We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Chazz Glaze a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Chazz, appreciate you joining us today. Can you open up about a risk you’ve taken – what it was like taking that risk, why you took the risk and how it turned out?

I have the firm belief that when we decide to do something, I mean really commit and go all in, one of two things happens: either the Uni-Verse responds by arranging magical seeming serendipities to orchestrate everything easier than you imagined, or it sends you a series of unpredictable challenges to make you question if you’re really serious about what you said you were going to do.

My transition into full-time solopreneurship was a case of the latter.

I’d been coaching part time for 2.5 years when I decided it was time to go all in. On NYE 2022, I worked my last shift as a bartender after 5.5 years. The plan was to spend January 1 doing a hippy-dippy ceremony to launch myself into my business full time.

That’s not exactly what happened.

When I got home that night, I felt a push to end the 2 year relationship I’d been in that I could not ignore.

Then my meth-addicted neighbor went on a binge and kept me up until almost 4 a.m.

When I finally woke up the next morning, I did so to multiple missed calls from friends and the local police department that my now ex-partner had been in an accident and totaled his car.

All day my neighbor continued to rage, so I left and went to a friend’s house just to rest and get some sleep.

I finally came home around 11 p.m., thinking to myself, “Okay, I’ve got this. Tomorrow we will do a ceremony and get back on track.”

Then, just as I was brushing my teeth to go to bed, my mom called me to tell me my grandmother had just passed away.

The voice of doubt about whether or not I’d made the right decision was screaming in my head. It felt like too much all at once, and a big part of me wanted to call up my old boss and ask for my job back right away.

Instead, I scrapped the idea of any ceremony and decided I was going to go for broke. Go all in until I couldn’t make it work anymore or it worked out.

It’s been 8 months, and so far I’ve managed to grow my business enough that I (knock on wood) haven’t even had to dip into my savings.

I think the Uni-Verse has realized I’m serious after all.

Great, appreciate you sharing that with us. Before we ask you to share more of your insights, can you take a moment to introduce yourself and how you got to where you are today to our readers.

When I was 17, I lost my house to a fire. Writing is what got me through. In fact, I was writing a poem as I watched my house burn down. That’s how I remember it. Because of that, and because I had the fortune of a couple of amazing English teachers who encouraged me to use language to help me heal through writing, I decided to pursue English education and creative writing at Purdue University. I was convinced I would instill in hundreds, thousands of students over the course of my career that same value of and appreciation for language…But then I did my student teaching and quickly became disillusioned by our public school system.

At the same time, I had discovered fitness and nutrition as other healing modalities to help manage my depression. I ended up taking a position as a health educator for a clinic, where I worked with patients to manage diabetes, lose weight, and control other cardiovascular and metabolic diseases. I became a certified personal trainer and fitness instructor and got my certificate in plant-based nutrition from Cornell. I was making a difference in adults’ physical health, but I still felt like something was missing.

When I was 25, I went through a devastating heartbreak. My friend turned me on to a mailing list called “Marc & Angel Hack Life.” I started binging every email. At some point, I learned they were life coaches, a term I’d never heard of but came to understand through their writings. One day I had the thought, “That’s it. That’s what I wanna do. I want to be a life coach, and I want to use my words and knowledge in health and wellness to help people.”

But I was only 25 and who would hire a 25-year-old life coach? And how did one even become that anyway? I didn’t know, so I continued to meander from job to job, getting certifications and gaining knowledge along the way, always working on my own self-development.

When the pandemic hit and I was bartending, I knew that when things passed and hopefully returned to normal if I hadn’t made a step to finally figure out how to become a coach, I would deeply regret it. Out for a socially distanced hike with my then-boss, I mentioned to her I was looking to hire a coach and she said, “Oh, my friend’s sister is a coach! I’ll connect you.” After just one session with her, I KNEW that was exactly the purpose I had been building up to this whole time. Within 3 months of working with her, I’d launched my own coaching business and signed my first client. Today I am a full-time resiliency coach.

