Think it through, on foot.
I'm Elspeth Garvie, a leadership and career coach in Edinburgh. Most of my sessions are walked, along the Water of Leith, because people think more clearly side by side than across a desk.
Book a free discovery call
Call 0131 496 0384
The first call is thirty minutes, free, on the phone or on video. No pitch.
00:20
Dean Village, twenty minutes into a walk.
Good at the job. Stuck on the next bit.
Most of the people I walk with are managers and directors in Edinburgh's offices, charities and public bodies. They tend to arrive with one of these.
You've stepped up to lead other leaders, and what got you here has stopped working.
Usually
Six walks
You're deciding whether to stay, go, or start something of your own.
Usually
Career crossroads
Your team has come through a restructure and isn't a team yet.
Usually
A team workshop
You're going back to work after time away, and want to go back on your own terms.
Usually
Six walks, or Career crossroads
Ninety minutes, four questions.
Most sessions follow the Water of Leith from Belford Bridge to Stockbridge, about two kilometres. Then coffee.
00:00
Belford Bridge
Where are you, really?
We start with the honest version: the job, the people, and whatever kept you awake on Sunday night.
00:20
Dean Village
What would you like instead?
Not a goal for the appraisal form. What you would want if nobody were marking it.
00:45
St Bernard's Well
What's actually in the way?
Usually one conversation, one habit or one belief, and rarely the one you came in with.
01:10
Stockbridge
What will you do first?
One step, small enough to take this week. You leave with it, and my notes arrive the next morning.
What it costs, all in.
Every price covers the sessions, my notes after each one and the messages in between. I'm not VAT-registered, so there is nothing to add.
One to one, over three months
Six walks
Six 90-minute sessions, one every two weeks: walked, in my room or on video. The first runs to two hours. My notes by the next morning, messages between sessions, and a check-in call three months after the last one.
£1,350
when you pay for yourself
£2,400
when your employer pays
When an employer pays, they hear the dates and nothing else, unless you tell them yourself.
Career crossroads
Three sessions over six weeks, for one decision: stay, go or start again.
£540
for all three
Team workshops
For up to twelve people, at your place or in a room I hire in Edinburgh, at cost.
from £1,650
half a day
from £2,900
a full day
A single session
For people I've coached before. Ninety minutes, walked or in the room.
£180
one session
It starts with a free thirty-minute call.
Book a free discovery call
Seventeen years on the other side of the desk.
Before I coached anyone, I ran a 300-person customer operations centre for an insurer here in Edinburgh, and led it through two restructures. I know what it is to make the hard call, and to be on the receiving end of one.
I trained as a coach in 2015 and have worked for myself since 2016. Another coach supervises my work once a month, so my own thinking gets the same treatment as yours.
Coaching since
2016
One-to-one clients
About twenty a year, and a handful of teams
Bad weather
A spare waterproof, or the room in Stockbridge
Afterwards, in their words.
“I came wanting a new job and left keeping mine, on very different terms.”
Fiona, Morningside
“She asked one question by St Bernard's Well that I'm still answering a year later.”
Ravi, Leith
Outdoors, mostly.
Walks go ahead in any weather, and I bring a spare waterproof. If it is truly wild, we sit in my room in Stockbridge instead.
Holyrood Park, below Arthur’s Seat.
On foot
The Water of Leith
We meet at Belford Bridge and finish in Stockbridge: about two kilometres, then coffee.
On foot
Holyrood Park
A loop from St Margaret's Loch, for anyone coming from the east of the city.
Sitting down
The room in Stockbridge
Raeburn Place, Edinburgh EH4 1HN
Get directions
On screen
Video
For clients anywhere else in the UK, and for the weeks a walk won't fit.
Calls and sessions
Monday to Thursday
8am–6pm
Friday
8am–1pm
Team workshops in person across
Edinburgh
East Lothian
Midlothian
West Lothian
Fife
The Scottish Borders
and on video anywhere in the UK.
Thirty minutes, free, no pitch.
Tell me what's going on and what you would want from coaching. If I'm not the right coach for it, I'll say so, and suggest someone who might be.
If we both want to go ahead, I send a one-page agreement with the dates. Nothing starts until you've read it.
Rather just ring?
0131 496 0384
WhatsApp 07700 900384
hello@elspethgarvie.co.uk
Pick a time for the call
Book my free call