You may be approaching retirement but not feel ready to stop. You might be leaving a senior role or partnership, selling a business, considering a portfolio career, or simply beginning to wonder how you will replace the purpose, identity, and structure that work has always provided for you.
These are not usually financial questions - you may have that side all sorted. These may be questions about confidence, relationships and skills, as well as purpose, identity, and how you want to spend your time.
Your Career, Midlife or Retirement Journey
There is no single right answer. Whether you are transitioning out of a corporate role or feel like you are starting over at 50 or beyond, your next chapter might include:
-
Continued work or launching a new venture
-
Taking on mentoring or voluntary roles
-
Focusing on learning, travel, or family commitments
-
Enjoying the freedom to explore possibilities that a busy career left little room for
The challenge is working out what matters most to you. As a professional retirement coach, my role is to act as your sounding board and mentor as you work through your questions.
Through tailored coaching, I will help you find clarity and carve a fulfilling, purposeful path forward.
Book a complimentary 45-minute coaching clarity call.
About StayCurious Coaching
I’m Ed. I describe myself as a "Next Steps" coach, specialising in reinvention, career, midlife, and retirement coaching for people in their 50s and 60s.
I am an EMCC (European Mentoring and Coaching Council) accredited professional coach with 40 years of experience in advertising, entrepreneurship, tech, and academia.
FAQs on Coaching
Coaching is about looking forward. It focuses on goals, performance, and personal growth. Therapy usually addresses past experiences and emotional healing, while consulting tends to give direct advice and solutions. A coach doesn’t hand you the answers — instead, they help you uncover your own.
Clients often experience:
-
Greater clarity and sense of direction
-
Better decision-making
-
Increased accountability
-
More confidence and self-awareness
-
Progress toward meaningful goals
-
Improved balance between work and life
-
You might benefit from coaching if you’re feeling stuck, navigating a transition, lacking motivation, or simply want to explore new personal or professional possibilities.
The best coach is one whose experience, style, and approach feel like a good fit for you. Credentials (such as ICF certification) can also help build trust. I offer a free “chemistry call” so we can explore whether we’d work well together.
A mentor usually shares their knowledge and advice based on experience. A coach acts as a thinking partner, helping you reflect, explore options, and find your own best path forward.
Coaching can support you in areas such as:
-
Personal development and self-discovery
-
Major life transitions (career change, retirement, relationships, etc.)
-
Confidence, mindset, and resilience
-
Setting and sustaining motivation for goals
-
Health, wellness, and relationships
-
Working through a specific challenge
-
Not at all. Most clients are not in crisis — they are people who want to make the most of their lives, gain clarity, or move forward more purposefully.
Many clients notice meaningful shifts within 3–6 months. Some prefer weekly sessions, others monthly. In certain cases, even a single session can provide the breakthrough or clarity they need.
Yes. Professional coaches, especially those accredited by organisations like the International Coach Federation (ICF), follow strict confidentiality guidelines. What you share stays private.
Each session is client-led. You bring the focus, and I provide the structure. Typically, we’ll review your goals, explore challenges through guided questioning, agree on actions, and set up accountability so you keep moving forward.
StayCurious Coaching Testimonials
Working with Ed over a series of online sessions has been a quietly transformative experience. He brings a calm, patient, and deeply human presence to each conversation - qualities that have helped create the reflective space I needed.
Ed's willingness to listen attentively, ask insightful questions, and remain gently challenging when needed has made the coaching feel grounded and constructive throughout. I’ve found our sessions to be thought-provoking, not always comfortable or easy, and ultimately useful.
I'm currently navigating a significant professional transition to move my work into new, relatively undefined areas. Ed has been a steady and thoughtful companion in that process. It seems to to me that he is genuinely motivated to bring out the best in people, and his coaching is shaped by that integrity.
I wouldn’t hesitate to recommend him to others who are exploring change, growth, or renewal in their own working lives.
Review by Tim K
I'm in my early 60's. The family have now all grown up and I felt at a bit of a crossroads.
Through a series of coaching conversations with Ed and some homework (the first time I have had homework set in a long time!) I felt able to step back and reflect on all the different opportunities available, but which I wasn't capable of spotting by myself.
Coaching offers the luxury of having someone calm and sympathetic spend time listening to all the noise that goes on in one's head and gently suggesting ways to deal with this and plan a sensible and fulfilling way forward.
Ed is a great listener and seems to be able to gently challenge and provoke change. I'm happy to recommend him!
Review by Sarah T
I left the City after a long and quite successful career as a banker.
I found that unexpectedly, I was suffering from an identity crisis. Having been a banker all my life, I wasn't at all sure what I had now become?
Through a programme of six conversations with Ed, I discovered that this period represented "the beginning" rather than "the end" of something and that there was a wealth of different opportunities out there for me, over the next ten to fifteen years.
Thank you Ed for your patient listening and gentle encouragement to get me to the place I am now in.
Review by Charles B
"Thanks again for the session – I really appreciated it. What stood out for me this time was how clearly you were able to frame the core issue and then bring it all together so neatly at the end. That kind of structure really helps me process things.
I also really valued how you held the space – you gave me room to explore my thoughts without jumping in too quickly, which made it feel like I was coming to my own insights rather than being directed.
But the most powerful part, honestly, was when you shared more about your own experiences. It added a layer of trust and connection that made the conversation feel more real and impactful."
Review by V.S.
Ed was my coach during a time when I was finding identifying my next work move and the choices around that challenging.
Before we worked together I lacked clarity, not only on choices available but also to articulate how I should go about things, what I should consider and how I should best progress.
Ed is calm, experienced, and has a great perspective which he makes available through extremely thoughtful and engaging dialogue. He skilfully identified the situation I was in but through the right level of input steered me to find my own solutions through structured conversation not his suggestions.
This was extremely helpful. He is also an extremely charismatic and engaging person who I got on very well with which helped.
I would recommend Ed wholeheartedly to anyone who thinks coaching could help them.
Review by A.T
After taking voluntary severance from my previous employer, I found myself on the familiar treadmill of endlessly applying for similar jobs. Ed helped me to take a step back and think more clearly about where I wanted to be in the next chapter of my career.
He is calm, experienced and gently challenging when needed - if you’ve reached a career “roadblock”, I can’t recommend him highly enough.
Review by I.H
I would happily recommend Ed Sharp of StayCurious Coaching as a career transition and development coach. I enjoyed our online sessions and found Ed’s advice both reassuringly insightful and usefully practical – a potent combination of wise counsel, patient coaching and inspiring mentorship
Having been made redundant aged 60 by a design & innovation consultancy, along with a fair few other experienced people across the business, I was feeling bruised and uncertain about the future. Ed sat me down, asked perceptive questions, listened carefully and offered relevant, confidence building advice.
And followed ever session with an encouraging list of reflections and suggested actions.
Ed did not hesitate to challenge me on some of my preconceptions, pushed me to explore other avenues and got me back firing on all cylinders. In these tricky, potentially life-defining moments, it’s great to have someone like Ed in your corner rooting for you!
Review by SG
I would wholeheartedly recommend Ed’s coaching sessions. He is a great listener, takes time to understand the reasons why a client may need sessions, asks thought provoking questions and provides excellent feedback and summaries of each sessions which are very useful in tracking progress. We discussed having four sessions, but I felt after the third session that we had achieved what I set out to clarify.
He is someone one would be very happy to meet in a social situation, so the sessions feel very relaxed, though he doesn’t shy away from challenging one’s preconceptions or self-perception if he feels it appropriate.
I am glad to have met him. And would definitely call on him again if I found myself at a crossroad!
Review by IS