We were lucky to catch up with Steph Saffer recently and have shared our conversation below.
Steph , appreciate you joining us today. We’d love to have you retell us the story behind how you came up with the idea for your business, I think our audience would really enjoy hearing the backstory.
My message and teaching is around the idea of being “Impact Ready”. I created the Impact Ready coaching process, and the “Impact Ready” podcast, and now weave this throughout all of my businesses and work. The idea is that to be Impact Ready means you go from having relationships, a life and career that feels stagnant, frustrating, inconsistent and “stuck” to feeling empowered, in control, fulfilled and free. It’s the realization that through radical ownership, being purpose-driven, maintaining high energy and doing it all consistently, you can be the creator of your life and intentionally design a future for yourself that is aligned with what truly matters to you.
This idea has evolved over the course of more than a decade. While most people agree they have impact wherever they go, very few people are aware of the impact they have. They give no thought to it and they don’t show up with intention or purpose. Most people are moving about the world reactively. People talk about impact but they don’t really understand their own. Like breathing, it becomes unconscious, and we forget we are having it or doing it. The problem with this is that people then are simply responding to what’s in front of them. They often feel like the victim to their circumstances. They feel frustrated or stuck because they lack intention and clarity, which yields inconsistent results they can’t reproduce. Their relationships don’t feel fulfilling, they are often stressed or burned out, and their energy and motivation is low.
I started to understand this first when I went to graduate school for Chinese medicine and acupuncture when I was 24. It was one of the first times I felt empowered around my own health and wellbeing. It woke me up to the fact that our health is inherently within our control. I wanted to help other people feel empowered in that same way. This has led me to a career as a licensed acupuncturist with a thriving clinical practice for the last 15 years.
When I was 30 years old, I finally found the courage to come out to my friends and family and share with them that I was gay. I had been hiding that truth for years, and it was such a painful facade to try to maintain. My career was doing fine, but not great, and my relationships were hollow. I felt like I couldn’t get past a certain ceiling in terms of my life fulfillment. I realized that I would never have the life I wanted if I was lying about one of the most authentic parts of myself. I had to take a risk and take ownership of who I was so I could create the life I wanted. I finally came out and within 3 years I met the love of my life, my wife, and felt tremendous certainty that she was my person. We’ve been married almost 8 years now.
Throughout the 10 years after that, I started to design a life that I really wanted. I taught fitness for 10 years in addition to my clinical practice, and from teaching over 2000 classes to hundreds of clients, I used that experience as a test kitchen for how my energy and influence would impact the space. My mantra to the class became “you are responsible for the energy you bring to the room.” I was able to find my voice and use it to inspire people, which awoke in me my true passion: leadership and motivational speaking. I wanted to help people understand how impactful they truly are.
I finally felt like my life was coming together, and then I got hit with a major challenge. In 2018 my wife was diagnosed with breast cancer, and we had to face that after being married for only 6 months. I was 35 years old, my step daughters were 5 and 7 years old. This was exactly the ages my brother and I were, and my mom was, when my dad died of acute myelogenous leukemia in 1989. I felt like the rug was getting pulled out from underneath me. Finally I had created a life I wanted, and now this. I was terrified. I floundered through the experience, and did my best to keep it all together: my clinical work, taking care of my 2 stepdaughters, caretaking for my wife, and trying to launch a new health coaching business. During this period of my life, I learned so much about how I was showing up. At one point during her cancer treatment, my wife looked at me in a moment of frustration and said “I don’t need you to be my nurse, I need you to be my wife.” That moment woke me up to the impact I was having on her, on our family, and on myself, based on the way I was showing up: stressed, frustrated, on edge, and in fear. I was falling back on old patterns, pushing away the negative feelings and just trying to “grind it out”. I realized that I needed to take more ownership, a radical kind of ownership, so I could truly create a marriage and life that I wanted. I knew that this was something that almost every person I knew struggled with: our ability to be intentional about how we show up in life so we can have the impact we TRULY want to have, not the impact we have on accident.
In 2020, I became a certified coach, and I’ve had the chance to support people in their careers, their relationships, and their personal lives. I started to recognize that so many people feel disempowered in their life. They want to have impact, but they have no idea where to start or where they are going wrong. It seemed like such a simple concept – we could prepare and become more skilled at having better impact in our lives. And yet, very few people are talking about this. I knew this would work because this is first and foremost about getting back to our basic humanity – we are powerful at the core. Every single one of us. Beyond what we even know. We’ve just forgotten, or been bogged down by life’s experiences, or society has told us otherwise.
The idea of embracing our personal power is known, but not embraced across all industries. It is mostly reserved for the spiritual or fringe industries, when really, this should be at the forefront of everyone’s mind. People should be asking the question, “what is the energy I want to bring into the room?” This is when the message of Impact Ready started to come together.
Now this is the work that I feel so strongly called to do, and currently I coach, speak and consult for companies and teams around the country. I work with elite entrepreneurs, founders and executives as a coach, trusted advisor and thinking partner. I provide world class support through transformational coaching and it is where I feel the most impactful in my life. I also run a health coaching company called OptimizeYou with a cofounder, providing solutions to people who want to heal metabolism and lose excess weight through our signature 8 week coaching program, Next Level Nutrition.
