The Progress in Practice Podcast brings together successful service-based business owners for honest, high-impact conversations about growth, purpose, and the lessons learned along the way. Each episode is just 20 minutes of real wisdom from people who've built something worth talking about, brought to you by The Trusted Team. Listen in, and take something useful away every time.
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Season 1: From Footballers to Founders: Sam Sloma on Lifestyle Financial Planning
Season 1 · Episode 18
Wednesday, July 22, 2026 • Duration 22:00
In this episode of Progress in Practice, Charlie Reading sits down with Sam Sloma, founder of Engage Financial Services - a fixed fee lifestyle financial planning firm based in North London serving professional footballers, entrepreneurs, and those approaching retirement.
Sam's journey to building his own firm is rooted in two very specific moments of clarity: a client who couldn't understand why his fee doubled when he simply added more money, and the realisation that his clients were loyal to him personally, not to the business he was building inside someone else's firm. Both pointed in the same direction. Engage was born, and ten years later it is still guided by the same founding principle: lifestyle financial planning, using your capital to live as full and fulfilled a life as possible, whatever that looks like for you.
From the startling realities of advising elite professional footballers to the wisdom of appreciating the days you're living in right now, this is a grounded, honest, and genuinely warm conversation about money, business, and what really matters.
Key Talking Points
Who Engage serves: professional footballers, entrepreneurs building or exiting their businesses, and professionals heading towards retirement and the lifestyle planning philosophy that connects them all
What lifestyle financial planning actually means: aligning your values and your capital so you feel happy, secure, and like you're living the life you want
Why fixed fees make more sense than a percentage of assets and the client conversation that planted the seed
The second story behind going independent: clients knew Sam, not the firm, and that told him everything
What makes advising elite footballers so different: steep earning curves, short windows, and the pressure to make hay while the sun shines
The statistic that stops people in their tracks: historically, 60% of professional footballers go bankrupt within five years of finishing their career
What Sam would tell his younger self: every decision leads you to where you are- stop looking back and start appreciating these days
The wisdom Sam wants to pass on to his three daughters: be kind, have empathy, and if you're good to others, everything else takes care of itself
Why Sam says the biggest obstacle in his business right now is himself — and the 5-year growth plan and KPIs Engage now has in place for the first time
Book recommendation: Shoe Dog- Sam's annual Christmas listen and a masterclass in determination, marginal gains, and what it really takes to build something great
About the Guest
Sam Sloma is the founder of Engage Financial Services, a fixed fee lifestyle financial planning firm based in North London. With a background in professional football, Sam built Engage around three client groups: professional athletes, entrepreneurs, and those approaching retirement, united by a shared commitment to lifestyle financial planning: using capital to live as full and fulfilled a life as possible. Engage is approaching its tenth year in business.
Shoe Dog- Phil Knight's memoir of building Nike, and Sam's annual Christmas listen
Air- the film companion to Shoe Dog, covering the Jordan deal
About the Podcast
Progress in Practice is brought to you by The Trusted Team — helping professional service business owners build scalable, saleable businesses while working less and enjoying more.
If this episode resonated, make sure you follow the podcast and leave a rating and review. It helps more founders discover these conversations and allows us to bring you even better guests.
Until next time, keep making progress in practice.
Season 1: Control the Controllables: Simon Dent on Building Brands, Businesses and Ultramarathon Resilience
Season 1 · Episode 17
Wednesday, July 15, 2026 • Duration 23:01
In this episode of Progress in Practice, Charlie Reading sits down with Simon Dent, Chairman of Firmative, the creative company that puts brands in culture, working with the likes of Netflix, Atlantic Records, Sony and Universal.
Simon is the first guest to bridge Charlie's two podcasts, The Business of Endurance and Progress in Practice, and the conversation shows exactly why. From cutting his teeth as a London club promoter to founding sports creative agency Dark Horses, and from hitting rock bottom with his mental health to completing more than 30 ultramarathons, Simon's story is a masterclass in resilience, relationships, and doing hard things.
Whether you're scaling a creative business or simply want to build a stronger relationship with discomfort, this episode is packed with honest reflections and lessons you can apply immediately.
Key Talking Points
What it really means to put brands in culture and why so many brands gatecrash and make a mess.
