Coaching by bike – day 21 of travel – day 5 of the retreat

What I knew already was that coaching outdoors was fun – I’ve walked clients before around their towns and across country. What I hadn’t experienced was just how much fun coaching whilst riding a bike could be – but the 35 miles we covered on Wednesday were far more then just sight-seeing. Wouldn’t it be fun just to facilitate gigs like this all the time? Sadly, Thursday was back to our 19th Century laptop table:

and what I had already warned my clients would be the toughest day of the retreat. Why? Because it was “finances” day. After my 90-minute introduction and training (sharing the philosophy and practicalities of advanced financial management – as well as my own personal and professional numbers) it was down to the hard work of creating Excel spreadsheets for the next 12 months of their own private and business expenses. About 4/5 hours per couple were necessary to get something like an accurate estimate of the gross sales targets they needed to achieve, in order to have the practice and the life desired. Many furrowed brows, some misery – it’s never as easy exercise:

At 4.30pm, everybody shared their figures with the rest of the group, translating Annual Sales Target into Average Daily Income Generated – the mother of all key performance indicators. After our final hearty dinner last night, we retired to The White Room (the Elizabethan lounge) and spent an emotionally moving hour or so sharing our individual observations on the benefits of the retreat. It’s been an exhausting few days (again) but a quite lovely way to get to know people better – and deeply satisfying for me to have seen the progress made. This morning I was up at dawn, watching the mist floating over the lake – and reflecting that Buckland House has been an excellent venue.