Business and innovation coaching for people who experience the world differently.
This is coaching for the people who see new ways to improve the world. For the visionaries who don’t stay in a lane. For the changemakers who learn across disciplines separated by a broken education system. For the dreamers who make unexpected connections to new, disruptive ideas and possibilities. For the innovators who see the dots others miss, dots others have ignored, dots others say are imaginary. or don’t even exist, the new dots that potentially change everything.
This is for the mavericks, the rebels, the ones they said were crazy.
This is for the CATALYSTS.
What my clients say.
(names and likeness changed for privacy)
-
Kaina, Founder 🇬🇧
“Graham offers a refreshing approach to executive business coaching. Each session offered new insights on the topic at hand and provided the opportunity to critically reflect on how I could bring about meaningful impact with my business at a global scale.”
-
Andy, CEO 🇭🇺
Working with Graham helped me turn the abstract into a tangible, action-oriented strategy. We began at the beginning and rediscovered how my life experiences to date have shaped who I am — and we used that fresh perspective to create frameworks for navigating a personal future.
-
Zora, Founder 🇬🇧
Graham got me to think big and be bold at every step with my first business venture. He took the time to really listen to my goals and dug deep into my whys, uncovering aspects of my business I never saw for myself. Graham’s guidance proved invaluable, I cannot recommend him enough.
-
Tyler, Entrepreneur 🇺🇸
Graham is a great personal instigator. If you are looking for someone who will help you think in new ways and push you to structure your own self development, then you need not look any further. He is a great coach who has made all the mistakes and learned from them, you will find your sessions useful, fun and importantly interesting.
“Coaching is unlocking people’s potential...
It is more often helping them to learn rather than teaching them.”
— John Whitmore, Author, Coaching for Performance, 2010
Coaching for a change.
You’ve got this far without a coach but what if you could go further?
As a leader you may already be applying your unique mind and personality traits to rapidly ideate solutions for many challenges. You’re a natural problem solver who sees ways to improve the world in almost every situation. It’s just how you’re wired. You rapidly absorb concepts and ideas that interest you across subject silos and disciplines. You see the unexpected connections between them. The patterns and dots others miss.
Rarely short of new ideas and concepts, the challenge is how to turn the big ideas that get you up in the morning into sustainable reality.
Innovation is a team sport. To make change happen you need to bring people with you; colleagues, investors, shareholders, even loved ones. There will be obstacles along the way, the highs and the lows, the late nights and early mornings, the pockets of resistance from those who can’t see what you see. How will you maintain your energy to get to the finishing line with your relationships intact and more importantly avoiding exhaustion or even burnout?
As your coach it’s not for me to tell you what to do. Rather, I will be curious about what you want to do. We’ll meet online for 90 minutes once or twice a month for powerful conversations with purpose. Here we work together to explore your big idea, your journey towards it and the things that happen along the way. We will discuss strategies to maintain your energy whilst managing the challenges, blockers and resisters that arise when creating change. All of the answers are within you. My job is to help you find them.
My coaching is for founders and leaders who are; catalysts, neurodivergent achievers, or both. I draw on my own experiences of leading disruptive, fast growth startups in the entertainment, technology and learning sectors. Some succeeded, some didn’t. I received my diagnosis of ADHD with autism afterwards and suddenly a lot of things made sense. I was able to understand my strengths and make peace with my weaknesses. I realised that understanding my weaknesses was in fact a strength. I wish I knew then what I know now.
Whilst my practice is supported by an excellent clinical team of renowned psychologists, psychiatrists and psychotherapists I don’t regard myself as an ADHD or autism coach. There are many fine coaches who will help you find strategies to fit into a society that doesn’t accommodate you. My practice takes neurodivergency into account but not as a problem to be solved but a power to be used in your quest to make the world a better place.
“Have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow know what you truly want to become.”
— Steve Jobs
Your investment in you.
The aim of my coaching is for you to feel more focused, productive, happier in your professional life and present in your personal life with a renewed sense of purpose. We can contract with a specific objective or outcome in mind or we can use our sessions for monthly or fortnightly check-ins and leadership supervision - addressing progress, obstacles, concerns, new ideas etc. We can do all of this of course.
I work with no more than 10 individual clients at a fixed rate of £10,000 per year. This provides up to 2 x 90 minute online meetings and 1 hours worth of messaging using Signal each calendar month. When we find ourselves in the same geographical location we can meet in person. Should you wish to end your coaching there is a reciprocal option to terminate after 3 months. Everything we share is held in confidence where we are both bound by a reciprocal non-disclosure agreement.
Our chemistry is important so let’s meet for a complimentary 30 minute discovery session. You can assess whether I am someone with whom you’d like to work on your hero’s journey and vice versa.
I allocate 20% of my time to work with leaders of non-profits. Please get in touch for rates.
Clinical team
I’m supported with supervision by Dr Elizabeth Kilbey, psychologist, to whom I can refer undiagnosed clients for assessments. For ADHD assessments where medication may be an option I refer to Dr Helen Read, psychiatrist. I can also refer to a number of psychotherapists in circumstances where there is a clinical requirement outside of my skill set.
You don’t have to be neurodivergent for catalyst coaching but if you think you maybe and are undiagnosed you can try these free online tests.
Who am I?
