Coaching the Neurodivergent Mind: Nathan Whitbread on Turning Difference into Strength

 In this episode of Career Coaching Secrets, host Kevin sits down with Nathan Whitbread, founder of The Neurodivergent Coach, to explore how coaching can unlock the potential of neurodivergent individuals in the workplace. Nathan shares his journey from being diagnosed with dyslexia at 35 to building a thriving coaching business that empowers both individuals and organizations to foster true neuroinclusion. He discusses the balance between personal challenges and systemic issues, how context shapes strengths, and the keys to sustainable growth as a solo coach.




Connect with

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/nathanaelwhitbread/
Website: https://theneurodivergentcoach.co.uk/

Transcript

Nathan Whitbread: 0:00

So those struggles can relate to the individual. But I think what's important is to remember there's often two components to this. So there's two there's there's two basic models of support. There's this kind of idea of the medical model, which is about fixing the individual. So those struggles can be around processing, executive function, structure, organization, all that sort of stuff, or maybe communication. But then you you also get things that come up where the individual feels they're failing, but actually when you look at it, it's to do with organizational processes and structure. So there's a different kind of conversation that says, well, actually, the individual's fine. They were fine before that.

Davis Nguyen : 0:30

Welcome to Career Coaching Secrets, the podcast where we talk with successful career coaches on how they built their success and the hard lessons they learned along the way. My name is Davis Wynne and I'm the founder of Purple Circle, where we help career coaches scale their business to $100,000 years, $100,000 months, and even $100,000 weeks. Before Purple Circle, I've grown several seven and eight-figure career coaching businesses myself and have been a consultant at two career coaching businesses that are doing over $100 million each. Whether you're an established coach or building your practice for the first time, you'll discover the secrets to elevating your coaching business.

Kevin: 1:01

Welcome to Career Coaching Secrets Podcasts. I'm Kevin, and today we are joined by Nathan Whipbread. He's been a coach for over 10 plus years. He is the founder of the Neurodivergent Coach. Welcome to the show, Nathan.

Nathan Whitbread: 1:15

Thanks, Kevin. It's great to have you.

Kevin: 1:17

Yeah, it's great to like you know, it was what was really interesting. We were chatting pre-podcasts, and I was just saying, like, I actually have a lot of neurodivergent friends who are actually coaches. And one of the first things that popped in my mind was how did you get into this work and turn it into a business?

Nathan Whitbread: 1:35

Yeah. So for me, why that happened was it so in the UK, there's quite a lot of provision in terms of support for people who've got neurodivergent conditions. So I was diagnosed with dyslexia actually age 35, so quite late on in life. But got some support through a government scheme in the UK called Access to Work and had some training/slash coaching support f through a provider. Became clear to me quite quickly with a lot of it at that time, because this was a few years ago, it was very educationally based. So it was sort of like back to school stuff. And I just felt really strongly there's a better way to do this. That is what launched me into coaching. Ironically, the provider that had provided that support to me actually asked me to come and work for them because I'd I was at a position where I was looking for a new role and I'd said I was quite interested in doing this sort of stuff, and I thought there was a better way to do it. So that sort of started my career sort of step, I guess, into the coaching space. And that happened probably, yeah, yeah, over ten years ago now.

Kevin: 2:33

Normally this is where I usually ask about like, hey, how did you decide who you want to help and the problems that you help them with? But it is quite clear to me in terms of your ICP. What I'm actually really care curious about is how do people find you uh about your services or stumble.

