How did you get where you are today?
I worked in learning and development for more than 20 years in all different guises – public-speaking, workshops, facilitation and training. During my time as a trainer, I began to work with senior leadership teams, and I found that the higher up the seniority ladder, the more complex and thorny the issues. I naturally found myself adopting more of a coaching role, and the feedback I received was that I had a real talent for it. I decided to take the plunge and did some intensive study to build up my practice as a coach. I also developed The GRIP, which is my body of work to normalise the ability to talk about the reactive patterns we all get gripped by when the pressure is on, and how these patterns prevent us being at our best – both in our professional and personal lives.
What’s a common misperception of your work?
The biggest misconception is that I am somebody in the motivational speaking space like American author and coach Tony Robbins – the sort of person who tells you to get your running shoes on at 6am and seize the day. I sometimes have to clarify that that’s not my role – I am there to support people, and recognise whatever condition, belief or challenge they have that is gripping or limiting them in some way. And that I am going to really help them understand it so they can get their agency back.
What do you love most about your role?
I love the creativity. I love the ability to bring a concept to the world and the mission behind it to normalise the reactiveness we all have. It’s really tough in business right now, so to liberate people from that reactiveness is an amazing feeling. This is going to sound clichéd, but I love the people I work with. When you are in a coaching conversation for an hour and a half, you’re in the zone with somebody, fully present and discovering stuff together through these big epiphanies. When the call ends, I can feel the hairs on the back of my neck standing up because of the effort and emotion involved – it’s an incredible feeling.
If you weren’t doing this job, what would you do?
I love different ways of human expression, so I would undoubtedly do something in the arts. It could be writing poetry, acting or comedy – probably quite slapstick comedy! – or maybe even dance.
What advice would you give to your 18-year-old self?
If you’d have asked me a couple of years ago, I’d have said, “Don’t be scared.” But then I was one of the writers for The Other Side of Fear, which is really my backstory and the essence of The GRIP. This was actually a very healing process, and my answer to this question now is: “You’re going to be scared, but nothing that bad is going to happen. Fear is going to be with you, so learn to recognise it and accept it.”
How do you switch off from work?
I’m teaching myself Spanish and my long-term goal is to move there one day. But for now, whenever I visit Spain, I will disappear for a few hours to find a Spanish bar to sit and just chat to the people in there.
My other love is the arts – theatre, cinema, comedy. Also, I am really intentional about making time to see my friends with no other distractions – putting the phone away and being fully in the moment.
Tell us one surprising thing about yourself
The sensible one is I have a black belt in karate. My leftfield one is that I got my head stuck through the Buckingham Palace railings when I was about five years old. There were so many people there. I often think, I bet someone was taking what they thought was a normal photo that day, and when flicking through them afterwards they suddenly realised that there, in the foreground, was a kid with his head stuck through the railings. It makes me smile to think about it.
Paul Haynes is a keynote speaker at Leadership Live 2026. To find out more and secure your tickets, visit the Leadership Live website.
