You pasted your client's transcript into ChatGPT or Claude to get a second pair of eyes before your mentor coach session. Their name went with it. Their company. The detail about their health. All of it now sitting on a server outside your control, covered by someone else's data policy.

The ICF published their Acceptable Use of AI and Client Protection Guidelines. I read them expecting to find gaps in what I'd built. Instead I found that most of what they're asking coaches to do is already how the platform works.

The AI told me something I did not want to hear.

Across my coaching sessions, I was talking 35% of the time. Too often I was filling space with my own stories instead of holding it for the client. I was also starting sessions without clear agreements. I knew I had room to grow, but I did not realise how consistent the pattern was until I saw it laid out across every recorded session.

I had built a coaching platform for my own development. Its cross-session synthesis analysed my transcripts against ICF competency markers and surfaced five development areas, each scored as improving, stable, or declining.

I chose one area to work on first: keep my talk time below 30%, and park personal stories unless the client explicitly asks.

I tracked my coaching hours in the ICF spreadsheet. Eight columns. It was fine until I added peer coaching, reciprocal sessions, and multiple partners across programmes. Then it was more columns, more notes, and too much time remembering who was paired with who instead of actually coaching.

My recordings were scattered across Zoom, Teams, and Google Meet. When I needed a specific session for my mentor coach, I was searching through folders trying to remember where I saved it, and then opening files one by one.

I had just turned 16. She was older.

I was on holiday with my family at a Butlins holiday camp somewhere in Wales that doesn't exist anymore. I was also very shy around girls.

Tanya Edgar PCC posted a simple question and the comments turned into one of the best coaching workshops I have seen online. Thanks everyone.

When we finally got on the flight to Australia, after our surprise baby, they were going to turn it around, all because of me.

When our youngest was 2, we finally got to go. But there was a problem, I couldn't land an interview from the UK let alone a job offer. So I planned to fly to Sydney, stay on my mate's floor until I got a job, then return for the family.

I told my wife that I was leaving her and kids. Burnout is a bitch.

If you are a driven person, always exceeding targets, always seeking the next opportunity but never feeling complete then I feel you.

How I accidentally became a coach.

I always believed that all non-sport coaches were fake and never entertained the thought of being a client, let alone becoming a coach myself.

My AI assistant tried to talk me out of building my first iOS app today.

I wanted to simplify how I get Apple Health data into a system I control. My current pipeline has six components and health data arrives 2-3 days late. I wanted to reduce that to two components and 30 minutes.