“Ideally, wouldn’t it be wonderful if everybody that was running coaching training had a module on coaching outdoors. Wouldn’t that be fantastic?!”
Lesley Roberts is founder of Brave Conversations and Coaching Outdoors and award winner from the 2020 European Mentoring and Coaching Council (EMCC) Global Coaching Award for her online outdoor coaching programmes.
We track her initial connection to nature playing on a swing in her backgarden to becoming an Outdoor Education teacher, before moving into the corporate world, then creating her own businesses. She’s a trail blazer in the outdoor coach training world having designed two outdoor coaching programmes; Getting started coaching outdoors and Nature as co-facilitator.
Be swept away by Lesleys’ calming Scottish lilt for advice on how to tackle common challenges outdoor coaches face, the need to nail Maslow Hierarchy of Needs and power of collaboration within the outdoor coaching community.
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Our guest
Lesley Roberts is a business coach and adventurer. In 2000 she began a 16-year corporate career with Mars Inc spending 8 years in the commercial side of the business before moving into people development where she brought her insights from working outdoors to her coaching work with leadership teams and executives.
A very accomplished coach with a passion, Lesley started Brave Conversations in 2016 and Coaching Outdoors in 2019. She brings all she has learned about people development and leadership from; Mars, working with youth at risk in the Highlands of Scotland and racing rounds the world’s oceans, to her work. In 2011/12 Lesley had a chance to experience all Nature has to offer when she participated in the Clipper Round The World Yacht Race, spending a year at sea competing to win. It tested her limits and allowed her to learn about life, leadership, and teamwork in the most extreme environments.
Whether it be a mountain walk, a stroll through the woods or along a river, she has found that nature has proven to be an excellent environment for supporting and enhancing both coach and client experience. Lesley has supported many individuals and teams internationally across a range of sectors to unlock their potential.
Lesley holds an MSC in Executive Coaching from Ashridge Business school, her research focused on how Nature can support both coach and client. She is an EMCC Senior Practitioner and is the proud winner of the Global EMCC Coaching Award for her ‘Getting Started’ and ‘Nature as Co-Facilitator’ coaching programmes which she created because she firmly believes that being outdoors in nature brings powerful developmental and wellbeing benefits to coaches, clients and businesses. Then there is the higher purpose; once we engage with nature, it can catalyse a desire to protect it.
