You've built the thing.
The business. The career. The life people congratulate you on.
And quietly, something is off.
From the outside it's working. From the inside, there's a flatness you can't quite name. A tiredness that sleep doesn't fix. A sense that you've climbed the right ladder and arrived somewhere strange.
You're not blocked by lack of talent or discipline. You're trapped in adrenaline, performance, overthinking, external expectation — and disconnection from joy, intuition and enoughness.
Working harder hasn't fixed it. Achieving more hasn't fixed it. Neither has buying more stuff, drinking more, working out more, or any of the other things you've tried.
You don't need to push harder.
You need to come home to yourself.
Hello, I'm Hugh.
I spent 25 years at the pointy end of the pyramid.
I set up and built Urban Outfitters across Europe to several hundred £m in sales and was then brought in as the first non-Conran to reinvent The Conran Shop globally — opening the biggest and best design store in the world in Seoul, and taking the brand to a successful sale, all in service of securing Sir Terence Conran's legacy. As he told me, more than once, it was the best version of the brand he'd ever seen. Before that, a decade at Top Man learning from the bottom up.
I worked alongside some of the world's most successful founders — Dick Hayne of URBN and Sir Terence Conran himself.
Looking back, what I did at Urban Outfitters and The Conran Shop was “curate a style of life” for a discerning audience. Inspiring. Leading the way. Shining a torch on the path.
I'm doing the same thing now — one-to-one, retreats, on the Camino, online. Not building a community. Leading a movement.
I had the title. I had the salary. I had the life people aspire to.
And at 53, I walked away.
Not because I'd failed. Because success on its own wasn't enough.
Three words came to me: purpose, balance and joy. I had no idea what they meant. I went off in search of them.
What I found, I now share with a small number of founders, CEOs and senior creatives who feel exactly how I felt — successful on paper, internally tired, and quietly ready for something deeper.
Orientation, not fixation.
50th birthday July 2016. The peak of my outward success. Quietly using alcohol to get through it.
The proof.
May 2026. Hackney Half Marathon. Six years alcohol-free and feeling 10 years younger than I did at 50.
2026. Garmin fitness age 33. More alive than I have ever been.
I have never felt more alive. More connected to my own life force. This is what cultivating purpose, balance and joy looks like.
Life force.
The current that runs through everything when you're truly alive to your life. Not energy. Not motivation. Something quieter, more powerful and more honest than either. The purest version of you.
You feel it when purpose, balance and joy are all in motion together. You feel its absence even more clearly — that flatness no achievement can fix.
Three forces. One flow.
Purpose.
What's my reason for moving forward?
Not what I'm supposed to want. Not what looks good on paper.
What actually pulls me out of bed. What I'd still do if no one ever noticed.
Balance.
Where am I thriving — and where am I quietly hurting?
Success in one corner of life rarely makes up for collapse in another.
Career, body, relationships, presence, time. They all want a seat at the table.
Joy.
How much permission am I giving myself to be me?
To approach life with curiosity and play rather than just achievement. To love what I love without apology.
To remember that joy is the point, not the reward.
How I live
I don’t just talk the talk, I walk the walk and shine a light on the path.
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Step on the path. The path reveals itself.
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Sometimes the work is doing less.
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I couldn't swim at 53. Now I sleep on mountains and swim in frozen lakes.
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Pack-rafting and hammock camping on St Herbert's Island, The Lake District. Sunset Dinner.
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With clients in Ibiza. Dreams can come true.
My RISE Process
RISE isn't a formula or a rigid programme. It's the natural arc I've watched my clients walk — and walked myself. Reflection, Insight, Sculpt, Empowerment. Awareness deepening into independence.
R — Reflection
How did I get here?
What patterns, beliefs and decisions brought you to this moment? Not to fix anything. Just to see clearly. This is where the noise quietens and space appears.
I — Insight
What's actually driving this?
The values, needs and unconscious beliefs running the show. Who you've been told to be versus who you actually are. The inner voice versus the social voice. Misalignment becomes visible — and reframable.
S — Sculpt
What life am I creating, on my own terms?
This is where it gets exciting. What does a deeply fulfilling life actually look like — sculpted by you, not inherited?
Most coaching defaults to SMART goals here. SMART goals can kill you. We use META goals instead — Massive, Enjoyable, Tiny steps, Aligned. Audacious enough to be exciting. Aligned enough to be sustainable. Built in compassionate, joyful steps.
Stop negotiating your desires. Start with audacious. Move to outrageous. Then ludicrous.
E — Empowerment
The tools to keep sculpting — independently.
