We recently connected with Devon Leibee and have shared our conversation below.

Devon, thanks for taking the time to share your stories with us today Was there an experience or lesson you learned at a previous job that’s benefited your career afterwards?

The most important thing I’ve ever learned in my career is that- people are the healthiest when they understand how much power they have over their health. I made a big shift in my career as a nurse when I realized that we are all falling victim to a system thats best interest functions on making money instead of supporting and helping us reach our optimum level of health.
To help make this make more sense, let me explain it this way.. . .
As a nurse, I give people their chemotherapy. To put it differently, I advocate, treat, assess, and educate patients who are living with cancer in the active treatment setting. I understand how the chemo works, what it does to their body to kill the cancer and also what it does to the body besides killing the cancer. I know how to run the infusions and when to stop them if there is an emergency ( I also know how to handle the emergency). I can communicate with my patient’s doctors and speak for them when they feel like they can’ speak for themselves.
As a health coach, i give the power back to my clients. These clients are also living with cancer. I listen to them talk about their life, their health, and their goals. I ask them questions that are focused on where they want to be and help them navigate their life and push towards their goals. I teach them the difference between depending on someone else to “make them healthy again” and using their resources to live a more highly functioning, content life.

To circle back to the original question- I made a shift in my career from a nurse to a health coach when I realized that I was trapped within the walls of an institution governed by rules and regulations that functioned solely based off of how much money they could make from their patients. What I wanted to do, and what I imagined the actual role of a nurse was. . . is to coach people to see that they already have all the tools to live their healthiest life. We all need to understand how much responsibility we have over our optimum health. It is not our doctors responsibility, it is not our families or our spouses, it is not our insurance’s, it is ours.
Our bodies are intricately designed and expertly functioning, and we live in a brilliant world that makes advances on treatments and research every day. But we need to be more involved, ask the right questions, and decide what works best for us.

Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.

I am a Registered Nurse by degree and Health Coach by choice.

I help women who are newly diagnosed with cancer take back their health- utilize their resources and optimize their well being before, during, and after treatment.

It is so hard to completely put into words what I do because I am guided by my clients and their individual wants and needs.

By using evidence-based, skillful conversation, my expertise in the health care field, clinical interventions, and curated information- I actively and safely engage my clients in health behavior changes and support them on their journey to find their greatest self.

I meet with my clients one on one to objectively listen and ask the right questions to get them from where they are , to where they want to be. As a coach, it is not my job to tell my clients what to do. My job is to give the power back to the people who are willing and able to put in the work to become the healthiest version of themselves.

Do you think you’d choose a different profession or specialty if you were starting now?

I would, because I would have never gotten to where I am today if I didn’t become a nurse. I had amazing training and had professors who were very passionate about what nursing truly was. They made me feel excited to earn the title of Devon BSN, RN.

Other than training/knowledge, what do you think is most helpful for succeeding in your field?

Confidence. Because why would anyone ever trust someone to coach them if they didn’t know that they actually could help them? This is a constant battle for me, to be honest, because as a nurse- my work came to me. But as a health coach, it is difficult to make yourself known to your client niche and show how much you are needed. That requires a lot of stamina, confidence, and persistence.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.kindredhealthcoaching.com/
• Instagram: @the.kindred.coach

Image Credits
Pictures taken by freelance photographers @ https://www.shoott.com/. I purchased and own all the rights to these photographs or they are from my own personal files.