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

Glenn, appreciate you joining us today. We’re complete cheeseballs and so we love asking folks to share the most heartwarming moment from their career – do you have a touching moment you can share with us?

Absolutely. In 2008 the company I worked at was affected by The Great Recession, the sharp decline in economic activity that started in 2007 and lasted several years, spilling into global economies.

This time frame began a couple of years after Hurricane Katrina devastated New Orleans (2005) which is important to know in the context of this story.

One of the core values of the company is social impact: committed to creating a better future for our people, communities and planet. The community-related value is where I learned that giving back to the local communities where the company operated retail stores was literally the heart and soul of the company.

Leadership acknowledging the economic decline set a course of action that brought over 10,000 store managers, regional directors, and other leadership roles to gather for a week of business building strategy workshops AND helped to rebuild the hardest hit communities in New Orleans three years after the hurricane.

At the time I worked in the corporate office in Seattle and was a co-founding member of the photography club sponsored by the company. The club was actively taking and preserving images of company-related meetings and community-based services such as re-building playgrounds in underserved neighborhoods and schools, totally paid by the company.

When I heard about the gathering I saw an opportunity for the photography club to document the activities in New Orleans. With approval from executive leadership thirteen club photographers from Seattle and New Orleans joined the 10,000 leaders during the week-long workshops and community services.

My role as project lead was to assign photographers to the variety of activities, collect, select and prepare the best images for a presentation on a building during an outdoor street celebration. These images were huge in scale and reflected the heart-felt and heart-warming experiences throughout the week. The photography club received many kudos for their expertise in capturing the essence of the humanity that we all felt.

That experience lives within me and is my guiding light when serving my community.

If you haven’t already guessed, the company is Starbucks.

Glenn, love having you share your insights with us. Before we ask you more questions, maybe you can take a moment to introduce yourself to our readers who might have missed our earlier conversations?

Following a lifetime of trauma, emotional, mental and physical abuse, drug and alcohol use I had a personal breakthrough. The truth is I knew the next step was an early demise if I didn’t change the course of my life. From that moment many years ago I’ve been forging a path of awakening and service.

During my mid-fifties my wife heard about an Equine Gestalt Certification Method® program that taught people how to be coaches who partnered with horses to help other people. This was fascinating to me! We both enrolled in the 2-year EGCM® program taught by Melisa Pierce and worked through our own traumas to become the best coaches possible.

We followed this by enrolling in the next and deeper phase of gestalt, the 2-year GCM® certification program with Melisa. Now we are certified Master Gestaltists which really means we coach people to have breakthroughs in their lives. This also includes partnering with our horses. They have this mystical way of being present in the moment and they help our clients drop their sh*t in the arena once and for all.

Our business mission is simple: to help people discover a path to a brighter and heartfelt future where they are living their full potential.

In one word: Breakthroughs.

We are known for coaching and guiding people who are ready for their own Breakthroughs in life. As stated above, we partner with our horses to support our clients on their journey through life. As we say, “you never forget being with a 1200 lb coach!”

We are co-active coaches which means we expect our clients to be present 100% for their well-being and we commit to being present 100% for our clients. It’s a dynamic and proven method for success!

We’re also know for tailoring Corporate Leadership Equine Experiential Events. That’s a mouth full! It’s another way of saying Equine Assisted Leadership Coaching.
What this means is we host events where people come to our facility and learn leadership and life skills by partnering with the horses during a day-long event. This is all ground work, no riding, and totally safe and FUN! This will be our focus and primary service going forward.

We also incorporate art as a method to guide our clients during their self-discovery which opens their eyes and hearts to self-healing. I’m a life-long creative artist. Photography is my first passion and I also love to break out the paint and freely apply it to canvas. I sometimes use this method to relieve my own stress.

My best days as a coach is witnessing when a client has a breakthrough during a session! You can see it, feel it and know they opened themselves to their LIFE instead of hiding from their past.

It’s like a life-affirming orgasm!
Maybe that’s our new brand.

Putting training and knowledge aside, what else do you think really matters in terms of succeeding in your field?

Being present to what wants to happen in each moment.

What does this mean?
When we are fully present (aware) of what’s happening within ourselves (internal awareness) and the people we serve (external awareness) as coaches we can see the path to successful experiences.

Writing this section I am reminded that my wife and I completed the Transformational Presence Leadership and Coaching – Foundational Course in 2015 that was offered by one of my mentors, Alan Seale. He is a phenomenal mentor, coach and friend to many!

To be present with ourselves and others is grounded in somatic and empathetic experiences. You want to learn more about yourself? Tune in to what’s happening in your body (somatic) and feel any tightness or opening. This leads to feeling your emotions better and identifying where those emotions are located. Very revealing!

Being present with a client also means we embrace them and their experiences with compassion. We ‘hold space’ for our clients to sit with their pain and learn something about themselves that could lead to self-healing. The best coaches know when to be silent and when to ask the right questions.

This is truly a transformative process.

Can you tell us about a time you’ve had to pivot?

For sure. I alluded to this earlier in the interview.

I experienced the first stages of emotional trauma when my father, who was abused during his formative years, would either slap me or my crib mattress when I was an infant as told to me by my mother.

The abuse continued after my younger sister was born four years after me. Most of his abusive behavior was directed towards me that included verbal and physical violence. One evening after playing a game with me and my sister when I around 10 years of age and I ‘won’ his game money he directed his anger and aggression by assaulting me. He never hit me again BUT he was always a foreboding and angry presence in our family. It was like living in a war zone with all the trauma we experienced. He was a ticking time bomb and we never knew when he would explode.

Fast forward to many years of numbing myself through alcohol and drug abuse after leaving home when I was nineteen. This crazy making lifestyle continued while I was married and raising a young family until I was made an offer I couldn’t refuse. But, I did refuse the offer of ‘keeping my nose full’ because I had a vision of leaping off a cliff into a very deep and very dark chasm where I would never return if I accepted the offer. This was a vision of my death at age 33 and a showed me a different life path – the Breakthrough that I mentioned earlier.

I’ve been steadily moving forward since then. It’s not always easy AND taking one step, one day, even one moment at a time is one of my mantras.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.harmonysheartcoaching.com
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/HarmonysHeartCoaching
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/company/harmony’s-heart-coaching

Image Credits

Glenn Weissel (images of clients)
Sonora Photography (image of Glenn and Ashara)