Firmative's "third way of working": blending strategy, creative and production to deliver hundreds of assets at speed.
How club promoting taught Simon to sell, build communities and manage a P&L before Instagram existed.
Simon's advice to his younger self: you can't do it alone; never be the smartest person in the room.
Why diluting equity to bring in best-in-class people beats hoarding it.
The wisdom he'd pass to the next generation: build a relationship with hard things, because they're coming anyway.
How hitting rock bottom with depression and anxiety redefined what pain means, in running and in business.
The link between endurance sport and entrepreneurship, and why you don't grow when you're comfortable.
The biggest challenge after 50% growth in 12 months: cash flow, payment terms, and recruiting senior people who understand culture.
Season 1: From Near-Death on Honeymoon to Award-Winning Estate Planning Practice with Matt Smith
Season 1 · Episode 16
Wednesday, July 8, 2026 • Duration 24:53
In this episode of Progress in Practice, Charlie Reading sits down with Matthew Smith, founder of Buckingham Gate Chartered Financial Planners, to explore how he built an award-winning estate planning practice and then turned his competitors into his clients.
Matthew shares the extraordinary story of nearly dying on his honeymoon and how that experience inspired both the launch of his business and his passion for estate planning. He explains why Inheritance Tax is rapidly becoming a mainstream problem rather than one reserved for the ultra-wealthy, and how Buckingham Gate's digital marketing system now powers client introductions for a growing network of partner advisers.
From navigating the no man's land of scaling past 20 people to embracing AI across the back office, this episode is packed with honest reflections and practical lessons for any professional service business owner.
Key Talking Points
How Buckingham Gate bridges the gap between traditional legal advice and financial planning.
Turning competitors into clients: building a partner adviser network instead of multiplying headcount.
Why Inheritance Tax now affects far more than the top 0.1% and why 10% of estates could be paying it by 2030.
The honeymoon health crisis that inspired Matthew to start the business.
Why being "the GP that smokes 20 a day" made him passionate about getting clients organised.
Matthew's advice to his younger self: trust the process business compounds like investing.
The wisdom he'd pass to his children: follow your heart, not other people's expectations.
The biggest obstacle to growth: finding, training and developing exceptional people.
How AI is transforming back-office productivity, from document analysis to drafting advice reports.
Why sitting out the early AI gold rush may have worked to Buckingham Gate's advantage.
The book Matthew keeps returning to: Traction and the EOS model.
About the Guest
Matthew Smith is the founder and Managing Director of Buckingham Gate Chartered Financial Planners, an award-winning financial planning practice in the heart of central London with specialist expertise in estate planning, intergenerational wealth transfer and Inheritance Tax mitigation.
Season 1: Beyond the Block: Rewiring the Beliefs Beneath Your Limits with Jill Martin
Season 1 · Episode 15
Wednesday, July 1, 2026 • Duration 20:07
In this episode of Progress in Practice, Charlie Reading sits down with Jill Martin, founder of Impact Business Consultancy, to get under the bonnet of how we really operate as humans and why the founder is always the biggest block in the business.
Jill works with impact and purpose-driven entrepreneurs who are already high-achieving, but know they're not accessing everything they have to give. Rather than managing limitations or working around them, her approach undoes the beliefs beneath them; combining a creative orientation, neuroscience, somatic work, identity, nervous system regulation and the superconscious.
Jill shares her own story of spending 20 years in corporate, watching herself burn out despite being super fit and healthy, and turning the transformational lifestyle that saved her into a business. This is a fascinating, honest conversation about the science emerging behind what many would dismiss as woo-woo, and why your business can only ever grow to the capacity of its founder.
