What a perfect way to wrap up a jam packed and epic week in England. Way back on Monday when Yael picked me up at the airport and brough me to Hertfordshire (see related blog post), she had an idea. What if she invited a bunch of coaches for a final send off on Sunday? But where should we meet?

*Hazel Martin helped guide me to this iconic location called the London Eye*

It was perfect. But even with this easy to spot location, it was still a Sunday and very crowded. Thank God for What’sApp and Google Maps. Between dropping pins and getting even more specific, we agreed to meet at the ticket office as our original starting point at 10am.

*Look kids, we did it! We’re here on the Themes in front of Big Ben an Parliament!*

And from there we just had a blast. What began as two with Hazel Martin and Yael Leinman grew and grew and grew. Between them pictured here, you’ll see Sonal Sachdev Patel, and then to my left (your right) is Divya Shah and Marimba Arihir. And that was just the beginning! Call this the early bird 10am crew.

*Divya Shah and Marimba Arihi having fun in a nearby fountain*

Did I mention it’s been unusually hot in London? When I saw both Divya Shah and Marimba Arihi splashing around in a public fountain (inspired by kids doing the same thing), my inner child (a.k.a. “Little Billy”) couldn’t stand idly by. I was called in to join them. And yes, it was as cool and fun as it looks.

And the mayhem continues. One thing is for sure. When you get a bunch of coaches trained in mental fitness, we all turn into a bunch of joyful 5-year-old versions of ourselves. And, frankly, that’s a wonderful thing. The joy and happiness was palpable throughout the day. And it had better be as we ended up spending a solid six hours together.

*Side note: Hazel Martin and I got up at 6am to swim a full mile at Shepperton Lake this very morning, so we were both “primed” for a high energy day ;-)*

Next up, to make it more convenient for the next group of friends to arrive at the 11am hour, we made our way to the Seventy5th Balcony Bar at the Royal Festival Hall. It’s a roof-top deck overlooking the Themes and yet shaded so it was the perfect spot to order food and drinks while chatting for hours.

*Our motley crew of coaches scheming to change the world as we know it.*

Joining the party from left to right pictured above include Elena Apalkova, Joel Heller, Joel’s husband Panagiotis (Panos) Vgenopoulos, and John Granholm. Not pictured in this shot, for reason's I’m not clear on is Daniel Kobryner, who I’m sure will appear later. I recall him being here from the beginning of this part of the day, so perhaps he’s the one taking this picture. I have my arm around Gemma Baxter. So now you know all the gang who sat around the table at this shindig.

*Daniel Kobryner to the left. No idea what I’m saying here, but it’s BIG. Really BIG!*

*Collectively, we agreed that men stroking their beards is the best “silent” treatment in a tough negotiation. It gets the other side talking. Great tactic!*

The “men stroking their beards” was actually as a means to level the playing the field for women when negotiating salaries and other career-based advancements. It came up when John suggested that he be brought in when any woman was to have a performance review to which should should automatically say, “Absolutely. You don’t mind if I bring my representative into this meeting, do you?” After all, the manager usually has at least one and usually two people from the company on their side, why shouldn’t you have someone looking out for your best interest. Even if all John does is sit there stroking his beard and says, “Hmmm. Interesting.” Shouldn’t the intimidation tactics tables be turned for a change? Great point. The picture says it all.

*Marimba Arihir shares about her recent workshop on Mental Fitness: the key to shifting the balance of power.*

While we were all having a wonderful time, the backdrop we all face is the significant changes happening all around us. Marimba Arihir shared what she had just recently completed as part of drive to shifting the balance of power using mental fitness.

Attempting to summarize 6 hours of conversation is a futile effort, so I won’t event begin to try. What I will say is that at some point, one of us (Hazel, perhaps?) asked that we go around the circle and introduce ourselves and share our purpose. That way we could better understand the kind of work each of us does as a coach and how we might collaborate with each other in the future. John Granholm, upped the ante when he did the appropriate thing and actually stood up and delivered his message.

