What is Curt like to work with?

Want a taste of what I’m like to work with? Here’s a behind the scenes look at how some of my clients have described it. (These are pulled from the client stories page, where you’ll also find more about the benefits that came out of our work together, as well as their experience with the process I take them through.)

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Ellen Lende – Seattle, WA

“He has a gentle yet powerful way of asking questions to uncover, and discover, and look at those areas in need of improvement.

He’s really a wonderful balance of the intellect and intuition. He offers great insights. He has a keen ability to listen and garner from what I say and make recommendations. And then make it light and breezy and fun.

I know other people who have hired coaches and they come at it from more of an intellectual perspective and more of a dry sense of isolating your goals, writing them down, and following them, take a chunk and walk down that path. They don’t have the layers that Curt does, the passion, the excitement, the fun, the enthusiasm, the lightness.”

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Jennifer Whitley – Austin, TX

“I think a lot of my success in the program is because Curt is who he is. We’ve always kept this professional, but at the same time, it’s like catching up with an old friend. It really is. He just exudes that somehow.

He’s really funny, and very modest. He laughs a lot. So he keeps it light, but he keeps it rich.

As appropriate, he’ll bring in some of his personal experience, but he keeps the focus on the client.

He’s an idea factory! And he’s very willing to incorporate other thinkers, throw out ideas for other books and teachers that might be useful. He throws them out there, but he’s not attached to any of it. He says, maybe it will work, maybe it won’t.

But at the same time, he will pursue what he sees as important. He wasn’t going to let me get off the hook. He’ll push back against my B.S., and he’ll hold me accountable.

He’s flexible. He encouraged me to apply the framework creatively to my individual situation. So he’s not married to the genius of his program. He’s open-minded enough to let the client personalize it.

Finally, in our conversations I could hear he was truly happy for me to be experiencing the growth that I was. That was genuine.”

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Molly H. – Seattle, WA

“Curt has really pulled together some of the specific practices that can get someone unstuck, or upright and moving down the road again.

He’s a superb listener. He has great attention. He remembers everything, and always has some ideas to bring to something. He was able to bring in some perspective on a wide range of situations that I would bring up.

When it was appropriate, he would share something about his own struggles, something that had happened before. I appreciated that he was in his own learning lab as well. He never pretended that he had this all figured out. He’s a person who really says yes to the unfolding. He lives what he teaches.”

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Craig Nelson – Seattle, WA

“Curt was the perfect coach for me. He displayed the right combination of patience, of listening, of throwing out ideas to consider, and of challenging me and my assumptions in a good-natured, friendly way.

He’ a good listener. He is also insightful, but not attached to his ideas if I didn’t like them. He’s just throwing out trial balloons to see what resonates. I also appreciated his ability to track what I’m saying and find ways of proposing an idea that complements or supports it. Even if it’s something that’s just off the wall, he shares that as well. And that opens the door to ideas and insights I would never have had otherwise.

He was a bit of a task master, keeping me focused and on task. At the same time, he was flexible. He stressed from the beginning that the route is not always a straight line. I could not have imagined getting where I am today from where I started.

Curt is an out of the box thinker. He can stay in the box if that’s where somebody needs to be. Or he can be really out of the box and entertain possibilities.”

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Gavin Warrener – Seattle, WA

“Each person is different, and pulling somebody through a process of having to search their inner self is not easy unless they feel at ease quickly. Curt is able to get on a level with someone where they feel as though they’re understood, and they’re comfortable, and they’re safe, and they’re able to do this.

Curt is also able to be quite stubborn about outputs that need to come as well. I never felt that it was negotiable that we were going to get the outcome that was coming. There’s a combination that’s required of being able to be empathetic and understand somebody’s point of view, and then being able to lead from the perspective of expecting outcomes from the person that he’s working with. And I think that’s a rare combination.

I also never felt like I could hide behind not wanting to go through a process. Curt does a lot of natural thought processing – which for a lot of people is hard to do. And he was steadfast in pushing me to get to those lateral points that I needed to reach to really surface the insights that ultimately helped. You don’t get those insights unless you push yourself to that point, and he was good at very gently making sure I did that.”