Key Talking Points
Who Jill serves: impact and purpose-driven entrepreneurs who know there's more in them, but can't quite access it
The three-part approach: connecting to what you want to create, who you need to be to hold it, and clearing the resistance in between
Why a creative orientation beats problem-solving — if your focus is on the problem, it's still on the problem
Rewiring the brain: neuroplasticity, and why the brain doesn't know the difference between reality and imagination
Working somatically: why trauma, beliefs and limitations live in the body as well as the mind
Identity as one of the strongest drivers of human behaviour — and why the nervous system has to feel safe before you can expand into a new one
The superconscious explained: a field of information that's recorded how every event in your life landed
Jill's story: 20 years in corporate, burning out despite doing everything "right", and turning her transformation into her business
The advice she'd give her younger self: don't live the life that's expected of you — follow your intuition and live more fearlessly
The wisdom she'd pass on: learn who you really are by connecting to what lights you up
Season1: Free Management, Five-Year Guarantees, and Getting Out of Your Own Way with Felix Mead
Season 1 · Episode 14
Wednesday, June 24, 2026 • Duration 21:32
In this episode of Progress in Practice, Charlie Reading is joined by Felix Mead, founder of Sliq Homes- a London-based property management business built on a model that still raises eyebrows: free management, free maintenance, free refurbishment, and a guaranteed rent for five years.
The model works because Sliq Homes converts three and four-bed family homes into high-quality HMOs for working professionals, creating the margin that makes the free service possible. But the business behind the model is just as interesting as the model itself. Felix spent his twenties as a scuba diving instructor in Koh Tao and the Great Barrier Reef, then as a DJ and fire dancer, before a single moment at a restaurant with his brother- an £800 bill paid mid-conversation without a second thought- made him stop, go to the bathroom to shake it off, and decide everything needed to change.
He came to London, experienced the letting industry first-hand, was unimpressed by what he found, and built something better. The conversation covers the mechanics of the Sliq Homes model, the importance of authenticity in business and life, the challenge of removing yourself as the bottleneck in your own operation, and a Jim Rohn quote that Felix couldn't fully appreciate until business had forced him to grow into it.
There's also a quietly remarkable moment when it becomes clear that Felix and Charlie both learned to scuba dive at the same dive school on the same island in Thailand- years apart.
Key Talking Points
• What Sliq Homes does: free property management, maintenance, and refurbishment for landlords, funded by converting family homes into quality HMOs.
• SLIQ stands for Shared Living in Quality and why the quality of the experience for tenants is central to the model working.
• How landlords receive market rent plus inflation-linked increases, guaranteed over a five-year term.
• Why the ideal client for Sliq Homes is defined by the property rather than the landlord, and why Felix asks for a floor plan and postcode rather than a property description.
Season 1: Promoted Because You Were Good: Eradicating Bad Management with Mark Stanton
Season 1 · Episode 13
Wednesday, June 17, 2026 • Duration 25:56
In this episode of Progress in Practice, Charlie Reading is joined by Mark Stanton, co-founder of Develop People- a leadership and personal development practice working with manufacturers, engineers, regulated industries, and professional services firms to help technically excellent people become genuinely effective leaders.
Mark spent nearly three decades in policing, retiring at a senior level having led teams of up to 600 people, before joining the business his wife Emma had founded 14 years ago. Emma's dual motivation was deeply personal: years of experiencing the damage caused by poor management, and a late diagnosis of dyslexia at 29 that helped her recognise the coping strategies she'd quietly built were skills others didn't know they had. Together, they help organisations surface those hidden capabilities and develop leaders who can lead themselves first.
Mark and Charlie dig into DISC profiling, emotional intelligence, and the above and below the line framework that underpins Develop People's approach. They also have a genuinely interesting conversation about AI- not as a threat to leadership development, but as a tool that's only as useful as the prompts you give it, and as a future lens for real-time feedback in meetings and culture.
This is a practical, honest, and thought-provoking episode about what it really takes to build high-performing teams, and why the blocker is usually closer to home than most leaders want to admit.
Key Talking Points
• Who Develop People serves: technical specialists and high-performers who've been promoted into leadership without ever being taught how to lead.
• The sectors they work in: manufacturing, engineering, pharmaceuticals, regulated industries, accountancy, and legal firms.
• Emma's founding story: leaving a series of jobs because of damaging management, and discovering her dyslexia at 29 and the hidden skill set that came with it.
• Mark's policing career: nearly 30 years, retiring at senior level, leading teams of up to 600 people and the moment he asked himself what he could offer the outside world.
Season 1: The One Minute Healer: Making Wellness Work for Busy People with Lakhmi Bhambra
Season 1 · Episode 12
Wednesday, June 10, 2026 • Duration 28:19
In this episode of Progress in Practice, Charlie Reading is joined by Lakhmi Bhambra- also known as The One Minute Healer- founder of the 111 Approach, a wellness practice built around a simple but powerful premise: one thing at a time, one minute to do it properly, one day at a time.