*John Granholm totally shifts the energy at the table and raises the bar*

It was brilliant, funny and so relatable. John started with what every one of us had experienced at one point in our careers — a senior executive saying, “How about you give me your 30 second elevator pitch?” To which John shared, how about just two words: Fuck and Off? Which had us laughing out loud as many of us had at one point or another felt that way when asked. “You see, VIP Senior leader, what you’re missing is that you’re not giving more than 30 seconds to your people and that’s the problem I solve. I actually take the time to help people like you slow down and listen to the people you say you care about, but in reality are moving too fast and seem to be too busy to hear a word they say.” While I’m putting this in quotes I’m totally paraphrasing what I remember hearing in between my own laughter at the brutal honesty of the response.

Joel’s husband Panos ducked out right afterwards so while he was supposed to go next it was actually Joel Heller who had the spotlight turned on him and everyone felt the pressure to follow John, so I teased him and shared that, following John, the bar has officially been raised and he better keep the energy high. Turns out, Joel had a few of his own aces up his sleeve. After an impressive background of his own, he did a mic drop at the end sharing his close work with none other than the one and only Byron Katie. What???

*Note to self: One degree of separation away from Byron Katie via Joel Heller*

And the conversations continued throughout the day. Each of us deepening with our own mission and purpose and how we see our abilities to contribute to the coaching industry, our niche and our clients through the work that we do (and why we are so passionate doing what we do).

*Gemma Baxter leaning into the conversation as we go deeper and deeper*

Despite the six hours of this engagement, periodically, I zoomed back and took a moment to observe all of us engaging in this dialogue. I took this picture of Gemma Baxter as she leaned into a particularly engaging part of a conversation. This moment just captured the day for me. Each of us deeply listening to each other — taking turns sharing our passions, asking questions, comments, feedbacks, concerns and considerations. Time flew. It was wonderful to be part of. I love this community so much.

*No recollection of what this face was about, but I’ll take it! Goofy is “on brand”*

And all good things must come to an end. As we wrapped up, we took a few more pictures of each other which I encourage you to check out as part of the London Gallery.

As the group broke off, I meet up with another coach, Rosie Compton, for a walking tour of London and dinner. Thankfully, Divya snapped a selfie before we headed out on our walking tour.

*Rosie Compton, Bill, Yael & Divya as we exit the Seventy5th Balcony Bar*

Rosie took me on a boat ride down the River Themes and I got some glorious pictures of our walking tour (also available via the London Gallery). This one is my personal favorite:

*Loving this spot in front of the Tower Bridge.*

Walking through London with Rosie was like having my own personal tour guide. She was so incredibly knowledgeable and shared so many interesting insights. Like how the rising cost of housing has had some people move into permanent houseboats like the ones below and this is creating new (growing) communities on the river. But even the cost of these houseboats in this location are surprisingly expensive in the hundreds of thousands of pounds, so it’s still not a solution to the skyrocketing housing costs in the area.

*Growth of houseboats as alternative living arrangements*

By the time I finished having dinner with Rosie and headed back to Hazel’s home it was getting close to 10pm, but there was to be one final game in store before packing up my things and catching my flight to Helsinki the next morning. I had mentioned that I had missed doing pull-ups since I had started my World Tour, and so the Martins kindly set-up their pull-up bar and shared their family stuffed animal game whereby you carefully use your teeth to pull down a single animal on each pull-up (thereby encouraging slow and careful pull-ups). Finally! A game I’m actually good at!!!

Yep, I was able to “rescue” all the animals and only knocked down one in the process. That worked out to be 8 pull-ups and that game was introduced after I had already demonstrated I could do 10 “regular” so that was a total of 18 for the night. Not bad having not done any for three weeks.

And with that, I conclude my epic week in London. What an amazing time. I’m go glad I got to spend it with so many incredible human beings and had so much fun along the way. I’m definitely going to slow down next week when I’m in Helsinki and take it much, much slowing going forward. I’m glad this was the kick-off to my World Tour AND I’m glad I get to slow my roll from here on out.

London, England (July 20, 2025)

Helsinki, Finland (July 21, 2025)

Richmond, England (July 19, 2025)