam together in 2008 in search of “conscious community”, and we’ve long been each other’s first phone call when the shit hits the fan.

    Business leadership and soul pain

    It was a big change for both of us.  We took on new roles and responsibilities, we started to revision the company, we hired new people for our growing team.

    Some people say you should never go into business with your friends. I feel the opposite of this. I only want to do it if I can do it with friends.

    But it does come with its challenges! And Joel and I had them.

    We had wins, we had losses. We navigated challenges. We matured parts of the company that greatly needed it.

    I learned more than I can write here. Things like…

    • How to create and read profit-and-loss statements, so we keep our fingers on the financial pulse of the company.
    • How to lead a team – empowering others to do the work allowing me to direct from higher up (rather than just doing everything myself).
    • That I have a tough and resilient soldier inside who doesn’t stop and will give everything for the cause.
    • How to turn off the worry voice when I get up at 3am for a piss, so I can get back to sleep rather than lying awake stressing.
    • How to take stinging feedback without collapsing or defending (so you can actually hear it and grow from the experience).

    I grew immeasurably, learned deep embodied and practical lessons about the art of business. I discovered strength I never knew I had.

    And then I burned out.

    First I got sick, and couldn’t shift it for weeks, kicking around in bed feeling guilty about all the other people who were running the ship.

    I went deep. I asked for guidance, I had a long hard look at myself. I listened to the answers I received. I hired a new person to run the operations of my marketing team — I started to create more space for myself.

    And then I got even sicker—a reoccurrence of a chronic condition I thought I was over. One evening a year ago, it all came to a head. I still remember it vividly…

    I’m on the floor of my cabin, using all my spiritual and somatic skills to try and surf the extreme pain and fear I’m in.

    I surrender. I let myself fall, all the way to the bottom of the well.

    And there amongst the pain, I hear the truth.

    “Ewan, you have to stop.”

    She said it with deep love and great urgency.

    I heard it in the centre of my heart, and it broke me open. I was burned out. And I had to stop.

    This was probably the hardest thing I’ve ever had to admit.

    I thought I was immune to it. Too self-aware and self-sovereign to fall foul of such a thing! Right up to the point I realised I already had.

    But admit it I did, which lead to some vulnerable conversations with Joel and the rest of the team. I felt ashamed – like I’d failed. And I felt completely and utterly exhausted.

    So, I took time off.

    The first months took me so deep. Into the core of myself and all the knotted trauma that I was oblivious to. My practice got deep too. I spent many hours on the mat. I faced some of my most hidden and vulnerable parts. I learned how to unwind my clenched and exhausted nervous system. Which involved lots of body practice, lots of baking, and lots of playing around the house with my son.

    Most importantly, I began to see the elephant that had been standing in the room all along.

    Truth that sets you free

    If you’ve followed my work for a while, you might know that I see the entrepreneur as being made up of (at least) 3 core archetypes – the Artist, the Merchant, and the Seeker. This is a map that came out of me, and also one that guides me.

    It was my business mentor Rand who helped me see the elephant.

    We were talking one afternoon. I was messy. Confused.

    “What led you to this?” He asked.

    I fumbled around for a while before he turned my own map upon me.

    “You’ve overdosed on the Merchant, and you’ve suppressed the Artist.”

    The truth. I’d been killing myself for the cause, being a business leader. And I’d left my art behind.

    Our conversation gave me the most powerful of experiences—like I was caught and freed at the same time. I couldn’t escape the truth. And yet it opened the way.

    I knew I couldn’t go back to the same thing– soldiering on, hoping one day to have enough time to get back to “my work”.

    I knew I had to reclaim and recommit to my own art – my writing and coaching.

    Joel and I had some difficult and very honest conversations when we met to talk about the future. It was a process that took us both deep into truth. And at the end of it we agreed to part ways.

    So, we went through another business divorce.

    But this time it was me leaving. It’s challenging enough to go through this with any business partner. It was made so much harder for me when the person I’d normally call to counsel me, is the one sitting on the other side of the negotiation table.

    These things are rarely easy, and it takes time, but we did it with generosity, honesty and grace.

    So indeed, life has this way of helping you out when you drift off track. It’s just that the help doesn’t always feel helpful at first.

    Back on the path

    From burnout to break up. And then back onto the path. But of course, everything is different now. As Heraclitus said: “No man ever steps in the same river twice, for it’s not the same river and he’s not the same man.”