Nathan Whitbread: 2:49

So it's so for me, I because I guess the audience here is coaches who are going to be wanting to know, well, how do you do this? So for me, I'm a massive believer in a sort of layered business. And what I mean by that is I think we need different types of business to make a business work. Because one thing I've learned is that to coach full-time, you cannot physically coach full-time, it's exhausting, and actually there's a whole load of other things you need to do to make it happen. So what you ideally need is some sort of associate work um in a related area that can provide you with business. And that may not just be coaching, that might be training or something else that's related. And then it's also healthy to build your own spaces. So I mean you've probably seen I've got a website and mainly a LinkedIn presence. But that is a slower burn. It takes time to build relationships, and then within that you then have a blend of organisations that that kind of align with what you're doing and want to work with you on an ongoing basis, and then individuals who are saying, Well, actually we like what you're saying, really like to find out if that's something that would be useful for what I want to achieve. I think that I I I describe it as a bit more volatile because often when you're dealing with with individuals that work can be sometimes quite short, and so you can put a disproportionate amount of time sometimes into the marketing and kind of acquisition piece. No, I've got a problem with that, but it's just noticing that if you're building a business, that can sometimes be quite tricky.

Kevin: 4:09

As you reflect because you've been in a business for ten years now, as you reflect on your journey, what sort of challenges have you kind of encountered when it came to like finding clients? And you know, it sounds like from what you just mentioned, it took a lot of time and it wasn't just overnight.

Nathan Whitbread: 4:26

There's no anyone that tells you you can become a c train as a coach and uh make a profitable business the next day is either a liar or has got some magic source either seen. But I mean I think I'd caveat though, I mean, it depends where you've come from. You know, if you've come from a space where you're seen as an industry expert and everyone knows who you are anyway, and you say I'm setting up as a coach, people are going to be coming to you. Not necessarily to do pure coaching, because they respect you as who you are and actually they welcome paying for having a conversation with you. So I've got friends who are celebrities who've become coaches, and actually it's much easier because they've already got a brand, people know who they are, they get what they're about, and actually the idea of spending some time with that person to help them explore what might be useful is really appealing. If you're an unknown, that's more difficult, and you've got to build a brand of some sort and get yourself visible, and people have got to see what you do, and I think try and get their heads around actually is this someone I want to work with? Coaching. Yeah, so associate work is when you've got another organisation that's basically fronting and is saying and they say, Well, we've got a series of associates that sit work within it that then provide services. So I do that with probably about four three or four different organizations. Um I see. So my big learning curve was when I first set my business up, I was exclusively working as an associate well virtually exclusively working as an associate with one organisation. COVID came along and that work just disappeared overnight, and I was really heavily exposed, and literally income went from something that was fairly reasonable to non-existent. And it and it was a hard way to learn the lesson, but it's that lesson of diversification or not putting all your eggs in one basket,'s really important. And that's when I started to build the brand and also look for other associate relationships. And I think it's also healthy to have different ones because it means you're then not subservient to the person that's providing you work. Because one of the key things, particularly if you're working for yourself, is we get into this because we want a lifestyle business that works for us. And if you're in a position where you can't do what you want to do or behave in the way you want to behave, why are you doing it? Because you could probably earn more money working for someone else and you're not carrying all the risk of working for yourself.

Kevin: 6:28

With the business. Yeah, yeah, that is right. And I guess uh where you are in in your business right now. Do you we have a current team right now? Are you solo? Do you enjoy being solo if you are solo?

Nathan Whitbread: 6:40

So it's a bit of a blend. So I I do have other freelancers that work with me. I don't have anyone employed on the book, so that's sort of a deliberate choice. Uh I don't know, that might change in the future, but at the moment that feels like that works really well. So part of that's to do with family as well. So I only work three and a half days a week anyway. So because we've got four, four youngish children, they're growing up rapidly. So part part of well it's part of this it's kind of a surprise, but we knew what we were getting into. Yes, you know, we did think about it, but but I think there's something about work is only ever part of who you are and actually what's really important in life. And certainly I've been reminded lately, having a few friends who are sort of approaching end of life stuff for various reasons. You know, do you really want to look back on your life and say, well, I could have spent another five minutes in the office? Probably not. I don't think anyone ever says that.

Kevin: 7:28

I'm very curious about what a coaching engagement looks like. And so I guess one of my first questions for you is when people reach out to you, do you mostly do one-on-one? Do you do group trainings? How does an engagement look like for yourself?

