About David
I'm David Caldicott. Coach, writer, founder. I've studied physics, worked in hospitality, built businesses, written a novel, and worked with people through conversations, courses and retreats. Connect Your Dots brings that experience into the room with you.
My work has taken different forms. The question keeps returning: how do we live honestly when what we want, what we do and the life we've built don't quite fit together?
Where it began
I studied physics, but much of my early working life happened in hospitality. The Dynamic Waiter grew out of that world: a training method built around noticing people, meeting them where they were, and making a real connection rather than performing a script.
I also built Chic Pea Hummus, a food business. Sales, customers, production, getting the work done — those were practical parts of my life, alongside the questions I was asking about people and authenticity.
Coaching, community and retreats
Before Connect Your Dots, I worked with people through the Caldicott Method and Gorilla Zen: paid one-to-one coaching, ongoing support and group experiences. Work, relationships, confidence and direction often arrived tangled together. The conversation rarely stayed inside the category it started in.
The Game of Authenticity — GOA — explored those questions through stories, characters and practical challenges. People were invited to participate, express themselves and notice how they were living, rather than simply read another explanation. The earlier Authenticity Accelerator Workshop community put that approach into practice.
Retreats gave the work another setting: time together, group conversation and individual attention. These were different ways of exploring the same questions, with different demands and boundaries.
That history now informs KIMBA, SAHARA and the continuing development of Sahara Simulations. The frameworks give the work structure. They don't replace listening to the person in front of me.
Explore the methodThe writer
I wrote the first draft while working full-time as a waiter. Published in 2022, Time Not Here is a psychological and philosophical novel about trust, perception and what happens when the stories we rely on begin to fracture.
Writing gives me another way to explore identity, relationships and the explanations we give ourselves. A character can be certain of something and still be missing a crucial part of the picture.
Those questions matter in a conversation too. I want to understand the story you're living with — and leave room for what we haven't seen yet.
Life Albums bring that creative work into a personal commission: a guided conversation shaped into songs, cover artwork and a lyric booklet. It's another way to listen to a life and connect its moments — with something you can keep and play.
Explore Life Albums Explore my wider workThe business years
I founded and ran Shine On Cleans, a cleaning business. That meant customers, contractors, schedules, service problems and the responsibility of following through. I was involved in the work as well as building the systems around it.
The cleaning business has since closed. The operational work and the SHINE systems remain part of my experience, alongside the earlier businesses, coaching and writing.
When someone brings a question about work or direction, I bring experience of being responsible for a business, handling the ordinary demands and making decisions when a plan has to change.
The wider thread
Sahara Simulations explores identity through immersive stories and experiences. The Integration Fund and proposed Integration Stations take that interest into communities: places where people, cultures and work can connect without everyone having to become the same.
These are parts of my wider work, at different stages of development. Here at Connect Your Dots, the focus is the person I'm talking with: your situation, the connections we can explore, and the next step you choose.
Working with me
You don't have to bring a polished explanation. I listen across the different parts of your life, offer connections and ask whether they fit. Sometimes we stay with a question. Sometimes we work towards a decision, a conversation or a boundary.
I'll be warm, direct, and occasionally irreverent. You decide what rings true and what you do with it. With ongoing support, we can return to what matters without starting your whole story from scratch each time.
This is coaching, not therapy or clinical care. My writing, business experience and personal practice inform how I work; they aren't clinical credentials. I'll tell you honestly when another kind of support would be more appropriate.
A voice from earlier work
“I had a great experience talking with David!”
— Shane Brooke, Facebook recommendation
An experience from earlier coaching work, before today's CYD offers.
Where we meet
Most sessions are online. Around Norwich, we can meet in person or walk and talk. Retreats and bespoke engagements have their own format, suitability and scope, agreed before you commit.
Ways to work together Retreats & experiencesStart with a conversation
You don't have to choose a programme before we speak. We'll explore what's happening and see whether working together would help.
Book a free conversation30 minutes · Free · No obligation to continue