Lakhmi's path to wellness is anything but conventional. With a science degree and a background in the medical field, she spent years dismissing energy healing as woo, right up until a Reiki session with her aunt in New Zealand stopped her in her tracks. She describes the extraordinary moment grey smoke visibly left her chest, the lightness she felt afterwards, and how she returned to England determined to disprove it. She couldn't. What followed was a deep dive into intuitive energy healing, training in eight different modalities, and the creation of a practice that helps clients, from busy parents to multi-million pound business owners, get real results in around ten minutes.
This is a warm, thought-provoking, and genuinely unusual conversation about intuition, energy, the power of gratitude, and what it means to be weird in the best possible way.
Key Talking Points
• Who Lakhmi serves: busy professionals and parents who know they need to invest in their wellbeing but feel they simply don't have the time.
• The 111 Approach: one thing at a time, one minute to do it properly, one day at a time and why tackling wellness one step at a time prevents overwhelm.
• Why most people fail at wellness goals and how trying to change everything at once is the real culprit.
• Lakhmi's science background and years of deliberate scepticism; why she shut down her intuitive gifts as a child and what that led her towards.
• The Reiki session in New Zealand that changed everything: a visible cloud of grey smoke, a lighter chest, and a breath she didn't know she'd been holding.
• The science behind the woo- why energy healing is entirely compatible with a scientific understanding of the body.
Season 1: No Mission Reaches Orbit by Accident: From Rocket Scientist to Career Coach with Amanda Regan
Season 1 · Episode 11
Wednesday, June 3, 2026 • Duration 20:19
In this episode of Progress in Practice, Charlie Reading is joined by Amanda Regan, founder of Ignite Your Career- a coaching practice helping high-performing mid-career professionals reposition their careers deliberately so they can step into the person they've already become.
Amanda's path to coaching is extraordinary. Streamed wrongly at secondary school, told she wasn't A-level material, and rejected by every advanced school she applied to, she went on to spend 20 years at the European Space Agency, including a pivotal moment standing in Kennedy Space Centre, where the Challenger disaster had first ignited her ambition as a 12-year-old. Her coaching framework, built on the principles of space mission design, is as original as her story.
This is a fascinating, inspiring, and deeply practical conversation about visibility, positioning, resilience, and what it really takes to design the career, and life, you want.
Key Talking Points
Who Amanda serves: high-performing mid-career professionals, mainly women, who are successful on paper but quietly feeling stuck or flat
Why competence can trap you and how growing beyond your role creates a dangerous mismatch
The Challenger disaster at age 12: how a single moment put Amanda on a trajectory towards the European Space Agency
How rejection and being streamed wrongly at school taught Amanda to present herself as the solution to a problem
Why Amanda became known as the "CV whisperer" at university and how that skill never left her
The moment at Kennedy Space Centre in 2012: sending her mum a photo to say "people like us do get jobs like this"
What Amanda would tell her younger self: focus on positioning and visibility, not just competence
Why being indispensable in a role can be a career trap, not a career asset
The advice Amanda would pass on: clarity doesn't start with knowing what you want — it starts with the courage to admit what you're no longer willing to tolerate
Just because you can doesn't mean you should, and why delegation is liberation
Amanda's biggest challenge: scaling her high-touch coaching sustainably and systematically
Season 1: Stop Fearing the Fall: Building an AI-Powered Marketing Platform from the Ground Up with Charles Maloney
Season 1 · Episode 10
Wednesday, May 27, 2026 • Duration 21:55
In this episode of Progress in Practice, Charlie Reading is joined by Charles Maloney, founder of ClearView — an autonomous sales and marketing intelligence platform designed to automate up to 85% of the manual execution behind SEO, paid ads, and analytics for small and medium-sized businesses.
Charles brings a fresh perspective to the podcast as a founder right at the start of his journey — building, raising capital, and refining a product he believes can transform the odds for the 82% of businesses that fail within three years. This is a candid, energising conversation about the messy middle of building something new, why failure is fuel rather than a stop sign, and why human connection will always be the one thing AI can't replace.
