Big Self School

We guide ambitious leaders and teams to access the deeper intelligence that exists beyond conditioned patterns and reactive habits.

By integrating EQ with AI, we use humans + tech to help you and your team achieve remarkable results without burning out.

11/25/2025

Imagine leading your nonprofit from a place of:

✨ Calm confidence instead of anxious urgency
✨ Clear boundaries instead of blurred overwhelm
✨ Deep alignment instead of constant striving
✨ Sustainable impact instead of martyr complex

This isn't fantasy. This is what happens when you return to your Big Self.

Your mission deserves a leader who's aligned, not depleted. Your team deserves a leader who's grounded, not reactive. You deserve to serve from overflow, not emptiness.

The world needs your gifts. Not your exhaustion.

Ready to remember who you really are? 🌱

"

11/24/2025

I'll be honest: most team trainings are a waste of time.

You get everyone in a room, do some trust building, maybe a DiSC assessment, and then... nothing changes.

Why?

Because 𝗮𝘄𝗮𝗿𝗲𝗻𝗲𝘀𝘀 𝘄𝗶𝘁𝗵𝗼𝘂𝘁 𝗶𝗻𝘁𝗲𝗴𝗿𝗮𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻 𝗶𝘀 𝗷𝘂𝘀𝘁 𝗲𝘅𝗽𝗲𝗻𝘀𝗶𝘃𝗲 𝘁𝗿𝗶𝘃𝗶𝗮.

Here's what actually works:

1. 𝗦𝘁𝗮𝗿𝘁 𝘄𝗶𝘁𝗵 𝘀𝗲𝗹𝗳-𝗮𝘄𝗮𝗿𝗲𝗻𝗲𝘀𝘀, 𝗻𝗼𝘁 𝘁𝗲𝗮𝗺 𝗮𝗰𝘁𝗶𝘃𝗶𝘁𝗶𝗲𝘀. Before you can work together better, each person needs to understand themselves better. What are your patterns? Your triggers? Your blind spots?

That's why we start every engagement with Enneagram assessments. People need to see their own wiring first.

2. 𝗠𝗮𝗽 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝘁𝗲𝗮𝗺 𝗱𝘆𝗻𝗮𝗺𝗶𝗰𝘀 . Once everyone knows their type, we map the team:

-Where are the natural tensions? (Type 8s and Type 9s will clash on directness)
-Where are the gaps? (A team of all Type 3s will lack reflection)
-Where are the superpowers? (Type 2s bring empathy, Type 5s bring analysis)

This isn't about labeling people. It's about understanding how the system works.

3. 𝗖𝗿𝗲𝗮𝘁𝗲 𝗰𝗼𝗺𝗺𝘂𝗻𝗶𝗰𝗮𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻 𝗻𝗼𝗿𝗺𝘀 𝗯𝗮𝘀𝗲𝗱 𝗼𝗻 𝗘𝗻𝗻𝗲𝗮𝗴𝗿𝗮𝗺 𝗶𝗻𝘀𝗶𝗴𝗵𝘁𝘀. Now you can design real agreements:

-How do we give feedback to a Type 6 (who needs reassurance) vs. a Type 8 (who wants directness)?
-How do we make decisions that honor fast processors (7s) and slow processors (5s)?
-How do we navigate conflict without triggering each other's core fears?

4. 𝗜𝗻𝘁𝗲𝗴𝗿𝗮𝘁𝗲 𝗶𝘁 𝗶𝗻𝘁𝗼 𝗱𝗮𝗶𝗹𝘆 𝘄𝗼𝗿𝗸. The Enneagram becomes a shared language:

"I'm in Type 1 mode, I need structure right now."
"I'm feeling my Type 7 fear of being trapped, can we revisit this?"

This isn't theory. 𝗜𝘁'𝘀 𝗽𝗿𝗮𝗰𝘁𝗶𝗰𝗮𝗹, 𝗿𝗲𝗮𝗹-𝘁𝗶𝗺𝗲 𝘁𝗲𝗮𝗺 𝗽𝗲𝗿𝗳𝗼𝗿𝗺𝗮𝗻𝗰𝗲.

Last year, I worked with a mission-driven team that went from toxic conflict to high trust in 4 months using this exact process.

