Hello & welcome

I’m Paul Bridel

After a career in IT and Project Management, I now work with exhausted IT Project & Programme Managers to help them revive their enthusiasm for their work, so they can excel again – or pivot with confidence.

I have spent a full life in professional employment but like so many others, I started to question things; the passage of time, whether the work held any meaning for me, was this all there is, or whether there was something else out there that might hold more meaning to me, might align with my values more?  Was this corporate role really me?  Of course, I knew the answer to that.  For many years, I didn’t really know what else to do, I didn’t have a direction; the corporate work was my skill set and provided a good quality of life.  It’s what I knew.  I had commitments to cover, it was safe.

But, like for so many others: work was stressful.  Eventually, I burnt out and it started to affect my health, mentally and physically, as well as the quality of my work.

My interest in coaching started years ago.  I read and absorbed books and websites on coaching, but it didn’t feel like something that ‘I’ could do from my safe place as an employed professional.

A few years back, I had the opportunity to take voluntary redundancy after being in my corporate role for over 20 years.  It was too good an opportunity to miss, so I grabbed at the chance and early the next year I was out of work and thinking what to do next.  

Obviously, coaching was on my mind.  But, I bottled it.  I had too much fear.  I wasn’t qualified, for a start, I had never been self-employed before, and how would I get clients? I didn’t believe that I could do it.  It didn’t feel possible.

So by that June I’d taken up another project manager role, having fallen back into my comfort zone.  I knew I’d missed my chance to make a big change in my life and that the fear had won over.  I continued to work in project management jobs for four more years until I hit some health issues and fortuitously another opportunity arose to take a (very) small pay-off – but it was enough to make me grab the opportunity, second-time around.

I knew, this time, that I’d always regret it if I didn’t have a go, so after leaving my job I took the plunge and I signed up to a coach training course and now, here I am.

It was a little scary being out of work, but you only really fail if you don’t try.  So…

…finally, I’m where I want to be.  I share my story here because I think it is similar to many other people’s experiences.  I don’t want others to spend years or even longer wondering about their true purpose or agonising over other challenges that life can throw at us.  It’s my passion, and privilige, to help people avoid the long and drawn-out journey that I took.

If my story resonates, or if the scenarios on the home page feel a bit close to home, I’m ready to work with you to help you move forward.