Key Talking Points
Who Charles serves: SMEs and marketing agencies drowning in performance theatre — multiple platforms, fragmented data, and manual tasks
What ClearView does: an autonomous platform that audits, implements, and optimises SEO and marketing — while you sleep
Why 82% of businesses fail within three years — and how ClearView is built to change those odds
The difference between AI prompt wrappers and a genuine execution engine
How ClearView transforms SEO from a costly, slow, manual process into an automated, continuous system
The lockdown moment that sparked the idea for ClearView — and the roundtable of agency owners that gave it its shape
What Charles would tell his younger self: stop fearing the fall — failure is the requirement for success, not the opposite of it
The advice Charles would pass on to the next generation: master the art of human connection, because you can automate a task but you can never automate a relationship
Why the biggest threat isn't AI taking your job — it's someone else using AI better than you
ClearView's current obstacle: capital and time to complete the final features and move from MVP to full scale
The founding user model: 15 businesses helping shape and beta test the platform before full market launch
The Hawksmoor Way and Will Beckett's influence: building a business without selling your soul
Season 1: Trust Your Gut, Follow Your Love: Building a Luxury Interior Design Business the Unconventional Way with Annie Allison
Season 1 · Episode 9
Wednesday, May 20, 2026 • Duration 23:12
In this episode of Progress in Practice, Charlie Reading is joined by Annie Allison, founder of Allison & Co — a luxury interior design studio working on high-end residential projects across the UK and Europe.
Annie's path into interior design wasn't traditional — it grew organically from creativity, curiosity, and a willingness to follow what she loved. In this warm and honest conversation, she shares the story behind a landmark project in the south of France, the importance of not being afraid to fail, and why planning has become the unexpected cornerstone of her growing business.
This is a conversation for any creative founder who's built something beautiful from an unconventional starting point — and is now figuring out how to grow it with the right people and structures around them.
Key Talking Points
Who Annie serves: clients seeking luxury, highly personal interior design for residential projects in the UK and Europe
How Allison & Co delivered a seven-bedroom property in the south of France in under a year — saving the client over a million euros in the process
Why Annie and her husband became the "guardians of the project" — bridging clients, builders, and contractors across borders
The creative journey that led Annie to interior design: drawing with her daughter, designing wallpapers and fabrics, and growing from small projects upward
What Annie would tell her younger self: don't be afraid of failure, and always trust your gut
Why the unconventional route into a career is often a strength, not a weakness
The advice Annie would pass on to her daughters: don't feel you have to follow a well-travelled path to success
Annie's biggest obstacle: time and people — and the challenge of focusing on what truly counts
How taking the leap to employ Freya was terrifying — and one of the best decisions she ever made
Why planning has been a game-changer for a self-described creative who previously kept everything in her head
How The Trusted Team's leadership and delegation frameworks have helped Annie build structure into her business
Why people buy from people — and why a phone call still beats a website or Instagram
Why the first five hires define the business.
Simon's guiding framework: control the controllables- in the boardroom and at 500km into an ultra.
About the Guest
Simon Dent is the Chairman of Firmative, a creative company born out of the music industry that helps brands become a welcome guest in culture, working with major record labels including Atlantic, Sony and Universal, as well as global brands like Netflix.
Before Firmative, Simon founded sports creative agency Dark Horses- named one of the fastest growing agencies in the world before its sale to Omnicom's TBWA, and launched a sports talent management business, which he sold to ROAR Global. He is also an accomplished ultrarunner, with more than 30 ultramarathons to his name, and shares his journey as @ultraentrepreneur on Instagram.
Find Out More
Firmative on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/firmativehq/
Simon on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/ultraentrepreneur/
The Business of Endurance podcast: https://www.buzzsprout.com/1373434
About the Podcast
Progress in Practice is brought to you by The Trusted Team- helping professional service business owners build scalable, saleable businesses while working less and enjoying more.
Find out more: https://thetrusted.team
Enjoying the Show?
If this episode resonated, make sure you follow the podcast and leave a rating and review. It helps more founders discover these conversations and allows us to bring you even better guests.
Until next time, keep making progress in practice.
Alongside serving clients directly, Buckingham Gate has built a sophisticated digital marketing system that generates consistent, high-quality client introductions for a network of partner advisers - financial planners who share Matthew's passion for estate planning. Matthew is a Chartered Financial Planner, Certified Financial Planner and Chartered Wealth Manager, and the author of Efficient Estate Planning.