Nathan Whitbread: 7:43

So I do quite a lot of different things. So what I'd say is no, I didn't do quite a lot of different things when I started out. I think that's really important. I've certainly stepped into a lot of things that I wasn't always 100% sure what I was doing, but I've had enough of a foundation to work it out. And what I'd add to that as well is obviously anybody can call themselves a coach. It's not a protected term. You can just go off and set yourself up as a in a business call yourself a coach. Personally, I think there's a risk if you don't have some sort of training and accreditation and particularly supervision oversight as a coach, there is a danger to you as a coach and also the people you work with. That's not to say that you need huge amounts of education because there's a whole industry here that will take your money if if you let them and will train you to the end of the earth and you still end up with a business. So I think that's really important to be wise about where you spend your time. But ultimately, a coaching conversation is very simple. It's a conversation with two people about one person. And one person's doing a shed load of work thinking about their stuff and the other person is facilitating that. And that can happen as individual, as group, as team, and the difference between group and team is that team is an intact team, either in an organization or somewhere, whereas a group tends to be maybe some individuals that come together who've got a shared interest but don't necessarily have a connection, so you work in a slightly different way. So one of the things I'm also a big fan of now is action learning sets. I don't know if you come across that, just this idea shared learning. So the idea is that one person learns, everyone learns because we're in the space, because in certain settings you can end up having the same coaching conversation with multiple people, whereas actually if we did it in an action learning set, everyone learns together. Huge shamings for the organization. And also there's that whole thing about, particularly when you work in an organizational setting, there's stuff in the room that other people wouldn't come across unless they heard it from those other people, it may not come up in another conversation.

Kevin: 9:32

What I'm also taking away from this call too is that people in the UK and people in the US definitely have different terms for things too. So like you're describing these things, ooh, that's like kind of like organizational trainings or group trainings and stuff like that, too. Sounds very similar, Ali, at least.

Nathan Whitbread: 9:48

Totally, Kevin. There's lots of labels for stuff, isn't it? But ultimately we're facilitating conversations and learning.

Kevin: 9:53

And so when people come to you for like a coaching engagement, right? Let's talk about your specific market, because you're you're the neurodivergent coach. What are some of the reasons why people want a coaching engagement? What are some of the struggles that you're or a potential client?

Nathan Whitbread: 10:07

So there's lots of different things. So sometimes it's around diagnosis. So someone's had a diagnosis and going, what does that mean for me? Or that may be a suspected diagnosis of a neurodivergent trait. So I do quite a lot of work in that area. Sometimes it's it's leaders or senior leaders in organizations who are saying, I've found this stuff out about myself or there's stuff going on with my family, and I'm just wondering what and I'm struggling at work as well. So can you help me navigate that and and support me to make some decisions and choices? Sometimes it's stuff around we've got someone in our organization and we've got a problem, we don't know how to deal with it. We've kind of run out of road with other options. Can we have a conversation about what some support might look like to help get this person back on track? Um sometimes it's just about actually we're recognizing as an organization that that we don't know enough about this. What can we do to help support us as an organization to create neuroinclusive workplaces, places where it's safe to work and people can pick turn up and be their best and be the most effective?

Kevin: 11:02

For those who are neurodivergent, what are some of their struggles? Because you mentioned a few different things, right? Uh I forgot the term that you used, neuroinclusion. And then you also mentioned struggling at work. So what are kind of those struggles?

Nathan Whitbread: 11:15

Well, there's a shed load of stuff. So those struggles can relate to the individual. But I think what's important is to remember there's often two components to this. So there's two there's there's two basic models of support. There's this kind of idea of the medical model, which is about fixing the individuals. Those struggles can be around processing, executive function, structure, organization, all that sort of stuff, or maybe communication. But then you you also get things that come up where the individual feels they're failing, but actually when you look at it, it's to do with organizational processes and structure. So there's a different kind of conversation that says, well, actually, the individual's fine. They were fine before they came here, what's going on in this space? By the way, you've also got all these other people that are saying they're getting on fine with it and it's not actually working well for them. So is it useful to have a bigger conversation where we look at what could be different in the way we're working? Maybe that's a band tech processes, etc. So we can support everyone to be more successful. Because I would argue that if we do this work to support neurodivergent individuals, often the impact is positive for the rest of the organization as well.