This is a question I often ask myself, you can find out more here or if you’d like to go deeper please visit my profile website.
“Autistic thinkers are catalysts for innovation, as are all kinds of neurodiverse talent. We can offer insights and turn things around in ways that neurotypical people would have never been able to imagine because we view the world differently.”
Reuben Selby, Fashion Designer and Entrepreneur
Innovation, creativity, neurodiversity.
You don’t have to look too hard to find long lists of incredibly successful and influential creative catalysts who think differently. Steve Jobs, Steven Spielberg, Agatha Christie, Richard Branson, Mozart, Picasso, Stanley Kubrick, Marilyn Monroe and Andy Warhol all have (or are reported to have had) autism, dyslexia or ADHD.
At least 20% of the adult population are neurodiverse and that neurodiversity cuts across race, gender and orientation. Universal Music’s Creative Differences report estimates that neurodiverse representation across all creative industries is almost double that of the general public.
ADHD, Autism and other neurodiverse personality traits sometimes come with an advantage: the ability to think more creatively. The trinity of creative cognition are; divergent thinking, conceptual expansion and overcoming knowledge constraints.
Research shows that individuals with ADHD, for example, are exceptionally good at divergent thinking, able to think of many ideas from a single starting point. A recent study showed college students with ADHD scored higher than non-ADHD peers on tasks that tapped conceptual expansion and the ability to overcome knowledge constraints. Together with previous research, these new findings link neurodivergent thinking to all three elements of the creative cognition trio.
“The most interesting people you’ll find are ones that don’t fit into your average cardboard box. They’ll make what they need, they’ll make their own boxes.”
Dr Temple Grandin, Scientist and Animal Behaviourist
Entrepreneurship & neurodiversity.
Impulsivity, impatience, hyperactivity, poor concentration, a lack of self-regulation. At first glance, these traits of ADHD would seem to lower performance. However, successful entrepreneurs are frequently reported to be neurodivergent where traits once regarded as a deficit became their strengths. According to Psychology Today, people with ADHD are 300% more likely to start their own business and the list of neurodivergent leaders is practically endless.
"We noticed sometime that some symptoms of ADHD resemble behaviours commonly associated with entrepreneurship, in a positive sense,"
says Prof. Holger Patzelt of the Entrepreneurship Research Institute and co-author of an academic paper linking entrepreneurship with neurodiversity.
Entrepreneurs with ADHD are likely to engage in actions that are intuitive, proactive and risky. These characteristics lead to higher propensity for greater intuitive decision making in situations of high uncertainty where rational decision making might lead to paralysis.
Impatience, getting easily bored, having difficulties waiting, the rapid discount of time, and the intolerance of delays. These are characteristic of many neurodivergent leaders . Rather than a deficit impatience is a key trigger keeping entrepreneurs on constant lookout for new opportunities. It reflects proactiveness characterised by experimentation with and development of new ideas whenever possible.
Entrepreneurs with ADHD may have difficulty focusing on tasks they don’t find interesting. Yet they can exhibit intense focus, becoming completely absorbed by activities they enjoy and find interesting, experiencing what Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi describes as flow.
Richard and Charlotte, Two Stories
Richard wanted to do everything except school. Partly because of his dyslexia and ADHD, he confessed to having
“no understanding of schoolwork whatsoever.”
At 15, Richard dropped out of school. Interested in some things, all things, no things and random things he pursued them all with abandon. What does a teenager do when not in school or a neurodivergent adult able to live their life on their own terms?
Everything; live in a commune, create a magazine, buy a nightclub, build a recording studio, start a business, crash a business, start a record label, train company, airline and space-tourism company, buy a private island.
Although still struggling with his ADHD, Richard Branson has built an empire of businesses that span the globe.
Charlotte was a very quiet child, marginalised at school she didn’t get good grades. In her own words she left,
“believing that I was stupid.”
Charlotte’s career began with a job in banking where she excelled in Copenhagen and London becoming known as a female trailblazer in capital markets.
After having children Charlotte set up her own business, gracing boardrooms, going on to become a director of seven public companies, including three chairmanships, and Chair of the Institute of Directors.
Like many neurodivergent leaders in the business world Charlotte Valeur was assessed for autism and ADHD later in life as an adult.
“Neurodiversity may be every bit as crucial for the human race as biodiversity is for life in general. Who can say what form of wiring will prove best at any given moment?”
— Harvey Blume, The Atlantic, 1998
What is innovation?
Innovation is the most important and overused word in the business lexicon. It’s thrown around by our politicians, educators and captains of industry as the key to the future. Ask what it is and be prepared for a pause before being served a word salad to go with your buzzword bingo.
According to Wired this overuse and generalisation of the word has led to a loss of understanding over what it is and what is needed for it to happen.
“We lose sight of the specific skills and behaviour needed to be innovative.”
Organisations who lack diversity are prone to group think as their innovation immune system kills innovation like a virus. This isn’t helped by an education system that tells us there’s only one right answer to every question. Yet, if we are to truly innovate we need many more answers. Like biodiversity in the natural world we need multiple responses to the challenges we face today and tomorrow. To move forward we must embrace inclusion and diversity in all its forms.
This 2 minute film answers our question.
What is Innovation? A short film by Rafa Galeano
Use the form to contact me with any questions or to book a free 30 minute consultation