Steve Nicol: Hard work gets you a long way in life, and so many times we're looking for shortcuts. In 2026 it's all, how can we get things faster? I even noticed on YouTube you can speed up how quickly you watch something. Just watch less, you know? Attitude and hard work came from being on a hill farm where it was really quite tough just to survive and have enough money to pay the bills. Everywhere I've worked, people would say, why is this guy working, you don't need to work so hard, Steve. Yeah, but we need to get stuff done. That's probably one of the bigger lessons that stayed with me my whole life.

Steve Nicol: I think it's simpler than we make it at times. The human condition loves to complicate things. One of the nice things about being fed work at a young age is there was always something to do. Whenever my father or the guy who worked with us was mending something, I was standing next to him thinking, how can I sort that? How can I be useful? My need to be useful was very strong, and still is today as a coach. We had blocks on the tractor pedals tied on with fence wire so my feet could reach. When I look back now, it's almost embarrassing how dangerous a young guy I was, unleashed in the world way too young. Driving a combine at 12, are you sure that's a good idea?

Steve Nicol: It did me very well, because I didn't have any qualifications, no real education. Each time I progressed, people would say, Steve, your HR file's empty, you need to be degree qualified for the position you're in. I didn't promote me, I don't know what to tell you. But if you want something done, I'm here. I've actually only ever had one job interview in my career. Somebody would come and say, Steve, would you like to work here? I guess so. Would you like to take charge of this team? I guess so.

Steve Nicol (cont.): I've also got a strong need to tell the truth. In boardrooms people would be not telling the truth, and I'd say, I don't believe half the things being said just now, so can we get to the actual numbers? My truth muscle served me well. Where it didn't translate: in senior leadership I'd measure people on aptitude and attitude, and they often didn't measure up. Have you chased that up? I sent an email. What else have you done? How about calling them? How about driving to their property? People said this guy's way too intense. I got the nickname, the farmer. Go get the farmer guy, he'll know what to do. I kind of liked it and didn't like it, but I like the can-do badge that came with it.

Steve Nicol: The biggest lesson was being unsustainably strong. Four guys started a technology startup, and I kept looking at it thinking, it must be time for me to join. On my third visit I said, you need to employ me, now is the time, you need a doer, and I'm an excellent doer. They said they weren't sure they could afford me. I said, let me work a month free, and if I'm worth it, you pay me. At the end of the month they paid me. We grew the business to about 90 people, 20 million pounds revenue, and sold it to Halliburton. And I broke just after the sale, because I'd been driving so hard and carried so much weight to meet the founders' expectations. On the day of the sale, 60-plus million dollars, the investors were popping champagne, and I collapsed as soon as I got it signed. They said it was an all-night celebration. Not for me. I went from the lawyer's office to a hotel room and cried the whole night. I had nothing left. I took on a burden I believed I should carry. It wasn't true. It was just something I thought I should carry.

Steve Nicol: Yes. One of the beautiful things about the work you and I do is you're doing the work on yourself the whole time. Once I understood that I was a product of the system I was running, I could adjust the system to enjoy life much more and still get the result. You don't need to burn yourself for your life. Make yourself the number one priority, make your fundamentals really strong, and then you're more useful to your clients and the people around you. At one point I was four stone overweight and had a panic attack I thought was a heart attack. I was in a hotel room in my boxer shorts thinking, what a horrible way to go. I tried to get my jeans on. Well, I'm dying, clearly, good use of my time. Got one leg in, thought, this dying's taking longer than I thought. Lay on the floor ready to fade into the universe, and, wait a minute, I'm still here. So the biggest lesson I work with people towards is this: if you get to the end of your life and you're lucky enough to be conscious, will you have any regrets? If you've got any, deal with them today.

The Shift to Coaching

Finding the Room

Jonathan Carroll: Somewhere along the way you shifted from solving problems and growing businesses to getting interested in people and behaviour. What led to that shift?