In a ironic turn of events, I was diagnosed with breast cancer in early March of this year, and I am currently undergoing chemotherapy treatments and anticipating an upcoming mastectomy surgery. It was only 7 years ago that my wife went though a similar process, and here we are, doing it again as a couple and a family. This time, I have a chance to do it differently. With all of my training and teaching about impact, I get to ask myself the question, “how will I use this?” It is giving me an opportunity to truly walk the walk, as they say. I’m grateful that I my prognosis is good, and that I will get the chance to continue teaching and coaching with all that I have learned through this process.
Steph , 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 am a personal/mindset coach, speaker, consultant and entrepreneur. I own two businesses, am the host of the “Impact Ready” podcast, and a licensed acupuncturist for 15 years. I taught spin in Portland, OR for 10 years at a thriving studio and have been in the fitness realm for over 2o years.
I got into the coaching industry in 2020 when Covid hit. During that time, all of our jobs went away, as both my wife and I worked in industries that were people-based and public-facing. It was then that I felt the strong calling to formally pursue coaching as a career and create my own freedom by starting a business for myself. I immediately got to work on my coaching certification through CTI and started working with clients.
This was already a path I was on, so it felt natural to dive in deeper. In 2016 I started a health coaching business with my business partner called OptimizeYou. It was primarily educational courses about mindset and health habits to support people trying to improve their health and wellness. We are both licensed acupuncturists with extensive clinical experience and we wanted to bring that to the masses, reach beyond the treatment room. In 2022, we launched our signature coaching program, Next Level Nutrition, an 8 week guided coaching program to help people heal metabolism and lose excess weight. This coaching program was an answer to our patient’s biggest problem: they were sinking deeper into chronic illness, weight gain, low confidence and depression and anxiety in the wake of Covid. It is also one of our country’s biggest problems, with over 90% of U.S. citizens dealing with some degree of metabolic dysfunction. In the past 3 years we have served hundreds of clients in our coaching program and led them to deep personal health transformations.
My primary focus is coaching and leadership consulting within my own personal coaching business. I’ve had the chance to support people in their careers, their relationships, and their personal lives. I started to recognize that so many people feel disempowered in their life. They want to have impact, but they have no idea where to start or where they are going wrong. It seemed like such a simple concept – we could prepare and become more skilled at having better impact in our lives. And yet, very few people are talking about this. I knew this would work because this is first and foremost about getting back to our basic humanity – we are powerful at the core. Every single one of us. Beyond what we even know. We’ve just forgotten, or been bogged down by life’s experiences, or society has told us otherwise.
The idea of embracing our personal power is known, but not embraced across all industries. And yet it influences every sector of business and industry across the board. Our personal impact is directly related to our outcomes, our productivity, our sense of satisfaction and life fulfillment, and our ability to be effective leaders. People should be asking the question, “what is the energy I want to bring into the room?” This is when the message of Impact Ready started to come together.
In coaching, we solve problems like:
– Managing conflict and communication in difficult situations
– Solving high level problems without overcomplicating situations
– Helping people take ownership of their energy, actions and old patterns of behavior
– Illuminating “blind spots” for individuals looking to grow and level up
– Feeling burned out, stressed or anxious
– Getting clarity on what individuals really want from their life, career and relationships
Currently I coach, speak and consult for companies and teams around the country using my Impact Ready coaching framework. I work with elite entrepreneurs, founders and executives as a coach, trusted advisor and thinking partner. I provide world class support through transformational coaching. We take clients through a process of Own, Upgrade and Amplify so they can increase their influence and positive impact in their world. My background in holistic health, nutrition, fitness and the sheer amount of time I’ve spent working 1:1 with patients and clients gives me an edge in helping people improve their performance. I understand humans, and I have the skills to help them mine out what matters most to them in their lives. In my work, I serve:
– Leaders looking to inspire teams, solve problems, and effectively navigate real-time industry challenges
– Teams who are wanting to work together more efficiently and improve outcomes
– Individuals who want to improve their personal impact, avoid burnout, and design a life that feels aligned with their values
I am most proud of the transformation that my clients see in their life. In particular, their ability to step into their personal power and have agency and confidence they haven’t felt in years, or ever. They go from struggling and feeling stuck to feeling joy and loving their life. They no longer feel like a victim to their circumstances, but now take ownership of their thoughts, feelings and actions, which leads to a completely different life experience. This work is so incredibly gratifying and rewarding, and is absolutely the work I was put on this earth to do.
We often hear about learning lessons – but just as important is unlearning lessons. Have you ever had to unlearn a lesson?
When I was 7 my father died of acute myelogenous leukemia. From there on out it was just me, my brother and my mom. For some reason, I decided that I would be the protector of the family, and that I would work hard to prove to myself and everyone else that I could handle anything. It served me well all growing up. I got straight As all through school, I excelled at sports, graduated with honors, got a job right out of college and “had it all together” in terms of what most people could see. I wrestled with perfectionism and people pleasing in an effort to maintain a tight control on my personal image and life trajectory. I thought that as long as I was hustling and grinding, everything would work out. Of course, this meant I couldn’t show a lot of vulnerability, and I certainly couldn’t show any cracks in the facade.
