Jerelyn Rodriguez, co-founder and CEO of The Knowledge House:

It’s unique to find a coach that has start-up experience, fundraising chops and knows what it takes to scale an organization. As a founder, in the past I’ve worked with coaches who lack this experience and frankly it can be a waste of time if they don’t understand what the pressure is like. In the past, I’ve done everything for my organization, even if I was suffering. Working with Alexis, I reframed my leadership and understand that I can and should be working on things that energize me. Now I have clear priorities and a staff that I can delegate almost everything to. Despite COVID, 2020 was our best fundraising year yet and we’re accelerating the national expansion of our coding programs.

Max Lubin, co-founder and CEO of Rise Free College:

Coaching was transformational. When you're in the middle of these leadership roles, especially in high-stakes, high-pressure moments, it's incoming on all sides. You’re just in problem solving mode and you get disconnected from yourself.

I spent so many nights like every entrepreneur does wondering, is this gonna die? Is this gonna be over tomorrow? Are we gonna run out of money?

We didn't. We were very successful by all sorts of metrics. On paper, I had accomplished everything that I wanted this journey to be, and yet I still felt bad about it in some ways. That's really complicated. In order to figure this part out, you have to start asking a different set of questions that have nothing to do with how much did you raise in the last quarter? Or how many voters did you talk to?

Alexis’ support helped me figure out who I am, what kind of leader I want to be, and what values I care about. I was pushed consistently to think about and explore topics around spirit and justice that made me a better social entrepreneur and a better organizational leader.

Coaching helped me think deeply and explicitly about my needs at this phase of my life and how that relates to what my organization needs in a CEO. I learned about myself and what my intrinsic motivators and drivers are. That made the decision about transitioning and stepping aside much clearer.

How could we execute this transition in terms of finding the right person and setting them up for success in the best possible way? So many of the ideas that we had around how to do it, where to look who the right person is, those came from coaching.

Virginia Klausmeier, Founder and CEO of Sylvatex:

Coaching supported me to align my ambitious goals for my personal and professional life. This past year during the pandemic, I’ve closed millions of dollars in grants and investments, doubled my team, and moved, all while preparing to welcome my second child.  I’m more in touch with my own intuition and energy, and I’m using that knowledge as a powerful tool to make confident decisions. Working with Alexis helped me understand my strengths and work from them, and created the space for to reflect on and address recurring challenges. The visualization work we’ve done together created huge mindset breakthroughs for me. Alexis draws on her personal experiences as an entrepreneur, and she brings much needed empathy and support to the founder/CEO journey.

Emily Lloyd, University of Denver MBA Candidate incubating a new nonprofit for healthy sports coaching:

Working with Alexis revolutionized the way I think about my future. I share all of my unfinished dreams, thoughts and worries in a judgement-free zone, then she pulls together the nuggets of knowledge or inspiration that I didn't hear in myself in an eloquent, seamless way. She challenges my ideas in a friendly way and encourages me to dig deeper into my own values and visions. I did not realize going into these sessions how much I would gain in such a short amount of time.

Cory Connolly, Michigan’s Chief Climate Officer and Head of the Office of Climate & Energy:

The process of coaching was inquisitive, curious, supportive, and energetic. I feel like Alexis helped unlock lines of thought and conclusions that were inside me but weren't available to me before for lack of another set of eyes or just the sheer support and dedicated space needed for deep thinking and reflection.

Working together, I started to understand the distinction between my expertise and my genius. I realized that when I do the things that light me up, it's better for me and for everyone in the long term. When I understood what types of problem solving light me up, I could clarify what I want to do long term: it's not choosing one career so as much as it's a feeling that the most meaningful and important work for me to pursue combines the transition to renewable energy, labor, racial justice, and pivoting towards a new economy. Now I think about my career as an opportunity to proactively find and work on projects in this vein that will make a huge impact.

Borrowing the idea of visioning on the timeline of millennia from religions helped me explore what I believe to be noble work irrespective of the likelihood of succeeding in my lifetime, let alone in a few short years.

The way that we engaged with spirituality really opened up a different part of me in my work. Identifying the most important work to devote my career to, and then pursuing it boldly — including by taking big risks — feels spiritual and brave. Hopefully I'm finding risks where the potential benefit to humanity and the planet is worth taking the risk.

Lex Brown, artist and professor:

I sought out coaching because I could anticipate impending chaos! I was at a juncture where I could do something to help myself, or I could not respond to all the cues that were telling me I needed help.

