SWIHA Blog

For those who have had the pleasure of seeking support from Will Zecco, it will come as no surprise that he has the business savvy to back up his coaching!

Will has served as an entrepreneur and business owner for over 40 years, starting with the creation of his very first business in 1982, which he opened up with a $10,000 personal loan secured with the help of his parents. He was able to pay that loan off within two years, secure a second loan, and continue to expand the business— testament to his larger vision and gift for growth.

Yet, the road to entrepreneurship wasn’t always easy. “It was a learning curve all along the way,” Will reflects. “When I look back on it now, I wish that I had someone who knew about running a business to go to for support. I was not that fortunate and made mistakes along the way.” Will eventually ended up closing the business, and for the longest time, he felt that his venture had been a failure. With the passage of time, however, Will was able to see the whole endeavor as a series of lessons. “Expensive lessons,” he laughs, “Yet, lessons nonetheless!”

If there’s one thing Life Coach and Intuitive Guide Melissa Corter knows, it’s that people most often abandon their dreams for one heartbreaking reason: they don’t believe in themselves.

For Melissa, this truth is more than some lesson passed down from a textbook; rather, she’s painfully—and productively—lived it herself. “I once considered myself a failure in my head. I was working a job I absolutely hated because I had walked away from my personal business for the illusory comfort of a paycheck,” Melissa explains. “Then the day arrived when I couldn’t take it anymore. I decided to give it all up. That’s when my own divine blueprint became active for me to witness.”

You may have learned to lift weights, run sprints, and do lunges under the guidance of a personal trainer at your local gym… yet where do you go if it is your mind that needs to get in shape? Perhaps to SWIHA Life Coaching Graduate James Patrick, who is serving as a Lifestyle Trainer with a focus on what he calls “personal training—both inside and out.”

Five years ago, Christine Iring’s life was falling apart. She had hit rock bottom and was unsure what was around the corner; she knew only, with the guidance of a therapist, that she had a responsibility to “do her work.”

And do her work she did! Over the course of three years, Christine steadfastly examined herself, even as the world continued to swirl and change around her. This period of transformation culminated in Christine moving to the Phoenix area and enrolling at SWIHA. “As soon as I walked in the building, I knew I found my new home,” she confides. “My first class was Life Coaching Foundations. Between the vibe, the instructors, the people that understood ‘my language,’ and learning the protocol for transforming lives, I knew this was part of my calling. I was on my way to being a life coach.”

For Sharon Rose, 2017 was the year of identity crisis. She had finished school and launched her business, yet was still suffering from a sense of disconnection. Nothing was resonating. After so after working up the courage to leave a truly toxic relationship, to deconstruct her old life coaching website, and to overhaul her personal image, she was out on her own again... and suddenly faced with the opportunity to become her most authentic self. 

I went from a focus on 'becoming the goddess' to 'I AM the goddess,'" Sharon explains, "and it all started unfolding out of awareness. 

Maureen Hayes' passions have always been centered around aiding and inspiring others... a flame fed by her unique ability to see the potential in others that they sometimes are not able to see themselves. Within a year of receiving the Master Life Coach Designation after completing the Advanced Life Coaching program at SWIHA, Maureen formed “Awaken Your Spirit – You, Only Better,” her coaching and consulting business focused on helping her clients live truly happy, fulfilled, and peaceful lives.

Maureen happily uses one of the tools she was introduced to while at SWIHA: the “True Colors” personality assessment from Carolyn Kalil, a coach education counselor, and author of Follow Your True Colors to the Work You Love. “I love to help people awaken to their authentic selves, and everything I do comes from that love,” Maureen explains. “It quickly became evident to me just how incredibly enlightening it was for my clients when I used True Colors, and so I reached out to Carolyn Kalil and through her course became a certified facilitator.” 

If you find yourself on the home page of Life Coach and Certified Clinical Hypnotherapist Sandy O’Neal’s website, you’ll notice a single quote printed across a beautiful lavender and pink sky:

“If you want to change your reality, then it’s time for you to change your mind…”

Changing minds and realities is indeed what Sandy is all about as she serves the world through her coaching and hypnotherapy business, appropriately called A Transformed Life. Her objective is to help her clients deepen and expand their lives through her specializations in fertility support, anxiety/stress reduction, weight reduction and movement, fears and phobias treatment, and pain management. She offers private sessions in-person at her Mesa, Arizona, studio and remotely via phone and Skype, as well as weekly and biweekly meetup groups which focus on managing anxiety, stress, and depression, promoting well-being and mindfulness, increasing self-confidence, and practicing healthy habits.

As a self-described spirit-guided healer, Becca Briley is a woman led by her intuition. From the very beginning, Becca knew that her life’s purpose—her soul’s purpose—is to honor the sacred in others through selfless service to them. “I’m always naturally guided to that soulful place,” Becca shares. “Really supporting someone’s highest self, allowing them to show up in the most vulnerable and authentic way… To me, that’s just communicating soul to soul.” In fact, as a little girl, Becca would resolutely tell those around her, “I’m not here for me,” a both poignant and profound observation from a child so young.

Now as a graduate of SWIHA’s 100-hour Certificate of Excellence in Life Coaching, Becca is able to “be here” for others through her life coaching practice, appropriately called the “Spirit Guided Healer.” She has grown into this practice with the conviction that “by supporting others’ evolution, I am supporting my own for the highest and greatest good.” She finds that the questions her clients most frequently bring to her are ultimately ones of evolution: How do I control my thoughts? How do I stay positive? How do I get out of my bad habits? How do I look on the bright side? When working with people who are striving to make these improvements, she is sure to encourage them to see it as a process. “It’s a mindful practice,” Becca says. “It’s not a switch that you turn on and it stays on. Living in that higher space is a matter of repetition.”

The holidays are a time when we want to look and feel are best so that we can truly enjoy the company of our loved ones and the spirit of the season. Yet, it’s so easy to overindulge when faced with the wide array of traditional treats popularly consumed at the time. Sugar cookies, pies, alcohol-laden drinks, and other sweets can weigh us down and leave us feeling slower, sleepier, and less energized than usual. Meals that contain dairy can have a particularly negative effect on our health and well-being. In fact, excessive consumption of dairy products has been shown to cause skin troubles, increased mucus production in the respiratory system, slowed digestion, and the sudden onset of bloating, cramping, gassiness, and general tummy troubles.

Thanksgiving is just around the corner, and we all know what that means…

Many of us will spend the final hours leading up to the big day frantically racing through the aisles of our local grocery store, on the hunt for the essentials and that one critical ingredient we almost left off the list. Turkey? Check. Ten pounds of potatoes? Check. Ground nutmeg for the pumpkin pie? Oops…

It goes without saying that the last thing we need in the midst of the mania is MORE stress. An easy solution to this dilemma is to introduce raw cuisine to your table this Thanksgiving. Live foods need to be on your plate all year round, and holidays are no exception.