The goal isn't dependence on me. It's the opposite. By the end, you have the awareness, the language, the practices and the confidence to navigate the rest of your life with clarity. Your own internal compass, properly calibrated. Not a bucket of water — the skill of digging your own well.
Two great minds, fully focused on you. That alone changes things.
Some words from clients.
Hugh helped us find what we'd been searching for. Our outrageous 5-7 year dream of moving and setting up our life in Ibiza with our young daughter was achieved in just 6 months.
Michael & Genevieve — Founders, Tareo Design Group
Hugh enlightened me as to how much of my productive life was left and it has empowered me in all aspects of my life. His method of coaching is gentle and reflective — something I have now incorporated into my everyday life making a huge difference to me and indeed my family and business.
Fiona Bell — Founder, Their Nibs
I'm so grateful. I feel a million bucks. I feel like the most successful person on earth — and like I've made the best deal of my life.
Jutta Ulbrich — Former Global Advocacy Director · Now living her dream working with horses, Germany
Working with me.
I'm a coach and a mentor. I do whole-person coaching — life first, business when useful, always the whole person.
I work with a small number of clients at a time. By design.
Every journey is different. Every journey is bespoke. What follows is what a standard six-month retainer looks like. We shape it around you from there.
The six-month retainer.
The RISE journey. Twelve hours of focused, two-great-minds work over six months — plus everything in between.
Two 60-minute sessions per month. Twelve in total over six months. Online or in person.
Every session recorded, transcribed and summarised. You get the full video, transcript and AI-generated action notes after each one. So you stay present in the work, not scribbling notes you'll never re-read.
Personalised homework and tailored resources between sessions. Books, practices, prompts, prescriptions — whatever the moment needs. Always specific to where you are. Never generic.
WhatsApp and email concierge between sessions. I'm in your pocket when you need a sounding board, a reality check, or a steadying voice. I respond within 48 hours, usually much sooner.
Introductory deep-dive and lifestyle analysis before we begin, so we hit the ground running in session one.
Breathwork and embodied practices, where appropriate. Used selectively to support clarity, nervous system regulation and presence.
No change happens without action.
The Mind, Body & Soul Reset Day.
A one-off immersive day with me in East Dulwich, London. Three hours. Breathwork, coaching, sauna and ice bath.
Sometimes the breakthrough doesn't come from another conversation. It comes from a day where everything is interrupted at once.
One hour of intuitive breathwork to clear the system and open awareness.
One hour of coaching to work with whatever arises.
One hour of sauna and ice bath to let it all land.
For anyone who needs to reset the entire system in a single sitting.
Available to book on request.
Bespoke packages.
Whatever the journey requires.
Some clients want life only. Some want life and business integrated from day one. Some want intensives. Some want spaciousness. Some want me coaching in hammocks in trees in Ibiza, on the Camino, in the camper van on a mountain in the Peak District, by their kitchen table — or all of the above.
I have a wide toolkit. We use what's needed.
Price on application.
Business mentoring.
For founders, CEOs and senior creatives who want strategic clarity, not just personal clarity.
I've sat in the big seat. Twenty-five years building global brands — Urban Outfitters Europe (several hundred million in sales), The Conran Shop globally, Topman from the bottom up. I worked directly with some of the world’s most inspirational billionaire visionaries.
The business mentoring is primarily focused on you — the leader. But where it helps, I can also work with your leadership team to:
Inspire, focus and align. Bringing everyone around a common quest and story.
Simplify the priorities. Stripping back the noise so the business has a clear direction, and your team knows what matters.
Build a business that works for you. Not one you work for. Right-sizing your role, structuring your team, and creating the space to step back when you want to.
When the time is right, I can be in the room — your boardroom, your studio, your office, wherever the work needs to happen.
Available as part of bespoke packages, or as add-on sessions to the six-month retainer.
A note on lifestyle.
I sleep in tents on mountains. I swim in frozen lakes. I walk the Camino. I'm six years alcohol-free.
That's my expression of presence and life force. Not a prescription.
Your version of an outrageous, fulfilling life might look completely different. Writing a book. Building something new. Reconnecting with your family. Travelling. Slowing down. Speeding up. Buying back your time.
I'm not here to sell you my version. I'm here to help you sculpt yours.
Investment.
The six-month retainer starts at £8,000 (paid upfront) or £9,000 (across six months).
Reset days are £1,950.
Bespoke packages and business mentoring are priced according to scope.
Where the coaching relates to your business, it may be a legitimate business expense. Speak to your accountant for the specifics of your situation.
Two great minds, fully focused on you.
I know how lonely, isolating and thankless leadership can be. It doesn’t have to be that way.
That alone changes things.
Ready to talk?
A free 45-minute conversation. No agenda. No pressure.
Or — if you've got questions first, email me directly