I was transitioning from a solo show and making a new body of artwork, which is a very self-initiated endeavor, to teaching in person and commuting weekly to another city. And on top of that, I still felt like I’m trying to push into some other place — I always feel like that.

I wanted coaching to help me refine my ideas in a way I haven’t been able to alone, and to gain strategies to apply to the entrepreneurial side of being an artist. It is entrepreneurship but nobody talks about it that way!

Now I’m thinking about myself as a leader and I’m thinking about leadership really differently. I feel more proactive pursuing the speaking and teaching opportunities I enjoy.

I also learned that I don’t have to figure out everything by myself. I’m reaching out to friends and peers in my field to learn from them as I take on new and bigger projects — it’s a big shift that will have lasting effects.

The questions about justice we’ve explored in this work have been really useful. I don’t consider myself an activist. But activism has to happen outside of spaces with a capital-A activism — that’s the only way it really works.

The right time for coaching is when you’re looking to take yourself more seriously. Often it’s during transitions. I’m at a moment in my early 30s where I’ve made it through the rain. Now how do I build out something that I can stand upon? There’s a need for a new inner model to manage the tools, skill, resources, and connections I have now.

Nimisha Ganesh, co-founder of GenUnity:

This is coaching that’s about finding your leadership style and voice in a way that’s authentic to who you are. This is deeper, richer and more transformative than tips and tricks.

I am more grounded and centered because of coaching. I feel peace that’s lasting. I reflect more — I have a different balance of doing versus reflecting. I feel more awe. And I’m building transformational relationships predicated on listening and care.

I’m retaining and deepening my humanity even under pressure and in a sector and culture that doesn’t always encourage it. I can see a future where I continued in social entrepreneurship on one path that would’ve led to toxicity and burnout.

Coaching has totally shifted how I think about my own leadership and how I engage with our team, so our team is also benefiting. Folks have been affected by the pandemic in many ways and we’re coping with deep sorrow and heartbreak. I’m learning that leadership isn’t necessarily being the person who is already healed. It’s engaging with folks in that hurting to healing process and discovering it together.

I can now sit with feelings for longer, feel them deeply, and see that as a strength. We’ve been doing strategic planning, and I used to have so many ideas and not know how to process them — where are we going from here? What’s most important? Now I sit with the feeling in my awareness and let that guide me. I have better ideas, more of them, and more confidence guiding our strategy. We’re a start up, so we’re only as good as the team we have thinking on this. The ideas I’m bringing to work are stronger, better articulated, and they’ll have more impact as we execute.

I have more self confidence than I did before and that is huge. I communicate with more confidence externally. And I rely on my instinct more— and it’s working out!

Megan Gray, Director of Volunteer Engagement at One Love Foundation:

Coaching sessions provided a chance to step back and reflect on the impact a recent career shift had on my personal and professional life. Before I was pushing through without attending to my mental and physical well-being. It’s hard for me to be vulnerable and open up from my heart, but in coaching I feel the freedom of actually naming a problem and exploring it. Alexis pushed me to find solutions that made a direct impact on my work and well-being. Alexis sees all of you — she doesn’t just listen, she helps you dive deeper into your soul and address what you’ve been suppressing or avoiding in a way that feels safe, comforting, and solutions-oriented. It has been so valuable to have space to explore how my goals and challenges in my personal and professional life are intertwined. I left every single session energized to tackle everything we covered. I didn’t know I could grow so much, so quickly. I conquered something that I genuinely didn’t know that I could. I can’t recommend this enough.

Jamie O’Leary, sexual health educator:

Coaching has opened up so many doors for me – in my mind, in my career, and in my personal life. Alexis is warm and incisive. She’s a brilliant person with so much insight and she guides illuminating conversations. She encourages and challenges me, and I leave each session with new realizations and next steps I want to take. My daily life feels more fulfilling because coaching lets me identify and pursue the kinds of work and relationships that bring me energy and joy.   

Myra Gupta, Managing Director at Teach For America:

In coaching, I tapped into my intuition, recognized when I’m limiting my own imagination and explored the possibilities beyond. I started envisioning different possibilities for my life and my career by following and trusting my own energy. Alexis is an incredible listener - she remembers details, senses emotions, picks up on what I’m carrying subconsciously, and makes them visible to me in a loving, caring, and empowering way. The space in coaching feels expansive, free and without judgment. If you are looking for someone to gently, but firmly, guide you in the direction of your goals — or goals that you didn't know that you had — Alexis can help.