the guide

I'm Luke.This work chose me.

I'm a certified life and leadership coach, GiANT Worldwide 100X Leader, and 5 Voices practitioner — with five years of professional coaching and more than a decade of experience sitting with people through the most significant moments of their lives.

Luke Haythorpe, founder of lil' bird coaching
Certification
GiANT Worldwide Certified Coach · 100X Leader
Frameworks
5 Voices Practitioner · Workplace Training & Assessment
Based
Bay Area, CA · Melbourne, Australia
the story

Before coaching full-time, I spent years in ministry-based leadership — working specifically with young people on identity, purpose, and the kind of questions that don't have tidy answers. That work shaped everything about how I show up in a coaching conversation: the patience, the willingness to stay in the uncomfortable parts, and the conviction that people are far more capable than they've been told.

I tried a lot of different ways of helping people before landing on coaching. What settled it for me was this: people own the change when they find it themselves. Advice tells you what to do. Coaching helps you discover what you already know — and trust it.

That's what lil' bird is built on. Not a system to follow. Not someone else's script. A real conversation — between who you are right now and who you're becoming — with someone in your corner who's actually paying attention.


who I work with

My clients are typically in the middle of something — a career shift, a relationship transition, a quiet identity crisis that's hard to name out loud. They're not broken. They're at a crossroads. And they've usually been trying to figure it out alone for longer than they should have.

Considering or mid-career change with no clear landing yet
In a relationship or life transition that's shaken their sense of self
Wrestling with questions of identity, purpose, or faith
Doing fine on the outside, quietly struggling on the inside
Stuck in a pattern they can see but can't seem to break
Ready to go deeper than advice — and do the actual work

what tends to change

Every person's journey looks different. But here's what people consistently say shifts — often in ways they weren't expecting going in.

01
Confidence
Not the performed kind. The kind that comes from knowing who you are and trusting that it's enough to move forward.
02
Clarity
A sense of direction that feels like yours — not borrowed from someone else's expectations or someone else's timeline.
03
Forward motion
Challenges that once felt impossible start to feel navigable. Not because the circumstances changed — because you did.
04
A story that makes sense
The thread connecting where you've been to where you're going. Most people have never seen it laid out. It changes things.

how I work

I'm not here to give you answers. I'm here to help you find yours — and to hold the space steady while you do. The best coaching works because the person doing it owns every move they make. I'm not the expert on your life. You are. My job is to ask the question you haven't been able to ask yourself, and to stay in the room when the answer gets uncomfortable.

I bring the relational intelligence work from GiANT Worldwide and 5 Voices into every engagement — not as a script, but as a lens. They help us understand how you're wired, how you lead yourself, and what's actually driving the patterns you're in. Combined with the Inner Compass assessment, we usually get to something real, quickly.

This isn't therapy. It isn't advice. It's a conversation that goes somewhere — because both people in it mean it.

ready when you are

The first step isjust showing up.

Most people who book don't have it figured out yet. That's the whole point. Start with a First Flight — one session, no commitment beyond the conversation.