I help everyday people uncover and live into their inner badass. Together we look at the story you’ve been telling about yourself and whether it’s one you want to continue or to take in a different direction. I use the power of language I have always loved so much to help my clients understand the way their thoughts are impacting their life, down to individual vocabulary words like SHOULD and BUSY. I work with clients both 1:1 and in group containers.

What separates me from other coaches out there is I don’t have a niche. I love working with the whole person to live a happier, healthier, more fulfilled life. Because I’ve found that almost always “the problem” isn’t really the problem. Someone might come to me wanting to release excess weight, but really they’re in a career they hate. Or they want to write a novel but they’re struggling with their sex life with their partner. I love holding space for all your parts and creating change in multiple areas of your life because I know we are deeply interconnected beings.

I often joke that I’m a highly feminine woman with bid dick energy, and I bring that to my coaching as well. I know when to soften into the feminine aspect of coaching by holding space, reflecting, and asking provocative questions to break clients out of undesirable thought patterns. And I also know when to, as one of my clients says, “put on the gloves and go into the ring” with them, taking a more in-your-face, call-you-on-your-bullshit, refuse-to-let-you-play-small/give up/make excuses approach. As a result, I love working with male, female, and nonbinary clients.

My clients are artists and creatives suffering from creative constipation or internalized thoughts about the possibility of success in a creative pursuit; small business owners who are just starting out; retirees looking to define what’s next; mothers, fathers, and grandparents who want to be models for their (grand)children in what it means to go after your dreams; anyone looking to get healthier and stronger physically as well as mentally; and the person whose life is pretty good but has the nagging feeling it could somehow be better, if only they knew exactly what that meant.

Another thing that separates me as a coach is that I offer every new potential client 6 weeks of complimentary coaching. In our introductory session, I get to know you, your struggles, and your goals, and you get to experience what it’s like to be coached by me and ask any questions you might have. If I think I’m able to serve you where you’re at and you are serious about transformation through coaching, we sign up for 6 weeks together. At the end of that time, if we both still feel it’s a good fit and you have seen the value of our coaching relationship, we’ll sign a contract. If I don’t believe I’m the best fit for you, I will recommend you to another coach or professional in my network who can better serve you.

I’m equal parts woo and science. I love studying aspects of human psychology like the motivational triad and the dopamine reward system, and I’m also down to talk chakras, intuition, and dream interpretation. I believe in co-creation with the Uni-Verse (what others call “manifestation”), but I also believe in taking radical personal responsibility for our lives. I always say words are powerful magic, and yet I know the actions we take as a result of our thoughts ultimately create our realities.

I’m a Certified Life & Success Coach, Certified Quantum Group Coaching Facilitator, Certified Quantum Coach, Certified NLP Practitioner, Certified Hypnosis Practitioner, Certified T.I.M.E. Practitioner, Certified EFT Practitioner, and Certified Reiki Level One Practitioner. I take what I do very seriously and am committed to always bettering my craft as a coach. I also hold almost a dozen certifications in fitness and nutrition.

Any advice for growing your clientele? What’s been most effective for you?

I believe firmly in overdelivering as a coach. As a new field, there are a lot of people out there just trying to make money quickly, but I know coaching is about long-term relationships and transformations. That’s why I offer a period of complimentary coaching to all new potential clients to allow them to experience for themselves the value of coaching (with me). It’s also a great way to weed out clients I’m not meant to work with, whether that’s because I know someone else who could serve them and their situation better or because they show me in that period that they’re not serious about doing the work (missing appointments, not doing homework, not following through on the actions they said they were going to take, etc.). It’s a win-win for both me as a coach and the clients themselves.

Are there any books, videos or other content that you feel have meaningfully impacted your thinking?

I live and breathe “The Prosperous Coach” by Steve Chandler. I recommend it to all my fellow coaches, especially any aspiring coach I am coaching myself.

Contact Info:

• Website: higherelevationscoaching.com
• Instagram: @higher_elevations_coaching
• Email: [email protected]

Image Credits
all images EXCEPT for with the waves in the background and on the beach doing yoga are credited to Zachary Bunch the picture with the waves in the background and doing yoga on the beach are credited to Lucia Elizalde