After my usual 5.00am start in the West End yesterday, I was feeling very pleased with myself as I checked out of my hotel at 7.45am with emails all answered and ready for a busy day of meetings. The main body of the day was invested in a team meeting that genuinely moved a business
Read More

It suddenly dawned on me yesterday that, since making my career change on 1st August this year, I have almost sub-consciously been going through a process of personal re-organisation that has focused on delegation and support. A series of separate decisions have joined together to make a big difference: Back on with the running shoes
Read More

A couple of services caught my eye in the latest issues of Wired magazine: I have downloaded a free trial of GoToMeeting and intend to use this quick and simple service to hold meetings on-line and also share documents in real time.  Its early days but the service looks very easy to use, compared to some of
Read More

Out for a bit of shopping on Saturday and noticed the following “evidence” that things are not quite as bad as the media would have us believe: a new Starbucks has opened on the main A30 link road that runs down the Cornish peninsula Truro city centre was packed – my first attempt to park
Read More

I’m using this medium to explain that if you sent an email to chris@thecoachinggym.com in the last 24 hours, it will not have reached me. Can you please re-send or send to chris@coachbarrow.com The reason behind this relates to the archaic systems and lack of effective customer service at Paypal, the on-line payment provider. In this world
Read More

After this morning’s blog post on stock markets and economies and an early meeting, I jumped back into super-car for a 300-mile drive back to Cornwall. Quite often, I have the ability to drive long distances without entertainment – just reflecting on my personal and professional life. I prefer silence when I drive and when I jog,
Read More

I was one of the first fee-only independent financial advisors in the UK – back in 1987 a group of us formed the Institute for Financial Planning and rejected commission-based advice for our clients. We had become disillusioned with the pressure to either sell a policy to make a living or expect markets to move ever upwards
Read More

Here’s a little letter that I ran off before breakfast this morning in answer to a cry for help: Dear Mr___________   A chance to complete your dental treatment   We see from our records that you have items of dental treatment that have not yet been completed.   We understand that sometimes due to unforeseen circumstances
Read More

To answer the concerned emails this afternoon – I’m over yesterday’s encounter with too many Falmouth Bay Oysters (never again) and I’ve been working on practice valuations for 12 hours now. Chris Barrow, the “former” business coach, hunched over an Excel template and with desk covered in P&L’s – experiencing that vertical learning curve at
Read More

Nice new web site here for a brand new practice in central Liverpool. They need some additions – mainly pictures and video of: the full team the premises and the patients (testimonials) But that will follow as this is a new baby for the principals. Under the supervision of a cracking practice manager (Suzy Gorman),
Read More