When I was 35, I married the love of my life, my wife, who at the time was 33 years old. Six months after we got married, she was diagnosed with breast cancer. My stepdaughters were 5 and 7. I remember us being absolutely shell shocked the day we found out. Soon after we had the next 6 months laid out for us…chemotherapy and a double mastectomy, plus ongoing immunotherapy for a year. I was terrified, but very much sprung into problem solving mode. being an acupuncturist, I felt like it was my job to support her with as many alternative therapies as possible. I was giving her Chinese herbs, supplements, doing all kinds of different therapies, talking to every functional medicine doctor in the country I could. I was growing wheatgrass on the ktichen counter and juicing it daily for a while for god sakes.
It was around chemo #4, and things were pretty tense in our house. She was exhausted, I was tired. I was seeing her wither away in front of my eyes with the chemo and we were both worried. I remember arguing a little, she was sitting on the floor in our bedroom and I said “what do you need from me.” She looked at me with tears in her eyes and said “I don’t need you to be my nurse. I need you to be my wife. I just want you to tell me I’m doing a good job”.
Her words stopped me, hit me like bricks. I wasn’t seeing her. I was so busy trying to fix things, I didn’t even notice the impact I was having on her. I wasn’t paying attention to the impact this was all having on me. I wasn’t owning that I was scared out of mind, so I just pushed away the fear by staying busy and taking care of things. I was angry. I didn’t ask for this cancer. I just found my person that I had waited for for so many years, I just married her, and now this? I didn’t want this. I was blaming so many things…cancer, the chemo, the doctors, the stress she went through before I met her, the bills, the injustice of it all; I was cycling through anger and fear, and not taking ownership of my feelings, not taking responsibility for the impact it was having.
As a result, we both felt like we were falling short. She felt like she wasn’t doing enough to beat cancer. I felt like I wasn’t doing enough to beat cancer. It was a big moment for me. A moment to shake me awake. This was the love of my life but we were in struggle. It was my old patterns coming up again: be tough, don’t show weakness, don’t be vulnerable, don’t say the hard things.
I don’t know exactly why this moment felt so different, so earth shattering for me. Maybe it was the circumstances, the fact that this woman was wrecked from chemo and I could lose her. Maybe it was just the right time for the lesson to really take root, but this was a spotlight on a way of being that needed to break. This shit needed to stop…I needed to stop falling into old patterns, I needed to unlearn the lesson that you can muscle your way through life without every being vulnerable or showing emotion.
This was about me taking radical ownership of my actions, feelings, emotions, the way I was communicating, and the energy I was bringing. It’s been one of my greatest lessons because it actually helped me become more free. I felt more in charge of my life, I had access to more solutions, and I built better relationships with my wife, my kids, my family and friends. This lesson, radical ownership, also became a foundational pillar in my coaching framework and has allowed me to help clients at a deeper level than I ever dreamed.
How about pivoting – can you share the story of a time you’ve had to pivot?
During the start of Covid, I was working in my clinical practice in Portland, OR, as well as teaching spin 6-8 classes a week at a thriving studio. My wife was a hair stylist and fitness instructor. In a matter of days, all of our streams of income came to a halt, and I realized that for all of energy, time, resources and literal sweat I was putting into these companies, I didn’t actually own anything of my own as an employee. I had some stock shares, but nothing was truly mine. It was in those moments, laying in bed at night, wondering how we were going to support our family, that I realized I needed to build something of my own. Something that couldn’t be taken away by the likes of a pandemic, or an economic downturn. I had been informally coaching clients and patients for years, and had been teasing out the idea of getting into formal coaching. It was a few weeks after everything shut down that I made the decision to make a major pivot and start pursuing a true coaching certification and starting my own business. It took me about 9 months to get through the curriculum and certification, all the while starting coaching with clients and building the framework of my business. This was a major shift for me, not only in terms of where I was putting my energy, but also in the way that I saw myself. I had to give myself permission to shift my identity that of a coach, and not just an acupuncturist or fitness instructor. It took me longer than I like to admit to give myself permission to shift into this new role and fully claim this new identity. I had to shake off the idea that just because I had been in clinical practice for a decade and paid for a graduate degree, that acupuncture and Chinese medicine was the only path for me. But it was one of the most rewarding and gratifying decisions I have ever made. Not only did it give me the freedom, both time and financial, to do more of what I love to do, but it also helped me step into my true power as a leader. I feel like we are all called to do something purposeful in our lives, to live out our true “dharma” so to speak. I’m grateful I listened to my intuition and pivoted to do something that even my friends and family questioned to a degree.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://stephsaffer.com/
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/steph.saffer/
- Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/stephsaffer/
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@StephSaffer
- Other: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/impact-ready/id1747814249 (Impact Ready Podcast)
Image Credits
Jenny Chok
Corey Agopian