how I work
A lot of coaching websites describe a method as if the method is the thing. At the Adult Growth Studio, the method is the floor. The thing is the conversations we end up having on top of it.
Still — it's fair to want to know how I work before you spend money on time with me. Here's what's true about the way I do this.
what a session is doing, underneath
I'm trying to help you hear your own thinking more clearly than you can on your own.
That's the whole job. I'll tell you what I'm noticing, I'll ask the questions that keep occurring to me, I'll reflect back patterns I'm starting to see, and share contrast I've perceived in your ideas. But the work itself is yours. I'm the partner who helps you do it; I'm not the person who does it for you and hands you the result.
This sounds simple. In practice it is not. Most of us are surrounded by people who, from love, can't help but tell us what they would do. Friends interpret. Family advises. Colleagues recommend. Coaches in corporate settings pursue outcomes driven by a deliverable. What I'm trying to hold open is a space that does none of that — a space where you get to think out loud, in your own words, with someone present who isn't going to step in.
What that space tends to produce more than answers is trust…in yourself. Trust that you can sit with a question you can't yet resolve, trust that the parts of you that don't fit together neatly don't need to be forced into fitting before we can work with them.
what I listen for
When I'm listening, I'm listening for three things specifically:
How you're holding agency. What you're naming as in your control versus what you're naming as outside it. Where the agency is implied, where it's been quietly handed off, and where you may be carrying responsibility that isn't yours to carry.
The opposites you're using. The either-or framings that show up — "either I stay or I go," "either I'm the strong one or I'm not," "either this is normal or there's something wrong with me." Most of these are built into us before we ever examine them, and most of them have a third option underneath that becomes visible when we slow down enough to look.
How you describe conflict. Whose voice is in the conflict. Who you make responsible for it. Whether the conflict has hardened into a story or whether it's still moving. The shape of your conflict-description tells me a lot about where the coaching has room to do work.
I share what I'm noticing as we go. None of this is diagnosis. It's the substance of what I'm doing while you talk, and you're allowed to know it. Jumping to a conclusion about what you mean is the fastest way to lose what you were actually about to tell me — so I try to stay curious a beat longer than feels efficient. Efficient isn't really the goal here.
how a session unfolds
The first session works like any other: 50 minutes, no structure imposed, no agenda. You put whatever's on your mind on the table and we talk.
While you talk, I'm building a picture of the architecture underneath. Part of my secret sauce can be a visual way of organizing what you've said — a wheel, a timeline, a small map of how the pieces fit together — that I share with you. Some clients describe this as one of the most useful parts of early sessions. It isn't a diagnosis. It's a structured reflection of what you brought into the room, given back to you so you can quite literally see it.
Sessions after that follow the same shape. There's no required cadence; biweekly is the default most clients find sustainable. There are no packages. You pay per session. You set the rhythm. You stop when you're done.
a sample
I sometimes offer a three-question exercise that gives both of us a real-time feel for how you make sense of things.
The questions are simple:
What is something that is never okay to do?
Why?
Can you think of a time when it would be okay to do that?
Most people answer the first quickly, the second thoughtfully, and pause meaningfully on the third. The pause is where the exercise does its work. There's no right answer; there's only the shape of how you think when you encounter contradiction. That shape is most of what coaching works with.
a line on credentials
I trained at Erickson Coaching International and at Cultivating Leadership in Growth Edge Coaching. My Master's is in Organization Development (OD) & Leadership Studies with an emphasis of study viewing humans as capital resources. I have a Bachelor’s in Hospitality, Restaurant & Tourism Management with minors in Leadership & Communications and Business.
I am the Chairman of the Board of Access For Therapists, a 501(c)(3) organization, and I provide pro bono coaching for members of Culinary Hospitality Outreach and Wellness (CHOW), also a 501(c)(3) organization.
Español. Vivía yo un rato en España y hablo con fluencia profesional. Si busque coaching en español, se habla español. 🇪🇸
if this sounds
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