My name is Jon Tidy. I am a psychological coach and trained Gestalt psychotherapist. My previous career was in finance, where I spent twenty-five years as a trader, broker, and manager. I am in my fifties, a father of four, and I live in London.
I am fascinated by the many processes — both internal and external — that inform how we show up in the world, specifically in performance environments. Internally, this includes the narratives we construct about ourselves, the ways we make meaning, the habits we form, how we relate to success, failure and uncertainty, and the defence mechanisms and coping strategies that quietly organise our experience. Externally, it involves the relational and systemic forces that influence us: our search for belonging and purpose, the ways culture is expressed and mobilised within groups, the imprint of family dynamics, and the broader contexts in which our lives and identities take form.
By most external measures I had a successful career. I built a good life around it, moving through New York, Tokyo and Singapore before eventually returning to London. I learned a great deal about broking, trading, leadership, and operating in highly competitive teams. I met good people, and for the most part I thrived in what were always pressurized environments.
Towards the end, however, something shifted. The workplace culture I found myself in felt stifling. No longer satisfied by the pursuit of financial stability alone, and having stopped finding the work purposeful, I started to ask the kinds of questions that often seem to surface at certain points in life: Is this all there is? and Who am I if I am not my work?
Eventually, after years of wondering what else might be possible, I decided to pivot fully and retrain. It was not an easy decision, but it was a necessary one.
I began by training in Gestalt psychotherapy, which required being in therapy myself as well as engaging in demanding experiential group work. During that period I began to recognise how much of my life I had spent hiding in plain sight. Despite a fortunate childhood, I had been beset by a persistent lack of self-worth, and had found effective ways to mask it. In the workplace this often meant conforming to systemic norms through male bravado, posturing, shouting louder than the next person, and turning a blind eye to the bullying tendencies of others — and in doing so becoming complicit. I also had to admit that these adaptive traits came easily to me, which allowed me to maintain a convincing sense of competence and commitment long after I had mentally begun to move on.
Becoming a coach was another stretch entirely. My understanding of the work evolved slowly, perhaps because it required relinquishing certain elements of my therapeutic orientation. The training was rigorous, but over time it became clear that coaching is where I am most naturally suited. I find it purposeful work and it suits me.
This is where the journey has led so far. I no longer think in terms of arriving anywhere definitive. Instead, I try to orient myself towards alignment — returning to it deliberately whenever the pull of achievement and outcomes begins to take over again.