Steve Nicol: It came more naturally than by design. Wherever I was, I landed up being the team leader or at the front of the room, and I never quite understood it. I'd look behind at a queue of people and say, what are you doing? Waiting for you, Steve. To do what? Don't know, but you're going to do something. In the corporate world they'd take me into a room of very qualified vice presidents and say, need some help, Steve. I was good at deciphering the truth quickly. Is anyone want to confess? What have you not said that you want to say? Well, the budget's horrible, or the client's horrible. Right, let's put that on the board and get to the next thing. Somehow I seem to be easy to trust. People sense if you're on their side. That led me to always trying to get the best out of people, and that's why I coach today. People are always more capable than they think. When you see someone claim their potential, it's just such a cool thing to be in the room for.

Steve Nicol: Probably believing that as a leader you have to have the answers. There's a belief in Western civilisation that leaders should know everything and lead strongly, heroic leadership, follow me, I'll take you to oblivion. Whereas in truth the collective brain in the room is always stronger than the one brain. I often felt I should have the answer, and if I didn't I'd waffle a bit until it came, instead of just saying, I don't know. Now I help people say I don't know. One client with a lot of responsibility was doing a town hall for about a thousand people and was worried he didn't have the answers. I said, relax and just not have the answers. If you've got one, give it. If you haven't, say you'll figure it out together and come see me later. Never once has anyone actually come to see me later.

Steve Nicol: The thing that really annoyed me: in about the second or third webinar, one of 40 people, he said, one thing I'd like you to do is slow down. Now Steve talks pretty slow, and I'm thinking, slow down? I want to be a world-class coach in 10 minutes. So I put my hand up and said, I'm not doing that, how can we move forward quickly without slowing down? And Steve said, boy, you've got a lot to learn. That was slowing down to be present. He never made fun of anyone. If someone asked a question he couldn't follow, he'd say, try asking that again, but maybe as one question instead of three disguised as one. He helped me believe in myself, and I try to carry that with other people. At one point in my career I didn't like me at all, I was just playing a role, and Steve helped me get back to liking me.

Steve Nicol: Emma and I were asked by a company to run workshops on accountability. I said to the senior leader, who was also the HR director, if I asked you right now for the three least accountable people in your business, who are they? And he gave me three names. So you don't need accountability workshops, just go and tell them. Oh, but others could improve too. Give me their names. More of the same names. The accountability problem sits with you. If you can't hold yourself accountable enough to have the conversation, the workshop won't work, you'll just spend money and time. Quite often we hide behind the difficult conversation and complicate it by telling 30 people, when we all know it's the top two or three. Keep it as simple as you can to get the result. And when you feel complexity coming, make sure it isn't you that's complicating.

Steve Nicol: Oh, it feels like such a trade-off. Always tell the truth sooner, because the quicker you get to the truth, the less ugly it becomes. If you don't get there quick enough, it becomes bigger and uglier and harder to manage. If there's only one thing, it's just get to the truth sooner. What needs done? What needs said?

Steve Nicol: It's a people-pleasing muscle. We're conditioned from a young age to be good, to please your parents, to please your friends, and if you're good, Santa comes. When leaders try to be liked all the time, they lose the respect of the team, because they're trying to chameleon themselves to be likable for each personality. If you work hard to be good at what needs done, people respect you more than if you keep trying to please them. My rule of three: some people will like you and what you do, some won't like you at all, and most, the bigger amount, are just thinking, what does this mean for me? When you're professional and in service, you end up being more liked anyway.

Coaching Philosophy

A Little Better Than Yesterday

Jonathan Carroll: A question that sits underneath a lot of your work is, what would a great version of you do now, and do a little more of that. How did you arrive at that?

Steve Nicol: I was trying to simplify what coaching is. I hadn't read more than a comic book until I started coaching. My first coach, Ellen Gibb, said, you need to read, Steve, and gave me a book. I actually could read, I just didn't enjoy it. Once I started reading how people got the best out of relationships, business and life, I understood it was less psychology and more action. When people get lost in how good am I, if you move them into action, what's one thing I could do today to be a little bit better than yesterday, that's the compound interest of it, hourly, weekly, monthly, and it builds. I read a John C. Maxwell book, The 15 Invaluable Laws of Growth. I like it, but by the 12th law I'm a bit lost, thinking, have I done the first one enough? If I can be a little bit better each time I think about the same subject, compound means I'll get what I want. Some people I work with ask, Steve, can I get a six-pack? I believe you can. Then I describe how little difference you'll see in the first six months. Can I get a four-pack? Well, you can, but not with me. So let's get at it.

