The Full Story
I had volunteered to be the teacher in the discipline office. My principal was shocked. "I usually have to beg people to take that position. This guy must be crazy," she thought.
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I was crazy, but for different reasons.
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I was now responsible for all the middle school students who came into the On Campus Suspension room all day (minus by two theater classes, I was able to keep those).
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That's where I started coaching tweens and teens.
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Yes, there were students who came in who didn't want any advice from any "authority" figure. Students who were truant, busted for illegal substances, or part of a gang.
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But, there were also a lot of students who were having friend drama, bullying, being bullied, falling behind in school work, not getting along with teachers, doubting themselves, dealing with problems at home, working through anger issues, experiencing anxiety, and more.
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These were everyday teen problems that I could relate to, that I experienced as a teen.
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I used the resources the school gave me on restorative practices, my masters degree in education, and most of all the mental strategies I used to get through it all to help the teens who came in.
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It was working for them. They were seeing results, improving their lives, getting out of whatever rut they were in. At one point, I even had a waitlist of students who wanted to come talk to me.
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It was awesome!!
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Around that same time my wife had discovered life coaching. She had started listening to Jody Moore's podcast and was finding it tremendously helpful in her life. My wife would enthusiastically say to me, "So, Jody says..." and drop some wisdom about how to coach yourself. And I would say, "That's how I think!" or "I told you that last week!"
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But Jody said it differently.
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I started listening to Jody. She laid out a whole system with language and labels that put a structure to how I had mentally maneuvered my whole life, plus taught me MORE.
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One day my wife asked sheepishly, "Jody has a week long event coming up in Washington. I really want to go. It's $5,000."
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I replied, "You can go if I can go, too."
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We had never spent that much money before. But something was telling both of us that we needed to go. So we went.
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That week together changed our lives.
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It helped me improve my relationship with my mother, who would pass away a few years later. It helped me get over some of my own mental blocks of self-doubt. Above all, it showed me that what I was doing with the teens in the middle school discipline office wasn't advice or counseling, it was coaching.
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I wanted to do it more.
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My wife and I prayed about it and decided that I should go get professionally certified. A few months later, I started the Life Coach School, the same place Jody Moore certified. It was more expensive and rigorous than my masters program.
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Six intensive months later, I certified. It was March, 2020.
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A week later, the pandemic started.
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As a teacher, I was sent home and given the difficult task of trying to learn how to suddenly teach theater students remotely.
More than that, I had a whole school full of students that I felt responsible for who were dealing with a lot of mental, emotional, and academic challenges.
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Plus, I had just started my private coaching business and clients were coming in.
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I spent all day virtually supporting my students, hosting school-wide livestreams and incentive programs, and all evening coaching teen clients. All while trying to keep my kids out of my new "home office" (what used to be my 5 year old's bedroom).
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It was a wild year, but by the end of it my coaching business was thriving and I knew that my life needed to pivot.
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I left teaching in 2021. We sold our house in California and moved up to Utah to live in my in-law's basement. We took the money we made from selling the house and invested it into developing a way for me to take everything I had learned in the past couple of years and create something that would help teens everywhere learn powerful mental resilience strategies in a fun, engaging way.
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Something equal parts teaching and coaching, something incentive-based with a positive virtual community.
Something that I call Sidekick to Hero.
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Now, my wife and I live in a new state with our four kids, in a much smaller living area, but with just as much love (if not more), and work on letting the world know about a new resource to help teens learn how to build confidence, manage emotions, improve relationships, and achieve their goals.
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The only things I love more than running my business is being an amazing husband, an awesome dad, and serving and worshiping Jesus Christ in my church.
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