    I feel different in (seemingly) paradoxical ways. Stronger, and also more sensitive. More driven, yet more relaxed. More confident, and also humbler.

    And as I said earlier, the thing about drifting off the path, is that it’s also part of the path. My detour took me through a deep period of Merchant training. My knowledge of business has tripled during the last 5 years. And I feel blessed to be able to bring all that experience into the work I do helping entrepreneurs.

    The irony is not lost on me. The fact that I repressed the deep call to coach people, by running a company that trained coaches.

    And yet, over the last few months as I’ve re-visioned my work, put pieces together, re-written this website, and started writing and coaching again, a feeling has returned that I feared was lost.

    It’s the feeling of being where I’m supposed to be. “This is why I’m here.”

    Back on the path.

    And so, it’s with great delight and deep gratitude that I can say…

    My shop is open for business again

    What does this mean?

    I’ll be publishing regularly here on this blog (if you want to know when new stuff comes out, make sure you’re signed up on my mailing list below).

    And I’m opening my coaching shop again.

    So if you’re interested in coaching (or know someone who is), I’m taking on new clients.

    If you don’t know what kind of coaching I do, I coach entrepreneurs—freelancers and founders. I work at the intersection of business, spirituality and creativity. I’m part guide, part advisor, and I help you walk your path, growing your work and business in the way that calls you.

    You can read more about coaching here.

    If you made it all the way to the end here, thank you. Your presence means a lot to me.

    Ewan Townhead

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  • It’s been three years now since I started calling myself a coach. I’ve worked with a whole range of people. It’s been challenging, it’s been enlightening, and it’s been deeply fulfilling.

    Sometimes, a client’s life has been truly transformed – issues that have blocked them for decades dissolves, and a new path opens up in front of them.

    Sometimes I’ve worked with a client and we didn’t fit that well, and I think they walked away feeling grateful but a little disappointed.

    Sometimes it’s not until 6 or 12 months after the coaching that my clients tell me everything has changed, and how thankful they are for the work.

    I’m still very much a student of coaching, but I feel it’s time to speak to some of the principles that I’ve discovered in my work.

    This is not an exhaustive list. Neither is it particularly carefully structured. It’s a bunch of ways I think about coaching, and things I try to remember every time I sit down with a client.

    These are not principles of coaching.

    They are principles of my coaching.

    If they don’t work for you, please ignore them completely. If they do work, use them.

    1) You have to coach your way

    When you try to be a “good” coach, when you attempt to get it “right”, when you do your very best to fit in with what a coach is expected to do, you will strangle the mojo. Your mojo. Your way.

    Coaching is simply a method of helping someone.  How do you want to help them? How do you organically work with someone if you drop the ideas of best practice?

    Do you want to create a safe space, listen deeply, and help them extract their own answers? Do you want to lovingly challenge the fuck out of them, express your opinions, and push them?

    Do you feel more powerful when you keep the pace really slow, and explore the somatic and emotional feelings of the moment? Do you like to ignite the fireworks of ideas and dreams, and be buffeted by their explosiveness?

    There’s no code. There’s no rulebook. There are no guaranteed steps to success. There are no models of perfect practice.

    There’s you, your client, and the conversation that wants to occur between you. It’s an emergent mystery.

    Do it your way. Find your way. Take risks to understand your way. Reflect to define your way.

    It never ends. But it’s your way.

    2) Surrender and desire in the face of the unknown

    To coach someone is to enter into the unknown. For an hour or more, you’re going to enter a conversation, a meeting, and neither of you knows what’s going to happen.

    And yet, into this unknown space, we bring things.

    I bring into the conversation a desire to really get this person in front of me – who they really are. I want to feel their pain, and their desire. I want to understand what they’re being called to, and help them face it. I strive to orient them from what is most true.

    My clients bring their aspirations and struggles, and the commitment they’ve made to the coaching journey. They often bring questions or specific challenges. Sometimes they come with an epiphany they’ve had since our last conversation, and a new view of their reality. They bring their fears and wounds. They bring their brilliance and natural wisdom.

    And we enter unknown territory.

    We surrender to what wants to emerge in the space between us. We surrender to the great mystery. And let the conversation surprise us.

    We follow our desire. We create the conversation we want to have.  We envision the life they want to live.

    And we see what happens.