Steve Nicol: There's been too much hype about being extraordinary. Badass, smash it. You need to smash it today. You mean break it? Most of us only need a little more courage or time to bring out the answer we already know, and confidence comes in behind it. People are often looking for a secret sauce, and the truth is there is no secret sauce. I love data, but I'll ask, what does the data tell you? Green, good to go. And what does your gut tell you? Once you've got good data, the gut test always trumps it. Trust your gut, you've been in the game long enough, and whatever decision you make, you'll have enough understanding to make the next good one.

Steve Nicol: Over the dinner-time conversation we talk about what clients are trying to get done, so we compare notes on techniques. If I've had a stressful three-hour intensive, I can decompress, and Emma understands what that means. If she were a dentist, she'd say, stop, that's enough. We do leadership training online where Emma facilitates and I'm the subject matter expert, and she's the best facilitator I've ever met. Because I waffle uncontrollably, she's got a timer she holds up, Steve, enough. Sometimes senior people find it endearing. She's the love of my life, and I couldn't imagine not being in business with her now. People say, hang on, are you two married? Why would we tell you? We're just interested in getting the job done.

Steve Nicol: Probably why the truth matters so much. Because I didn't tell my truth to myself enough, I got into a position that wasn't very healthy. I had no desire to write a book. I'm Scottish and I like telling stories, so I started writing some down. Some made me cry, which surprised me. I shared a few with Emma and she said, they're really quite good, Steve. When I got to the end, the truth bit came out: we've all got more choices than we believe we've got in life. My mum died of cancer in her early 80s, and a conversation with her helped me finish the stories. Her last words to me were, I have no regrets, if I need to die, then let it be now. From that day the stories built up in me. The title is special to me because of my mum.

Steve Nicol: The human condition makes it really hard to ask for what you really want. A major part is fear of being rejected. I see it in myself in a restaurant. I decide on the fish and chips, the waiter says there's no fish, and I panic and order the burger, even though I told Emma that night I wasn't having a burger. A minor rejection, and I just picked the next thing. Bigger versions of that live in us all. It doesn't matter how capable or intelligent you are, if you get rejected it doesn't feel good, and most of us want to feel good. So I ask people, if there was no recourse on you, what would you really want? Once it's said, once it's in the world, it's easier. But getting it out is the hard part, how will people judge me?

Steve Nicol: Very much discovered. When I sent the manuscript to Steve Chandler I was terrified, sending my load of stories to an author. His reaction was so warm and generous, let's get this in the world, this is world-class stuff. Because we're good friends now, I thought, is he sanitising this? He said, yet again, Steve, you're the only world-class coach I know who doesn't believe he's a world-class coach. It's very much in my voice. I got it proofread by a Scottish proofreader and asked them to keep it sounding like me. Even when autocorrect or others said people won't know that word, I said, well, we'll find out. I just told stories the way I like to tell them.

What's Next & Final Advice

A Good Boy — and One Piece of Advice

Jonathan Carroll: Your next book, A Good Boy, opens with, for as long as I can remember, being good was the most important thing. What made you want to trace where that came from?

Steve Nicol: When I started telling stories, I enjoyed it so much. My life has felt like a Netflix series, every episode in the life of Steve, and I've been in the most difficult scrapes you could imagine, self-inflicted. My drive was always to be a good boy, to make my parents and grandparents proud, to get toys from Santa, because apparently if you're good Santa comes. At one point I asked my parents, do the elves work for Santa? Then, because my mum was religious, so who's the boss, is it God or Santa? I'm about six. If God's the boss I don't get toys from him, I get them from Santa, so who should I be good for? My inquisitiveness must have been annoying. There were funny stories in there I needed to get out of me, and some horribly sad ones too. There's a healing process in the writing, it actually heals me each time I move a story on a little bit.

Steve Nicol: It covers a lot, but it's this: do what you say you will do. If you say you're going to be a great coach, do what it takes. If you say you're of high service, be of high service, don't pretend. It's something I'm known for in my community. If you do what you say you will do, you're pretty unique in life, because a lot of people nearly do, sort of do, sometimes do. If you can consistently do that as a coach, you'll have a very thriving practice.