Sue Koch is a Career and Life Design Coach who, after being down-sized from a major corporation, chose to create her life differently. She now works with business professionals who are ready to exit the "rat race" by creating a more balanced and integrated lifestyle. She has coached hundreds of people to pursue their highest and best dreams. For more information about her coaching programs, contact sue at sue@accesstheedge.com or by phone at 949-212-4345

Tell us about your business, Access the Edge, and the services you offer.

At Access the Edge, we believe that we each came to the planet with a purpose to fulfill and that joy is our natural state of being. We also believe that human beings are driven by the desire to learn, play, love and create.

Unfortunately, our upbringing and societal training works against us to squash our desires and creativity in favor of conformity. We're taught by our cultures and by well-meaning care givers to live within the context of what we "should" do to be materially successful rather than what we WANT to do to be happy and fulfilled.

Our coaching and seminars are designed to help people rediscover their passions and bring back their natural states of aliveness, curiosity, creativity and joy. We actually demonstrate how our very physiology changes when we put our energy and attention on what we love. When we understand how to connect joy with what we FEEL in our bodies rather than with the "should" messages from our brains, we reclaim our power to make authentic choices that support our dreams and purposes.

Your tagline, "Designing exit strategies for corporate rats" says it all...tell us about your niche and how you fell into it.

My coaching practice began when unemployment was very high and many people were in career transition. Experienced, highly paid people seemed to be down-sized out of long term jobs at an alarming rate. I knew a lot about that because I was one of those people and I wanted to help myself by helping others in similar situations.

I wondered how I could help corporate employees take back control of their lives amidst such uncertainty. How could I help them generate better choices for how they contribute their valuable time, energy, gifts, skills and abilities to their companies? How could I help them work to live and love it, rather than living to work and hating it? How could I help them create more than one source of income without having to work longer or harder and burning out?

My answer came as I worked with a particular client who was in career transition. She had been down-sized out of her corporate job after ten years of successful advancement. She was exhausted, disillusioned and hurt, and not interested in returning to a corporate job. She was frustrated because all she saw ahead of her was thirty more years of more of the same.

Through coaching and seminars, we identified what she loved, what her purpose is, and ways she could get what she really wanted. We designed a 5-year plan for her to get it. The plan included returning to a corporate job long enough to finance her dream.

Suddenly a corporate job that seemed like a burden became an opportunity and a means to an end as a funding source (with the emphasis on FUN!). Her apathy disappeared and she was energized to take action.

Within four weeks she secured a wonderful position in a great company. She and a friend started a small side business selling a product they love and believe in. She began working with a financial planner who is assisting her to achieve her financial goal.

My light bulb moment came when I felt my excitement grow as my client and I developed a design for her career and life in a way that supports her dreams, goals and personal vision. I realized I had found my passion and I could hardly wait to help other "corporate rats" get out of the rat race. From there, I worked with a wonderful marketing coach to create my tag line.

What kind of person would be your perfect client?

My perfect clients are successful people who recognize they've reached a point in their lives where they want something more than running a rat race every day. They may be ready for an active retirement, they may be bored with their current jobs, or they may know they want to make a change without a clear sense of what they'd really love to do. They don't see themselves as running away from anything. They see themselves running toward a new possibility or dream.

Who have been your inspirations and mentors along your journey?

My clients inspire me the most. When they share their deepest and most heartfelt dreams, I'm profoundly moved by who they truly are as expressions of the Divine. I believe we instinctively and intuitively know when we are in that Presence. For me, it's never more present than when listening to someone share the thing that most expresses their deepest desires, whether it's going to culinary school or painting animals or starting a business.

I'm also inspired by my business partner at Access the Edge. She has an amazing capacity for seeing beyond the facades we create for survival into the true essence of who we are. She is able to stay with that essence no matter how we act out in anger, fear or sadness. She creates a wonderful, safe space for people to let go of the façade and show up as themselves.

There's a report on your web site about how men and women react to stress differently. Can you talk about that a bit?

Until recently, 90% of studies about stress were conducted on men and it was believed that flight or fight was the primary response to stress. A landmark UCLA study found that women release a hormone called oxytocin which encourages us to tend to children and bond with other women during stressful times. The study calls this the "tend and befriend" response. It's believed the women live longer than men partly because of our capacity for tending and befriending.

What's your favorite inspirational quotation and why?

It’s difficult to limit myself to one quote. It depends on what I need to remember on a given day or in a particular circumstance. One of my favorites right now is this one:

"Dream as if you'll live forever. Live as if you'll die tomorrow." ~ James Dean

This quote is especially meaningful to me because James Dean was so young when he died. To this day, he remains a bigger than life presence. What if he had held back or given up on his dream? We'd have missed out on a great talent.

What are your favorite books?

I love books that inspire me and books that poke fun at our humanity. Some of my favorites include:

"This Time I Dance" by Tama Kieves

"Inspire: What Great Leaders Do" by Lance Secretan

"Power vs. Force: The Hidden Determinants of Human Behavior" by David Hawkins

"Mama Gena's School of Womanly Arts" and "Mama Gena's Owner's and Operator's Guide to Men" by Regena Thomashauer

All of the Sweet Potato Queens Books by Jill Connor Browne

What's the most valuable tidbit of advice about work you can offer our Wild WE readers?

Know what your business is for. Have a really powerful "why" for doing what you do, or as Mark Victor Hansen (co-author of the Chicken Soup for the Soul books) says, ""Put a WOW in your "why"!" That knowing will keep you going through the tough times and will keep you humble when you succeed.

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