A Conversation with Stacy
How long have you been doing what you do and how did you get to be a Life Architect?
Even when I was a young child I always wanted to help people be happier. My grandfather used to say that my biggest fault was wanting everybody to be happy. To answer the rest of this question it’s probably best that I share with you my story and the defining moments that brought me to where I am today, coaching people like you on how to design and build the life of your dreams.
From 1991 through 1999 I worked in the corporate world and I was not a very joyful person. I was waking up in the morning dreading heading off to work. I was living for my weekends, but then finding that it took me all of Friday night to put the work week behind me. And when I woke up Sunday the stress started ramping back up in anticipation of another week. I had a wonderful husband who I loved, but I wasn’t enjoying my time with him because the tension from my job overshadowed everything else.
You see, I started out life as a “good girl”. I wanted everyone to be happy so I followed the rules. The rules I was given for living a good life said that you go to school, get good grades, get into a good college, so you can get a good job and support yourself.
I got straight A’s on these rules. And when I graduated college I got a good paying job that allowed me to support myself. Unfortunately, no one ever taught me the rules of corporate life, and I got fired from my first good job when I didn’t allow my life to be turned upside down for the political gain of someone else’s career.
That was ok though. I still had the rules. So I got another good job, worked even harder at the rules and found success. I was the youngest manager in my department and only one of two females. I had a great salary and an impressive title. Hooray! Now I was happy right?... Unfortunately not. As I mentioned earlier, the stress and conflict that I was dealing with in my good job was draining the life out of me. And I wasn’t willing to accept that this is what life was supposed to look like.
My college training was as a chemical engineer. And what engineers basically learn in college is how to analyze and solve problems. So I set about to find out why I wasn’t happy, to find out what I had done wrong when I followed the rules or…, what I was really wondering…, to find out what was wrong with me. And then to fix it.
I spent over a dozen years - reading, working with coaches, and taking courses - deciphering the problem and figuring out how to solve it. And this is what I learned. I learned that I could create my own rules regarding what worked best for me and what makes me happy.
Everyone is different. No wonder one set of rules isn’t the magic formula that works for every person in the world. Makes sense, right?
I also learned that it was okay for me to love every part of my life – not just my family or just my home or just my career. I didn’t have to pick just one or two parts to love and then live with the rest. I can actually choose to create a life that I love every bit of! And when I chose to make my life one that I loved, rather than being at the mercy of a lousy job, or lousy health or my own lousy perception of myself, then my life began to change for the better.
I have since made a commitment to spend the rest of my professional life as a Life Architect, helping other people design and build the life of their dreams, so they can live fully and joyfully and love every part of their life, just like I do. Because I believe when someone becomes happy in their life and starts really thriving it positively affects the people around them. And the way to a more tolerant, compassionate world is to give each individual the gift of loving their life, the gift of living the life they really want to live.
Who are your clients exactly?
I work with people just like you, mainly corporate professionals and driven entrepreneurs who have been following "the rules" and achieving "success" in some areas of their life, and yet are wondering why they still feel unfulfilled, frustrated, unhappy and often exhausted. They are people who realize they want more out of life, and are ready to make changes and take action so they can live more fully, but who don't really know where to start.
How are you different from a life coach?
There are many wonderful life coaches out there who are helping people make good progress toward their goals. What separates me from these other coaches is that I have strengths in both left-brained (logical and process oriented) and right-brained (creative and intuitive) skill sets. I used these skills to design and create a life custom built just for me.
Now, I use the logical and process-oriented portions of my engineering background to develop exercises and content that help people quickly and clearly “blueprint” their Dream Life and provide them with concrete goals and plans as a guide.
Then, during our one-on-one coaching sessions, I use the intuitive portion of my personality to listen for the true essence of what my clients are telling me and show them how to make progress in a simple, easy to understand, compassionate and caring way.
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