John McHale launches The Most Important Six Inches

Drawing on 13 years of coaching and his own move from corporate executive to business owner, McHale explores how the beliefs we hold shape ambition, resilience and what we do next.

Kingston upon Hull, England, United Kingdom, November 9, 2026 -- Business coach and Steel FM presenter John McHale is launching The Most Important Six Inches of Your Life Is Between Your Ears, a book exploring how beliefs influence ambition, resilience and the everyday decisions that can change the direction of a life.

Drawing on 13 years in business coaching, McHale brings together his own difficult transition from corporate executive to business owner, stories from businesses he has coached and accounts of exceptional personal achievement. The book examines how people respond to rejection, the assumptions that can restrict their ambitions and the practical work required to move forward when confidence has been shaken. For readers building a business, considering a career change or revisiting an ambition they have postponed, it offers a chance to examine a conversation that often goes unnoticed: what they tell themselves about their own capabilities, and how that affects what they do next. McHale’s interest in the subject grew from a period when his own experience and professional success appeared insufficient to help him make his business work.

At 46, he had a successful corporate career, a six-figure salary, a company car, family health insurance and a substantial pension. Work helping companies improve their supply chains had given him an appetite for a different career, one focused on working directly with businesses and their owners. After returning from a productive visit to a company in Sweden, he told his wife, Catherine, that he wanted to spend the rest of his working life doing that work.

Her encouragement prompted him to explore the move seriously. Following a period of preparation and research, he invested £42,000 in an ActionCOACH franchise. He brought considerable experience in production, operations and supply chains, but soon encountered a challenge for which his corporate career had provided less preparation: finding customers and selling his own services.

“Having a stellar corporate career and launching your own successful business are two completely different things,” McHale said. Although he could deliver valuable work for clients, approaching prospective customers exposed him to a fear of rejection that affected his willingness to promote the business. “If people said no to my offers, I thought they were rejecting me,” he said.

As the business struggled, his debts reached £250,000 and his savings ran out. McHale had tried to shield Catherine, a headteacher with significant pressures of her own, from much of the worry. Eventually, they agreed to give the business another three months to turn around.

During that period, he was introduced to Bruce Wilson, a coach based in Nelson, New Zealand. Wilson initially gifted him coaching, continuing for six months until McHale could afford to pay. McHale credits that support with helping him recognise how his beliefs and behaviours were affecting the business, particularly his tendency to interpret a declined offer as a personal rejection.

One principle Wilson introduced became especially useful: “Some will, some won’t, so what?” It helped McHale accept that a potential client’s refusal was part of doing business, allowing him to approach more people and continue after an unsuccessful conversation. Alongside that work, he introduced practical accountability through a personal assistant who attended his coaching calls and knew what he had committed to doing.

A WhatsApp group involving Catherine added another layer of follow-through. McHale’s commitments were visible to other people, making it harder to avoid difficult tasks without being challenged. “I was trying to escape full accountability,” he said.

The business began to improve, but the work continued beyond the immediate recovery. McHale worked with Wilson for five and a half years, an experience that informs the book’s emphasis on sustained learning and action. He is clear that belief alone is insufficient. “You’ve got to have a level of skill, a level of ability, and you’ve got to take the actions to make things happen,” he said.

The Most Important Six Inches of Your Life Is Between Your Ears draws those experiences together with six chapters about businesses McHale has worked with, alongside stories of extraordinary achievement and prominent figures. It explores the relationship between ambition, goals, learning and planning, including the resilience needed when circumstances change and an original plan no longer fits.

The book also invites readers to reconsider ambitions they may have dismissed without fully examining them. In his coaching work, McHale asks people to list 100 things they would like to have, do or become. He says many struggle to get beyond 30 or 35, an experience that has prompted him to question how readily people learn to edit their expectations.

McHale believes some of those restrictions are absorbed early in life through messages from the people around us. His book encourages readers to consider which assumptions remain useful, which deserve to be challenged and what steps they could take towards something they have previously ruled out.

Having begun his own personal development journey at 46, he wants that invitation to reach people across different ages and stages of life. “Whether you’re 17, 37, 57 or 77, don’t wait like I did,” he said.

The book’s title emerged from a remark McHale made during a workshop in 2019. When he told the audience that the most important six inches of their lives were between their ears, people stopped and smiled. A similar reaction at a later workshop convinced him that the phrase could help open a serious discussion about a subject often presented in more conventional language.

Behind the humour is an account of the vulnerability that can accompany starting again. McHale describes the gap between the progress his family eventually saw and the pressure that preceded it, giving readers a fuller picture of the support, setbacks and sustained effort behind his business journey.

For those facing uncertainty of their own, the book brings that experience into a discussion of what can change when someone becomes more willing to question familiar beliefs, seek support and act despite the possibility of hearing no.

Further information about The Most Important Six Inches of Your Life Is Between Your Ears and John McHale, including publication and purchase details, is available at thesixinchesguy.com.

John McHale is a high performance business coach with 13 years’ experience, following a corporate career in production, operations and supply chains. He also hosts the business show on Steel FM. His book draws on personal experience, businesses he has coached and stories of exceptional achievement to explore belief, ambition and action.

Publication details

The Most Important Six Inches of Your Life Is Between Your Ears

By John McHale

thesixinchesguy.com

Contact Info:
Name: Alfie Brown
Email: Send Email
Organization: NBS Terminal
Website: https://nbsterminal.com/

Release ID: 89208918

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