Nick Bolton - Founder
From an early age I knew I didn't just want to tread the water of life. I felt drawn to discover something that would meet my need for independence, adventure and making a difference.
Little did I known that would lead me to one day create my own coaching school!
As a passionate graduate of philosophy and then a bored bank manger in my twenties, I felt a real sense of having taken a wrong turn - as though I were living someone else's life!
At thirty, I finally took the step of going solo and created a business running conferences, training and group coaching around a wide and fascinating range of social policy issues such as homelessness, domestic violence and child protection. I built the company for nine successful years - it was a great business and it was making an impact. But it wasn't quite right. It didn't hit the spot!
As a qualified coach and NLP practitioner, I had become fascinated with the powerful and transformative impact my coaching was having in the group sessions and with my own staff.
I had mastered the art of facilitating change in people and had immersed myself in a rich and vast array of styles including NLP, solutions focused coaching, gestalt, transactional analysis and more. I felt like Bruce Lee soaking up traditions of Kung Fu to create his own more powerful approach! Even my old philosophical knowledge of existentialism became useful!
As I looked around the coach training world in 2008, I realised just how poorly served it was. Those with big budgets could afford quality coach training at executive prices. But for most people, the only courses available were from a few big companies that taught limited and outdated approaches (sadly, little has changed and those same companies teach the same stuff, untouched by developments in the field).
Whatsmore, few training companies were supporting coaches to turn their training into anything of significance. People were being churned through the system, leaving with certificates but no lasting changes in their lives.
I realised then that I had found my passion, my challenge and my mission.
To build a coaching school that led the way for normal people without huge budgets to learn cutting edge content, experience caring delivery, enjoy a vibrant community and create real change in their lives.
And so was born the Smart School of Coaching!
Today I am as passionate about it as ever and am proud of what we're achieving. Our coaches are working in every conceivable way as coaches in business and the personal coaching worlds. And the Smart School community is a thriving place of connection, passion and fun.
I love the Smart School and am committed to helping people become truly great coaches with their own businesses or in-company practice.
Of course, life isn't all Smart School...quite. Outside of the school, I love cycling and enjoy riding across Europe with a one-man tent, a camping stove and the open road! But don't worry - there's no lycra to be seen!