11/21/2025

Happy Friday🌟
We all survived the week, and that deserves some applause 😌

11/20/2025

We had a client, a nonprofit ED, who came to us exhausted.

She said: 'I don't know why my team won't take initiative. I have to do everything myself.'

So we asked: 'What happens when they do take initiative?'

Long pause.

'Well... I usually have to fix it. They don't do it the way I would.'

There it was.

She wasn't leading. She was controlling.

And her team had learned the safest thing to do was nothing.

👉 This is what unconscious leadership looks like:

-You say you want autonomy, but you micromanage
-You say you want feedback, but you get defensive
-You say you want collaboration, but you make all the decisions

Conscious leadership is about closing the gap between intention and impact.

👉 It's about asking:

-How am I showing up right now?
-What am I rewarding or punishing (even unintentionally)?
-What does my team need from me that I'm not giving?

For this ED (a Type 1 on the Enneagram), the breakthrough came when she realized:

-Her need for things to be 'done right' was rooted in a core fear of being criticized
-Her micromanaging was teaching her team to be passive
-True leadership meant trusting people to fail forward, and coaching them through it

Three months later, her team was taking initiative, making decisions, and she finally had time to think strategically instead of firefighting.

🌟 Conscious leadership isn't about being perfect. It's about being self-aware enough to see your patterns. And courageous enough to change them.

11/19/2025

We choose to work with mission-driven organizations🌟

Here's why:

1. The stakes are higher. When your work impacts vulnerable populations, the environment, or systemic change, getting your team dynamics right isn't optional. It's essential.

2. The people are different. Mission-driven leaders aren't motivated by profit alone. They're motivated by purpose. That means coaching has to go deeper into values, identity, and how they sustain their energy for the long haul.

3. The impact is exponential. When we help a mission-driven team communicate better, set boundaries, and build psychological safety, it doesn't just improve their lives. It improves the lives of everyone they serve.

That's why we do this work

11/18/2025

We get asked all the time: 'Why the Enneagram?'

Because it's the fastest way to help teams understand the why behind the what.

Here's what we mean:

Two people on a leadership team are in conflict.

👉 - One (Type 1) wants clear processes, accountability, and structure.
👉 - The other (Type 7) wants flexibility, creativity, and autonomy.

On the surface, it looks like a personality clash.

But when you understand their Enneagram types, you see the deeper pattern:

👉 - The Type 1 fears chaos and failure—so they over-structure.
👉 - The Type 7 fears being trapped or limited—so they resist constraints.

Neither is wrong. They're just operating from different core motivations.

Once they see that, the conflict shifts from 'you're difficult' to 'we have different needs, and we can design systems that honor both.'

That's the power of the Enneagram.

It doesn't just tell you what someone does. It tells you why, and that's where transformation happens.

11/17/2025

Here's what we teach about psychological safety:

1. Trust isn't built in a single offsite or workshop. It's built into how you handle conflict on Tuesday mornings. If your team doesn't see you navigate disagreement with respect and curiosity, they won't either

2. Vulnerability isn't weakness. It's data. The leader who says 'I don't know' or 'I need help' gives permission for others to do the same

3. Belonging comes before performance

Offistes are great, but you could also normalize these behaviors every day and get very far:

1. Asking for help

2. Modeling dissent respectfully

3. Naming unspoken patterns (the Enneagram is great to help with this)

4. Committing to accountability practices rooted in care, not control

High-performing teams aren't fearless. They're safe enough to be honest

11/14/2025

All your answers are inside you.

𝗚𝗼 𝗶𝗻𝘀𝗶𝗱𝗲.

After my breakdown, I did everything right. Coaching and therapy. Sobriety. Nervous system work. Functional medicine. And it all helped. A lot.

But I was still saying yes when I meant no. Still had that tightness in my chest. Still doing the same things that broke me down in the first place.

Because understanding 𝗪𝗛𝗬 you're burned out doesn't equal 𝗡𝗢𝗧 being burned out.

Here's what changed everything: 𝗬𝗼𝘂𝗿 𝗽𝗼𝘄𝗲𝗿 𝗰𝗮𝗻'𝘁 𝗰𝗼𝗺𝗲 𝗳𝗿𝗼𝗺 𝗼𝘂𝘁𝘀𝗶𝗱𝗲 𝘆𝗼𝘂𝗿𝘀𝗲𝗹𝗳.

