Check Out Traci Philips’s Story

Today we’d like to introduce you to Traci Philips.

Hi Traci, so excited to have you with us today. What can you tell us about your story?
Thank you, and it’s a true pleasure.

Fourteen years ago, my husband and I moved to NC from MD just after our daughter was born. I had just left a 15 year career as a foreign language curriculum developer and instructor to raise my family. In so many ways, we started over and the first five years were hard (husband building business from ground up, 1 1/2 years of struggle with postpartum and going back and forth to MD where my daughter had three surgeries between birth and the age of two), but the experiences created a strong family bond, and we continued to fall more and more in love with NC. When my daughter started kindergarten, I made the decision to enter coaching as a career and received my certification in holistic health coaching.

Three years in, I was feeling this area of coaching didn’t really fit my personality and desire to work with more driven and growth-oriented individuals. One day, while driving down the road, I had one of my divine hits, that since high school, had come to me as titles of books that hadn’t been written. The book title that dropped in was The Conscious CEO. At that time, consciously-driven leadership wasn’t being discussed, but something told me it was emerging. I began to wonder if written, what the book would be about. I thought about big industry leaders. The men driving the largest corporations in the world. What if these men were to have a “coming home” transformational experience that left them with complete and authentic clarity about who they were and how they came to serve the world for a greater good? What would that mean, not only for them but for those closest to them, their employees, organizations and the impact they had on the world? I knew then that I was being called to work with men in leadership, but I had no idea how I was going to get there.

Two months later, I received an invitation to help a past client who was a clinical psychologist at Butner Federal Prison here in NC. She asked me if I would be interested in co-facilitating a men’s transformational program she had created with leaders who were incarcerated for white-collar federal crimes. These had been men who held prestigious positions of power and influence. I ended up volunteering for three years at Butner as I built up my leadership and performance coaching practice. I will always say that there is no certification program in the world that would have taught and given me the knowledge and skills I learned working with the men in Butner. Now, I spend my time focused, specifically, on visionary leaders who know they came to this life to make a significant impact and want to unlock their true potential and serve with clarity and authenticity.

Can you talk to us a bit about the challenges and lessons you’ve learned along the way. Looking back would you say it’s been easy or smooth in retrospect?
The road is never completely smooth. I have learned a lot about many things in paving my own way to follow a calling that has truly challenged me to have faith and trust in my intuition and where I have been led. Because of this, I now have the experience and worldly credentials to teach others what I have learned. One of the core principles I teach is how to truly “look in” for the answers we seek and to learn to develop all three of our brains – head, heart and gut – in order to receive the information we need to make the right decisions that are in alignment with who we are and why we are here.

As you know, we’re big fans of you and your work. For our readers who might not be as familiar what can you tell them about what you do?
Through my work, I’ve developed a strong belief that the key to individual betterment and the ability to thrive is within each person. You already know what you need to reach a state of balance – you just need to learn how to listen and understand what that inner voice is telling you and most of all, follow it.

I have lived in different parts of the US and Europe. Being in different cultures has taught me a lot. I have encountered struggles and overcome obstacles – like realizing one month into my first teaching job that the school I was working for was a front for a money laundering business. Each challenge has allowed me to learn something more about myself and what I’m made of. During my pregnancy, I was told at every stage that there was something potentially “wrong” with my baby. This was after trying everything for over two years just to GET pregnant. I had to learn to draw my energy in and up and to create the story I wanted to live, rather than the one I was being told. When my daughter was born with a condition that meant she needed three surgeries before she was 2, my husband and I worked through that time with the same trust and faith in what we could do, letting go of what was outside our control. Again, when my daughter was four, I was a part of a lawsuit against the doctor who delivered her. He had committed suicide after being under investigation for privately videotaping his patients and selling these tapes on the internet. The birth of my child had been one of these such tapes.

I want people to learn to be free and grounded, two areas many struggles to access for longer than a fleeting period of time. Being confident and assured in one’s identity is about knowing thyself. Most people do not. As an Executive Leadership & Performance Strategist, I support visionary business owners and corporate executives to learn and practice better communication, resolution strategies, decision-making and leading during times of change and when the stakes are high. My time working with ex-leaders in prison taught me how to do this well. I have a passion for helping my clients define their personal values, authentic approach and intentional outcomes to create more awareness about who they are, how they want to be seen and where they want to go in life. I also assist them in learning how to confidently and effectively communicate these points and define their Zone of Brilliance. In a nutshell, I help visionary leaders define who they are and help them to understand why that matters and how to Own Their Zone.

With unique strengths in translating both verbal and non-verbal language, I have the ability to help clients identify and apply effective tools and approaches to zero in on core issues and challenges that are creating an inability to meet desired objectives and outcomes. My ultimate goal is to support visionary influencers to live authentically and lead powerfully.

Currently, I am an active member of the Women Speakers Association and the national and international networking organizations BNI, XPX and RPAN. I’ve appeared on Blog Talk Radio and have been featured in Formidable Woman magazine, Annie Jennings PR podcast show, AuthorExpertWire and various other locally and nationally acclaimed podcast shows. I co-host a bi-weekly FB LIVE show called Eavesdrop Conversations where discussions are non-scripted, raw and real, covering everything from current events to personal life experiences. My first book, Looking In: Discover, Define & Align the True Value of Your Life, Leadership & Legacy will be out at the end of this month (July 2021).

Who else deserves credit in your story?
I never have liked the term “self made.” There is no one, in my opinion, on this planet who has been “made” without the help, support and assistance of many others. For me, it started with my parents who were (and still are in their 80’s) independent, hard-working and heart-centered entrepreneurs. They are also both creatives – my mother, an artist and my father, an architect. Each is also visionary, so I grew up understanding not only what that means but what it looks like to live with this unique breed each and every day. Being a visionary, also, I have come to embrace and accept who I am and my unique skills and traits – all of them, the good and the more challenged and challenging.

I have had loads of teachers, coaches, mentors, friends and complete strangers who have played huge roles in my life play. Allowing me to develop, learn and know what I came here to experience.

Here’s one such story https://theinnatecoach.com/traci-philips-the-innate-coach-blog/celebrating-the-heart

Contact Info:

• Email: traci@theinnatecoach.com
• Website: www.theinnatecoach.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/traciphilips
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/TraciPhilipsTheInnateCoach
• Youtube: https://bit.ly/eavesdropinthemoment

Image Credits
Rich Font Randi Markowitz