Executive Coaching for Founders, Engineers, and Leaders
Available anywhere in the United States.
Most executive coaches were never trained to recognize the point where burnout stops being a work problem and becomes a clinical one. I was. I am a Licensed Professional Counselor, and before that I was an engineer at Google. That means I can do the coaching work with you, and tell you honestly when coaching is not the right tool.
Most of the people I work with arrive depleted rather than ambitious, so burnout is usually where we start. Related: leadership coaching and stress management coaching.
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The version of burnout nobody diagnoses
You are still shipping. Reviews are fine. Nobody at work has noticed anything. And you have started doing the arithmetic on how many more years you can keep this up.
The exhaustion is not the kind sleep fixes. You wake up already behind. Work that used to absorb you has gone flat, and you cannot tell whether that is the work or you. You are short with people you love in a way that would embarrass you if you saw it from outside. Sunday evening has acquired a weight.
Meanwhile every external signal says you are fine. That is the part that makes it hard to name. Burnout in high performers does not look like collapse. It looks like competence, held together by an amount of effort nobody can see.
What coaching actually does here
Coaching is forward-looking and practical. We work on what you are going to change, not on excavating why you are the way you are.
Finding where the energy actually goes
Not a time audit. Most high performers are not burning out from hours. They are burning out from a handful of specific things: the relationship that needs constant management, the decisions made alone, the standard held that nobody else asked for.
Boundaries you will actually keep
Advice to "set boundaries" is useless to someone whose identity is built on being the person who handles it. We work on ones that survive contact with a real quarter.
Separating the job from the self
For founders especially, the company and the person have often fused. Untangling that is not a mindset exercise. It is a specific piece of work, and it is usually the thing that makes the rest possible.
Deciding what you actually want
A surprising number of people arrive at burnout having succeeded, thoroughly, at something they chose at twenty-four and never revisited.
How to tell which one you need
This is the question the internet answers badly, usually because whoever is answering only sells one of them.
| Coaching | Therapy | |
|---|---|---|
| Works on | Goals, habits, decisions, performance | Patterns, emotional history, mental health |
| Direction | Forward | Often backward, in order to change forward |
| Can diagnose or treat | No | Yes |
| Regulated | No. Ethics by agreement, or through a body such as the ICF | Yes. State license, board oversight, legally protected confidentiality |
| Where I can offer it | Anywhere in the US | Colorado only |
| Right when | The foundation is stable and you want to change what you do | The same pattern keeps returning, or what you are carrying has clinical weight |
Here is the part most coaching pages leave out. If we start coaching and it becomes clear that what you are dealing with is depression, an anxiety disorder, trauma, or something else clinical, coaching is the wrong instrument and continuing would be a disservice. You will hear that from me. If you are in Colorado we can move into counseling directly. If you are not, I will help you find a licensed clinician in your state.
Coaching is not therapy, and outside Colorado what I offer is coaching. That is a professional boundary, not a soft one, and I keep it deliberately.
If you want the longer version of this distinction, I wrote one: therapy vs. executive coaching, and which one you actually need.
Specific situations, honestly described
Founders
You cannot separate the company's bad week from your own, and there is no one you can say that to. The people who would understand are the people you cannot say it to.
Engineers and technical leaders
You moved from building things to managing people, and the second job costs something the first one never did. Nobody warned you, and there is no obvious place to put it.
C-suite leaders
You manage up, down and sideways all day, and you have gradually run out of anyone who gets the unfiltered version. That isolation compounds quietly, over years.
Anyone who tried therapy and found it slow
Long silences, vague prompts, the sense you were driving the session. That is a real failure mode and not proof that nothing helps. Coaching is more structured and more directive. Some people need that instead. Some need it first.
Why a licensed therapist as your coach
I know what I am looking at. Burnout, depression and anxiety overlap heavily on the surface and need completely different responses. Getting that wrong wastes months. Clinical training is the difference between guessing and knowing.
I have been on your side of it. I was an engineer at Google, and before that a nuclear engine operator on a US Navy submarine. I know what an on-call rotation does to a person, what it is like for competence to be the thing you are known for, and how a technical mind tries to debug its own exhaustion. You will not spend the first three sessions explaining your job.
Starting is deliberately low-stakes
A free consultation, about 30 minutes. You describe what is going on. I tell you honestly whether coaching fits, whether therapy would serve you better, or whether you need something I do not offer. There is no pressure in either direction.
Sessions by video, from anywhere. Most people start weekly and move to every other week.
$185 for a 50-minute session, the same rate as counseling. No packages and no minimum commitment: you continue while it is useful and stop when it is not. Full detail on the fees page.
One practical difference worth knowing. Counseling with a licensed counselor usually qualifies as an HSA or FSA expense. Coaching is not a clinical service, so it generally does not, even at the same price. Worth raising in the consultation if that matters to you.
Common questions
Are you my therapist if we do coaching?
No. Coaching is not a clinical relationship and does not carry the legally protected confidentiality that therapy does. Your information is held in confidence as a matter of professional ethics, but the two are not the same thing and it would be misleading to imply they are.
I am not in Colorado. What can we actually do together?
Coaching, in full. What cannot happen outside Colorado is counseling or therapy, diagnosing a condition, or treating one. If it becomes clear that is what you need, you will hear that directly, along with help finding a licensed clinician in your state.
Is this just executive coaching with a different name?
There is overlap. The difference is the starting point. Most executive coaching begins with a performance goal. This begins with the fact that you are depleted. Performance usually recovers as a consequence, but it is not the entry point.
How long does burnout coaching take?
Most people notice something shifting within six to eight sessions. Whether it holds depends on whether the structural causes change, and some of those are decisions only you can make.
What if I am not sure whether what I have is burnout?
That is a reasonable thing to be unsure about, and it is a good use of a free consultation. Burnout, depression and anxiety overlap heavily on the surface and need different responses, which is the part clinical training is actually for.