People led to work with me are open-hearted learners with big dreams and an inner fire for personal growth. They have a powerful and compelling vision or want to create one for their business, career, or life. They are people who want to make an impact in the world and who require the best from themselves.
Spanning more than 30 years, my professional career includes early work in a start-up, management positions in my family’s greenhouse business, corporate financial services, and establishing a couple of businesses of my own. In each season, I held leadership positions, moving toward my goals by working with and through other people. This practical, real-world business experience, coupled with my coach training and experience (now approaching 1,000 hours of individual 1:1 coaching) provides a strong foundation from which to partner with you.
In a supportive, knowledgeable, and transformational way, I draw on my experience to help you make progress. I want you to experience the same growth in your career that I did and to know that you are capable of achieving what you most passionately want.
In late December 2012, I’d had enough. Truthfully, I felt lost. I had no idea where I was going in my career or what I wanted my work life to be about. Since I was a teen, I had this prevailing sense that a higher purpose existed in my life – there was important work that I would one day be called upon to do. The problem was I had no idea what that purpose or work was supposed to look like.
And so, I waited. I waited for someone to see me. I waited for someone to notice my talents, pluck me out of one job, and drop me into a new one. I waited for someone to offer up my purpose and important work to me on a silver platter. But that someone never came, and I lost a lot of time waiting. At the age of 48, I finally felt ready to choose myself rather than waiting for someone else to pick me.
Not knowing exactly how to start, I did an online search for coaches near me and placed a call to a local career and entrepreneur coach. In January 2013, I began with her. That decision, and my new resolve, began a journey that forever changed my life.
As a naturally introspective and self-aware person, I felt fairly attuned to my “inner world,” but I never saw those parts of myself as something from which others could benefit. Through my own coaching experience, I gained new insight and respect for the unique combination of gifts, interests, and skills I possessed. I started to think about them as ways to connect with and help others. For the first time, I began to see myself in the way that I always longed for others to see me.
With this fresh way of seeing myself and the world around me, new possibilities for action opened up. In March of 2014, I spent three days in New York City at an introductory coach training. Living from an early script I learned, I spent most of my life shrinking away from the spotlight. The coach training experience challenged that script, pushing me far beyond my comfort zone. But that weekend in NYC, one block from Times Square, in a room full of 27 women and two other guys, I couldn’t hide.
At one point in the training, I found myself standing on a chair in the middle of that circle dutifully impersonating my inner lion! Honestly, I couldn’t get out of there fast enough. I wanted to escape to a quiet place and take a nap. And yet, something shifted inside of me. By the time I arrived safely back in Lancaster County, I knew that on the other side of that terror and discomfort sat my “important work” waiting for me. Later that year, I enrolled in a 15-month coach-training program and began coaching almost immediately. I’ve never looked back.
Today, having worked with professionals, leaders, business owners, entrepreneurs, and others, I see how we all carry core negative self-assessments – those “scripts” we pick up (often in childhood) that lead us to live habituated lives. For the longest time, my own script kept me from fulfillment and meaning. Now it’s a joy to support others in this journey also.
I feel the greatest joy in my work when I see people learning to move beyond their old scripts and to start a new story. I can’t wait to see what the next chapter holds for you.
When I’m not coaching, I enjoy reading, writing, thinking, traveling, and spending time with my family. I possess an insatiable appetite for spectacular sunsets and beauty in the natural world. I love new experiences that invite me to the edge of my learning and comfort.
My wife Karma and I have been married for 30+ years. We enjoy spending time with our three adult children, our daughter-in-law and son-in-law, and our sweet Mini Bernedoodle, Bear.