Penny: I work very fluidly and flexibly and this ensures that I am fully present to where you are at any time. Nothing I do is proscriptive or pre-ordained.

I don't use one sole approach but draw from a range of behavioural, cognitive, emotional, spiritual orientations that are all practical in helping you to achieve your goals. I love to use the Enneagram individually and in group work as it offers a powerful, well-researched, valid roadmap for deepening awareness and depth transformation.

With coaching I will typically elicit feedback from your key stakeholders so that our work is relevant and not theoretical or assumption-based.

Many of my clients tell me that they gain insight right from our first phone contact.

Penny: I genuinely believe that we are all completely perfect, just as we are. However I don't think this as some kind of naive hope as I am very aware that most of us are often unable to access or live this reality consistently.

This has me work with you not as a problem to be fixed but as a potential to be realized.

My coaching and any therapy or group work I do is based on my own core values of compassion, openness, truth, authenticity, love and wisdom. I truly believe that all beings on this earth have the right to be happy, effective and fulfilled. I strive to bring this to whatever I am doing both at work and in my life as a whole.

Penny: My clients tell me that I walk my talk and that I am well able to guide you from possibility to reality.

I know that any sustained transformation requires a process of unlearning followed by re-learning and this is not a process for the faint hearted or flaky. I believe it demands a truly rigorous, compassionate coach who can be a stand for your greatness.

My work is based on some of the most powerful research and development in education, psychology, philosophy, ontology (the study of “being”) and spirituality that most people simply don’t have access to. I've been an active participant, student and teacher in the human potential movement since 1979, and had access to some of the richest distinctions and best tools and resources.

I am fortunate to have had thorough training, excellent mentoring and decades of experience in understanding and applying principles and distinctions that I know give us skills for life. I am so grateful to all my teachers from all the varied traditions in which I have studied and practised, and to all the opportunities I've had to practice and receive feedback that enables me to continually refine and improve.

I only work with like-minded, equally passionate, committed professionals.

Penny: In recent years there has been a massive influx of coaches so it is important to know what a coach can do, and how to best choose a coach. As the Dalai Lama says of people seeking a spiritual teacher: "check up thoroughly, and ensure that a person is as they are declaring themselves to be".

Sadly there are many people calling themselves coaches even though they have inadequate training, experience or depth understanding as to what contributes to ongoing life effectiveness.

I believe an effective coach coach is someone thoroughly trained to observe, listen and offer new possibilities for effectively living your life, and activating your potential. This person must have the capacity to recognise what is limiting you, and to be able to introduce the right distinctions so you can more clearly understand yourself, your situation and the world around you. They need to have at their fingertips the right tools resources and experiences to give you the experiences you need for change to occur, and be sustained, as YOU choose it to be so. A coach can skilfully guide you to discover the best solutions.

Penny: I think most people suspect that they are capable of more fulfillment but don’t know where to begin to gain the necessary skills and experience.

With a skilled coach you can move into new pastures, with clear objective support that can be very encouraging and strengthening. Coaching gives you the opportunity to see perspectives you’ve not been able to recognise yourself, and it will extend you beyond existing skills and knowledge so that you can grow and succeed.

If you want to improve in some sport or musical field, you would probably seek out a coach. Similarly if you are wanting to be more fulfilled or successful, the right coach will accelerate your ability to generate this.

Penny: This is an area of considerable debate as the two seamlessly overlap when the coach is experienced and qualified in both (as I am). Psychotherapy focusses on deeper issues that impact happiness and well-being, whilst coaching typically is a more future oriented, goal directed focus.

Coaching has become a socially accepted way to receive professional guidance and support for one’s development and is often easier for people to engage with as there is no overtone or stigma associated with it. In our work we take whatever steps or direction needed to achieve the best result. Plus we are fully trained and experienced to do so.

Penny: In recent years, personal, business and life coaching has taken off as a new domain for growth.
Real coaching is not about changing who you are but about bringing out the best in who you are!

Coaching is about creating from the future rather than trying to fix the present as though it is broken or faulty. It can be a profound process of personal re-invention.

Penny: Knowledge is information based. We can gain knowledge from books, from listening to others, from lectures. I could say that knowledge comes from the head as opposed to the heart.

Wisdom on the other hand, is not head based. In Buddhism we say that the mind resides in the heart (not the physical heart, but the energetic heart). Just as when we point to who we are at the heart level, we don't point to our head and say "I am Penny", when we refer to wisdom we don't point to the head either.

We live in an increasingly acquisition based culture where more is seen as better, and this adage can be applied also to knowledge as distinct from wisdom.

When we operate from wisdom we have the capacity to know what is right and best at any given moment, not because of what we have read or learned, but because we are operating at another level of awareness that is based on heightened intution and a kind of knowing that transcends knowledge or logic.

With wisdom we can achieve results that are far more sustainable over time, through periods of change, ambiguity and uncertainty.

And when you couple wisdom with the skill to engage others in responsible conversations, you bring forth powerful results in the world.

I think that with wisdom, breakthroughs that seemed unimaginable, actually become real.

Penny: Wisdom is the embodiment of emotional and spiritual intelligence that arises from a deep understanding of oneself.

Paradoxically it does not arise from the acquisition of more knowledge but in fact, it arises by going BEYOND the known. It is a quality often associated with spiritual leadership, yet it is desperately needed in our corporations, governments and schools.

Penny: In an increasingly speedy, stressful and demanding world wisdom and joy are more needed than ever.

Having been a student of personal development AND Buddhism for a very long time (since the 70's) I have had the courage AND been fortunate to go deep into myself and discover my true abiding nature which is naturally wise and joyful as it is free from egoic patterns, needs and conditioning. This is not to say that I am in any way some paragon of perfection. Not at all. But what this depth immersion and exposure have enabled is a wonderful window into what makes us humans tick, what gets in the way, and how to address this directly and immediately. I am not a theoretician but a practitioner!

Essential wisdom from ALL traditions teaches us how to be fully in action from a place of deep inner stillness. This enables us to make choices and decisions that are based on a real understanding of accountability, that is accompanied by acceptance of the actual outcome. Wisdom is deepened through reflective silence. When we deeply listen from within, we are more able to respond from non-reactivity.

When the mind is quiet and open, insight and clarity emerge.