Yes, I commonly work with clients all over the world via Zoom or phone. We'll find a time of day that's convenient for both of us.

If you're curious, I live in the United States, in Portland, Oregon (on the PST timezone). I moved here six years ago, and I’ve previously lived in: Washington DC, Los Angeles, Montreal, Tokyo, and a small village outside Hiroshima.

I'm an experienced coach who's helped a lot of people (especially INTP's, ENTP's, and INFJ's)

• I’ve spent over a decade working with teams and leaders at top Fortune 500 companies (names withheld due to confidentiality agreements, but you would be very familiar with many of them).
• Outside the corporate world, I’ve helped all sorts of people ranging from software engineers, to students, to aspiring entrepreneurs, to doctors, to librarians—all sorts of analytical thinkers who want to feel more fulfilled, motivated, and alive.
• I created one of the most popular Myers-Briggs personality typing websites on the Internet—nearly a million people (from 193 countries) in the past year have trusted my test.
• With over 400 logged hours of training, I have a background in both executive / life coaching (CTI Co-Active Coaching, Positive Intelligence, Brené Brown, Myers-Briggs, DISC) and counseling (Hakomi somatic mindfulness, R-CS Re-Creation of the Self). You can read more about my qualifications here.

If you've struggled to find a coach or counselor who really gets you, I can empathize. It took me a long time to find someone who could keep up with me and go as deep as I wanted to go.

When I found the right person for me, it was pretty clear after only five minutes. If you think I might be a good fit for you, I encourage you to schedule a free sample session to see how it feels.

I've had a very successful career, so I understand what you need to learn to succeed

• I won an Emmy, and I later worked at the production company of an Academy Award-winning director.
• I worked at some of the top video game companies in the world (Square Enix, Naughty Dog).
• I’ve managed multimillion-dollar web and app projects for some of the world's most famous brands.

So, I can support you in building skills like confidence, communication, EQ, social skills, decision-making, productivity, achieving ambitious goals, and the other fundamentals you need to succeed at work and at home.

I know what it's like to struggle with depression, social disconnection, and lack of purpose

I’ve been where you are. Despite my success—an objective outside observer would say my life was amazing—I still felt an existential void for much of my adult life. It felt like I was treading water waiting for my "real" life to start.

I wondered how other people seemed to be so happy, so fulfilled, and to have so many friends. I struggled with depression, anxiety, nihilism, low confidence, procrastination, and very low motivation outside work.

But I devoted three solid years to changing that, and I learned a lot about what works and doesn’t work. I won't claim that I have it 100% figured out, and I still have hard days. But I’ve found a deep well of motivation in me and a powerful sense of aliveness. And since then, I’ve helped a lot of other people do the same.

I'm committed to creating a safe container for people with a variety of identities. That kind of trust has to be earned, and I'm willing to put in the work to build it with you.

Inclusivity and Equity

We all have complex identities that are impacted by varying levels of access & privilege as well as structural systems of power and oppression. I consider inclusivity and equity to be foundational to my practice, and I strive to continually educate myself to be able to support clients as whole people who may be impacted by a range of issues related to their multi-faceted and intersectional identities. You can read some of my anti-racism work here.

Privilege

I'm a white, heterosexual, cisgendered person, and I use "he/him" pronouns. I was born in Canada and moved to the United States at age 13. But aside from that, it's important to name that my set of identities is most typically regarded as the "default" in the dominant culture of the US. That status has given me a certain amount of power and a variety of unearned privileges.

Because that privilege makes it relatively easy to ignore the systems of oppression and inequity around me, I've devoted a significant amount of time and energy over the past few years to examining the ways I've unconsciously internalized beliefs and habits related to whiteness, maleness, and so on within myself. I'm a part of several communities oriented toward collective liberation and mutual-accountability with leaders of color and other historically-marginalized identities.

Trauma

In terms of working with trauma, I have some basic training, awareness, and knowledge of grounding exercises, but I'm not an expert. If you're wanting support with complex trauma, I deeply empathize with you; however, clinical psychotherapy is outside the scope of my practice.

Sliding Scale

To acknowledge structural inequities and my own privilege, you'll see in my sliding scale section below that I offer a couple of slots in my practice for people at lower-income levels. That lower rate applies to anyone with access needs rather than just to BIPOC specifically. I made that choice to avoid making any assumptions about your financial situation (e.g., implying that you haven't been financially successful because you identify as BIPOC).

I'm happy to talk about all of this and to discuss any access needs you have via email or during our free sample session (which you can schedule by scrolling down).

I love books and podcasts too, and I've learned a lot from them. But that type of learning only took me so far.

Here's how coaching is different:

You're a unique person, so my coaching is customized to you

As a Myers-Briggs expert, I know that you're not the same as other people—your mind is structured differently, and what works for them might not work for you.

My coaching will be highly customized for your MBTI type and—more importantly—for you and the specific barriers and challenges you're facing in your life.

It's not a simple lack of knowledge that's holding you back

Why haven't you already made the changes you know you need to make in your life?

Here's what I learned the hard way (and what I've seen in all the clients I've worked with):

You aren't being held back by a lack of knowledge. What you really need is ongoing support to change the way you think. To shift how you see the world and yourself.

It's not enough to just read or hear about what you should be doing—you need to experience it.

You need someone who can help you see what you're doing wrong and hold you accountable to make real progress toward change.

What will we do together?

