"The more I read and the more conversations I have, the further I seem from any form of answer. And perhaps that's a healthier place to be." - Anna-Marie, Rooted & Rising Podcast Host

In this first-ever solo episode of Rooted & Rising, Anna-Marie steps away from the interview format to share personal reflections on coaching, ecology, spirituality and the questions that she’s been musing over in her mind.

Set against the backdrop of a rapidly changing world, she explores observations from her coaching practice: exhaustion, uncertainty and the growing tension between human wellbeing, organisational demands and planetary health. There’re no easy answers, and instead invites listeners into a space of curiosity, asking what coaching is really for and whether it is evolving quickly enough to meet the challenges of our time.

Anna-Marie also reflects on her own journey over the past year navigating personal change, redefining spirituality beyond religion as a deep sense of relationship with the living world, starting to write a new book on ecospiritual coaching and creating her home in Somerset, England.

This is an honest, contemplative conversation about slowing down, embracing uncertainty, and remembering what it means to belong not just to our professions, but to the Earth itself.

About

Change agent, connector, coach, collaborator and podcaster Anna-Marie combines her passion and curiosity for peak performance across her work and life. She brings a wealth of over twenty-five years’ international experience to craft a portfolio career.

She is a self-certified learning junkie with a Post Graduate Certificate in Applied Coaching from the University of Derby and Master’s in Teaching from the University of Sydney; amongst other psychological and psychometric based coaching tools. Happiest outdoors Anna-Marie loves to escape the confines of four walls and co-create coaching conversations with nature.

Anna-Marie is on a mission to encourage a different approach to work where our natural environment is valued within the business world. She facilitates outdoor coaching supervision circles; co-hosted the biweekly ‘Coaching Outdoors’ podcast for five years; co-wrote chapters in ‘The Coaches Handbook’ and ‘Succeeding as a Coach’ on eco-coaching and co-edited 'The Outdoor and Nature Coaches Handbook'. She was a driving force behind the two successful Coaching Outdoors Podcast LIVE @ Henley Business School festivals.

Former British Army Officer, she has worked in challenging environments from snowy Arctic tundra to hot and sandy deserts though currently resides within the rolling countryside of Somerset. Alongside her passion for performance and coaching Anna- Marie has a severe ultra-running habit and has raced competitively at an international level.

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Resources

• Dan Burgess – Spaceship Earth podcast (becoming "crew" rather than passengers)
• Ali King-Smith – Rooted & Rising Podcast episode 16 discusses the commercial realities of coaching
• Alison Jones – book proposal writing programme and Bootcamp -
• Lesley Roberts – Coaching Outdoors: The Essential Guide to Partnering with Nature in Your Coaching Conversations
• Robin Wall Kimmerer – Braiding Sweetgrass and her work integrating Indigenous wisdom with Western science
• The Outdoor and Nature Coaches' Handbook co-edited by Anna-Marie Watson, Jonathan Passmore, Paul Lawrence and Alex Burn
• Coaching Outdoors Podcast archive

To find out more:

www.rootedrisingpodcast.com

‘It's all forming, changing and rising as I find my roots with my husband and my lovely dog here in North Devon, in our new place’ - Aly King-Smith, 56-year-old wife, mum, friend, coach, founder of Clearworks and self-described sporty outdoor cat.

From a life-changing pilgrimage along Offa's Dyke to building a new home and business in North Devon, Aly reflects on how nature became more than a backdrop; to her guide. Her decision to leave the Midlands after twenty years was the answer to an inner yearning to return to the mountains, sea and herself.

Drawing on her background in physiotherapy, commercial leadership and more than a decade coaching senior leaders in STEM and biotech, she shares profound shifts she's witnessed in the business world. Today's leaders are no longer asking, "How do I achieve more?" but "Who am I becoming?" and "What legacy do I want to leave?"

