Husband, dad, coach, mentor, author and someone who learned the hard way what it means to live and lead with purpose.
The labels have always felt a little awkward to me.
People have described me as a coach, mentor, speaker, leader, author, resilient and sometimes even an inspiration. I’m grateful for all of those.
But husband, dad, friend and brother come first.
That probably tells you quite a lot about how I choose to live my life now.
I didn’t start with a grand career plan.
I grew up on a council estate and started working young. At 14 I was getting up at 4am to work on the markets. I also had an entrepreneurial streak, buying and selling computer games and computers before I entered full-time work at 16.
Once I started my career, I worked hard.
Probably too hard.
I took opportunities when they came and accepted promotions whenever they were offered. Over the years I worked across insurance and banking, led sales and underwriting teams, worked on projects, led groups of people through change and eventually operated at senior leadership level.
There were plenty of successes along the way, including recognition for my work in Monte Carlo.
For a long time, I measured success through work, responsibility, income and achievement.
From the outside, things looked good.
They weren’t.
Eventually I burned out and broke down.
It forced me to question not only how I was working, but how I was living.
I had spent years measuring myself by career and financial success, while paying far less attention to the quality of time I was spending with the people closest to me.
That changed everything.
After leaving corporate life, I invested in three franchise businesses.
They were later liquidated.
We lost our full investment and found ourselves in serious financial difficulty, at times unable to pay bills.
It was another hard lesson.
Career success had gone. Financial security had gone. A lot of the things I had previously used to measure myself had disappeared.
I had to rebuild again.
Slowly.
And differently.
Recovery wasn’t one big moment.
It was a process of getting to know myself properly.
“Know thyself” has become increasingly important to me.
I tried different things. Medication. Counselling. Coaching. Other therapies. Talking groups. Exercise. Charity work. Learning how to rest. Learning when to stop.
Some things helped more than others.
I’m still learning.
Today I’m much more intentional about looking after my whole health:
I don’t always get the balance right.
But I understand now that doing brilliantly in one part of life means very little if everything else is falling apart.
That experience is a big part of why I coach the way I do.
I don’t work with a job title.
I work with the person.
My purpose now is simple:
To help other people lead with purpose.
That might mean leading an organisation, a team, a family or simply leading themselves better.
I also try to practise what I preach.
That means I’m increasingly selective about who I work with. I want to work with good people and organisations I believe in, particularly where they can make a positive difference in the lives of others.
Sometimes the most valuable conversation isn’t the most financially rewarding one.
I’m comfortable with that.
I will always put my family before income.
That doesn’t mean money is unimportant. Part of my own journey has been rebuilding financially too.
Today I have far better relationships, a healthier relationship with work and a level of financial freedom that once felt a very long way away.
Mentoring has played a huge part in my life and career.
I’ve benefited from the wisdom, encouragement and challenge of other people for as long as I can remember.
Later, I had the opportunity to lead and grow a mentoring programme that went on to achieve national recognition.
That experience reinforced something I already believed: people often develop faster and make better decisions when they have someone alongside them who listens, challenges and genuinely wants them to succeed.
It is also why I give a significant amount of my own time to mentoring others.
Sometimes there is no contract, invoice or commercial outcome.
It is simply helping somebody I believe in when I think I can add value.
Eventually, all of this became my book, Purposeful Mentoring.
For me, mentoring isn’t just something organisations put into a programme.
It is something human beings have always done for one another.
My Christian faith is an important part of who I am.
I don’t impose it on the people I work with, but it influences the way I think about purpose, service, generosity and our responsibility to other people.
Charity and community work are a big part of my life.
My first 10k was for Mind.
My first half marathon was for ANDYSMANCLUB.
I’ve jumped out of an aeroplane to raise money for Action Together in Oldham.
At 50 I completed a full-distance Ironman for charity: 2.4 miles swimming, 112 miles cycling and then a marathon.
I’m also an ambassador for Team Hill Charitable Trust and have been fortunate to visit projects in Uganda, including schools and organisations supporting children around Masaka.
One of the stranger things I can say is that there is a toilet in Masaka with my name connected to it.
People normally laugh when I tell them that.
Then I explain that I rowed a marathon so children at a school and orphanage could go to the toilet with dignity, and suddenly the story means something very different.
I’m quite proud of that toilet.
Closer to home, I’ve supported fundraising for children’s wards, hospitals, cancer services, defibrillators and other local causes.
I do have a tendency to choose challenges that push me a little further than might seem sensible.
Over the years that has included:
Today I’m an Ironman triathlete, masters track athlete, ultra-runner and regular parkrunner.
Exercise has become an important part of how I look after both my physical and mental health.
It has also taught me a lot about resilience.
Not the version of resilience that simply tells people to keep going whatever the cost.
Sometimes resilience is carrying on.
Sometimes it is recovering.
Sometimes it is changing direction.
And sometimes it is knowing when to stop.
Neurodiversity has also become an important part of my learning.
Through people I’ve coached, people close to me and my own exploration, I’ve developed a much greater appreciation of how differently people think, communicate and process the world.
It has made me a better listener and a more flexible coach.
I don’t diagnose people and I don’t offer clinical advice. What I can do is create space for someone to understand themselves better and work in a way that suits them.
Today, my work brings together more than three decades of business and leadership experience with coaching, mentoring, speaking and facilitation.
I work with leaders, business owners, organisations and people navigating change.
I’ve worked across insurance, banking, sales, underwriting, project work and senior leadership. I’ve built businesses, lost businesses, led teams, developed mentoring programmes and experienced both success and failure.
I’ve spoken at TEDx, curated and hosted TEDx events, worked with organisations across the private, public, education and third sectors and coached people at many different stages of leadership and life.
I’m now a full-time Purpose Coach, mentor, speaker, facilitator and author of Purposeful Mentoring.
The titles and achievements are useful because they give me experience to draw from.
But I don’t think they are the main reason people work with me.
I think the reason is simpler.
I listen.
I ask questions.
I share what I’ve learned when it’s useful.
I challenge when challenge is needed.
And I genuinely care about what happens next.
Away from work, life is mostly about family, friends, running, travel, community and remaining curious.
I’ve been married to Nicky for over 30 years, and we have two adult children, both now building successful careers of their own. Somehow, despite everything, they both came away with first-class degrees. I’m still not entirely sure how that happened.
Family is the part of my life I’m proudest of. I haven’t always got the balance right, but I understand now that time with the people you love is not something to fit around work.
Some of my happiest experiences have involved travelling and running with people I love, seeing different parts of the world and spending time with communities very different from my own.
I still work hard.
I’m just much clearer now about my purpose.
You don’t need to know whether you need a coach, mentor, speaker or facilitator before we speak.
We can start with a conversation.
Tell me what is happening, what you are trying to achieve and where you feel stuck.
If I think I can help, I’ll tell you.
And if I don’t think I’m the right person, I’ll tell you that too.