So, who the hell is
It depends on whom you ask.
Let's get the obvious out of the way. I hold a professional doctorate in security risk management and am probably the most qualified security risk practitioner on the planet. I owned another business, which was, imaginatively enough, called Real Security Doctor.
I went from a standing start (and being as broke as shit) to being mortgage-free by the age of 50 in under 3 years. I also enabled my wife to give up full-time employment. That’s not boasting, just facts.
This was all possible despite my becoming an industry hate figure at the same time.
I’ve written and published 4 books on the subject of security, and I'm so far ahead of the thinking of the rest of the security industry, I might as well be speaking in tongues.
I also hold coaching and educational certs, but nothing worth talking about. I have long learned the myth of formal education and certification as a means to assessing the value of someone’s contribution. You’re better off listening to what I say and watching how I act than looking at my title and post-nominals. You’ll work out for yourself whether or not I’m worth listening to or doing business with.
I’ve been a repeat failure. I failed at school, at college (twice), in the military, in a couple of businesses, in countless jobs and in one marriage. I was even bankrupt in 2009. A regular loser. What I didn’t lose was the lessons. It’s just that some of them I needed to resit a few times.
So…why coaching?
Many, many years ago, I took on a contract to teach security guarding at a college. It was one of the UK Government-funded programmes for getting people back to work after a long period of economic inactivity.
I quickly realised that teaching them ‘security stuff’ was not enough. It certainly wouldn’t help them to become effective security practitioners. What they needed first was help to become more effective people. As I listened to the stories about their lives, week in, week out, I realised that learning which fire extinguisher was which was not going to make things better for them. They needed better decision-making skills. Better thinking skills. And the courage to use them. And so, I started looking into developing coaching skills.
Of course, at first it was a matter of learning to teach others, not learning to use on myself. I was not attending my own sermons. Because I knew how the tools worked, I doubted they’d work on me anyway.
As my security career developed, I ran headfirst into the same problems, over and over again. And at speed. They weren’t problems of knowledge. They were ME problems. I spent a lot of time thinking that there was something ‘wrong’ with me. Enough people had told me so. I began to fear for my future. I couldn’t stick a job, and lived hand to mouth for a long time.
And man, I was angry all the time. Even when I was smiling and ‘playing nicely’, in my head I was committing atrocities. And I hated myself because I knew no other way to be. It all had to be my fault. I was miserable, frustrated and isolated.
I eventually put the time in and did the work on myself. Is it finished? Not remotely. Energeia, right? It’s never finished. The work is the result. The good news is that I am finally free – of anger, self-doubt and ‘failure’.
Have the lessons I learned helped others?
Absolutely. When I was working with security management practitioners, it became apparent that what they needed wasn’t more ‘security shit’. I’d been right all along. Because I had learned to (mostly) get out of my own way, I was able to talk to them in real, practical ways.
It turns out that what they needed was what a lot of people need, in all walks of life. That said, I have rededicated myself to helping serious security practitioners who deserve a rewarding career where their contribution is valued.
You might want to read this before deciding whether or not to talk to me...
A Swan Dive in the Shallow End
A cautionary tale of my reflections on my career in security management. Unapologetic and brutally honest.
Let’s be straight. My approach, content and general attitude might not be right for you. To be sure, read the free ebook A Swan Dive in the Shallow End.
I don’t bullshit, nor do I allow my clients to. Not to me and certainly not to themselves. I deal in tough love, where it is necessary.
My only intention is the best possible outcomes for my clients. You can call that their greatest good. I will be honest with you, even if it means we cannot work together.
The fact that my clients are paying makes not a shred of difference to what I do or how I do it. I have refunded and fired clients in the past. I needed their money and aggravation less than they needed my help.
You might not be used to people who sell this way.
All my relationships are between equals. This is very important. The moment one of us decides to be other than equal, the relationship is over - permanently.
That said, I am in charge of the process. If my clients were capable of helping themselves, they'd be in charge. One of us knows what we're doing, and it's me. That is why they need my help in the first place. If I were as weak as my clients, it'd serve nobody.
I prefer to work with people who have a cause – but I have no time for ‘activists’, flag-wavers or approval-seekers.
(If that’s you, there are plenty of ‘mindset coaches’ on LinkedIn who can sell you a signed Tony Robbins Healing Crystal Buttplug.)
Unlike that buttplug, we aren’t a good fit.
I seek out people who want to make a positive change, whether for their clients, in their industry or in their community. It’s not about self-service, ego, personal inferiority and greed. I want clients who want to contribute positively – for the right reasons.
I especially work well with people who are neurodivergent or on the spectrum, and I welcome them to get in touch. I’m not making a marketing point of targeting this audience, which I find both distasteful and manipulative. We’ll find each other if we’re meant to.
So… be advised.
I may be more direct with you than you are used to.
I will expect more from you than you expect from yourself.
I will require you to engage fully. No passives. You will not solve your problems through osmosis.
I am incapable of affective/emotional empathy. I have no feelings and cannot share yours. If that makes you uneasy, think of me like a surgeon. They cannot saw open your chest to save you if they care about you. I can help you because I have no emotional barriers affecting my judgment about what is necessary. I care about your greatest good, remember…IF you are a suitable client.
Before we get too carried away...
I could start blathering on all about how amazing I am and 'buy my stuff'...but that might not be right for either of us. Let's see what an ideal client for Energeia looks like.
My ideal client is over 30, fluent in English, and is likely to be located in the UK or EU. They work in the knowledge economy, rather than as skilled labour or the trades.
They are intelligent and intellectual, but not necessarily academic. They often feel like ‘the smartest person in the room’, and that has often been a problem for them because it is usually true. They often hear (or think to themselves) that they are ‘too smart for their own good.’ They will admit that they have spent a lot of time getting in their own way, mostly because nobody showed them how to get out of it.
This has led to a history of struggling to get along with people. They spent years trying to ‘fit in’, and it made them miserable and frustrated. They are highly likely to be neurodivergent in their thinking, or suspect that they might be. Perhaps they feel that they have spent so long ‘masking’ that they have lost sight of who they are. As a result, they prefer solitude to socialising.
They have a deep desire to contribute, but on their own terms. They’ve tried it the other way, and were taken advantage of. This has left them with trust issues and a lack of confidence in their own abilities because they didn’t see it coming. What is worse, if they were in a similar situation in future, they realise that it would likely happen again.
They aren’t the kind of person to get ‘offended’ and enjoy a dark, snarky sense of humour. They can handle directness and appreciate honesty over bullshit. They can handle my potty-mouth and total lack of class because they are able to sort the value of what I say from how I say it.
If they commit to something, they do it. They are comfortable with personal accountability.
Their current situation? They are horrified by the state of the world, and the widespread decline in intelligence, ethics, integrity and truth. As a result, they feel lost, frustrated and fearful for the future. They are tired of doing meaningless, disposable work for greedy, unethical people in faceless, bureaucratic organisations. They’re tired of being at the mercy of weak, inferior, incompetent managers. They’re tired of masking, tired of being manipulated and tired of being afraid to stand up for themselves. They crave meaning in their lives and work, but can’t work out how to find it.
If you nodded along as you read any of that, we might have more to talk about. You might be lost and outnumbered, but you are not helpless. Or…you don’t have to be.