A reflection on life since becoming a coach and the breakthrough moments experienced along the way.

This month, Jo Youle – CEO of Missing People and a Meyler Campbell John Stopford Scholarship recipient – reflects on her life now since becoming a coach and the breakthrough moments she has experienced along the way.

The Sky’s The Limit

Nik Kershaw wrote a lot of good tunes: “Wouldn’t It Be Good (to be in your shoes)” – which you might have heard. And “The Sky’s the Limit” – which you probably haven’t. But you should because it’s a cracker. You should play it[1] when you want to get in touch with your child-like self; where you want to believe that anything is possible. And it’s a great one for Coaches too. I use it when I’m helping som

I still get a buzz to say that I’m a Coach. Before I did Mastered, coaching felt like a magical, secret club that I really wanted to join. I had asked my fabulous coach from my early Missing People CEO days what it would take to be a coach myself. Thankfully, the Meyler Campbell John Stopford Scholarship[2] opened up a very big door for me to a new world, and some very dear friends. A bit like the dream I sometimes have of discovering a room in my house that I didn’t know was there, creating new opportunities and spaces.

There have been a lot of breakthrough moments.

On my 50^th birthday, I was coached by Meyler Campbell Fou

eone to fly and I draw on the lyrics: “when you’ve got a view so clear, and no fear of falling, the sky’s the limit”.

nder Anne Scoular as she showed the audience how she ‘coaches for the Goal’ – the G of the Grow Model. In this, I found a new mantra – “faith at 50” – which has given me the gift of bravery.

With this new mantra, I went on to boldly ask a hugely respected charity and political leader if she would help connect me, as a Coach, to leaders in politics. Which she did the following morning. I have had coaching conversations about one of the biggest transitions with a political advisor deep in the final days of the General Election campaign about to head into the heart of a new government a few days later; from a Candidate pounding the pavements up North; to walking into Westminster as a newly elected MP with the weight of constituents and lifelong ambition on their shoulders.

When I was a very new coach, I got some of the best feedback ever from a client, which went like this: “Thanks mate, thanks so much”. This then led to an introduction and subsequently coaching Head Teachers at an Academy Trust. This Trust is now investing in coaching for 100+ of its senior leaders and we’ve been joined by other coaches including from Meyler Campbell.

Now, I work with Headteachers responsible for 1000’s of children – their learning, their safety, their life’s potential. These Headteachers are currently leading amongst all the social and economic woes of our times with all the challenges of accounting to parents, to Governors and to Ofsted. One summed it up in a phrase I remember with a smile: “Jo, I’m just being a cowardly custard”. (She really wasn’t, but she was daunted for sure – and very likely to be found handing out the biscuits to hungry pupils).

I’ve stopped (trying to) coach my friends and family, and now coach people that want it instead. But it has changed the way I have conversations. When my daughter is struggling with motivation to study, I ask: “imagine the day you’re walking to get your exam results…how do you want to feel?” When my son was confused by one of the gym coaches, we talked it through by asking: is it an issue of status, certainty, autonomy, relatedness or fairness?

I write. Because I feel compelled to share some of the gems of coaching – recently, I wrapped David Rock’s SCARF model (a model to help understand human social behaviour) in a LinkedIn article, which you can read here.

I facilitate on the Windsor Leadership Programme drawing on every ounce of inspiration as a Coach to enable people to search for the right questions to find their own answers.

And I’ll give the final word to my dad. He was probably my first Coach and the start of all of this with his mantra: “‘write your own script, Joey”. It is one I often find in my burgeoning library of books which were all published years after he coined the phrase that changed his life story for the better.

For that is what it is all about.

Jo Youle, OBE

CEO of Missing People. Executive Coach. Occasional piano player.

[1] Play it here, sung by The Virtual Popstar: https://open.spotify.com/track/3lbV5Kn9kjp7Oiof4ec5Eq?si=c4c55e03ad0243e6&nd=1&dlsi=c9d767ab7a524e13