Coaching · Reflection · Galway, Ireland

The world can look
different if you want it to.

Sometimes all it takes is one conversation that asks the right question. Not the answer — the question.

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Jakub Smigielski ✦ Coach · Writer ✦ Substack ✦ LinkedIn ✦ jakub@shamrock.academy
About

I spent years thinking my way around things. Then I started moving through them.

I'm a coach, writer, and operations leader based in Galway. I work with people who are stuck in their heads — leaders, career transitioners, people in the middle of something they can't quite name yet.

My own experience as a recovered overthinker shapes how I work. I don't judge the pattern. I know the way out of it.

I'm completing my PDCM qualification with Kingstown College Dublin — accredited by the ICF and EMCC — and I write a Substack on reflection, awareness, and what happens when you finally start moving.

Jakub Smigielski in Connemara, Galway
Jakub Smigielski
Why I do this

Because every person I've ever sat across from turned out to be more interesting than they thought they were.

Somewhere along the way, we stopped listening to each other. Conversations became exchanges — what I have, what I do, what I'm busy with. Nobody asks "that's interesting — tell me more" and then actually waits for the answer.

I wait for the answer. That's most of the job, honestly. When someone is truly listened to, patterns start to show — ones that stretch far beyond the story being told. And then comes my favourite moment in the world: the pause, the look up, the oh. The moment awareness widens and the world suddenly looks different.

I can't make that moment happen. But I know how to build the room it happens in.

Approach

Coaching that changes how you see — not just what you do.

"Action creates insights. Not the other way around. Real clarity only comes when you start moving — even imperfectly, even unsurely."

Most coaching focuses on behaviour — new habits, new goals, new plans. That can help. But the changes that actually last tend to happen at a different level. They happen when something shifts in how you see yourself, other people, and what's possible.

That's the work I'm drawn to. Not fixing what's broken, but helping you see it — properly, clearly, from the inside — so that what needs to change can change on its own terms.

Reflection first

We slow down before we speed up. Understanding the pattern matters more than fixing it quickly.

Action as insight

Small moves create clarity that planning never can. We find the next step — then reflect on what it showed us.

Your knowing

The answers are usually already in you. My job is to ask the questions that bring them forward.

Writing

Thoughts on reflection, action, and seeing differently.

I write on Substack — occasional, unhurried pieces on the things I notice in coaching, in life, and on long walks.

Who Holds the Thread → The Mirror and the Noise → Reflection and Action – Why Disconnecting Immediate Responses Leads to Better Solutions → Reflection Is Not Only a Mindful Process — It's Also a Brain Changer → Action Creates Insights → What If Money Wasn't the Issue? → My 2026 Resolutions: Not Really →
Read all essays on Substack →

Things I find myself saying

…and things wiser people said first.

Action creates insights.
— Jakub
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What to expect

A discovery session, step by step.

No forms, no pitch, no homework.

We talk

Thirty minutes, free, human. You bring whatever is on your mind — or nothing at all.

We see

Through real listening, patterns start to show — often reaching further than the story that brought you in.

You decide

Maybe we work together. Maybe you leave with one good question. The call is yours either way.

Work together

Start with a conversation.
No commitment required.

A discovery session is 30 minutes — free, informal, no agenda other than finding out if working together makes sense for both of us.

Book your discovery session
30 minutes · free · no agenda