Kevin: 12:16

And as you've worked with these organizations or worked with these individuals as well, what are some of those like specific impacts that have you noticed throughout your 10 years?

Nathan Whitbread: 12:25

Well, so I think the biggest thing is releasing people to actually do what they're great at. Because I personally believe that neurodiversity is often the key to unlocking innovation because people who think differently notice different stuff. And in a world where products and services are becoming more and more vanilla, we have to stand out and do something interesting and unusual that actually meets market need that maybe is not identified. And I think personally, often neurodivergent individuals are the key to that because they notice stuff and they and they see stuff that others don't see, and that is can be a huge commercial advantage to organisations, one level. But then we've also got just things about how to how do places work. So how do people how do we support people to feel comfortable turning up and being authentic in what they're doing, able to work effectively and deliver on what they've been asked? Is that specific enough?

Kevin: 13:13

Yeah, no, it's really interesting because I'm thinking about like the trends I'm noticing on Instagram reels and I'm not on TikTok, but my friends tell me about it. There's a whole trend, by the way, where like people are discovering that like they're like, for example, some people have ADHD and they're saying how it's a new superhero power. And I've actually noticed this actually through my different friends or through my different neurodivergent uh friends who are coaches, where like they recognize patterns and there's certain subtleties of like being neurodivergent where it's actually a superpower. And you mentioned one earlier where it's like, oh, unlocking like uh the next innovation. I think those were the words that you used just now.

Nathan Whitbread: 13:55

The only thing I'd say to that, Kevin, is that I think it's context is everything with this. What I mean by that is an indicar of Formula One guy is absolutely fantastic on the racetrack, yeah?

Kevin: 14:05

Yeah.

Nathan Whitbread: 14:07

But yeah, exactly. So but if I've got four kids and I want to go shopping, it's pretty useless. It doesn't go over the speed bumps. It certainly can't go around the corners. I can't get the kids in it, and when we get there, where am I going to put the shopping? And that's about context, yeah? And it's the same thing is true in this space. I'm not saying everyone who's new at the verdant is a racing car, but it's just that idea about in the right space doing the right things with the right team around you, you can be highly effective and innovative. In the wrong space without the right team, with the incorrect expectations, it's a car crash waiting to happen.

Kevin: 14:40

It's really interesting because I've been in I've been a healthcare practitioner in my life, right? I used to be a pharmacist and all that. And it's so interesting, at least in the States, we look at these diagnoses like there's something wrong with you, right? But it's so interesting that you provide that that analogy where in the right environment it could be a formula F1 car and stuff like that, too. So I think that's really important to point out. And it becomes less of like these words of fixing or whatever, but more like uh I wouldn't even use the word enabling, but like you're essentially unlocking people's like full potential for what they're capable of, too.

Nathan Whitbread: 15:18

So I mean one of the ways to look at it is that there are strengths and challenges, yeah. So our job as employers and coaches is to support people to amplify what they're great at and manage what's tricky.

Kevin: 15:27

It's not like marketing and sales where there's like a hard outcome, right? And usually for those things, it's very easy to price. And one of the things I've noticed, not like with a lot of coaches, they struggle with things like pricing, these type of transformation.

Nathan Whitbread: 15:40

Totally agree. Yes. So if if you're interested, I mean if is it okay to reference something? A friend of mine, Gary Crotas, wrote a brilliant article on Forbes about this in terms of pricing. So what he talks about is this idea of actually working out where your top prices for the top person you want to work with, and then almost having a point system based on the person you're working with. Because as a coach, the value is based on the individual we're working with. So I think there's something about that that's helpful. I think most of coaches undervalue their time because what they do is they don't take into consideration their learning CPD, insurance, marketing, sales effort they have to put in. Lots do. Some overvalue as well, but I I would say more undervalue from what I've seen. I think there's something really important about partnership in pricing, actually. And what I mean by that is actually having a conversation about what it needs to look like and not being afraid to walk away as well. So one of the things I learned early on in my sales career was you need a banana in your back pocket. And what I mean by a banana is a best available alternative, and that may be to walk away and say, I'm really sorry, this isn't going to work. Now, with that proviso, I still believe there's absolutely a place for pro bono coaching when we do it for free. But if we're doing it for free, we've got to know why we're doing it for free and also be clear about how long that's going to be.