We dive into why taking coaching outdoors transforms quality of thought, how movement helps ‘unstuckness’, and why reconnection with our own bodies can be the first step towards reconnection with the living world. Aly reveals her trust in intuition through subtle signals, patterns and inner "knowings" that emerge when we slow down and pay attention, then how she gently weaves these insights into her coaching practice.

The conversation touches on Aly's belief in reciprocity with nature and her commitment to building healthier communities through the recently founded North Devon Pickleball CIC, a not-for-profit initiative with a simple but ambitious vision: to get more people moving, connected and less lonely.

From pilgrimage, systems thinking, leadership, community and the more-than-human world, this conversation is an invitation to redefine success focused on productivity or performance, to a deeper belonging, relationship and a return to what matters most.

Bio

Aly King-Smith has been leading Clearworks since 2013, working with lead teams in the STEM sector. Drawing on two decades of creating businesses, scaling initiatives, and shaping teams, she works alongside leaders to launch & lead projects and teams, clarify vision, and build high-performing cultures.

Aly is a lifelong advocate for sports and the outdoors and started her career as a physiotherapist. She champions healthy, happy, high performance and rages against the burnout epidemic that grips so many leaders now.

Aly lives & works in North Devon. Now in her mid-fifties, she has a deep interest in the wisdom that we’ve forgotten as humans, the information in our bodies, communities and in nature. After feeling the massive benefit of a long trail walk two years ago, she now encourages leaders to include walks, especially long walks (or pilgrimages) into their work together. Connecting STEM leaders who live in their heads, back to their bodies and their intuition, is bringing a real shift at Clearworks.

Website: www.clearworkscoaching.co.uk

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To find out more:

www.rootedrisingpodcast.com

‘In Gaelic, it's called ‘duchas’. It's that connection to place and belonging and heritage and land. And I thought, wow, what a beautiful word, why have I not had that in my own language? There's this actual word to describe this sense of belonging to place’ - JK, Coach & Creator of The Burrow at Little Seed Farm

What does it mean to truly belong to a place, community and yourself? In our conversation, JK reflects on identity, heritage and the journey back to the wildness that lives within us all. From her Gaelic roots and the concept of dùthchas, a profound sense of place and belonging to her childhood spent feral, JK explores how our names, landscapes and life experiences shape who we become.

Together they discuss the pressures of high achievement, burnout amongst mental health leaders and the irony that those caring for others often neglect their own wellbeing and self-care. JK describes how rediscovering walking became a pathway back to joy, guiding her from a life driven by external validation to one rooted in curiosity, stewardship and trust in the more-than-human world.

The conversation explores coaching as an emergent practice, learning from landscapes rather than simply working inthem, and her creation of ‘The Burrow’ at Little Seed Field near Ripon which is a space for reflection, confidentiality and renewal. They also delve into grief, ritual, seasonality and our often-fractured Western relationship with endings, asking what nature can teach us about loss, regeneration and hope.

This episode is an invitation to slow down, listen deeply and remember that sometimes the simplest act of being present with the land is enough to begin coming home.

Bio:

Jennie-Kate (JK) McQuinn is the founder, coach and facilitator behind Where the Mind Grows, a nature-led coaching organisation helping individuals and teams reconnect with the wild and rediscover their true nature. She delivers trauma-informed, regenerative approaches from woodland in North Yorkshire and other wild spaces across the UK.

With a background in mental health and employability service leadership across the voluntary, private and public health sectors. JK found her own path back to nature, not simply by being in it, but by learning from it and designing life and work to belong as the natural world.

She launched her coaching venture in 2017, the same year she lost her father. Over time, she recognised that grief and loss were present in much of her work with people and teams.

Drawing on ecopsychology, nature reconnection and traditional coaching approaches, JK supports others to navigate life, work and adversity, including bereavement, change and the turbulence of life with compassion & courage. Just like the wild!

Website: www.wherethemindgrows.co.uk

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LinkedIn - Where the Mind Grows

To find out more:

www.rootedrisingpodcast.com