Coaching and mentoring can help people maximize their potential and happiness.

Although they are sometimes used interchangeably, coaching and mentoring are not quite the same thing.

A coach typically listens carefully and asks open questions with a view to engaging the client’s will in a course of action. The goals are determined by the client, and the coach acts more like a catalyst, encouraging, suggesting and challenging to the client, but not directing or directly advising.

The role of the mentor is ssomewhat more directive. A mentor will often use their own experience, usually in a work-related context, to advise the client.

Of course, there is often a large area of overlap between the roles of coach and mentor. Often, a coach will engage with people at a deeper and more inward-looking level. The mentor may be asked to simply advise a member of staff in a new role and to suggest best practice from their own work experience.

Many people have an instinctive recoil when they hear the word creativity, and it may well remind you of childhood painting disasters and school music lesson mishaps. I can certainly empathise with that from my own experience!

But I think of creativity as something different from both artistic talent and innovation. I believe that creativity is the ability to connect with and express the deepest levels of the Self in a unique way. It is about finding creative energy from the bit of you that connects you with your purpose in the world.

Recent findings in neuro-science suggest a strong link between creativity and empathy, and motivation and happiness. Being able to creatively express your whole self, to engage and communicate with others at a deep level, can be personally liberating, deeply motivating at work, and enriching for relationships with family and friends.

That creative energy can be expressed in many different ways: in how you talk, or smile, or tell a joke; in a landscape painting, a poem, a piece of music; or it could just as easily be through an entrepreneurial project, a motivating team meeting, or a coaching engagement with a colleague.

But whether it is in the arts or sciences, in technology or economics, in a creative design company or an engineering firm, an individual or a group, creativity emerges from this deep connection with the inner Self and one’s authentic purpose.

I believe that coaching and creativity can play an important role in helping people find that sense of inner purpose in a way that is personally enriching and that helps them achieve more harmonious, meaningful and constructive relationships.

This section contains personal blog posts about life and its challenges.

I have had my share of what Hamlet called “the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune” and I like to write about these rather than bottle them up inside.

A lot of these posts are quite personal, but I am not a particularly private person. I write about the emotional side of work, relationships and even aspects of mental illness. None of this is intended to be prescriptive or is published as profesional advice.

We are all human! The more we can speak about our real experience, the more likely we will be to feel a sense of community and acceptance.

I hope you enjoy these blog posts. Please feel free to email me at peter@coachcreates.com if you want to discuss anything that arises from them.

Many people have an instinctive recoil when they hear the word creativity, and it may well remind you of childhood painting disasters and school music lesson mishaps. I can certainly empathise with that from my own experience!

But I think of creativity as something different from both artistic talent and innovation. I believe that creativity is the ability to connect with and express the deepest levels of the Self in a unique way. It is about finding creative energy from the bit of you that connects you with your purpose in the world.

Recent findings in neuro-science suggest a strong link between creativity and empathy, and motivation and happiness. Being able to creatively express your whole self, to engage and communicate with others at a deep level, can be personally liberating, deeply motivating at work, and enriching for relationships with family and friends.

That creative energy can be expressed in many different ways: in how you talk, or smile, or tell a joke; in a landscape painting, a poem, a piece of music; or it could just as easily be through an entrepreneurial project, a motivating team meeting, or a coaching engagement with a colleague.

But whether it is in the arts or sciences, in technology or economics, in a creative design company or an engineering firm, an individual or a group, creativity emerges from this deep connection with the inner Self and one’s authentic purpose.

I believe that coaching and creativity can play an important role in helping people find that sense of inner purpose in a way that is personally enriching and that helps them achieve more harmonious, meaningful and constructive relationships.