I coach CEOs, founders, and executives at growing startups who want to pursue big dreams without suffering needlessly along the way. Why might you want to work with me? 

Share your struggles with someone who cares about you, not just your performance

Many “performance coaches” just make you feel worse by reinforcing the idea you’re not good enough as you are. Investors, peers, and leadership have an agenda for you that may or may not align with your own. Let me be at least one person in your life who’s not judging you by your performance. I care about whether you’re meeting your own goals, not anyone else’s.

Life is hard! Struggling is normal. Even successful CEOs wrestle with the same things as everyone else: how to pursue their what they want while maintaining good relationships and feeling good day to day. I will help you see where your actions aren’t serving you and get you back on track—all while normalizing your challenges, not judging you for them. 

Find the way that’s right for you, not “the right way”

Often people come to me wanting to make sure they do the right thing. Wouldn’t it be nice if we could be certain our way was the right way? But we can’t. For all our striving to eliminate risk and guarantee success in startups, all we can do is improve on slim odds: there is no 100% certainty. Sure, sometimes I share a helpful best practice or two. But I’m not going to tell you there’s one right way to do anything. 

Instead I’ll help you move forward despite that fundamental uncertainty—and all the feelings it stirs up. Those feelings make it shockingly easy to get distracted and forget what really matters. We get worried about failure and delay pursuing our dreams. We get frustrated when we’re stuck and persist in the same strategy long after we know it’s not working. Our dreams remain vague and distant either way.

I’ll support you in focusing on what you’re running towards, not what you’re running from—pursuing your dreams with integrity as they evolve.  We’ll experiment with what you can control: articulating what you want in each session, asking for what you want in between sessions, and integrating your lessons from the response next time around. That’s how you reconnect to those dreams and take your best shot at making them real—again and again and again. 

Make make life’s challenges feel easier by rewriting your unconscious stories about them

Everything’s so easy in theory. Want to let someone go? Set a time and place to meet with them and share the news. Need to make a big risky decision? Stop waiting to be certain. Summon your courage and make your best guess. Did you make a huge mistake? Apologize to whomever you hurt and then forgive yourself so you can move on. 

Clearly easier said than done! What makes these moments feel so hard are the unconscious stories we tell ourselves: about what’s OK and what isn’t, about how we prove our value, and about the consequences if things don’t go our way. But we seldom check on the facts on whether these stories are true. We believe them unquestioned, and often fear, frustration, conflict, stress, and burnout are the result. 

I’ll help you identify and rewrite your stories so you can handle anything the world throws at you with grace. It doesn’t have to feel so hard. Show others they can rely on you to keep it together—or get back on track quickly when you don’t. And show yourself you can keep pursuing your dreams, whatever the challenges along the way.

How does it work?

Designed for you

Everyone’s coaching journey is different! Part of what’s fun about 1:1 coaching is we can adapt the coaching program to meet each client’s particular needs. If something in our relationship isn’t working, we just redesign it as we go.

Baseline Program

That said, transformative growth requires sustained time and energy from both of us, and I’ve designed the basic program to allow for that growth and flexibility.

  • Flat monthly rate for unlimited 1:1 and small group coaching sessions, typically paid by your company
  • Also includes email summaries of sessions and unlimited correspondence via email and text
  • Minimum of 2 one hour sessions per month
What topics do you coach?

I coach the whole person, not a particular set of topics, so our conversations go wherever they need to to realize my clients’ visions. While I occasionally offer advice or stories from my career in tech, typically the solutions come from each client. Instead of simply dispensing advice (which often isn’t that helpful), I act as their partner in identifying what’s truly important, and their advocate in acting on it.

That said, clients and I often discuss:

  • Conflicts with their manager, board, and/or employees.
  • Managing stress and emotion.
  • Making time for what’s important.
  • Managing their inner critic/imposter’s syndrome.
  • Articulating an inspiring personal vision, and taking action to achieve it.
What’s a typical engagement like?

Earlier coaching sessions focus on deepening our understanding of you, your dreams, and the challenges standing in your way. As your path becomes clearer, our focus often shifts towards practicing new behaviors and holding you accountable to the results you desire.

We often touch on these universal themes:

  • Letting go of blaming others and taking full responsibility for easing your pain and achieving your vision.
  • Growing your mindfulness skills to identify ineffective thoughts and behaviors and shift them in real time.
  • Accepting what you cannot change to find peace and balance while maximizing your desired impact.
  • Exploring and embracing your unique leadership style to leave your mark on the company and the world at large.
What’s a typical session like?

We start each session by following up on the last session’s actions and articulating the lessons they offered. After that the topic is client’s choice! Usually we spend the bulk of the time understanding what’s happening and articulating what the client wants. Once we understand that, often it’s easy to identify the actions necessary to make it happen. After each session I follow up via email with the session’s key points and action items. That lets us continue our discussion and keeps everyone accountable to action.

How do I choose the right coach for me?

It’s all about fit! Typically the key elements are budget and chemistry. For budget, ask your company to pay for your coaching! Great coaching is expensive but you’re worth the investment. Chemistry is harder to predict, you really have to try out coaching together to see how it feels. Fortunately I offer a free one hour sample session to CEOs, founders, and leadership at startups, so please get in touch and we can discuss. After a sample session it’s almost always clear whether we should continue working together.

Curious to learn more? Let’s get started.

Contact me