Find Out More
Website: https://buckinghamgate.co.uk
LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/matthewsmithapfs
Buckingham Gate runs regular monthly webinars on estate planning. Visit the website to register.
Resources Mentioned
Traction and Rocket Fuel by Gino Wickman (the EOS model)
Charlie's AI Masterclass: https://trusted-team.mykajabi.com/offers/FTCFcWzK
About the Podcast
Progress in Practice is brought to you by The Trusted Team — helping professional service business owners build scalable, saleable businesses while working less and enjoying more.
Find out more: https://thetrusted.team
Enjoying the Show?
If this episode resonated, make sure you follow the podcast and leave a rating and review. It helps more founders discover these conversations and allows us to bring you even better guests.
Until next time, keep making progress in practice.
Why the business can only ever grow to the capacity of the founder
Jill's biggest obstacle: herself — and the friction between easing back in her mid-50s and making a real impact
The daily practice that underpins it all: heart-brain coherence and the HeartMath research behind it
About the Guest
Jill Martin is the founder of Impact Business Consultancy, working with impact and purpose-driven entrepreneurs to clear the limitations standing between them and their greater potential. After 20 years in the corporate world, during which she watched herself burn out despite doing everything right, Jill began exploring what was happening beneath the surface. That exploration became a lifestyle, and eventually a business, drawing on neuroscience, epigenetics, somatic work, identity and the superconscious to help founders not just manage their blocks, but undo them at the root.
Progress in Practice is brought to you by The Trusted Team — helping professional service business owners build scalable, saleable businesses while working less and enjoying more.
If this episode resonated, make sure you follow the podcast and leave a rating and review. It helps more founders discover these conversations and allows us to bring you even better guests.
Until next time, keep making progress in practice.
• Target properties: close to tube stations, desirable areas for working professionals aged 20 to 35, with floor space that can be intelligently maximised.
• Felix's founding moment: watching his brother pay an £800 restaurant bill mid-conversation while Felix had £100 in the bank and the realisation that the travelling life was over.
• Why Sliq Homes was born from experiencing the letting industry at its worst: no service, no integrity, agents paid upfront with no incentive to deliver.
• The shared Koh Tao connection: Felix was a scuba diving instructor at Ban's Diving in Koh Tao; Charlie learned to dive there in 1999.
• What Felix would tell his younger self: discover who you truly are, honour it by being authentic, and trust that authenticity attracts the right people, opportunities, and situations.
• How travel, personal development, and the courage to take risks have been Felix's primary tools for self-discovery.
• Wisdom to pass on to the next generation: don't take life too seriously; resilience depends on it, and business is allowed to be fun.
• The biggest obstacle in Felix's business right now: transitioning from startup operations to a systemised foundation and removing himself as the bottleneck.
• Charlie's 3-months-off principle: Felix wrote it down when he first heard it, and building the operations to make it possible is part of the current focus.
• The room of 500 business owners: how many would still have a business if they disappeared for a month? For six months? And why the answer matters.
• Book recommendation: Think and Grow Rich and Jim Rohn's insight that the real value of building a business is who it forces you to become.
• The epiphany of delegation: realising that the admin someone else hates doing is something a brilliant hire will genuinely love and that one person's weakness is another's strength.
About the Guest
Felix Mead is the founder of Sliq Homes (Shared Living in Quality), a London-based property management business offering landlords free management, free maintenance, and free refurbishment in exchange for a five-year guaranteed rent agreement. Sliq Homes specialises in converting three and four-bed family homes into high-quality HMOs for working professionals, creating the margin that funds the free model. Before founding Sliq Homes, Felix spent his twenties as a scuba diving instructor in Koh Tao and the Great Barrier Reef, and as a DJ and fire dancer — before a pivotal moment brought him back to London and into business.
To connect with Felix on LinkedIn visit: linkedin.com/in/felix-mead
Resources & Links Mentioned
• Think and Grow Rich by Napoleon Hill - Felix's book recommendation
• Jim Rohn quoted by Felix: “Become successful not for the riches it brings, but for what it makes of you”
• Outstanding Operations session Charlie's framework for building processes that let a business run without its owner- https://youtu.be/ZP52h_EJ6DA
• The Trusted Team, mentioned throughout; find out more at www.thetrusted.team
About the Podcast
Progress in Practice is brought to you by The Trusted Team helping professional service business owners build scalable, saleable businesses while working less and enjoying more.