Kevin: 17:02

Because I could easily see that bringing into uh an engagement of resentment if it goes on indefinitely.

Nathan Whitbread: 17:08

Oh, 100%. You always need to have bookends on what you're doing. And what I would say with the way I work is I absolutely believe in single co session coaching. What I mean by that is sometimes it just takes one session to help someone to move forwards enough that they don't need to talk to you ever again and the job's done. And you should celebrate that as a coach, as a pa but that's a rubbish business model because actually if you're looking to build a business, what you need is ideally is is income that's consistent over time. So if you've worked very hard to get a client and then or or a thinker, as I call them, and then they only stay for one session, that can be a huge cost of acquisition for a single piece of work.

Kevin: 17:46

Good point.

Nathan Whitbread: 17:47

So it's the ethics bit h here over the money that you've got to weigh up very carefully, I think.

Kevin: 17:51

I guess the thing I'm very, very curious about. So now that we kind of know how people are finding you, what your coaching engagements look like, the transformations, how to kind of like think about pricing, I would say. Let's talk about your future goals. I guess like since you're 10 years into this, like where do you want this coaching business to take you in the next season of your career and all that? Do you have any desire to scale, your dreams, big ambition no one knows about? Very curious there.

Nathan Whitbread: 18:18

Don't think so. No. I mean I really enjoy what I do. I think there's a space there's an opportunity at the moment because the sort of thing I do has got very interesting uh in terms of there's a lot of attention on it at the moment. And there's probably a lot of snake oil out there as well in terms of people I think making this more complicated than it needs to be, because I would fundamentally argue that it's more important to be a proficient, you know, well-trained coach than a neurodiversity expert to operate in this space, because actually what's important is that we've got the tools to have better conversations and more knowledge to bring into the space. I'm actually writing a book at the moment with a colleague, with a friend of mine, Claire Pedrick, and another friend called Claire Whitten, around this very subject. It's called Lens Not Label. It will be due out in November next year, so we've got a published date now, which is good. And the whole purpose of that really is just to really open that conversation up and say what's the least amount we need to do to support the people we're working with to move forward so we don't get in the way.

Kevin: 19:14

Do you find like in your line of work, do you feel you said something really interesting earlier where you're like, it probably is more important to be a better coach than I'm paraphrasing better coach than Yeah. Versus like having all this specialized knowledge about neurodivergence, right?

Nathan Whitbread: 19:30

Yeah.

Kevin: 19:30

But with that being said, like are there any special let's say if someone was to go like to coach neurodivergent people, right? Are there any special accommodations or special things to keep in mind when you're coaching on neurodivergence patients?

Nathan Whitbread: 19:44

And not above and beyond what you need to do anyone. Let's ask them what we need to do to make this work or make this place safe enough to do the work we need to do.

Kevin: 19:51

As you also reflect on your career journey as well, what kind of challenges do you notice in your season of your coaching business right now? Maybe some things that people would not be able to see outside looking in.

Nathan Whitbread: 20:03

I guess there's a frustration in terms of I think with any business there's ceilings at certain points, particularly if you're going to work for yourself. When you when you are just doing all the work, then that your ceiling is always going to be how much you can charge per hour and how many hours you can work. So it's then thinking about what else do you do to help support a supplemental activity or um you know passive income as some people would call it in the UK. What value can you add that creates cash for you that that helps support you to do what you want to do so you don't flog yourself to death basically just driving yourself as a sausage machine. So that's one of the challenges. But I think there's a challenge about being authentic actually, in terms of what did you set out to do and make sure you're not diverting from that and getting distracted by other sort of side missions that maybe don't benefit the core reason why you set up the business in the first place. I think there's also some challenges about who do you collaborate with and who you don't collaborate with, and how do you how do you form those relationships well so they serve well and create new opportunities for you and the people you work with and don't become detrimental to what you're trying to achieve?

