The Coach's Journey - build a coaching business with integrity
Robbie Swale
112 episodes
2 weeks ago
What does the future of coaching look like… and what can we learn from those who helped build it?
Ruth Rochelle returns to The Coach’s Journey Podcast to reflect on how the coaching world has evolved over the past four decades and where it might be heading next.
Prompted by a listener’s question, Ruth shares stories from the early days of coaching - when it was more movement than industry - through the professionalisation of the 1990s to today’s fast-changing, tech-enabled landscape. Alongside the history, she offers her vision for what’s emerging now: deeper work, greater humanity, and a renewed sense of trust.
Ruth and Joey explore how coaching has shifted from performance to presence, from achievement to wholeness, and from certainty to curiosity. They discuss scepticism in the early days (and now), the rise of coaching bodies such as the ICF and EMCC, the impact of technology and AI, and why compassion and simplicity remain at the heart of great coaching.
In this episode, Ruth talks about:
Why the earliest coaching approaches focused on the inner game and self-belief
How the field grew from informal practice to global profession
The evolution from performance and achievement to whole-person coaching
Why trust, compassion, and presence still matter most for coaches today
Ruth also invites every coach to listen inwardly and lead the way forward for the profession.
If you’ve ever wondered how the coaching profession began - or where it’s going next - this conversation offers wisdom, warmth, and hope for coaches building meaningful, sustainable practices in a fast-changing world.
For more information about Ruth, visit https://www.ruthrochelle.com/
For more information about host Joey Owen, visit http://www.joeyowencoaching.com/
Read more about The Coach's Journey at www.thecoachsjourney.com.
Music by My Good Man William: listen on Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/artist/4KmeQUcTbeE31uFynHQLQg
To support the Coach's Journey, visit www.patreon.com/thecoachsjourney and to join the Coach's Journey Community visit www.thecoachsjourney.com/community.
THINGS WE TALKED ABOUT THAT YOU MIGHT BE INTERESTED IN:
FREE Ebook: An Introduction to The Coaching Business Flywheel: https://www.thecoachsjourney.com/thecoachingbusinessflywheel
Ruth Rochelle on The Coach’s Journey Podcast (previous episode) https://www.thecoachsjourney.com/podcast/78-ruth-rochelle-insight-seminars-systems-theory-and-the-path-to-our-current-truth
International Coaching Federation (ICF) https://coachingfederation.org/
European Mentoring and Coaching Council (EMCC) https://www.emccglobal.org/
Tim Gallwey – The Inner Game of Tennis https://www.amazon.co.uk/Inner-Game-Tennis-Classic-Performance/dp/1447288505
Robert Kegan https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Kegan
Suzanne Cook-Greuter https://www.linkedin.com/in/susanne-cook-greuter-60056322b/
Bill Torbert https://gla.global/team_member/professor-bill-torbert/
For more on Adult Development on The Coach’s Journey, see our interview with Jennifer Garvey Berger https://www.thecoachsjourney.com/podcast/episode-42-jennifer-garvey-berger-the-answer-to-either-or-is-both
Sir John Whitmore – Coaching for Performance https://www.amazon.co.uk/Coaching-Performance-Principles-Personal-Professional/dp/1473658128
The Coach’s Journey Podcast with Ruth Rochelle and Joey (video version) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kby9-D_5JwA
BIOGRAPHY FROM RUTH
For more than 25 years Ruth has been a coach – an executive and team coach, workshop facilitator, transformational coach and coach supervisor – with private clients and with organisations.
Ruth is an Accredited Master Executive Coach with APECS, an IFS (Internal Family Systems) Practitioner with the IFS Institute and a Coaching Constellations Practitioner, and her clients have included creative professionals, start-up founders, senior managers, young emerging leaders, celebrities, coaches, and many more.
Ruth supports her clients to create and achieve their visions, enrich their relationships, navigate changing circumstances, embark on new life directions, start and grow businesses, address specific challenges, experience greater wellbeing and connect to a meaningful purpose.
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What does the future of coaching look like… and what can we learn from those who helped build it?
Ruth Rochelle returns to The Coach’s Journey Podcast to reflect on how the coaching world has evolved over the past four decades and where it might be heading next.
Prompted by a listener’s question, Ruth shares stories from the early days of coaching - when it was more movement than industry - through the professionalisation of the 1990s to today’s fast-changing, tech-enabled landscape. Alongside the history, she offers her vision for what’s emerging now: deeper work, greater humanity, and a renewed sense of trust.
Ruth and Joey explore how coaching has shifted from performance to presence, from achievement to wholeness, and from certainty to curiosity. They discuss scepticism in the early days (and now), the rise of coaching bodies such as the ICF and EMCC, the impact of technology and AI, and why compassion and simplicity remain at the heart of great coaching.
In this episode, Ruth talks about:
Why the earliest coaching approaches focused on the inner game and self-belief
How the field grew from informal practice to global profession
The evolution from performance and achievement to whole-person coaching
Why trust, compassion, and presence still matter most for coaches today
Ruth also invites every coach to listen inwardly and lead the way forward for the profession.