Deep down, you already know what you need. You already know what boundary to set. You already know what choice to make.

But you've been drowning it out with everyone else's voices.

Going inside is about turning down the volume on external noise and turning up the volume on your own inner wisdom.

𝗦𝗼 𝘄𝗵𝘆 𝗶𝘀 𝘁𝗵𝗶𝘀 𝘀𝗼 𝗵𝗮𝗿𝗱?

Because you've spent decades scanning for approval. Measuring your worth externally. Shapeshifting to stay safe and loved. Looking *out there* for the answers.

𝗚𝗼𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗶𝗻𝘀𝗶𝗱𝗲 𝗺𝗲𝗮𝗻𝘀:

- Turning off your phone for an hour (feeling the discomfort of silence)

- Sitting with the question: What do I actually want? (not what you should want)

- Pausing before the automatic yes (tolerating someone's disappointment)

- Sitting with discomfort instead of fixing it (trusting yourself to handle it)

It's hard because it means disappointing people. And you've spent your whole life believing that disappointing people means losing love.

But here's what I learned: The answers are inside. They've always been inside.

You just have to get quiet enough to hear them.

11/13/2025

I have an addiction I didn't even know I had.

Not to wine or to my phone

My addiction is to being needed.

And I'm guessing you have one you don't know about either.

Maybe it's the need to be liked. To be right. To be certain about everything. To control it all. To avoid conflict at any cost.

These aren't character flaws.

I learned that if I could meet everyone's needs, if I could be indispensable, then I would be loved. So I became really good at scanning for needs I could meet.

Doing for others meant I was valuable. Setting boundaries meant disappointing people. And disappointing people felt like disconnection, and the end of the world.

Last week, I watched myself grab every single task in a meeting. "I'll do this. I'll handle that." All while telling myself I was being helpful.

I spent the rest of the day resenting everyone for not helping me.

But here's the truth: I gave my power away to my addiction to being needed.

The Enneagram showed me my pattern.

I'm a Type Two. Once I could see it and name it, I could start to unhook from it.

Maybe you're a One and you're addicted to being right and being above reproach.

Maybe you're a Three and you're addicted to achievement and playing the right part.

Maybe you're a Four and you're addicted to seeing what’s missing or lacking.

Maybe you're a Five and you're addicted to knowledge and isolation.

Maybe you're a Six and you're addicted to testing people to build trust.

Maybe you're a Seven and you're addicted to avoiding pain.

Maybe you're an Eight and you're addicted to staying in control.

Maybe you're a Nine and you're addicted to keeping the peace.

The specific addiction is different for everyone. But the pattern is the same: we're all leaking power to something we don't even realize we need.

And we can't change what we can't see.

So that's where I'd start. Get curious. Not judgmental, not shaming. Just curious.

11/12/2025

𝗪𝗲𝗹𝗰𝗼𝗺𝗲 𝘁𝗼 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗠𝗶𝗱𝗱𝗹𝗲 𝗣𝗮𝘀𝘀𝗮𝗴𝗲!

The Middle Passage isn't about recovery. It's not about bouncing back or building resilience, or finding better time management strategies.

The Middle Passage is where you learn that your power was never out there.

It's about reclaiming your personal sovereignty.

It's that liminal space between who you were and who you're becoming. Between giving your power away and taking it back. Between living for everyone else and living for yourself.

Between performing your life and actually living it.

Most people try to rush through it and get back to "normal" as fast as possible.

𝗕𝘂𝘁 𝗻𝗼𝗿𝗺𝗮𝗹 𝗶𝘀 𝘄𝗵𝗮𝘁 𝗯𝗿𝗼𝗸𝗲 𝘆𝗼𝘂 𝗶𝗻 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗳𝗶𝗿𝘀𝘁 𝗽𝗹𝗮𝗰𝗲.

The relentless pace. The achievement addiction. The constant scanning for approval. The divided life where your outside doesn't match your inside.

Normal was unsustainable. Your body knew it before your mind did.

𝗖𝗹𝗮𝗶𝗺𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗬𝗼𝘂𝗿 𝗣𝗼𝘄𝗲𝗿!