Kevin: 21:04

How do you decide who to work with and who not to work with? It sounds like there's a deeper story behind there, and that's Yeah.

Nathan Whitbread: 21:11

So I think for me there's something really fundamental about have we have we got a relationship here? Is there a connection? As human beings, is this someone I trust and able to get on with and work out how to move forwards with? I think that's probably the heart of it. And then you can look at the commercials and and what we're trying to do. The big lesson I've learnt here again, Kevin, is which probably comes back to where we started right at the beginning, this stuff doesn't happen overnight. So if I think about probably my my biggest associate arrangement was a relationship that took two years before we did any work together. Conversations, getting to know each other. Because actually, when we it's it's kind of like relationships, yeah, more generally. If you rush into them, I guess we've all been burnt where we've rushed into stuff thinking something's one thing and it's turned out to be something quite different. The same thing happens in business.

Kevin: 21:56

Another thing you mentioned too about some of the challenges that you've gone through are kind of like the ceilings. And so I know that you mentioned you hire freelancers and stuff, and there's just so many options, right? You could hire an exact VA, you could hire other coaches and all that. What sort of things have kind of like have have you tried uh so far in terms of dealing with like the ceilings?

Nathan Whitbread: 22:18

So I've worked with a VA for quite a few years and that's been really successful. We took a pause over the summer because I realised that I wasn't really thinking about how that relationship was working. Not that that person was doing anything wrong, it was more I wasn't actually being proactive in thinking about well, how do we need this to work really effectively. So in that stopping and having a break for a couple of months has been really useful because it's helped me reflect on the things I actually want to do and achieve as opposed to things I've just been doing because I've been so busy rushing forwards that I haven't really noticed what's important and what's not. So that was a big learning, taking pauses. I think scaling is a really challenging issue around the coaching space. And the reason why is you have to have, particularly if someone's coaching under your brand, how do you know the quality of what they're doing and whether that fits with your ethos in terms of the way you would coach? So for me, there's probably something really important about someone who would work for for me to be trained in a certain way around coaching, and that's about being simple in terms of approach, um, not bringing lots of models and stuff into the space, that's really important. So, you know, I'd be really keen to see that. And also I think for this size of business, it's tricky because what you don't want to be doing is bringing in management headaches and management challenges. What you're trying to bring is people to add value to the business, not only in the work they output, but also the ideas they bring to help shape what it looks like moving forwards. So that then brings another challenge. Are you really looking for people to work in the business or are you actually looking for partnership in the business?

Kevin: 23:52

Sounds like you've wrestled a lot with uh the idea of like potentially scaling or not, and like it before.

Nathan Whitbread: 23:59

Totally good. I mean it's it's a constant nag, isn't it? You know, I mean, so this is probably more about me, but my whole personality is how do we move forwards? What's good? What's the next, even better? What does that look like? One of the challenges with that is that uh in a culture and I guess a wider society that's all about more, there's a temptation to accrue more, isn't there? And it's just like I don't know if you remember but you heard the no fear brand, I assume. No fear brand. No, I haven't. It's a bit older than it's it's a UK brand, I think. I thought it was a US brand. But anyway, but they just had this t-shirt that said that he who has the most toys still dies, this sort of idea. And actually, and it's all very well acquiring all this stuff, but actually why and it comes back to why are we doing this? What is it we're doing? And I think for me, the reason why I coach is because of that amazing moment when someone gets some insight into their own stuff and they go, Aha, I can do something with it. They don't even have to tell me what it is, but the the fact that I've been able to facilitate that is why I do this. Because we don't get and no one get the times we live in at the moment strikes me we're in a loneliness epidemic, people are feeling very lonely and disconnected and often not getting time to think. And we've got all of these kind of like things that take our time and energy that stop us from thinking. So if we can facilitate someone to think and actually be listened to well and someone to notice what's going on so they can get some insight into their own stuff. I think that just feels like such a good and generous thing to be able to do. And to get paid to do that is brilliant.

