About Me
I'm Chris Blackman
I'm a Life Coach, author and creator of The Ripple Stone.
But none of those things are where my interest in how we navigate life began.
It began with my own life.
Like most people, I've made decisions that worked out well, decisions I would make differently now, and decisions where the consequences reached much further than I ever expected.
I've experienced periods where I knew where I wanted to go and others where I didn't. I've had times when life felt like it was moving in the right direction and times when circumstances changed the lake completely.
Over time, I became increasingly interested in the connections between all of it.
Why do we make the choices we make?
Why can we know what we want but still struggle to move towards it?
Why can a decision that improves one part of our life make another part more difficult?
And what happens when the life we're living no longer seems to match what actually matters to us?
Those questions eventually became The Ripple Stone.
Why The Ripple Stone?
I don't see life as a collection of separate problems to solve.
Our work can affect our relationships. Our finances can influence the choices available to us. Our energy can change how we respond to our family. Our beliefs can influence opportunities we pursue or avoid. And a decision made for all the right reasons can still create consequences we didn't expect.
Everything connects.
That's why I began thinking about life as a lake.
We are the Navigators. We have things that matter to us, places we want to move towards, internal Currents influencing us and Conditions around us that we cannot always control.
And throughout all of it, we make choices.
Those choices become Ripple Stones.
The Ripple Stone grew from a way of understanding my own life into a framework for helping other people explore theirs.
It has since become a book, a podcast and the foundation of my coaching.
My Approach to Coaching
I don't believe a coach should tell you how to live your life.
I'm not sitting on the shore with a map of where you should go.
You're the Navigator.
My role is to help you see more of the lake.
That might mean exploring what genuinely matters to you, understanding where you want to move, recognising what's influencing you, looking at the circumstances you're navigating or considering the effects your choices are already creating.
Sometimes that leads to a significant change.
Sometimes it leads to a small Ripple Stone.
And sometimes the most useful thing we can do is understand what's happening before deciding what to do next.
My aim isn't for you to become dependent on coaching.
It's for you to become more confident and intentional in navigating your own life.
My Training
My own experiences led to curiosity, but I wanted my coaching to be supported by professional training as well.
I am a certified coach with training in Cognitive Behavioural Coaching, Neuro-Linguistic Programming (NLP) and Health Coaching.
These approaches have given me different ways of exploring thoughts, beliefs, emotions, behaviours, habits and change.
I don't expect you to arrive knowing which technique you need — and I don't structure coaching around fitting you into a particular technique.
The person comes first.
The tools are there when they're useful.
I'm Still Navigating Too
Writing a book and becoming a coach hasn't given me a perfectly calm lake.
I'm still a partner, a dad, an employee, a coach, an author and a person trying to balance the different areas of my own life.
I still make decisions without knowing exactly what their Ripples will be.
I still encounter Conditions I can't control.
And I still have to stop occasionally and ask myself whether where I'm moving reflects what actually matters to me.
I think that's important.
The Ripple Stone isn't something I've created from outside life and now teach to other people.
It's a way of looking at life that I use too.
Perhaps We Should Have a Conversation
You don't need to have your life mapped out before coming to coaching.
You might have a clear Destination. You might be facing one particular decision. You might feel stuck. Or you might simply know that something needs to change without knowing what that change is yet.
That's enough to begin a conversation.
If you're considering coaching, you can book a free Discovery Session. There's no obligation to continue afterwards.
It's simply an opportunity for us to talk about the lake you're navigating and decide whether working together feels right.