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

Trey, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. 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.

I decided to become a life coach when I realized that I have spent the majority of my 30 year corporate career, life coaching people. I realized that I’d been life coaching people in my church, through my social media pages… I realized that it was something that I was good at, but had never really tried it as a career in itself!

All throughout my career, as I climbed the ladder, I always had one foot in the career, and one foot in my passion for playing music. I even managed to balance a successful corporate career with a career as a professional musician! I realized that one thing actually fed the other, they were not in opposition to one another. The career afforded me the opportunity to pay my bills, and gave me structure (which artistic-brained people NEED although we all think we don’t) and the music career filled me up to the point that I wasn’t relying on my JOB to fulfill me, I could just do the job.

I also realized that there must be a lot of people out there like me – people who are not a good “fit” for corporate type gigs, necessarily. Artistic people, creative people, folks who think differently, and are not fulfilled by just making a paycheck by itself. Between helping people develop their own careers, get promotions, even work through personal challenges in my corporate job, plus helping people through leadership roles in church, and even through my social media pages, I realized I was on to something that could help me help others.

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.

My name is Trey McCampbell and for the past 30 years, I have had a terrific career. I’ve climbed the corporate ladder at companies large and small, from small, family-owned businesses to companies on the Fortune 500. I have made it up to the fancy corporate office, the company expense account, and the company car. In 2025, I walked away from all of it.

For as successful as I have been, I have been equally as frustrated. I was put here to encourage, inspire and teach people. It’s how God created me. And I was so busy making money, I didn’t realize that my constant didn’t come from not making enough money or from missed promotions. Simply put, my constant frustration came from one simple thing: I was not living within my purpose.

I started The Charging Station Coaching to help people avoid the frustrations that I’ve felt, playing out of position, on the wrong path, outside of my purpose, for 30 years. Author and millionaire entrepreneur Ed Mylett says, “you are best equipped to help the person you used to be.” Therefore, I’m helping people who are wired like me navigate through their challenges to personal victory by plugging into their purpose and what makes them unique.

I have always been different than everyone around me. I am creative, imaginative, empathic, encouraging, and I have ADHD. I realized years ago that I am an artist living in a largely non-artistic world, and that ADHD can be a superpower. I have learned to take this superpower and huge imagination and used them to build a successful career in multiple industries. What made me great at these various stops along my career path has been my ability to solve problems by thinking about them, not as problems, but opportunities finding innovative ways to take something big and break it down into smaller goals.

I am a life coach who specializes in working with artistic, creative people. Many people who have been diagnosed with, or think that they likely have, ADHD, see this as a liability. I help people solve their problems by helping them lean into this as a strength. I help them see that what makes them think differently allows them to be highly effective at creative goal setting.

Whether my clients are looking to become more disciplined, start taking better care of their mental or physical health, make a career change, start a career, write a book, start a business, improve their relationships, whatever the problem they face, I walk them through creating their own solutions. This ultimately leads to them taking what makes them different and instead of trying to “manage” it, placing it as an emblem on their chest and championing this superpower.

I am proud of the fact that I’ve been able to build a great career, leaning into ADHD, my musical abilities, my creative mind and spirit. I also want people to know that no matter where you are, no matter how old you are, you are always just a decision away from a better, more fulfilling life.

Have any books or other resources had a big impact on you?

While I was running a SMB/Midmarket sales team at HireRight, my boss shared a video link with me: https://www.ted.com/talks/simon_sinek_how_great_leaders_inspire_action

This is the TED Talk from 2029 that put Simon Sinek on the map. The book he had written that is referenced in this speech is “Start With Why.” Reading this book had a huge impact on me, both as a leader and as an eventual entrepreneur. This video is tagged as a leadership lesson, but it carries over easily into sales and entrepreneurship.

Whatever your business is, no matter how you market yourself, it all comes back to you being able to:

1. Understand WHY you do what you do, not just WHAT you do. Create your WHY statement first, and it should be your MISSION.
2. Be able to communicate your WHY easily, and not always by outwardly telling people your WHY; they should be able to easily see, understand and FEEL it.
3. If you are not invested in your WHY, the WHAT you do and the HOW you do it will crumble.

Do you have any insights you can share related to maintaining high team morale?

I have led teams for 25 of my 30 years in Corporate America. If you look at my LinkedIn profile, the recommendations section is full of people who have worked for me over the years. It all comes back to one thing: You have to CARE abot your employees, and they need to KNOW it. Leaders, managers, business owners, anybody who needs to have employees engaged and inspired to do their best work has to put the work in to invest in their people.

This doesn’t always mean being warm and fuzzy and becoming every employee’s friend. What it does mean is that there needs to be no doubt in the employee’s mind that you CARE about the job they do, for THEIR sake. You’re coaching them on career building skills, you’re teaching them your industry. If you ask the right questions, you will find out what’s important to the employee, whether they are the janitor or a front-line sales exec. Find a way to show them that in order for your business to reach its goals, it is important for them to reach their ‘wants’ by doing their jobs well. In return, the employee should be getting more than just a paycheck. They’re getting experience, life lessons, skills to make them successful in their future.

Pizza parties and off-site gatherings to celebrate milestones are great, and shouldn’t be overlooked. However, daily doses of inspiration, encouragement and motivation will go a lot further.

Contact Info:

• Instagram: https://instagram.com/thechargingstation1
• Facebook: https://facebook.com/thechargingstation1
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/trey-mccampbell-0934b19/
• Youtube: https://youtube.com/thechargingstation1

Image Credits

Manny Cabo, Robyn Cox, PBR Images, Weaver Country, LLC