Performance coach
Decide from a calm place. Not from the noise.
Most people find me when they have stopped moving forward. The work is the same either way: getting recentred, so the next decision comes from a calm place rather than from the noise. More good days, more energy, better decisions on the days that count.
My approach considers these three perspectives. It looks at the load you are putting on yourself, what you are trying to achieve, and the effect it is having on your mind, body and spirit.
Where people are
Stuck, and not sure which thread to pull.
- Am I even in the right role anymore?
- I know what to do. I just cannot seem to do it when it matters.
- There is one person here who costs me a whole afternoon, every time.
- I am trying to hold health, fitness, work and the people I love in some kind of balance, and there is not enough of me to go round.
- Nobody tells me the truth about how I come across anymore.
- The things that got me here have started working against me.
If two or three of those landed, that is the conversation.
About
Three careers, one question.
I started out helping athletes and desk workers get their bodies working properly. Then twenty years inside large organisations, delivering hard programmes of work and helping people work with and through each other. Alongside both, I have been practising Soto Zen with the same community since my thirties. And across all of it I have coached, formally, as a Professional Certified Coach with the International Coaching Federation.
Read more
Most people who work on performance take one door. The physiologists take the body. The coaches take the conversation. The contemplative traditions take the mind. I have spent twenty years behind each of those doors and they open into the same room. Your good weeks and your bad ones are built from all three at once, and if you only ever work on one, the other two will quietly undo it.
What I am after with clients is not more output. It is balanced performance: getting ahead without borrowing it from your health, your relationships or the version of yourself you have to live with afterwards. Everything you do leaves a bill somewhere. The work is noticing where, and making the next decision knowing it.
Writing
Provocations, practices, and things that help.
I write every week about mind, body, neuroscience and practice. Some of it is what I have worked out. Some of it is what I am still working out. No AI slop, just me thinking out loud in the hope some of it is useful to you.
What people say
What it is actually like.
“I initially made the assumption that it would be all about improving productivity and communication between team members. This turned out not to be the case at all. Not offering solutions, but helping me ask myself the questions that improved my self-awareness.”
Julian Hedt
“Niall’s coaching helped me break through some limiting beliefs I had that were holding me back from moving my career forward. His coaching process is direct and outcome based and gets to the core of the matter quickly.”
Erica Slutzkin
“I highly value Niall’s ability to stretch my thinking, focus on what really matters and be courageous. Niall’s ability to ask insightful questions has a significant impact on the value delivered.”
Sarah McGeehan, Senior Executive, Transformation
“He asks the tough questions whilst creating a safe environment to explore possibilities.”
Lena Ross, Author and Co-founder, Agile Change Leadership Institute
“In the space of a couple of hours, Niall helped me untangle assumptions which were impeding my small business growth prospects.”
Dr Stéphanie Camaréna
Coaching
One thing, offered one way.
We start wherever you are stuck. I coach one to one. No packages to choose between, no discovery funnel, no programme you have to commit to before you know whether we work well together.
Five hours, used how and when you want. Most people take them fortnightly. Some use two in a week when something is live and the rest months later.
- Sessions of whatever length suits, drawn down from your five
- Online, wherever you are
- Between sessions, email me anything you want a second read on
- No expiry, and no obligation to buy more
Thirty minutes, no charge and no pitch. We work out whether this is the right thing for you right now, and if I am not the right person I will say so.
ICF Professional Certified Coach · Author, Responsive Agile Coaching