Find out more: www.thetrusted.team
Enjoying the Show?
If this episode resonated, make sure you follow the podcast and leave a rating and review. It helps more founders discover these conversations and allows us to bring you even better guests. Until next time, keep making progress in practice.
• Why being brilliant at your job does not make you a brilliant leader, and why that gap is never explained to the people being promoted.
• How Develop People use DISC profiling to help clients understand their communication style, their strengths, and where they create friction.
• Emotional intelligence: self-awareness, awareness of others, and the difference between knowing how you are and taking responsibility for it.
• The above and below the line framework: ownership, accountability, and responsibility above; blame, excuses, and denial below.
• AI in leadership development: the echo chamber risk of self-coaching with AI, why prompts determine the quality of challenge, and the future potential of AI to give real-time feedback in meetings and on culture.
• The blocker in Develop People's business: reaching people who don't yet know they have a problem, and why self-awareness has to come before development can begin.
• Why Develop People no longer try to convince reluctant clients and how they focus on people who already know they need to change.
• The challenge of selling leadership development when the person who benefits from it isn't always the one signing the contract.
• Why high-performing teams produce better bottom-line results and how to make that case to a sceptical founder.
• What Mark would tell his younger self: be less concerned with the opinions of others, stay true to your original purpose, and establish your values from day one.
• Wisdom to pass on: be humble enough to remember where you've come from, and courageous enough to take the steps to where you want to go.
• Book recommendations: The Chimp Paradox by Steve Peters, Turn the Ship Around by David Marquet, and Start with Why by Simon Sinek.
• The above and below the line framework as a daily leadership tool and why it works precisely because of its simplicity.
About the Guest
Mark Stanton is co-founder of Develop People, a leadership and personal development practice helping organisations in manufacturing, engineering, regulated industries, and professional services develop effective leaders from the inside out. Mark spent nearly three decades in policing, retiring at a senior level having led teams of up to 600 people, before joining the business his wife Emma founded 14 years ago. Develop People works with clients through DISC behavioural profiling, emotional intelligence development, and the above and below the line framework, delivered through facilitated workshops, one-to-one coaching, and small group sessions, with a focus on long-term partnership rather than one-off interventions.
• The Chimp Paradox by Steve Peters- recommended by Mark for understanding how the brain drives communication and emotional response.
• Turn the Ship Around by David Marquet- Mark's long-time carry-in-the-bag leadership book, focused on intent, deliberate action, and strategic thinking.
• Start with Why by Simon Sinek- recommended by Mark; the TED talk alone is worth watching.
• The above and below the line framework- Develop People's core tool for assessing leadership behaviours and accountability.
• DISC behavioural profiling- used by Develop People to surface communication styles and areas for development.
About the Podcast
Progress in Practice is brought to you by The Trusted Team- helping professional service business owners build scalable, saleable businesses while working less and enjoying more.
If this episode resonated, make sure you follow the podcast and leave a rating and review. It helps more founders discover these conversations and allows us to bring you even better guests. Until next time, keep making progress in practice.
• Intuitive Reiki vs. traditional Reiki: how Lakhmi achieves similar results in around 10 minutes.
• How energy healing works even for people who aren't naturally intuitive or emotionally connected.
• The link between clearing energy blocks and unexpected business results and why some clients report major contracts arriving without doing anything differently.
• What Lakhmi would tell her younger self: stay true to who you are; your weirdness is what draws people to you.
• Advice for the next generation: "Be your weirdest self".
• The biggest obstacle in Lakhmi's business: marketing something that has to be felt rather than described.
• Why asking for testimonials matters and Lakhmi's word of 2026: determination.
• Book recommendation: The Magic by Rhonda Byrne- a 28-day gratitude practice Lakhmi returns to every year.
• The difference between saying you're grateful and truly feeling it and how that shift shows up in business and life.
• New programmes coming: Warrior of Your World and Heal Your World.
