I am ME coaching

51 Trips Around the Sun 🥳: The Things That Actually Matter

What I know about a 51-year-old brain is this:

it filters better.
It doesn’t react to everything.
It questions the noise.
It trusts experience over impulse.
(Not always. But more than before.)

And because of that, some things just matter more - and some things matter a lot less.

What’s left is simpler:
good people, work I care about, a bit of adventure, and a lot of laughter.

A few things I keep coming back to - at work and in life:
• Focus on the good. Not blindly - deliberately. What you pay attention to grows.
• Say when I’m not okay. Silence helps no one.
• Trust it works out. Not perfectly - but enough.
• Be kind. Start with myself. It shows up everywhere else.
• Play to strengths. If something always feels hard, it might not be a resilience issue - it might be the wrong lane.
• Keep learning. One new thing a week keeps me honest and my brain bouncy.
• Say yes to adventure.
• Keep chatting to strangers. It reminds me how connected we really are.
• Laugh more. Most things aren’t as serious as we make them.

I’ve also learned that everyone’s carrying more than you can see.
Call out bad behaviour, sure - but don’t rush to make people the villain.

Grateful for my people - at home and at work.
And grateful I get to do work that really matters to me.

📸 Mum came round with the photo albums… which explains the trip down memory lane.

We’re conditioned to talk about “mum brain” as if it’s a form of early-onset cognitive decline.

A hazy soup of forgotten passwords, missing PE kits and school WhatsApp chats.

But what if we’ve misunderstood it completely?

Motherhood isn’t a detour from leadership.
It’s arguably the most savage, high-stakes leadership programme on the planet.

I’ve coached hundreds of mothers - about 70% of them in senior leadership roles.

They don’t usually book a session to talk about the guilt or the constant, frantic role-switching, but it always, always finds its way into the room.

The truth is, your brain feels crowded because it is.
There is more “stuff” in there now. More to-dos, more juggling, more invisible problem-solving.

But the brain doesn’t just clutter; it adapts. It hardens. The science is actually on our side for once.

The prefrontal cortex, the amygdala and the hippocampus all shift to help you read people better, prioritise at speed and make decisions while running on roughly four hours of sleep!

I see it every day in my sessions.
The leader chasing the promotion while balancing family with genuine confidence.
The single parent building a life that actually works for them.
The mother returning to work and stepping into a new role with a level of courage that would make the most hardened CEO weep.

The most effective mothers I coach have stopped trying to win at productivity and started protecting their energy instead.

They plan their careers in seasons, not sprints.

They switch off deliberately and they’ve learned to let go of the performative perfection that helps exactly no one.

They repeat the one thing we all need to hear:
“I am enough.”

To the incredible mothers I’ve coached, I see you. I learn from you every single time we speak.

I hope that one day I can pass on even a fraction of what you’ve taught me to my own Martha.

Happy Mothering Sunday 🤍

I’d genuinely love to hear this.
What leadership skills has parenting (accidentally) strengthened for you?

📸 my lovely mum

Eleven women. Endless brain insights 💜
Some of my best coaching conversations start when I reach for one of these books.

The women who wrote them are voices worth listening to.

Today feels like a good day to share them.
Not because they all agree.
Because they don’t.
That’s where it gets interesting.

A few from the shelf:
🧠 Sarah-Jayne Blakemore - Inventing Ourselves
Adolescent brain development. The brain keeps developing into our 20s. Brilliant for anyone working with kids or parents - more empathy guaranteed.
🧠 Amy Cuddy - Presence
Confidence and behaviour. Behaviour can lead belief. Power poses feel awkward… but work.
🧠 Amanda Blake - Your Body Is Your Brain
Mind–body connection and habit change. Thinking isn’t just cognitive - the body shapes how we think. Did a course with her last year on hacking habits 🙏
🧠 Rachel Barr - How to Make Your Brain Your Best Friend
A reminder the brain is an ally, not an enemy. Fab on insta 😊
🧠 Julia Ravey - Braintenance
Leadership improves when we care for the brain.
🧠 Tali Sharot - The Influential Mind
Hope motivates people far more than fear. Yup.
🧠 Lisa Feldman Barrett - How Emotions Are Made
Emotions are constructed, not automatic.
+ Seven and a Half Lessons About the Brain - myth-busting insights.
🧠 Tara Swart - The Source
Attention shapes the brain. What we focus on grows, start with a vision.
🧠 Louann Brizendine - The Female Brain
Sparked debate about biology and behaviour.
🧠 Gina Rippon - The Gendered Brain
Challenges the myths about male vs female brains.

And a nod to sleep scientist Gina Poe - REM sleep is when the brain does powerful emotional processing. A topic that comes up surprisingly often in coaching. Dampen the drama, regulate emotions by getting your zzz’s in. Catch season 1 Netflix ep.2 The Mind Explained.

