I had seen Jules speak at a conference and decided to reach out for some one to one coaching. Having a trusted, safe and facilitated conversations have helped me bring about sustainable change. There has been a noticeable shift in how I share my voice heard in the boardroom, confidence is more consistent and I am no longer pressuring myself to be a certain way.
Having been in senior leadership for a number of years, I was unsure where to take my career and felt my confidence was at a low point.
Through my conversations with Jules I have been able to clarify my thinking and take positive action towards my next move.
The level of pressure within the business has not changed in the last few months whilst working with Jules, but I have.
The main aim of my coaching was to grow even more into my new role. That meant being able to manage communications and personalities within meetings, being confident in presentations and being even more visible as the subject expert I am.
I wanted a clear plan for my future and ultimately how I can make the most out of my last few years working, my coaching sessions with Jules have helped me achieve this. Having a plan really helps, and the one I now have is not daunting or creating any self doubt.
Since working with Jules my confidence has definitely changed, especially at work. I am more decisive and taking the lead more. Before I would have overthought things more than I am now. Others have commented on my leadership too.
I have been working with Jules for the past 2 years within her business and at the beginning of 2023 I knew coaching with Jules was what I needed. I had recently given birth and felt support both within my personal life and business would be the next best step.
I first spoke with Jules in May 2022 after my boss had put me in touch. Initially I was hesitant of 'this coaching mumbo jumbo', but I handed my number over... within fifteen minutes of the first phone call I truly felt more understood than I have felt with colleagues I'd known for years!
Jules is warm & friendly with a very gentle way about her, and importantly made me feel safe to express.
I was unsure what coaching entails and whether it would make a difference, and it really has.
I wanted time to reflect on my own self, think about myself in a different way and consider whats next for me.
At the start of coaching I was unsettled and confused.
Coaching has given me the reflection time I needed to look at what I want.
I've embraced coaching with Jules 1000%. I needed to do this because of where I was at, but I didn't expect this level of change.
95% of my working month when I started coaching was stressful mainly due to self-doubt and a continuous self-questioning of "am I doing the right thing". As a result of coaching sessions with Jules I have turned this on its head and would say I feel like stressed 5% of the time but this rarely due to self-doubt.
I was introduced to Jules back in 2020 at a time when my business was gradually taking off. I approached her with what I thought was one issue that I needed help with; public speaking. Little did I know that there would be many many more things that Jules would be guiding me with over the next couple of years.
When I launched my own business in an industry predominantly led by men, the challenges were not just about market competition or financial planning. I was also battling internal demons, chiefly imposter syndrome. The nagging voice inside my head questioned whether I was good enough, capable enough, or even deserving enough to be where I was. It was a mental hurdle that I knew I had to overcome, not just for the sake of my business, but for my own well-being. That's when I turned to professional coaching, and the experience has been life changing.
I had worked with Jules before in delivering valuable training to my teams, as well as observing her coach my teenage daughter through a particularly challenging time.
Quite honestly I don’t know why it took me so long to work with Jules on MYSELF! Having taken a decision like many others to move away from a high pace and often stressful corporate role, I wanted to shift my focus and transfer my skills into a new sector.
I began coaching with Jules several years ago. At that time I was starting my nutritional therapy business ‘Nutrition in York’ and had been a single Mum for a few years. I’d never had much self confidence and the little I did have had been badly bruised by a divorce. I knew I needed to work on my confidence issues in order for my business - and love-life - to thrive! Jules guided me through the coaching process and helped me identify the factors that were holding me back from expanding my business, recognising my own value and worth, and keeping me in a cycle of negative thoughts.
I was sat next to Jules at my best friends wedding reception. I knew of her but we'd not met.
We were chatting about what we both did and she said one thing that must have sparked nerve. I wanted to make a change in my life but didn't feel brave enough, I didn't have the confidence. I'd buried it deep inside as it was easy to carry on with things as they were. At the time I was still working as Design Manager on the cook and dine range at George Home. After all, I loved my job in so many ways, developing so many new ranges with the team, leading the creative vision, inspiration and sourcing trips.
Harriet and I started working together through an unusual root. She had been offered coaching as part of a collaborative project she was working on. But as often happens when someone is offered coaching as part of work, and as she shares, she wasn’t quite sure what to make of it. Whether she needed it or what it would bring to her life. She was doing “fairly well” (as she puts it) with career as a blogger, influencer and mum of 3. Why would she need coaching? Often when we stop for a moment and take stock we can see what is really going on, rather than the ‘getting by mode’ which many of us live by daily.
I made one of the biggest steps in my career at the back end of 2008. I left full time employment as a senior designer in one of the top 100 design agencies in the UK to go it alone… to set up my own business, to step out into the unknown and the unchartered. Fuelled by my passion, creativity and experience built up from working with clients, large and small, for nearly a decade, it felt like my time. I had mustered the confidence, finally, to believe in myself and launch my own design agency; United by Design. Since 2008, it has been a rocky, bumpy, rollercoaster of a ride.
What a day with Jules can do! I always thought I had a good level of self-confidence. I am an approachable person with a great circle of friends and family around me. What’s not to feel confident about?! However, when entering a business networking event after having a break with networking for a few months due to workload, I felt excited but also a little anxious about walking into a room full of people without knowing anyone. I made it! I walked in, smiled, picked up a drink and walked over to a couple of people who I introduced myself to.
Sometimes we know that something needs to change, but we are just not sure what or where to start. That was the point T had reached when we first spoke. Due to the nature of the work she is unable to disclose her name, but wanted to share the impact that coaching has had on her. I first came across Jules through a recommendation from a friend of mine who had been coached by her. I had previously been coached by two different people and had been underwhelmed by the impact it had on me. I decided to pursue it again to try to address specific issues I had recognised.
When I first spoke to Jules we didn’t get on.
Here was a confident, successful, intelligent, passionate woman; so being a man in my mid 30s I took this as a personal challenge and a one-sided competition ensued. One I should add I wasn’t even aware I was having, such was my self-awareness at the time.
Fast forward nine months and we were sat reviewing our last six months coaching together when Jules shared with me that she was surprised I ever agreed to coach with her because, in her words, “I thought I pushed too many of your buttons”.
They say you can’t take a step until you’re in the right head space - and that was literally true when it came to committing to working with Jules. Having first met her back in 2008 on a business development course, it took several years and a lot of personal changes and challenges before I was ready to commit to one-to-one coaching with Jules. But when I did, my dreams came true. When we met, I’d left my old life in retail management and started training as a complementary therapist, although I’d taken a part-time job in an office to supplement my income while building the new business.