Barrow is with us again today at the Clinic.
He's actually speaking to our peer review and buying group audience tonight.
He's always a big draw, and people always want to hear what Chris has to say, so when Chris comes, people will turn up because they're interested.
I first met Chris about 14 years ago when I was recommended to him to discuss the possibility of being coached.
I met Chris in a hotel in Nottingham and I became the apprentice (Obviously, he is the coach).
Chris was not the first person to coach me in my career or life; throughout my life, I was coached by extraordinary teachers, extraordinary sports coaches, extraordinary clinical mentors, academic mentors, and career mentors.
I've written about these many times before, perhaps most notably Professor John Gibson, Simon Mccarthy (Triathlon), Chris Barrow, and Phil Hollows (Maxillofacial surgeon), but many, many others who go unnamed.
There is a strange relationship as you grow into life with your coaches because you become more knowledgeable and gain greater wisdom. (Of course, so do they.)
You reach closer to the point in life where they were when they began to coach you, and the dynamic starts to change, but it's often very hard for us to cast aside that initial relationship, the initial feeling that we always want to impress them as though they were our bigger brothers, our parents, or our teachers.
And such is the way when Chris comes, there's always a bit of pent-up excitement. You always want to show him things like a new puppy arriving at the front door with a pair of socks or a newspaper.
In the middle of the apprentice coach relationship is the peer-to-peer relationship.
And so, in my life, there have been equally incredible peers that I have worked with and beside who I've been able to grow along with at the same time. Most notable people in that regard would be Hayley Brown, Andy Legg, Alex Jones, and now Stuart Reekie; people like these who I have known for many years as friends or as colleagues at a similar level, not so much in a coach-to-apprentice relationship, more in a sharing-life relationship.
Blog Post Number - 3927
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