A Client Overview of Private Direction
What the work involves. No mystique, no proprietary system for you to learn, just an honest account of how it goes.
Private Direction is for capable men who know something is off, but cannot yet see clearly what it is. Or who suspect there may be something important they are not seeing.
Something has changed, or something no longer fits. You may have options and no real reason to choose between them. You may know movement is needed without knowing which direction is genuinely yours. From the outside it probably still looks fine, which is part of what makes it difficult to take anywhere.
It is a confidential, practical relationship with a strategic thinking partner. Someone outside your normal system who can help improve the picture, challenge the frame and notice what may be difficult to see from inside it. Not therapy, not conventional coaching, not motivational evangelism, and not easy life-coaching answers. We are two men, away from the noise of your usual world, working out what is real and where you go from here.
About the structure
Yes, there is a structure. Focused work without one becomes drift, and your time is worth more than that.
It comes down to five plain questions. These are bearings, not five stages to complete and we may return to any of them as often as the work requires.
What sits beneath them are four essential human foundations that give us ground to move from.
There is another reason for this structure.
The way a problem is framed can determine where you are allowed to look for the answer.
Thinking harder does not necessarily change that frame. Sometimes it simply makes you more sophisticated at thinking inside it.
So we change position. We question assumptions, ladder down beneath the obvious answer, look at the wider system around you and deliberately explore beyond the boundaries of the problem as it first appears.
My own thinking here draws from strategic planning, systems and behavioural work, HCI, design thinking and Edward de Bono’s lateral thinking.
Different disciplines, but with something useful in common: they give us ways of seeing a situation from somewhere else.
The five questions
Where are you now?
We begin with your situation as you currently understand it. What’s happening, what’s changed and what seems to be in the way.
But a life is not understood through the problem alone. We look at the wider terrain: work and home, the people around you, what gives and takes energy, your strengths and history, what has become unstable and what remains dependable.
We also look at the system around the problem: the environment, assumptions, expectations and structures that may be shaping what you can currently see.
The aim is solid ground that is genuinely yours. Not a personality label, an assessment or an idealised version of who you’re supposed to be.
Where could you get to?
Once we have solid ground, we look at what’s possible.
That may be wider than another job or a conventional goal. It might involve work, contribution, place, relationships, creative life, community or a different use of strengths you already possess.
We are not looking for the first plausible escape from the present. We explore what genuinely attracts you, what instinctively feels right and what is worth testing in the real world.
This is where we deliberately widen the field. Change the question, suspend the obvious answer and look at what becomes available when the original boundaries are no longer taken for granted.
Why does that matter?
An impressive opportunity is not enough. A direction has to connect to something that genuinely matters to you, not an abstract purpose or a mission statement.
We separate movement towards something you want from running away, inherited ambition or an idea that simply looks good from the outside.
So we keep asking what sits underneath the answer. Why this? Why now? What does it actually give you? And if you got it, what would that change?
What’s left should feel grounded and absolutely yours.
How do you get there?
Now it becomes practical.
Direction becomes decisions, experiments, actions, dates and ways through the obstacles we can already see coming.
But we don’t wait for that perfect understanding before moving. Sometimes understanding creates the movement. That’s fine. But sometimes movement creates a new understanding. Movement is the key.
And planning matters, but so does leaving enough room for the unexpected to find you.
We work with the real conditions around you. The people, habits, constraints, resources, timing and environment, rather than just pretending that what seems like a good decision automatically becomes a changed life.
Are you getting there?
Plans meet real life.
We look at what happened, what didn’t and what reality has to say. Did the action create movement? What did you notice? Does our direction still hold? What needs strengthening, changing or abandoning?
Reality gives us information that thinking alone cannot. Every move can improve the picture.
So, what is our next useful move?
The four foundations
Groundedness
Knowing what you are standing on: an honest view of the present, values visible in how you actually live, strengths backed by evidence and a direction that actually belongs to you.
Resourcefulness
This is about drawing on everything available to you whilst allowing yourself to explore beyond the boundaries of the problem as it first appears. It is more than creativity or making do with what you already have.
The next best move is not always about finding a better answer, but realising you’ve been asking the wrong question.
What do you know, what can you use, who can you involve, what assumptions are you making and which constraints are actually real or just self-imposed?
Resourcefulness starts by widening the field of what you believe is available.
Connection and Community
Direction does not happen in isolation.
What’s your place in the world? Why does it matter? Who do you want to spend time with and why? Who is your community?
Are there places and people you don’t yet know but are intrigued by? Behaviours, cultures or ways of living that excite you, or perhaps repel you?
What contribution do you want to make, and why?
This is about working out where you want to be and who you want around you.
Self-Governance
The central point here is that from a young age we inherit much from our environments. Expectations, conformance, standards to meet, duties, life-plans and so on.
But when did you truly make a decision that was exclusively owned by you and propelled forward with gusto by your own impulse engines?
Self-governance is knowing the difference between what is driving you from the outside and what is genuinely coming from within. Then having enough judgement to work out whether it will actually work in the real world. When you get good at it, it becomes automatic.
What Is Expected of You
Be open and honest, even when the answer might be uncomfortable. Accept that you will be challenged from time to time rather than always seeking reassurance. Expect to test ideas in real life and take real action that we can assess together.
Show up and get ready to take action.
What does it involve and what does it cost?
Engagements are usually spread over three months.
If you require something more focused or concentrated — a full day, half day or early-morning work, for example, then contact me separately and we can make bespoke arrangements.
The regular engagement covers six private conversations of approximately 80–90 minutes each.
Initial conversations are usually by video, and the work may continue that way. Where I believe meeting in person would materially improve the work, I may ask that we do so in London, the Home Counties or Cambridgeshire. I can also travel where the work warrants it.
Each conversation has a purpose. Before we meet, I consider where we are, what has happened since we last spoke and what would be most useful to address next.
You will usually leave with something specific to do, explore or test in the real world. What happens then matters. You report back on what you did, what happened and what you noticed. I review that properly, provide feedback where it is useful and use what we learn to inform our next move.
So the work builds. There are waypoints, movement between meetings and a clear sense of whether we are making progress or need to adjust direction.
At the end of the engagement we decide what, if anything, comes next. That may be nothing, another Private Direction engagement, or Private Advisory.
Fee:£3,250.
Payment
A £250 deposit secures the agreed engagement period. The balance is payable before the engagement begins.
Invoices are issued directly to you and payment is by bank transfer.