We recently connected with Judy Tincher and have shared our conversation below.

Judy , looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. What was the most important lesson/experience you had in a job that has helped you in your professional career?

I was crying in the parking lot.

I was burnt out and exhausted and a key piece of my program had just fallen apart; my team was disappointed, I didn’t have a solution at hand, and my mentor wasn’t picking up the phone. It was my dream job: coordinating operations and administration to engage youth and young adults in outdoor service work. The work was inspiring and energy giving, and in five years, I had doubled the program operations and expanded into new fields. But, that growth was taking a toll on me; this was the first night it kept me from sleeping.

I knew there would be a lesson in there, but it did not reveal itself that night.

For that field season, my team and I got creative and moved forward with an alternate strategy that didn’t involve the key piece we were going for. This helped me keep my eyes up and welcome the concept of adapting to changing circumstances. I now call this skill “Read and Run.”

I’ll back up a little and tell you a bit about myself. I’m an outdoors enthusiast. In addition to coaching with Flagstaff Health Coaching and facilitating and training with Lancaster Leadership, I am a mountain biker, skier and river runner. As I got into outdoor sports, I became familiar with the phrase “Read and Run.”

Imagine rafting a river, starting to hear the gurgle of rapids ahead, getting the whitewater in your sights, feeling the churning of the waves, and quickly, reading the water, and running your line. That is “Read and Run.” Quickly observing the obstacles and challenges ahead, acting decisively with the information at hand, and adapting as needed.

This lesson showed up a couple years later when the pandemic lockdown happened. I was invited to manage a pilot program to enlist National Service AmeriCorps volunteers as contact tracers. It was an interagency effort and my teams were challenged to read and run, constantly adapting to changing information. At that point, I had experience in emergency medicine from ski patrol, the ambulance, and the emergency department and this was my first experience with public health.

Working with public health opened my eyes to a perspective to keep people healthy, and help individuals make lifestyle changes to fight disease factors and live better. When the 500 contact tracers were on board and the program was underway, it was a lightbulb moment in which I recognized a new path to explore. I didn’t see it coming, especially that first time my job kept me up at night, but the skill of being able to read and run allowed me to consider my experience in non profits, healthcare, and serving people, and choose a course. I chose to become a health coach.

With Flagstaff Health Coaching, I use the Habit Change Coaching Method to serve work-hard play-hard people with bad fitness habits or no routine. We bust bad habits, build good ones and people get in great shape. “Read and Run” reveals itself regularly now and is one of my guiding lessons. Being able to assess challenges, take action, and adapt frequently has landed me as a fitness habits health coach, and I’m curious what circumstances may unfold in the next couple years.

Judy , before we move on to more of these sorts of questions, can you take some time to bring our readers up to speed on you and what you do?

I’m Judy Tincher, founder and master transformational coach at Flagstaff Health Coaching. We use the Habit Change Coaching Method to help work-hard play-hard people that have bad habits or no routine around fitness; our clients bust bad habits, build good habits and get in great shape.

The habit change coaching method is a multi faceted approach to getting results. It uses communication strategies; meditation, journaling, and intuition techniques; reflective and transformational questions; neuro-linguistic programming to rewire your brain’s neural pathways; and most importantly: ACTION.
I want you to feel seen and heard and I’m going to ask you lots of questions, and tell you what I hear you saying. We’ll always end a session with action. That’s what coaching is about- committing to action to get you closer to where you want to be.

Most clients enroll in the Feel Unstoppable 90 Day Program. It’s a 90 day program during which we meet for ten sessions. 2 sessions are 90 minute deep dives and the rest are 45 minutes. At the end of each session we’ll end with action items. I may give you a little homework, and each week we’ll check in on your progress.

You might need a coach; you might not need a coach. But hiring a health coach may help you get results that you’re not getting on your own, or sooner than you may get on your own. Many clients get immediate results. If you’re ready for a change in your fitness habits- get in touch. www.flagstaffhealthcoaching.com

I got into health coaching after working with a health coach. I had a mysterious skin infection that led to a bacterial gut infection. If you’ve had a bacterial gut infection, you know you want to solve it right away. It took over a year of doctors, experts and experimentation to manage my infections. I had allies along the way, and a health coach and nutrition therapist helped me implement a 90-day diet and lifestyle experiment. The results were astounding: I cleared my skin infection, beat fatigue, created a healthy gut biome and have maintained my results for over 5 years.
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As I began working with clients, I narrowed my niche to fitness habits. The habit change coaching method recognizes that action is the secret sauce of coaching and can be applied daily to improve people’s lives.

I’m a natural collaborator. In addition to Flagstaff Health Coaching, I co-founded a grassroots womens’ mountain bike group called Flagstaff Lady Shredders, I am a facilitator and trainer with Flagstaff based leadership firm Lancaster Leadership, and I’m a lead mountain bike skills coach with #1 rated Sedona Mountain Bike Academy.

Can you share a story from your journey that illustrates your resilience?

I’ll tell you a resilience story about my health coaching career. First, let’s agree to look at resilience as bouncing forward, not bouncing back. Everybody experiences challenges, roadblocks, and setbacks. I want to invite you to look at resilience as, after the challenges have been lived, a way to land in a place that is better than where you started.
I had started Flagstaff Health Coaching, but wasn’t yet coaching full time. I was bartending. I enrolled in a year-long Masters of Transformational Coaching Program after I completed my initial certification and I made my first $10,000. I was still counting on bartending for time and money to focus on school and building my business.
Then I lost my bartending shifts due to a change in the business. It was a devastating blow to lose my main source of income.
I was sad and I was mad.
I turned to a coach colleague who led me through a session using neuro-linguistic programming (NLP.) She guided me through a series of questions that were life changing. I left the session free of my anger and inspired to use the open space in my schedule to build an alternative that could be better: better environment, better hours and better income.
I’m now a certified Integrative NLP Practitioner. We use NLP and Mental Emotional Release, which is a clinically researched approach to help release stress, anxiety, fear and other negative emotions.
It was tough to lose those bar shifts and quickly shift my identity and income flow. Coaching, as client and as a coach, helped me tune into my resilience and bounce forward.

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

Positive Intelligence by Shirzad Chamine has had a profound impact on my coaching and entrepreneurial thinking. The best-selling book shares the theory of Positive Intelligence, which is building mental fitness in order to face life’s challenges with positive rather than negative mindset. After reading the book and participating in a six week mental fitness intensive, I became a coach member and now offer Positive Intelligence to my clients.
Mental fitness speaks to me. I’m an athlete. In addition to my coaching and facilitation, I’m a mountain bike skills coach and ski patroller. The concept of building mental fitness rings true for me. When I did a 65 mile mountain bike race, I trained for it. I put the time in each day to prepare my body and mind for the rigors I expected from the event. It’s the same with mental fitness. Positive Intelligence provides a framework for working out and training your mental fitness.
My favorite mental fitness workout is a two minute breathwork session. I call this a power break. It helps me get quiet in my mind and body and shift into clear headed focus. That sense of clear headed focus influenced my Feel Unstoppable 90 day program. I know the sense of feeling unstoppable, and I like it! That’s what I bring to my clients.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.flagstaffhealthcoaching.com
• Instagram: @judy_deore
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/judy-tincher-0aa975255/

Image Credits
@non_palindromic_hanna