If you’ve ever wondered how the coaching profession began - or where it’s going next - this conversation offers wisdom, warmth, and hope for coaches building meaningful, sustainable practices in a fast-changing world.
For more information about Ruth, visit https://www.ruthrochelle.com/
For more information about host Joey Owen, visit http://www.joeyowencoaching.com/
Read more about The Coach's Journey at www.thecoachsjourney.com.
Music by My Good Man William: listen on Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/artist/4KmeQUcTbeE31uFynHQLQg
To support the Coach's Journey, visit www.patreon.com/thecoachsjourney and to join the Coach's Journey Community visit www.thecoachsjourney.com/community.
THINGS WE TALKED ABOUT THAT YOU MIGHT BE INTERESTED IN:
FREE Ebook: An Introduction to The Coaching Business Flywheel: https://www.thecoachsjourney.com/thecoachingbusinessflywheel
Ruth Rochelle on The Coach’s Journey Podcast (previous episode) https://www.thecoachsjourney.com/podcast/78-ruth-rochelle-insight-seminars-systems-theory-and-the-path-to-our-current-truth
International Coaching Federation (ICF) https://coachingfederation.org/
European Mentoring and Coaching Council (EMCC) https://www.emccglobal.org/
Tim Gallwey – The Inner Game of Tennis https://www.amazon.co.uk/Inner-Game-Tennis-Classic-Performance/dp/1447288505
Robert Kegan https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Kegan
Suzanne Cook-Greuter https://www.linkedin.com/in/susanne-cook-greuter-60056322b/
Bill Torbert https://gla.global/team_member/professor-bill-torbert/
For more on Adult Development on The Coach’s Journey, see our interview with Jennifer Garvey Berger https://www.thecoachsjourney.com/podcast/episode-42-jennifer-garvey-berger-the-answer-to-either-or-is-both
Sir John Whitmore – Coaching for Performance https://www.amazon.co.uk/Coaching-Performance-Principles-Personal-Professional/dp/1473658128
The Coach’s Journey Podcast with Ruth Rochelle and Joey (video version) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kby9-D_5JwA
BIOGRAPHY FROM RUTH
For more than 25 years Ruth has been a coach – an executive and team coach, workshop facilitator, transformational coach and coach supervisor – with private clients and with organisations.
Ruth is an Accredited Master Executive Coach with APECS, an IFS (Internal Family Systems) Practitioner with the IFS Institute and a Coaching Constellations Practitioner, and her clients have included creative professionals, start-up founders, senior managers, young emerging leaders, celebrities, coaches, and many more.
Ruth supports her clients to create and achieve their visions, enrich their relationships, navigate changing circumstances, embark on new life directions, start and grow businesses, address specific challenges, experience greater wellbeing and connect to a meaningful purpose.
#108: Shruti Sonthalia – Awareness Combined with Action is the Key to Creating Change
The Coach's Journey - build a coaching business with integrity
1 hour 49 minutes 38 seconds
2 months ago
#108: Shruti Sonthalia – Awareness Combined with Action is the Key to Creating Change
Shruti Sonthalia says purpose is her superpower. A strong sense of purpose helped Shruti to demolish seemingly insurmountable barriers to becoming a Master Certified Coach and a globally renowned industry figure, and in this episode of The Coach’s Journey Podcast, she implores all coaches to find their ‘why’.
Shruti began her journey without coaches around her to learn from, living and working in a culture that assumed expertise was the preserve of men with white hair. Believing it was her purpose to create sacred spaces in the workplace, Shruti grafted with steadfast resolve to defy the gatekeepers and doubters who stood in her way.
By taking the path less travelled and proving herself time and again, Shruti developed a work ethic that took her to the top of her profession, empowering leaders across global markets to embody a coaching mindset.
She pays forward her expertise in the training curricula she devises and delivers to the next generation of coaches, founding her structured, evidence-based approach on the values and principles she speaks about in this episode.
In this conversation, Shruti invites us all to ask: which parts of our journeys do we struggle to own? And how might addressing them enable changes within us that ripple out to the ecosystems we operate within?