May they be of benefit.





💜

Lisbon ♥️: where we ate our weight in pastéis de nata, soaked up the sunshine, and were welcomed like locals everywhere we went. A city that feels effortlessly stylish, soulful, and full of character and sass.

Smart leadership teams still lose time.

Decisions drag.
Tensions sit unspoken.
Progress happens - but it doesn’t always stick.

For the past 9 months, once a month, I bring the same senior leadership team into the same room.

We start with wins.
Not the fluffy kind - the neurological kind.
Because our brains rush past progress unless we slow down and let it land.

Then we move into the hard stuff.
The decisions they’ve been circling.
The tensions they’re avoiding.
The dilemmas they’ve been carrying alone.

I don’t tell them what to do.
I co-pilot.
We think together.

We turn complexity into clarity and clarity into action.

The ROI:
✨ Decisions that took months now take meetings
✨ Less energy lost to politics and re-work
✨ Stronger trust = faster execution
✨ Leaders who don’t feel alone at the top

They’re paying for speed, clarity, and capacity - together.

If you’re leading a team with shared purpose and growing complexity,
and “figuring it out as you go” is getting expensive -
this might be worth your time.

Ever walked into a meeting and suddenly felt… small?

Like a little child instead of the expert you are?

I hear this a lot - and yet it’s often well disguised.

You go quiet.
You second-guess.
You start trying to prove yourself instead of trusting what you know.

I’ve just hopped off a coaching call where a client said:
“Eek… I feel like a little child in meetings.”
Oof. But also… useful.

Because once you spot it, you can shift it.

Carol Dweck’s work on Growth Mindset reminds us that constructive feedback isn’t failure - it’s information.
And that being motivated by approval isn’t nearly as helpful as being motivated by mastery.

Expertise is built, not born.

The kids are learning this at school.
Honestly? I think we’re a bit behind.
Worth a revisit.

If you’ve got time, check out Carol Dweck’s TED Talk The Power of Yet.
See if you can spot a fixed mindset belief - and try a better one on for size.
How would you be at work with this new belief?

What’s now possible? 🧠




I love helping teams! Here’s a brilliant crew from all over the 🌏 I had the joy to work with today - the marketing team at .
Some hybrid. Some fully remote. Leaders of teams and individual contributors.
They came together to step off the treadmill and see each other in a totally new light. Hearts fully open.
Reintroducing themselves. Exploring how they want to work even better together, and to achieve their ambitious goals.
From 28 strengths, they chose three to turn the volume up on:
1️⃣ Caring consciously
2️⃣ Risk-taking
3️⃣ Trusting
We explored relationship intelligence, motives, and how to have nice conflict.
They got curious. They got stuck in. And I had the most beautiful chats in the in-between moments.
Collective habits. Shared understanding. Teams that work better, together. Can’t wait to celebrate what they’ll achieve together over the coming months 👏

Set some goals this year?
Already forgotten them?
Can’t be arsed to start?

That’s not laziness.
Your brain never bought in.

The brain likes cues. Signals. Images.
This is the antecedent space.

Get this right, and your brain actually wants to move.

A goal isn’t a to-do list.
You need to see it. Feel it. Hear it.

Every reminder - every day - should make you think:
“F**k, that’s exciting!”

Most goal-setting jumps straight to the plan:
“What are you going to do?”

That’s cart before the horse - trying to move before you know the path.

Before the plan, notice the space between here and there:
* Body. Mind. Energy.
* Images, sensations, metaphors.
* Tension. Movement.

Picture one. Paint a picture in your mind of where you wanna get to.
If this goal was a metaphor… what is it?
If it were a book title… what’s your cover?
Who’s in the scene?
What colours, sounds, and sensations bring it to life?

You see, metaphors are ‘sticky’.
They turn abstract goals into something your brain can hold onto.

And when you’re stuck, overwhelmed, or procrastinating…
come back here.

The antecedent space. The energetic space.

The place that shows your brain the path forward.

Give it a go. Notice what happens. Let me know how you go.

If you or your team needs help to get set on your way, do reach out.

Kate 😊

Joy to help set these goals up with members today.

………………………………………………………………………….
I’m Kate, a brain-based coach and team relationship guide.
For 20 years, I’ve been helping individuals and teams navigate the messy, exciting path to ambitious goals.

📸

Dear Martha.

Born wise.
Been here before, Nana said.
All the good stuff in one small body.
Thirteen today.
Fun. Funny. Kind. 
Loving you changed everything 🧠🩷🤗

Heart full of besties.
Our annual Crimbo meet-up.
Laughter comes fast, stories spill out,
History tucked into every smile.
Playful, funny, loyal, wise
I’m good at picking friends 😉
.child.980 😘full house, hurray! 🙌