Kevin: 25:27

Have you ever experimented uh hiring someone to coach under you for your brand? Did you ever run any experience?

Nathan Whitbread: 25:33

Never uh we want for not, I don't think it'll be this year. It depends what happens. I don't know. We'll have to wait and see. I think it's probably more likely. I don't know, but I suspect it it's more likely that I will merge or come into another brand, I think, as a sub brand, possibly. I don't know. Just that's that's yeah. I think knowing how I thrive as a lone as working on my own, but also recognise collaboration is everything for me. So I I I I don't know though, but that's where it goes.

Kevin: 26:05

Yeah. We I think as as humans, we always make predictions, right? Throughout the test of time and it's good that some of those predictions come true.

Nathan Whitbread: 26:12

It's good, it's good, it's good. There's no plan survives first contact, but without a plan, we're going nowhere.

Kevin: 26:18

Final segment I'd like to play with you. Uh it's called It Underrated. And probably as a business owner, maybe as a coach, right? You've gotten a lot of advice. And some of it is good, some of it is bad, some of it is solicited, probably a lot of it is unsolicited, right? And so I'm kind of curious over a lot. Okay, probably 99% unsolicited. We'll say something there has been some useful things I've learned, but there's been a lot of rubbish to clear about. And I think there's like wisdom in that too, right? And so I'm I'm really curious what's your most overrated piece of business advice that you've gotten, and what's the most underrated piece of advice that you've gotten so far? At least the most what whatever comes top of mind in this.

Nathan Whitbread: 26:58

I think probably the most important piece of business advice that I've ever had is, you know, it's important to own your own spaces. So what I mean by that is I think there's a lot of narrative out there at the moment that says you need to have a social presence on this and a social presence on that and be messaging on this and messaging on that. But all those platforms can disappear like that. So my LinkedIn profile could go tomorrow. You know, my YouTube channel could go tomorrow. And there's no control I've got over that. If they decide to turn it off or change something about it, it's gone. But my website I own, and no one can take that away from me. I can re-host it and move it. So that so that's mine in terms of my footprint, yeah? And and that goes with email list as well. I've got control over my email list. That's mine. People can choose whether they join it or leave it, but ultimately I can choose when they send them an email, and I can't do that with it. And I think that is really important to get your head around what you actually have control over and what you haven't. Um I think as well, some of the worst advice is around, I guess, all the stuff you're supposed to do that's not useful. So for example, being present at all these things, trying to be everywhere and do everything for everyone. There fit there sometimes feels like there's a bit of messaging around that, and I don't think that's helpful. I think it's much better to really double down on the one or two things that you're really good at, particularly around communications and hone them. Um so I've I've got a few other bits that are coming up as we speak, if that's okay. The other thing that I found is really important, find your tribe. And I mean the tribe of people that will stand with you when you're working all this stuff out. And if you're a coach, don't hang out with coaches, hang out with someone else. You need different people to hang around because otherwise, you know, I'm in a group in the UK called the Drive Partnership, fantastic organisation, but it's graphic designers, accountants, all sorts of people in there, they're really interesting people. And do you know what? I'd say to them, I've got a problem, and they come and solve and they come and support me to solve it from all sorts of angles that I wouldn't be able to do on my own. And the way I describe it is like it's like doing 50 hours of thinking in 20 in 20 minutes because all these people are going, do you know what have you thought about X-Y's Head? And by the way, you might want to talk to so-and-so, that sort of thing.

Kevin: 28:57

That's really interesting that you mentioned that because I'm in this group, right? It's a bunch of designers, creative artists, creative business owners, right? They do logo design and all I don't do that. You ask me, open up Photoshop. I can make a logo for you. But the way that they because we all we're all in the game of business, right? And what's really, really interesting is the insights that they have on on business. For example, I'll give a really good example, pricing. We talked a little bit about this earlier. But how like pricing creative stuff is awfully like pricing coaching sometimes because the value can be very subjective to someone.

Nathan Whitbread: 29:35

Yeah, absolutely.