    3) It’s about them

    It’s not about you.

    It’s not for your gratification. It’s not meant as a support for your insecurity. It’s not supposed to validate your sense of worth.

    The purpose of the work is for you both to serve one of you.

    The coach gets helped too in the process. But the goal is to serve the client. This is what distinguishes coaching from a friendly chat, or brainstorming, or a healing treatment, or a strategy meeting.

    You’re both there to help them create something they want. It’s about them.

    4) You’re not impartial

    It’s about you too. How could it not be? You can’t turn off your own humanity.

    Therapy mistakenly believed we could be ‘impartial’. It’s a nice idea, and a noble intention, but impossible in reality.

    Don’t pretend you don’t have opinions. You do.

    Don’t hide your intuitions, because you’re supposed to be objective. You’re not.

    You have desires. You feel things about the relationship, and your client. It’s not a problem. It’s not something to hide.

    Your job is to learn how to include yourself in the conversation such that it is in the most service of your client.

    If you’re sitting there watching as they desperately scrabble around for an answer, commendably being “impartial” when you actually know exactly what they need to hear. Say it.

    If you’re growing irritated by their avoidance of something, and you realize you want to go deeper. Reveal it. Tell them, and then hash it out.

    Learn to feel when it’s the right time to keep quiet, and when it’s the right time to reveal your own experience.

    5) The truth of language

    If you’re going to play in the depths with people, you need to understand how the words we use, open or close the moment.

    Sometimes I have intuitions about big decisions my clients make. I feel whether the direction will truly serve them. Sometimes I tell them.

    Perhaps they’ve just been asked to take part in a big new project, and they’re thinking of doing it. But believe its resistance at play, tempting them away from the thing they actually want to be doing. I decide to tell them.

    “That’s not a good idea. You shouldn’t do that.”

    If I say it like this, I close the conversation. Instantly. Not because I’m being “negative”, but because I’m not being linguistically accurate.

    My statement is factually untrue.

    It’s not objectively a “good” or “bad” idea. There’s no universal rule that says “you shouldn’t.” These are not objective facts. And if I convey them this way, I either close down my client and they lose touch with their own centre. Or they feel unseen, or pissed off, and they throw up their guard, or withdraw.

    It’s an opinion, not a fact. And more importantly it’s my opinion. So share your opinions, as opinions, and you’ll maintain a free market on “the truth”, helping both of you find more of it.

    “I don’t believe that’s what you really want to do.”

    Then you can have an honest conversation about it.

    6) I love my clients

    I love who they are, and who they become as we explore what they’re really called to.

    I think about them before sessions. They pop up in my awareness from day to day. I’ll text them sometimes. I’ll forward links sometimes. I do it with ex-clients too.

    I want my clients to succeed. Because if there is anything I wish for a human being, it’s that they continually discover who they are, and express themselves in the world through art and service. That they contribute, and change things.

    So when I see the people I work with travelling this path it gives me enormous fulfilment and pride.

    And if I ever notice myself getting wrapped up in trying to “be a good coach” or get validated by them, I pause, and I put my attention on my heart, and my love for them.

    7) Challenge them, as love

    And when I love them, I can begin to really challenge them. I can push them because it’s what my heart wants to do with them, for them.

    “I think you’re hiding. And I think you know it too. But you’re afraid, so you’re not listening to yourself.”

    Challenging my clients has been a challenge for me! I don’t want to upset people, I don’t want to offend them, make them angry so they pull away from me. I’m British. One needs to be polite. I’m also introverted. I like peace and harmony.

    But when I have my heart open, my anger can flow in service of them. Not with aggression, or ill intent, but simply the fiery strength to say:

    “I love you, and I think you’re holding back.”

    8) Connect with faith

    God. Your higher self. The universe. Whatever you want to call it, you have to stay on connection with what is larger than you. Both as the coach yourself, but also to help your client do the same.

    In the midst of transformation and change, reality can look pretty weird, and feel incredibly confusing. What’s true? Do I really want to make this audacious new training program? Who am I to write about the theological nature of reality?

    Without this sense of connection, the overwhelming doubt and chaos of the unknown can shut you and your client down.

    Trust that God wants something from you. From them. Feel it. Connect with it. It’s what gives light in the dark times. It’s what gives strength in the midst of the existential wobble.

    And it’s beautiful. And incomparably powerful.

    Ewan Townhead

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