Who Are We?
The history of “us” involves
a story of “me,” “we,” and “thee.”
The Story of "Me"
The story of “me” begins with my venture into the world of self-employment in my mid-20s. Armed with nimble keyboarding skills (clocked at 130 wpm) and a fascination for words, I opened a resume-writing and secretarial service back in the 1980s. I quickly found that writing resumes came easily to me, and job-search clients would come back to me with news that their resumes had opened career doors for them. I recall one SVP of Procurement saying to me, “Susan, I submitted my resume to the company, and I just got a call to get on a plane and go interview in LA next week.”
This kind of thing happened regularly. But a few years later, I noticed a trend.
You can tell when Life is speaking in stereo to you, nudging you to pay attention! Within the course of a couple of weeks, I had three clients whom I’d written for a few years earlier come back and say, “that resume you wrote for me a few years back worked like a charm…I got the offer…and took it…but I hate my job!”
It hit me like a ton of bricks. I was only working on the surface—taking the person’s experiences and framing it to fit the desired job. I felt like the proverbial sleazy salesman. And I realized I needed to get the horse in front of the cart and go deeper with questions about who people were at their core and what types of jobs they would really feel fulfilled by.
About that time, professional coaching was only a nascent discipline, but there was a lot of buzz about it. I remember rooming with a colleague at a professional development conference who had taken a professional coaching course—I was so intrigued that I peppered her with questions about coaching into the wee hours of the morning. I went home and found a course to enroll in. Two weeks into the class, I remember thinking, “this is what I was put on the planet for!”
The Story of "We"
As I immersed myself in coach training and continued to attend professional development conferences, it dawned on me that I wasn’t the only one who was fascinated by coaching. And, I recognized there weren’t a lot of opportunities for coach training that was specific to career coaching.
Although I was just beginning to learn about coaching myself, I wanted to share this passion with my colleagues. So, with the help of an amazing ICF-credentialed coaching mentor at the time, we crafted a career coach training program. I remember going to a resume writing conference, paying for my first-ever vendor table, talking to colleagues about coaching, and coming home with two registrations for our brand new course. That was the birth of Career Coach Academy. We quickly had to “learn the ropes” of ICF and jumped through the hoops to earn ICF approval of our programs (meaningfully important to us, yet no small feat)!
A few years later, with the collaboration of a colleague who was steeped in leadership development, Leadership Coach Academy was formed. Eventually, “The Academies” was incorporated to bring the various career and leadership disciplines under one umbrella.
Along the way, there were inquiries and invitations from organizations and companies that stretched us into market-sectors we hadn’t previously been exposed to. Walking our talk as coaches—we stepped up to the plate, stretched, and evolved. These opportunities have led to providing career coach training for MBA career coaches at some of the most respected business schools in the country, and leadership coach training for HR/OD professionals in some of the largest financial services companies in the world.
The Story of "Thee"
“Thee” represents the bigger picture in all of this. It’s the part that connects our personal vision-mission-values to something bigger than ourselves. For us, the “Thee” work is leveraging neuroscience-backed coaching to grow our collective capacity to live and work with intention, humanity, and sustainable impact.
Whatever your definition of “Thee”—Universe, Source, God, It, Purpose, or perhaps Life with a capital L—we are reminded that each of us is tasked with an important piece of the puzzle. Let’s do it together!
Join us in the paradoxical work of: the practical and the mysterious … the tools and the intuition … and the science and art of “Changing Minds, for Good.”
THE STORY OF "ME"
The story of “me” begins with my venture into the world of self-employment in my mid-20s. Armed with nimble keyboarding skills (clocked at 130 wpm) and a fascination for words, I opened a resume-writing and secretarial service back in the 1980s. I quickly found that writing resumes came easily to me, and job-search clients would come back to me with news that their resumes had opened career doors for them. I recall one SVP of Procurement saying to me, “Susan, I submitted my resume to the company, and I just got a call to get on a plane and go interview in LA next week.”
This kind of thing happened regularly. But a few years later, I noticed a trend.
You can tell when Life is speaking in stereo to you, nudging you to pay attention! Within the course of a couple of weeks, I had three clients whom I’d written for a few years earlier come back and say, “that resume you wrote for me a few years back worked like a charm…I got the offer…and took it…but I hate my job!”
It hit me like a ton of bricks. I was only working on the surface—taking the person’s experiences and framing it to fit the desired job. I felt like the proverbial sleazy salesman. And I realized I needed to get the horse in front of the cart and go deeper with questions about who people were at their core and what types of jobs they would really feel fulfilled by.
About that time, professional coaching was only a nascent discipline, but there was a lot of buzz about it. I remember rooming with a colleague at a professional development conference who had taken a professional coaching course—I was so intrigued that I peppered her with questions about coaching into the wee hours of the morning. I went home and found a course to enroll in. Two weeks into the class, I remember thinking, “this is what I was put on the planet for!”
THE STORY OF "WE"
As I immersed myself in coach training and continued to attend professional development conferences, it dawned on me that I wasn’t the only one who was fascinated by coaching. And, I recognized there weren’t a lot of opportunities for coach training that was specific to career coaching.
Although I was just beginning to learn about coaching myself, I wanted to share this passion with my colleagues. So, with the help of an amazing ICF-credentialed coaching mentor at the time, we crafted a career coach training program. I remember going to a resume writing conference, paying for my first-ever vendor table, talking to colleagues about coaching, and coming home with two registrations for our brand new course. That was the birth of Career Coach Academy. We quickly had to “learn the ropes” of ICF and jumped through the hoops to earn ICF approval of our programs (meaningfully important to us, yet no small feat)!
A few years later, with the collaboration of a colleague who was steeped in leadership development, Leadership Coach Academy was formed. Eventually, “The Academies” was incorporated to bring the various career and leadership disciplines under one umbrella.
Along the way, there were inquiries and invitations from organizations and companies that stretched us into market-sectors we hadn’t previously been exposed to. Walking our talk as coaches—we stepped up to the plate, stretched, and evolved. These opportunities have led to providing career coach training for MBA career coaches at some of the most respected business schools in the country, and leadership coach training for HR/OD professionals in some of the largest financial services companies in the world.
THE STORY OF "THEE"
“Thee” represents the bigger picture in all of this. It’s the part that connects our personal vision-mission-values to something bigger than ourselves. For us, the “Thee” work is leveraging neuroscience-backed coaching to grow our collective capacity to live and work with intention, humanity, and sustainable impact.
Whatever your definition of “Thee”—Universe, Source, God, It, Purpose, or perhaps Life with a capital L—we are reminded that each of us is tasked with an important piece of the puzzle. Let’s do it together!
Join us in the paradoxical work of: the practical and the mysterious … the tools and the intuition … and the science and art of “Changing Minds, for Good.”
Our Team
Meet the Academies!
Click below to view full bios.
Susan Britton, PCC
Founder and President
James Beeman, PCC
Academies Coaching Instructor
Stacy Duhon, PCC
Academies Coaching Instructor
Rebecca Potts
Client Services Manager