We’ll alternate between tackling specific tactical issues you’re facing (e.g., a recent challenge at work, at home, in your relationships, etc.) and going back to the big picture (your life purpose, career path, and overarching personal growth).

I’m trained in multiple different modalities, which you can read about here. Depending on the type of challenge I’m helping you with, here are some common ways our session might go: 

• I’ll use my expertise in Myers-Briggs typology to help you better understand how your mind works. Then I’ll use techniques from Positive Intelligence to support you with mental fitness (like weightlifting but to strengthen your mastery over your mind).
• I’ll use my coaching and management consulting background to offer you different perspectives and specific advice and suggestions for dealing with the issues you’re facing around things like time management or communication.
• Finally, I’ll use Hakomi and R-CS somatic counseling techniques to help you get in a deeply mindful state of mind to explore the foundational experiences, stories, and neural networks responsible for the challenges you're facing. This will help you make more fundamental shifts to transform your experience of life, including shifting which thought patterns you most commonly go to. Ultimately, this will reshape how you feel about yourself and your moment-to-moment experience each day.

What will it feel like to work with me?

I'm not a "Type A" drill-sergeant type coach. If you want someone who's hyper-focused on pushing you hard and holding you accountable to rigid goals, I'm not the person for you. But if you want an ally who will help you tap into your deepest strengths and motivation while also supporting you in a caring way if you stumble, we might be a good fit.

People I've worked with have described me as:

• Powerfully-present, calm, and grounded
• Authentic, unpretentious, relatable, inclusive, and open
• Thoughtful, kind, committed, and non-judgmental
• Able to see and present a variety of perspectives
• Highly-logical and sharp, but also very empathetic, sensitive, and emotionally intelligent

My unique offering

Given my training in both executive/life coaching and counseling, I'm able to provide a combination of both (which is uncommon).

I'll use whichever type of technique I think will best serve you in the moment based on the specific issue we're dealing with in that session, what types of feelings are coming up for you around it, and what I know about your unique background.

To be clear though, I'm not offering clinical psychotherapy here. While I do have comprehensive training in counseling, it's outside my scope of practice to diagnose and treat mental illness.

Bottom line: In my experience, it's helpful to most of my clients when I bring in techniques from all the various modalities I've studied. But, if you're clear that you want pure coaching, we can make our sessions more analytical and focused on specific tactical advice for your work or life (or, if you're clear that you want pure counseling, we can focus more on helping you feel resourced and grounded, exploring feelings that come up, and tracing them back to past experiences).

Transitioning to coaching

Have you been in counseling for a while but feel like you might be ready to transition to coaching?

Maybe it's felt like you've been trying to just stay afloat for a while, but now you feel ready to take more proactive steps toward thriving. With my knowledge of both worlds, I've been able to act as a bridge and support several clients through that transition.

Here's my longer answer about the difference between coaching and counseling and which one might be right for you (also, many people choose to see me and a psychotherapist at the same time).

The ideal cadence

I typically work with people weekly (but some clients prefer twice weekly or once every other week).

I find that a more frequent cadence allows us to stay better connected, and it helps the client stay better on track toward their goals. But, it all depends on how passionate you feel about making changes in your life right now, what other commitments you have, and your financial situation.

The key to transformation

If you're looking for deep transformation, it is possible to rewire your brain to shift how you relate to the world around you and prioritize new habits. However, the key to building new neural networks is repetition. The more often we're able to identify specific thought patterns that aren't serving you and shift them, the more likely your brain will be to make those new pathways the default. 

Bottom line: I'm open to finding the right cadence that works for you, and I only ask that you commit to fully showing up and being open to new perspectives.

You’ve had decades of life to develop mindsets and habits that are now holding you back. It’s only logical that those decades of conditioning won’t be reversed overnight.

How real change works

A lot of people hope for some “a-ha” moment that will change everything in their first or second session. In my experience, lasting change comes more from a series of smaller "a-ha's" over time rather than one big one.

Yes, you will most likely leave our first few sessions with tangible, actionable advice that helps you take some real steps toward change. 

And ultimately, it will depend on how far you want to go at this point in your life. If you're looking for help with something tactical like developing a time management system that works for you, we'll likely make progress quickly. If you're looking for deep transformation like creating a life purpose or learning how to feel your feelings more, the truth is that it will take longer (and it will be worth it!).

Here are some specific examples on both ends of the spectrum:

• I had an INTJ client who'd been struggling to pick her Myers-Briggs type and understand what she needed to take action on her goals. In two sessions, I was able to help her feel confident in her true type and better understand what she needed to feel energized more regularly.
• I had an INTP client who had been struggling with creating stronger habits. He had trouble with work/life balance, and he was torn between all the different ideas he wanted to pursue at once; so, it was hard for him to concentrate on the new habit. In five sessions, I was able to help him begin to focus, and we transformed his approach to language-learning.
• I had another INTP client who was facing a lot of challenges at work, especially office politics. Over eleven months, I helped him better understand his needs, assert himself more strongly, and get a promotion. Then, we went on to design a life purpose that inspired him, and he realized he needed to make a more dramatic shift in his life, which culminated in excitedly moving to another country.
• In my case (ENTP), it took around nine months of work with a coach (meeting 3-4 times a month) to go from depression, low motivation, and existential void to finding my people, making authentic friendships, quitting my job, starting an intentional community house surrounded by like-minded people, creating my life purpose, re-orienting my life around that, and feeling more alive than ever before.

Let's figure out together what you need to feel fulfilled and deeply alive.