About
I’m Dean Coates a certified life coach and founder of Rock Pool Coaching. I am based in Bristol and coach people online across the UK and internationally. I specialise in coaching creative business owners who want to build sustainable, fulfilling businesses without getting overwhelmed.
My work focuses on helping creatives navigate the particular pressures of creative environments, where responsibility is high, expectations are complex, and the line between personal identity and professional role can easily blur.
My work has spanned creative enterprise and educational leadership: running my own business and chairing an arts charity. Each has offered a different perspective on what it means to build a business thoughtfully while staying connected to creativity and purpose.
Through thoughtful, individualised coaching, I support creatives to regain clarity, strengthen resilience, and build businnesses that are ambitious and sustainable. My approach is practical, reflective, and grounded in lived experience helping you lead with confidence while protecting the energy that enables you to do your best work. When I’m not coaching I spend as much time as possible in my ceramics studio, walking in the country and at the gym.
Find out more by getting in touch.
Why Rock Pool
I sometime get asked why I called my coaching business Rock Pool Coaching so here’s the answer. Rock pools are small worlds full of fascinating and diverse life. I’ve always been drawn to them as places to pause, watch, and observe. Sometimes they are calm and still; at other times they are shaped by turbulence and change, they are metaphors for how life can be. That sense of reflection, resilience, and possibility is what inspired the name Rock Pool Coaching.