BusinessLife Spotlight: Charlie Hugh-Jones

This week in our BusinessLife Spotlight series, we’re shining the light on Charlie Hugh-Jones. Charlie has gone from his career as a successful lawyer to a Life and Business Strategist by following his passions, and working with Peter Marcus here at BusinessLife coaching.

Coaching Beginnings

Charlie built his career as a successful lawyer in the UK. The clients he worked most extensively with were those that made up the National Health Service (NHS), the organizations responsible for the health services of England, Scotland, Northern Ireland and Wales. On one occasion Charlie was called upon to help document how 27 organizations were going to resolve an NHS crisis. What he expected to be a civil and rational conversation ended up as an emotionally charged shouting match between the groups. Each organization was blaming another and arguing as opposed to working out an effective solution together.

Charlie couldn’t believe what he was seeing. The organizations’ leaders were behaving like kids in the schoolyard. The groups couldn’t see outside of themselves. Having witnessed enough, Charlie intervened. One of the leaders asked Charlie what he recommend they do to work out the solution.

That was the moment Charlie first found himself coaching. He guided the organizations to collaborate with one another and act as a team rather than as 27 different entities. He worked towards a conflict resolution, aligning interests, working on problem solving, helping them create a strategy with actionable goals that played to each of their organizational strengths.

Four hours later, the 27 NHS groups had come up with an interim solution to that crisis.

Four hours later, Charlie had found a passion he hadn’t before realized.

Developing Himself As A Coach

Shortly after Charlie helped resolve the NHS situation, he was made partner at his law firm. But something inside him ached to get back to that coaching position. He had found success in getting people to work together in an effective way. From musicians to CEOs, he already had the experience of coaching for results. But he knew he wanted and needed even more.

He started devouring books on coaching, and he learned to live and breathe a new language. He learned about corporate effectiveness, resolution, motivational techniques, and strategy coaching tactics. He became certified by the International Coaching Federation, and he started developing his toolbox of The Three I’s: Inspiration, Imagination, and Innovation.

Nine months after becoming a partner, Charlie resigned. He knew that his “calling” was to coach. Despite fears of failure, he knew he needed to follow his dreams—even if it meant giving up the security of his old life.

Revelations in his new coaching business

Charlie’s career was peppered with startup experience, yet starting a new business from scratch was a challenge. He had to quickly focus on personal and client growth in order to get him where he wanted to be with his business.

Personal growth

Charlie met Peter on Palm Beach Island, at a restaurant Peter frequents with clients. The two immediately bonded, both over their profession as coaches and experience in the tech and startup world. To better form his thoughts, Charlie decided to work with Peter Peter helped him refine his questions, his talks, and his ideas. Peter taught him to ask more powerful questions and to expect more of himself and his clients.

While Charlie had a 360-degree view of his clients’ issues and concerns, he found he had a narrower view than he wanted of himself. Although he had amazing success coaching others, he wasn’t as skilled at coaching himself. Working with Peter allowed Charlie to gain a wider viewpoint of his own capabilities and capacities. Peter helped guide Charlie towards realizing and overcoming his personal blind spots.

Client growth

Working with Peter as his own coach helped Charlie identify his ideal client for his coaching business. In the beginning, Charlie had struggled with growth because he wanted to be everything for everyone at all times. This stretched him too thin, not allowing him to attract new clients with whom he could have deeper success. With Peter’s help, Charlie realized that being everything meant he couldn’t be enough of one thing.

Through this process, he discovered: in order to attract his ideal client, he had to be the living embodiment of his own tools and processes. It isn’t enough to tell people what does and doesn’t work… he has to show them firsthand. With this, he developed a cultural methodology of attracting new coaching clients.

Charlie exemplified and expressed his own ideologies, and so he began to attract clients similar to himself. He began to focus on high achievers with hard-working and ambitious attitudes, but who still don’t have the life they dream of. Whether they’re lacking a proper work-life balance or not achieving the personal and professional growth they desire in their personal or professional lives, Charlie knew he could coach these self-starters in an influential way.

The benefits of Charlie Hugh-Jones Coaching

With significant successes under his belt, Charlie has found a fruitful groove in his coaching business. He’s not just telling his clients what to do and expecting them to follow through. He doesn’t show them a menu of tools and let them go. He follows his own advice alongside his clients. Charlie has discovered that growing in tandem creates double the amount of success.

Charlie embodies his own methods and processes in order to demonstrate exactly what his clients want to see in their own lives.

He never puts on a front. He bares it all to his clients: being, growing, learning, struggling, transitioning, and transforming. Everything his clients are going through, he goes through and has already gone through as well. This level of transparency opens up a unique coaching method where Charlie becomes a partner in growth. It gives his clients the space to try his methods in their own lives in a practical, approachable way and he held accountable for the actions they take in doing so.

Looking forward

Charlie’s coaching business is quickly approaching its one-year anniversary in September. To celebrate, Charlie will be releasing his first book: Unlocking A More Productive You.

This is the first in a series of four books that build upon one another to reach a greater end-goal. He will release one new book every 3 months over the next year. These books will not only provide additional value to his clients but also allow Charlie to expand his influence beyond his immediate client base. He will also be launching his first personal development conference next October with a fifth book launch.

Conclusion

Charlie has loved his different careers and positions, and working with Peter has helped him reflect upon and leverage the learning from these various roles and situations. More importantly, though, Peter helped encourage Charlie to pursue his passion, and he has continued to help Charlie grow his coaching business. Charlie is now finding new ways to grow beyond the traditional coaching model in order to best serve his target clients… and himself.

Check out CharlieHughJones.com and Unlocking A More Productive You coming this September 1st!