Kevin: 29:35

The value of coaching. And it's like, oh, I wouldn't be able to get these insights if I didn't talk to people who weren't in the same industry as me. So I think you bring up a very, very valid point here. Yeah.

Nathan Whitbread: 29:46

The other thing is when you're dealing with tricky stuff, we've all had people that haven't paid us. We've all had people that maybe have felt aggrieved by something that's gone on, maybe justly or injustly. And I think sometimes with that we can feel like we have to do everything. to fix it and it may not even be our fault. So having people you can use as a sounding box to say how do I approach this? What do I need to think about? What do what do I need to be conscious of? So for example in the UK we've got um certain bits of legislation that even as a small business owner you need to be aware of. So people that have been able to navigate that effectively is really useful. I think there's also something about so someone to share with a a a good friend of it shared with this once, you know, that there's there's there's there's different types of people that will support your business, yeah? You've got people who will cheer you on but will do nothing for you. You've got people that will open their address book for you but will won't introduce you. And then you've got people that will never shut up about you because they love you so much. And she described them as her angels. If you can work out who those people are, they're the people you need to spend all your time with. Because when you're not in the room, they'll be talking about you. And it's it's stuff like that that that actually makes business work. Because I think we we get some really skewed ideas based on you know sort of some of the kind of social channels and stuff about what works and what doesn't. And the truth is we don't know what works or what doesn't for our business until we try it. But having safe places to do it and enough cash flow in the bank to keep going while we're working it out are the key things.

Kevin: 31:15

You know what's really funny the first person that I thought about when we're breaking those categories down. Because I recently did a YouTube video like this a Zach like YouTube video on this. The first person I thought about was like my mom honestly the people was your mom looking out for you this is good. Well she can't refer any business to me but uh she definitely cares about me a lot. She doesn't need to be referred does she? Because she just needs to talk to someone who will. Exactly exactly so funny. I think that's really valuable. Okay I know we're almost coming out of time so Nathan how do people find you how do people connect with you?

Nathan Whitbread: 31:48

Yeah so I've got an internet presence the neurodivergent coach dot co dot uk I have got dot com as well but it's not connected so I need to keep it connected I keep forgetting too well I'm working it sort of out and if you want to know there's a really funny story about that. I used to have a business called something quite different called um Haslam Training and a friend of mine said that's a rubbish name for a business how can I refer anyone to you I went on did a little Google search the Neurodivergent coach was free and I just got out and it was just like it wasn't intentional and it was supposed to be about me yeah but as we know with all businesses it's nothing to do with us it's about our customer and and being helping them understand what we do. So that there you go there's some more learning. Yeah so you go on you kind of I mean I write quite a lot about this stuff. The other thing is I blog probably once or twice a month now. I found that my thing that's really easy for me to do and I really enjoy it. I'd also add in there's something important particularly in the marketing space find things you enjoy doing because if it's not easy and enjoyable it ain't gonna last and it'll just be painful and make your life miserable.

Kevin: 32:45

Great final advice and honestly the things I take away from I took away from this call was um honestly a lot of the fundamentals of business right grow the email list not the social media following because how many times do we see this people get deplatformed all the time or shadow banned or whatever we don't know what's happening with the algo right and suddenly you lose that reach. And I think this other maybe more esoteric concept of you know is more always better do we always need a scale more and more and more and more and I'm not saying it's bad but are we intentional about it and I think exactly yeah well Nathan thank you so much for spending your time with me today and just sharing about your so openly about your business and thank you for the work that you do. Thank you for coming on the podcast.

Nathan Whitbread: 33:33

Thank you Kevin much appreciate it.

Davis Nguyen : 33:34

That's it for this episode of Career Coaching Secrets. If you enjoyed this conversation you can subscribe on YouTube, Spotify, Apple Podcasts or wherever you're listening to this episode to catch future episodes. This podcast was brought to you by Purple Circle where we help career coaches scale their business to $100,000 years, $100,000 months or even $100,000 weeks all without burning out and making sure that you're making the impact and having the life that you want. To learn more about our community and how we can help you visit join purplecircle.com