What is coaching?

There are numerous ways to seek support. This is the difference between them using the driving analogy:

Therapy

Looking in the rearview mirror, asking, “What was that?”, “Did I hit something?” and “How did that turn make me feel?”.

Consulting

A backseat driver telling you where to go and what to do.

Coaching

The race-car instructor who creates a safe learning space and introduces new approaches, tools, and techniques for you to integrate at your own pace. When you are ready, you won’t need us in the car to win races and adapt to weather and tracks.

What is Mental well-being Coaching?

A method of coaching that cultivates deep internal transformation resulting in improved mental health and fitness, wholistic well-being, and improved performance and leadership.

We lead you on a guided process of self-exploration to unearth the pre-existing highest expression of YOU in life and leadership that was already there.

You already have everything you need inside of you to be exactly as you want to be in the world. A coach's job is to show you how to access that and let you find the tools and confidence that you always can.

We get hyper-clear about your purpose and vision. We use challenges that arise, internal or external, as a teacher, learning how they are here to serve us. We give ourselves what we want from the external world first. From this resourced place of safety acceptance, we delve deep into the unconscious patterns and childhood programming holding us back.

We re-program these stories that once served us but no longer do at all six levels of the human experience – somatic, mental, emotional, behavioral, unconscious, and spiritual. Having resourced ourselves internally, we move into pristine, aligned, external action, building behaviors and habits with science-backed approaches to supercharge your success.

You learn meta-habits, so when our container is complete, you will have the tools, confidence, and community to manage whatever season life throws at you next.

Who is this work for?.

You are a passionate change-maker with a servant’s heart who has deep care and compassion, committed to a life of service, no matter the title.

You sometimes feel like an outsider, different, don't fit in, and aren’t part of the old boys club.

You sometimes feel overwhelmed, anxious, stressed out, angry, reactive, depressed, closed down, in your corner, hurt, stuck, frustrated, not good enough, like an imposter, and fear messing it up.

You want to break through the fear, indecision, challenging relationships, threats, criticism, and ridicule with ease, grace, and poise to be impactful and effective as a leader.

You desire better alignment, learn to be more effective, and feel free, clear, honest, connected, safe, happy, and supported.

You dream of playing all out in your role without decimating your spirit, family, and personal life.

Why do this work?

There is a dropout and retention epidemic in our world right now, and if we're honest, it makes sense. Our workplace and public environment are as toxic as any.

It does not need to be this way. You have the power to change yourself and your organization's health. Everyone benefits from you being your happiest, healthiest, most productive self in leadership – especially your constituents and community.

With mental well-being coaching, you and your organization lead by example, putting your mask on first to better serve others. By doing so, you can stay in the game to make real, meaningful, impactful changes that your community needs now.

You are not alone….

Feeling stressed, down and out, frustrated, and not good enough can feel isolating. Ironically, more than half of us felt this way this year. Rather than being isolated, when given a safe intentional coaching container, we can own, accept, and share where we are, building authentic connections through shared experiences with our co-workers, immediately improving our well-being and organizational connection and performance.

The reality of our workplace is this:

  • · 81% of elected leaders experienced anxiety and/or depression last year.

  • · 75% of us felt overwhelmed at some point.

  • · 50% had the experience of feeling isolated and falling out of love with our communities. The irony.

These experiences are not just in our heads:

  • · 83% of elected officials experienced direct threats or persecution last year.

  • · These public attacks are landing on more of us, with different job titles, daily.

If you have felt these or any other way, congratulations - your millennial-old biological warning system is functioning correctly!

Healing together is a choice, just as suffering alone is.

These experiences can become THE KEYS TO SET YOU FREE and reach your highest potential.

The secret of all top performers is to make EVERYTHING work for you – ESPECIALLY the adversity. Now you and your organization can learn how.

Definitions

This stuff is new to most of us. Mental health terms can be opaque, confusing, and new. Many don’t have a single accepted definition. Let’s get on the same page for a conversation based on a shared understanding. This way, you know what we mean when we use them.

As one of our favorite coaches, Stephen McGhee, frequently says, “Clarity is Kind”.

  • Mental Health. The state of being in alignment, connection, and safety with self, others, and the environment.

    Mental Fitness. The cultivated practices, behaviors, and internal and external environment which encourage mental health.

    Wellness. The active, continual pursuit of a higher state of physical, mental, and psycho-social health.

    Wholistic Well-being. The state of balance, equanimity, connection, and health that one may attain with mental fitness practices.

    Burnout. When something you loved that gave you energy becomes something you dread and sucks energy from you. The equation is simple:

    Burnout = Loved activity - (lack of boundaries + misalignment)

    Trauma. Any experience that reduces alignment, connection, or safety with self, others, and/or the environment. The trauma is not the event itself but how we relate to it.

    Mental Health Challenge. The felt experience of reduced alignment, connection, or safety with self, others, and/or the environment often presents as “symptoms”

    Symptoms. The individual, distinct, or co-presenting expressions of mental health challenge(s) and the stories we apply to them. These include but are not limited to stress, anxiety, depression, overwhelm, intense or persistent mood, mood fluctuations, suicidality, weight gain, somatic pain, etc.

    Warning Lights. Symptoms are nature’s warning lights, alerting us to an internal problem state that requires maintenance.

    The Work. Applied action of mental fitness practice to rewrite our stories, resolve symptoms, and achieve mental health and wholistic well-being.

    The Challenge IS the Way. When we perceived “roadblocks” or symptoms as “building blocks,”. By inquiring within, symptoms reveal root causes. By reprograming old stories, we build psychological safety within ourselves, with others, and in our environment. The byproduct of the work is an emergent, evolved, higher state of consciousness by which we achieve improved life, relationships, efficacy, and results.

    Radical Responsibility. Taking responsibility for everything in our own experience, no matter how challenging, as an opportunity and/or tool for personal development.

    Progress = Time x (motivation + ownership)

    Success. Doing the work.