Tech Leadership Coaching
I coach leaders, typically (but not exclusively) in the software industry. I’ve worked with startup CEOs and CTOs, directors at public companies, all the way down to individual contributors looking to expand their leadership.
My clients are typically quite successful in their careers, but are stressed or feel stuck in some way. They have a desire for deep wellbeing in a way that contributes to their effectiveness. They also have a desire to contribute to the wellbeing of the individuals and teams around them.
My primary hope for my clients is profound inner transformation. They learn to embrace their emotions and value their wisdom, develop deep peace of mind, and experience their actions as deeply meaningful contributions to the world around them.
One major outcome of these transformations is heightened performance and business results. When you’re not tied up in knots, you can easily see and help untie the knots keeping your teammates stagnant.
Interested in working with me? Book a free one-hour session and experience my coaching with no risk!
My background
I've worked for ten years in software, at Google Brain, Twitter, and various startups.
I’ve been an IC, manager, product manager, research engineer and CEO.
I starting coaching in 2018 when I got certified through the Co-active Training Institute. I’ve completed a year-long Internal Family Systems training through the IFS Institute, and a meditation teacher training in the Realization Process school.
My work is also heavily influenced by working with Joe Hudson, Cedric Bertelli, and the tradition of Tibetan Buddhism in which I’ve had many amazing teachers.
What is working with me like?
A good physical trainer will be able to identify how you're performing a movement that is hurting you, talk to you to help you conceptually understand what's happening and what you can do differently, and then guide your body through exercises to help you get an intuitive feel for the new way.
The work I do is analogous for your mental and emotional posture.
At the conceptual level, I precisely articulate mental and emotional patterns in a way that my clients understand.
At the non conceptual level, I guide my clients into having a direct, felt experience of more effective ways of operating, and help them clear out the emotional blocks preventing the new way.
An example:
One client had bad news he had to deliver to his team, and had been losing sleep over it.
He didn’t want to be overly emotional and disturb his team. But he also didn’t want to appear cold and robotic.
We worked on experiencing effective and ineffective ways to hold and express emotion. He felt what it was like to express emotion in the ineffective way he had so often seen leaders do, which leaves the team distressed. And he felt the effective way of allowing emotion while experiencing a strong sense of inner support, fostering connection and confidence.
After our session, he was able to deliver the challenging news in a way that increased trust and open communication in the team.
Other topics I've worked with clients include:
Inability to mentally disconnect and be present with family or friends after work.
Imposter syndrome
Resolving disagreements between teams.
Letting employees go.
Making and delivering unpopular decisions.
Taking on too many responsibilities and not having time for the most important tasks/projects.
Challenges with focusing on particular tasks and getting distracted.
Approaching email/slack in a way that feels enlivening versus draining.
Asking for more resources or a raise
Testimonials
"Working with Brian has improved the health of my relationships with my teammates and given me the clarity I need to take action and lead. Brian brings a genuine curiosity to issues large and small that prompts me to examine them and get to their roots.
Brian encourages me to be open to my full range of emotions and understand how they physically manifest themselves. I've grown better able to bring my humanity to work such that conflict can be productive, not something that mires me and my team in cycles of frustration and defensiveness.
Because Brian is a software engineer himself, he has the background to understand the stresses and interpersonal challenges that are specific to software teams. I don't have to worry about whether I've effectively spelled out all the context or translated the jargon. Brian can fully understand and empathize based on his own experience."
- Zach, Startup CTO
“Since I started working with Brian, It’s been so much easier for me to work with my emotional energies in a productive way at work.
Over the past couple of weeks I had to manage some really tough emotional situations at work that would have totally derailed me the past. Thanks to the work I’ve done with Brian, I was able to navigate them with much more ease than before, and that led to some AMAZING outcomes! I couldn’t believe it!
I’m feeling much more peace and more calm in my body. I can see how many of the high stress situations I used to find myself in were self-inflicted, and I have confidence that I can avoid creating most of those situations now, and handle them well when they come up.”
- Adrian, Principal Software Architect at Hippo Insurance
“Since my first two sessions with Brian, my anxiety hasn't been crippling or concerning. At night, I feel at ease going to sleep. I no longer fear going to standups in the morning.”
- Clayton , Software Engineer, Amazon
Interested?
If reading this has piqued your interest, I’d love to meet you. Sign up for a free exploratory coaching session! We’ll dive into a live situation in your life, and you’ll to experience what my coaching is like right off the bat, and hopefully get some valuable insights.