About the Guest
Lakhmi Bhambra, also known as The One Minute Healer, is the founder of the 111 Approach- a wellness practice helping busy professionals and parents build sustainable wellbeing habits in minutes a day. With a science degree and a background in the medical field, Lakhmi spent years as a self-professed sceptic before training in Reiki and seven other modalities of energy healing. She is a Reiki teacher and practitioner who specialises in intuitive energy healing, achieving results in around 10 minutes that traditional sessions take an hour to reach. Her 111 Approach- one thing, one minute, one day at a time- has helped clients from all walks of life, including multi-million pound business owners, reconnect with their energy, clear limiting beliefs, and create lasting change without overhauling their lives.
To connect with Lakhmi visit: linkedin.com/in/the111approach
Follow Lakhmi on Instagram for daily free one-minute meditations: @111approach
Resources & Links Mentioned
• The Magic by Rhonda Byrne- Lakhmi's annual gratitude practice and book recommendation
• The Secret of Secrets by Dan Brown- recommended by Charlie in conversation
• The Story Playbook- Charlie's framework for building powerful client stories; mentioned as a resource for Lakhmi and available via The Trusted Team
• Tony Robbins / Unleash the Power Within - referenced in the gratitude discussion
About the Podcast
Progress in Practice is brought to you by The Trusted Team- helping professional service business owners build scalable, saleable businesses while working less and enjoying more.
Find out more: www.thetrusted.team
Enjoying the Show?
If this episode resonated, make sure you follow the podcast and leave a rating and review. It helps more founders discover these conversations and allows us to bring you even better guests. Until next time, keep making progress in practice.
The Ignite Your Career framework: six engines, all aligned, inspired by space mission design
Why no mission reaches orbit by accident and what that means for your career
Book recommendation: Space Mission Design- Amanda's unconventional but brilliant coaching bible
About the Guest Amanda Regan is the founder of Ignite Your Career, a coaching practice helping high-performing mid-career professionals deliberately reposition themselves for what's next. A rocket scientist by training, Amanda spent 20 years at the European Space Agency and the European Commission, leading a multi-million euro space programme before transitioning full-time into coaching. Her Ignite Your Career framework, built on the principles of space mission design, draws on two decades of navigating international, high-stakes environments to help professionals align their skills, visibility, and positioning for the career they're ready for.
Find Out More
To learn more about Amanda and Ignite Your Career visit: makethejobyours.com
Quote: "If someone tells me no, it doesn't mean I can't do it. It simply means I can't do it with them." Karen Quinodus Miller
About the Podcast Progress in Practice is brought to you by The Trusted Team — helping professional service business owners build scalable, saleable businesses while working less and enjoying more. Find out more: https://thetrusted.team
Enjoying the Show? If this episode resonated, make sure you follow the podcast and leave a rating and review. It helps more founders discover these conversations and allows us to bring you even better guests. Until next time, keep making progress in practice.
About the Guest Charles Maloney is the founder of ClearView, an autonomous sales and marketing intelligence platform helping SMEs and marketing agencies cut through the noise of digital marketing with data-driven clarity. With over a decade of experience working with founders, startups, and sales teams, Charles built ClearView from a deep frustration with the gap between what marketing agencies promise and what they deliver. Currently at MVP stage with 36 active users and an active investment raise underway, Charles is building a platform he believes will become the go-to marketing brain for businesses that are serious about growth.
The Hawksmoor Way — Will Beckett talk on building a values-led business
Intellimation.ai — ACI framework [referenced in wider series]
ClearView founding user programme — 15 founding users sought across agencies and SMEs: https://www.clearviewltd.io
About the Podcast Progress in Practice is brought to you by The Trusted Team — helping professional service business owners build scalable, saleable businesses while working less and enjoying more. Find out more: https://thetrusted.team
About the Guest Annie Allison is the founder of Allison & Co, a UK-based luxury interior design studio working on high-end residential projects in the UK and abroad, with an increasing focus on the south of France. Known for a deeply personal, collaborative approach, Annie and her team work closely with clients to create beautiful spaces that reflect individual style, function, and architecture. With a background that spans creative design, project management, and property development, Annie brings a uniquely holistic perspective to every project she takes on.
About the Podcast Progress in Practice is brought to you by The Trusted Team — helping professional service business owners build scalable, saleable businesses while working less and enjoying more. Find out more: https://thetrusted.team
