#257 – Helen Cowan – Coaching Talented Women

Helen is Here to Help Coach Talented Professionals Coaching firm owner, Helen, joins us on The Next 100 Days to discuss how she helps talented professionals. Helen believes in enriching businesses, families, and society through enabling diverse talent to thrive. Where did The Tall Wall Come From? Helen left her old corporate job and started her own company, The Tall Wall. The Tall Wall is an executive coaching business that specialises in working with talented individuals in professional services and large corporates. Trying to find a name that was unique came as a struggle as she wanted it to relate to her business. She asked her 9 year old son what he thinks the company should be called. Helen explained that it was an Executive coaching company and he came back with The Tall Wall. This came from the struggles that these professionals have when coming to Helen. http://thenext100days.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/12/The-namer.mp4 Who is it That You Coach? Most of Helen's coaching is with Professional service firms, large corporates, or financial institutions. Within those organizations, she is serving mainly leaders but they also do a lot of work with women on maternity leave. Most of the work at The Tall Wall is to help people get back into working. The coaching starts before they leave to set themselves up for success. They also try to coach them whilst they take the time off and when they return. They do this to help that person hit the ground running once they return after their work leave. http://thenext100days.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/12/who-you-coach.mp4 When coaching the professionals, Helen gives them a mental stillness to do really good thinking. One of the things that can happen when you are preparing to go on maternity leave, is that you want to worry about things later. Helen sees women all the time trying to push their worries, whether it's 6 months or 12 months down the line. One thing that she might suggest you do is instigate a talk with your line manager about what life might look like when you come back. There are plenty more things that you can do on leave that will set you up for when you return which Helen's business can support you with. Growing Your Business As a business, The Tall Wall has grown and grown. Even through the pandemic, the company has grown more than last year. The maternity side is still a very big part of Helen's company but she has also found that a lot of the organizations she works for, have asked her to do executive coaching too. http://thenext100days.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/12/growing-your-business.mp4 Within that role, Helen's job is to minus those interferences a person might have within a role so that their performance is as close to their potential as it can be. Do You Have to be a Certain Age to do Coaching? To be a coach you can be any age in Helen's eyes. Her entry-level requirements for anyone that joins the team for either a coach or associate, is that they have to understand what it's like to step into the organizations In which they're coaching. Which means were not likely to be getting an 18-year-old coaching us. If you went to a conference on coaching you'll find that 85% of the women are in their 40's. Helen really wants to try to change that. She wants men in, she wants younger people. http://thenext100days.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/12/Age.mp4 To find out more about Helen and how she can help you click here Want to know more about Graham and what he does? visit  finelyfettled.co.uk. If you want to know more about Kevin, find him here. Want to know more about coaching? Check out this podcast by Marie about leadership coaching here