It was never in your achievements or your productivity or your ability to please everyone or your capacity to keep going when your body begged you to stop.

It's inside you.

It always has been.

You just gave it away. One yes at a time. One boundary crossed. One need ignored. One authentic impulse suppressed in favor of what you thought you should do.

And now? You get to take it back.

Not all at once. Not perfectly. But piece by piece, choice by choice, boundary by boundary.

You get to decide when you're ready to claim it.

11/11/2025

You're Not Powerless. You're Just Giving Your Power Away.

Every morning, you wake up and choose.

Most people don't realize these are choices because they feel automatic. Hardwired. Like breathing.

Check your phone or sit in silence. Say yes when you mean no. Attach your worth to what people think. Scan for approval instead of trusting yourself. React to that email. Spiral over that comment.

It feels like you have no control.

👉 But here's the truth: You're choosing all of it.

Not consciously, perhaps. But you're choosing nonetheless.

The scrolling. The ruminating. The people-pleasing. The self-criticism. Where your attention goes. What thoughts you feed. Whether to attach to that comparison, that criticism, that catastrophic thought.

👉 You're choosing whether to give your power away or keep it.

11/10/2025

Nonprofit CEO or Chief Everything Officer?

There's a difference.

One comes from your Big Self—grounded, clear, sustainable. The other comes from your ego's need to control everything because deep down, it doesn't trust that things will work out.

🌟 Here's what changes when you lead from your Big Self:
→ You delegate with confidence instead of micromanaging from fear
→ You set boundaries that actually stick
→ You make decisions from wisdom, not reactivity
→ Your team feels your calm presence instead of your anxious energy

Your nonprofit doesn't need another martyr. It needs a leader who knows the difference between being indispensable and being irreplaceable.

The world needs you sustainable, not sacrificial. 🌱

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Chattanooga, TN

Website

http://www.bigselfschool.com/

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From Burnout to Big Self

We hear a lot about how we live in the Information Age. It’s all around us, all this data. We have the sum total of human knowledge at our fingertips. Data is the new oil.

For all our access to knowledge, we still seem to be ignorant of one of the most critical parts of our knowledge tree: self-knowledge.

We’re still living as students from the age-old lessons of hustle, grind, sleep when you die. We’re shackled to work we hate in order to pay for things we don’t need to impress people we barely know. We minimize parts of our personalities (or disown them altogether) in order to fit into slots prescribed by others.

If you only focus on the outer part of your ambition, you’re going to burn from the inside out. You burn out. You die to your soul the entire time you’re aspiring to whatever it is you think you’re doing all this grinding for.

What if, instead of a culture driven by narcissism, anxiety, greed, and haste, we created a community-driven by authenticity, generosity, courage, and connection?

What if everything we wanted on the outside really began with our hard work on the inside?

What if we learned that our purpose isn’t a career to be found but the gift of our true self to be shared?

What if we realized our true self simply by surrendering into the person we already are?

What if we discovered generative work because we focused on the gifts that grow inside us?

What if we realized that we cannot hustle our way to the purposeful life we dream about?

What if we listened to physical and mental symptoms as evidence that our soul is dissenting?

What if we brought the ego and its power and protection in service to our soul?

What if we all realized the most important measurables are the ones that reflect our true self?

These questions lie at the heart of our mission.

The Big Self School is a personal growth learning community. We teach classes and offer coaching to help changemakers deepen their self-awareness so they can improve their lives.

We’re creating new conversations that are informed by a hyper-relevant deep dive into the following core areas:

Awareness

Connection

Action

Wellness

Everything we do -- from classes to coaching to our books and media -- touches on these core areas and is intentionally structured for exploration and transformation. We have designed a proven framework for doing inner work so you can make an outer impact that is sustainable.

We believe that each and every one of us has a duty to bring forward our unique gifts to make a positive contribution to the world. To that end, the goal of self-knowledge is to move us beyond the metrics of personal fulfillment and into social impact. When we remember and unlock these gifts then we can play our destined role in healing the world.

If you want to understand yourself better, strengthen the relationships in your life, and discover your purpose, we hope you’ll join us and be a part of the Big Self School.

Learn more about the Big Self School and check out our podcast and blog.