On the method and matter of coaching

How I Came to Coaching

The first time I stepped into an executive role I had no idea what I was doing. I cared about the company and knew my functional role inside and and out but struggled to connect with other parts of the business and build strategic relationships, which had a negative impact on my ability to influence and execute.

Thankfully, instead of firing me the company suggested I hire an executive coach to help sort things out. I reached out to Jerry Colonna who put me in touch with the incredibly talented Miriam Meima.

When I first started working with Miriam I thought I would bring my challenges to her and she'd give me a framework or process that would help resolve the issue. Instead, she turned my attention to what was happening in my inner world. I began to see the conditioned tendencies, automatic responses, and limiting beliefs that were significantly hindering my capacity to show up as an executive. As it turned out, these patterns were also hindering how I showed up in the rest of my life.

Through our work together I began to see and relate to challenges in new and different ways. I became more impactful and effective, and less reactive and territorial. And more importantly, I began to learn what my own unique leadership style looked like.

I was floored.

The inner work had fully transformed my ability to show up as a leader. Of course we also focused on the outer work, but without the inner work everything else would have lead to incremental change at best. But with the inner work, what happened was transformational.

I want everyone to be able to experience how the challenges we face at work can be rich material for deeper transformation. To see how patterns that inhibit us at work are having the same effect in other parts of our lives. And to experience all of this with the support of someone who fully believes in you and your innate wholeness.

Since working with Miriam I've had the opportunity to be coached by some amazing folks, including Marty Janowitz, Marina Illich, and Sahar Azarabadi. I share these names as a way of saying: I believe in the power of coaching because I've been there, and I know what great coaching looks like because I've been coached (and continue to be coached) by some of the best.

My Approach to Coaching

I am fully committed to this work, and to you. They say you can only serve people as far as you have gone yourself, which means my own journey is never-ending. I am devoted to a life of deep inquiry, personal growth, and collective healing in service of myself and others.

As a coach I will support and challenge you, but I will not (cannot) provide answers. Those are yours to uncover, the seeds of deep meaning that become foundational commitments of your unique leadership and life.

Whatever you come to coaching with, the goal, outcome, or possibility you long for becomes the foundation of our coaching container. From there, everything is designed for you and your way of being in the world. A bi-weekly meeting cadence of 60 minute sessions, combined with email and text support, builds the container in purposeful way to facilitate your development both personally and professionally. Our work together takes what is most exciting and challenging for you at work as the opening to build more nuanced awareness of yourself, the situation, and others. We will use frameworks, practices, and exercises as needed to develop new language and ways of responding so that you can step into more choiceful and effective action.

I bring a wide range of training, education, and experience to coaching. Integral Coaching, Gestalt Psychology and Embodied Leadership form the foundation of my approach. I weave in organizational design, business management, the neuroscience of leadership, and strengths-based approaches to change from my MBA, and Self leadership from the Internal Family Systems model. Meditation and mindfulness practices in the tradition of the Realization Process support embodied presence, and I have extensive experience building and running product and design teams at the executive level. I am also committed to ongoing work in racial healing and decolonizing practices.