Shruti and host Neil Mackinnon also talk about:
- Whether coaching has the same effectiveness in different areas, geographies, and realities
- Accessibility of supervision as a vital aspect of coaching’s growth and integrity
- The learning we can take from our own procrastination
- How a coaching mindset can help us embody shared power
- The principle that says that which you focus on expands, and how to harness it
THINGS WE TALKED ABOUT THAT YOU MIGHT BE INTERESTED IN:
- AoEC - Academy of Executive Coaching https://www.aoec.com/
- ICF - International Coaching Federation https://coachingfederation.org/
- ICF Foundation https://foundationoficf.org/
- Shruti's paper on effectiveness of coaching in emerging markets https://radar.brookes.ac.uk/radar/file/08d2850c-51fe-42ab-aeea-e7ec829bc5a9/1/IJEBCM%2022_1_10.pdf
- London School of Economics https://www.lse.ac.uk/
- Yannick Jacob on The Coach's Journey Podcast https://www.thecoachsjourney.com/podcast/97-yannick-jacob-going-beyond-blueprints-to-challenge-the-status-quo-of-coaching
- Richard Layard https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Layard,_Baron_Layard
- Viktor Frankl, Man’s Search for Meaning https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/4069.Man_s_Search_for_Meaning
- Martin Seligman https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martin_Seligman
- David Foster Wallace, This Is Water https://fs.blog/david-foster-wallace-this-is-water/
- Theory U by Otto Sharma https://www.amazon.co.uk/Theory-Learning-Emerges-Futures-Business/dp/1576757633
- Robbie Swale’s writing on resistance https://www.robbieswale.com/the-12-minute-blog/2025/3/28/the-more-resistance-we-feel-towards-a-call-or-action-the-more-important-that-call-or-action-is-to-our-souls-evolution
- The War of Art by Steven Pressfield https://www.amazon.co.uk/War-Art-Through-Creative-Battles/dp/1936891026
- IFS, parts work, what’s in the way is the way https://matthewharwood.uk/ifs/
- RUHCO https://ruhco.org/
The Coach's Journey - build a coaching business with integrity
What does the future of coaching look like… and what can we learn from those who helped build it?
Ruth Rochelle returns to The Coach’s Journey Podcast to reflect on how the coaching world has evolved over the past four decades and where it might be heading next.
Prompted by a listener’s question, Ruth shares stories from the early days of coaching - when it was more movement than industry - through the professionalisation of the 1990s to today’s fast-changing, tech-enabled landscape. Alongside the history, she offers her vision for what’s emerging now: deeper work, greater humanity, and a renewed sense of trust.
Ruth and Joey explore how coaching has shifted from performance to presence, from achievement to wholeness, and from certainty to curiosity. They discuss scepticism in the early days (and now), the rise of coaching bodies such as the ICF and EMCC, the impact of technology and AI, and why compassion and simplicity remain at the heart of great coaching.
In this episode, Ruth talks about:
Why the earliest coaching approaches focused on the inner game and self-belief
How the field grew from informal practice to global profession
The evolution from performance and achievement to whole-person coaching
Why trust, compassion, and presence still matter most for coaches today
Ruth also invites every coach to listen inwardly and lead the way forward for the profession.
If you’ve ever wondered how the coaching profession began - or where it’s going next - this conversation offers wisdom, warmth, and hope for coaches building meaningful, sustainable practices in a fast-changing world.
For more information about Ruth, visit https://www.ruthrochelle.com/
For more information about host Joey Owen, visit http://www.joeyowencoaching.com/
Read more about The Coach's Journey at www.thecoachsjourney.com.
Music by My Good Man William: listen on Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/artist/4KmeQUcTbeE31uFynHQLQg
To support the Coach's Journey, visit www.patreon.com/thecoachsjourney and to join the Coach's Journey Community visit www.thecoachsjourney.com/community.
THINGS WE TALKED ABOUT THAT YOU MIGHT BE INTERESTED IN:
FREE Ebook: An Introduction to The Coaching Business Flywheel: https://www.thecoachsjourney.com/thecoachingbusinessflywheel
Ruth Rochelle on The Coach’s Journey Podcast (previous episode) https://www.thecoachsjourney.com/podcast/78-ruth-rochelle-insight-seminars-systems-theory-and-the-path-to-our-current-truth
International Coaching Federation (ICF) https://coachingfederation.org/
European Mentoring and Coaching Council (EMCC) https://www.emccglobal.org/
Tim Gallwey – The Inner Game of Tennis https://www.amazon.co.uk/Inner-Game-Tennis-Classic-Performance/dp/1447288505
Robert Kegan https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Kegan
Suzanne Cook-Greuter https://www.linkedin.com/in/susanne-cook-greuter-60056322b/
Bill Torbert https://gla.global/team_member/professor-bill-torbert/
For more on Adult Development on The Coach’s Journey, see our interview with Jennifer Garvey Berger https://www.thecoachsjourney.com/podcast/episode-42-jennifer-garvey-berger-the-answer-to-either-or-is-both
Sir John Whitmore – Coaching for Performance https://www.amazon.co.uk/Coaching-Performance-Principles-Personal-Professional/dp/1473658128
The Coach’s Journey Podcast with Ruth Rochelle and Joey (video version) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kby9-D_5JwA
BIOGRAPHY FROM RUTH
For more than 25 years Ruth has been a coach – an executive and team coach, workshop facilitator, transformational coach and coach supervisor – with private clients and with organisations.
Ruth is an Accredited Master Executive Coach with APECS, an IFS (Internal Family Systems) Practitioner with the IFS Institute and a Coaching Constellations Practitioner, and her clients have included creative professionals, start-up founders, senior managers, young emerging leaders, celebrities, coaches, and many more.
Ruth supports her clients to create and achieve their visions, enrich their relationships, navigate changing circumstances, embark on new life directions, start and grow businesses, address specific challenges, experience greater wellbeing and connect to a meaningful purpose.
