Lesley Keys - your Coach

Personal Story and Values

My coaching approach is rooted in a lifetime of navigating complex identities and experiences personally and professionally. Growing up in London in a mixed ethnicity and mixed class household meant learning early how it feels to sit between worlds. Later in life, a diagnosis of combined ADD/ADHD brought clarity to years of internalised ableism, and earlier experiences with OCD, grief and fertility challenges shaped my understanding of how unpredictable and demanding life can be. As a child, I also lived with epilepsy that changed my sense of reality and self overnight. These moments taught me how quickly a person’s inner world can shift and how unsettling that can feel.

These experiences do not define my coaching, but they inform the empathy and steadiness I bring to it. They help me recognise the emotional complexities of feeling different, uncertain or disconnected, while keeping the focus firmly on the person in front of me. I never assume that my story mirrors anyone else’s. A familiar feeling does not mean a shared meaning. My role is to stay with the client’s experience, not my own, and to explore what their emotions, beliefs and patterns signify for them.

Coaching became transformative in my own life through a series of questions asked at the right moments by someone using a coaching style. The questions were not dramatic on their own, but they created space for me to hear myself clearly. Over time, that space shifted me from believing I was destined to remain a Procurement Assistant who struggled academically to becoming a Head of Commercial with a professional diploma. It showed me how powerful it can be when someone supports new thinking without directing it. This this kind of space I now offer to others: grounded, reflective and free from judgement.

My practice is shaped by deep listening, honest reflection and mindset work that helps clients uncover the stories they have absorbed or created, and then decide which ones still serve them. I believe every person holds the keys to their own growth. Sometimes those keys are simply buried under expectation, fear or habit. Coaching provides the room to uncover them.

Alongside my professional work, I am committed to equity and inclusion in everyday life. I volunteer as a youth mentor, Mindful Mum Befriender and facilitator for Empowered Parents Empowering Communities programmes. These roles continually remind me that every individual carries wisdom, resilience and creativity, even when they cannot yet see it.

Navigating fertility challenges and parenting has been one of the most challenging and revealing parts of my life. It highlighted how much judgement, comparison and unsolicited advice people face, often at the moments they most need compassion. Parenting experiences vary widely and are shaped by countless personal, social and structural factors. What I have learned is that support is far more powerful than judgement, and that people thrive when given space to explore what is possible in their own way. This belief reinforces my commitment to creating supportive, non‑judgemental environments where individuals can reconnect with their own resourcefulness.

This gives a snippet of who I am and how I work but feel free to read Am I the Right Coach for You? or just book a Discovery Call as there is no better way to see if we’d work well together.