Alexandra Durnford Executive Coach talks to Dr Raj Persaud about coaching and personal change

You can also listen to this interview on a free app on iTunes and Google Play Store entitled 'Raj Persaud in conversation', which includes a lot of free information on the latest research findings in psychology, psychiatry, neuroscience and mental health, plus interviews with top experts from around the world. Download it free from these links. Don't forget to check out the bonus content button on the app.

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.rajpersaud.android.rajpersaud

https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/dr-raj-persaud-in-conversation/id927466223?

 

A London-based executive coaching & mediation practice.

I founded Byron & Wilf to coach clients to think, communicate and behave in a way that improves their ability to manage themselves and others more effectively, achieve their professional and personal goals and reach new levels of confidence and performance at work.

About

An executive coach, member of Faculty at Meyler Campbell and mediator with over twenty years of experience in communications.
I work with board directors, CEOs and senior leaders on how they can improve their awareness and management of themselves and others to successfully:

• Communicate with more skill
• Transition to a more senior role
• Make difficult decisions
• Manage stress
• Resolve conflict
• Build their reputation and impact

My work as a mediator has enabled senior level individuals in global organisations to identify issues and develop a non-adversarial and collaborative approach to resolution with close colleagues, peers and team members.

Qualifications

I am a graduate of the Meyler Campbell Mastered Programme (2014) and have an MA in English Literature from St Andrews University (1998). I am currently studying for a MSc in the Psychology and Neuroscience of Mental Health at Kings College London. I am qualified to work with a number of psychometrics including: Hogan, MBTI, Firo-B and ESCI.

What my clients say

•  I worked with Alex following a promotion, when I was struggling, as many people do, with imposter syndrome. She helped me understand some of the misconceived assumptions I was holding on to and identified strategies to help improve my confidence and performance. Whilst some of those imposter feelings never leave, I now have control of them and feel so much more confident in my role and am performing at a higher level. I highly recommend Alex as a coach, as she gets results and is great fun to work with.

• Choice - which for me is fundamental to and comes before change
• How we all ignore the mind-body connection - for example high functioning, successful individuals not recognising link between their stress levels, cracked teeth, frozen shoulders, eczema, IBS etc. We tend to think physical health or mental health - still I think the conversation needs to advance to link the two things together 
• How can you get to 50+ and have no idea about how your amygdala works and why when you are sitting in a meeting and your boss tells you he doesn’t think much of you, you don't freeze and get brain fog because you are incompetent..its physiological (obvs you will need to check my neuroscience here!) 
• The importance of the language we use in our own heads and the horror movies we mentally press play on and how this links to the above - emotional self-regulation 
• Mindfulness/breathing - I don’t know your thoughts on this but having always been a bit wary of it for fear of being dubbed a life coach, my degree and personal experience have taught me otherwise and I think it is a crucial life skill 
• There is lots of hierarchy based debate regarding the differences between coaching, therapy, counselling, psychotherapy - and of course there are differences but the fundamentals which are often the most effective are not rocket science …i.e. asking open questions & listening - but this is still v hard for lots of people to do