The Alignment Coach:
Julie Breckenfelder
My Experience
Spending my days nurturing the next generation of leaders—both emerging and seasoned—brings me so much joy. It’s because this work goes much beyond executive presence, communication, and confidence. It really invokes an unexpected level of self-awareness, mindfulness, and alignment that impacts both work and life.
No matter my client's industry, backstory, or entry point into coaching the challenge always comes back to why they still feel like an imposter, or don’t have full confidence as a leader, or haven’t quite achieved the success they desire. It tends to be a bit baffling because they’ve gone above and beyond while thinking they were challenging the status quo for so long. It “seems” like they’ve been successful, but it just doesn’t feel like it. Now they’re looking for ways to:
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Do something with more purpose and impact in the world
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Build the confidence to share their voice and/or command a room
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Establish real career and personal goals
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Understand the larger vision and path to get there
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Deal with overwhelm, lack of energy/motivation, and burnout
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Find stress and crisis management strategies
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Create balance between work and life
Usually after the first session or two, clients realize they’ve been following someone else’s agenda. The overwhelm, stress, lack of balance/interest all point toward a tension they’ve always sensed, but could never put words to. That’s where my certifications, training, and experience play a large role in the work we do together. Tools like Energy Leadership and Positive Intelligence give a language for clients to understand their lack of clarity and a framework to support creating a new path forward.
Julie Brekenfelder
The Alignment Coach
Let’s step back a moment to understand my background. What's my most impactful credential? What sets the stage for immediate trust and credibility? I was my ideal client.
I was the high-achieving emerging leader, loved by all key stakeholders, and looked amazing on paper. And, I was completely unsatisfied and burned out.
I spent the first 15 years of my career working as a business to business marketer in both the agency and corporate settings. Much of my time was spent with executive leadership determining the strategic communications and messaging for both internal and external audiences. I developed quite the empathetic knack for reading between the lines and rallying a room of strong personalities. As you can imagine, much of my work in marketing and strategy has translated brilliantly to the coaching landscape.
So, my journey paired with my foundational credentials and education all play a large role in my coaching style including strategic approaches, techniques, and resources. As well, my professional experience as a business-to-business marketer, communicator, and new business developer provides my clients a very unique perspective of the internal and external messages we receive.
I’ve been in the thick of it. And I’m honored to have used these same measures to break through the rules and false messages. It's a process. And, yes, it works!
Julie Brekenfelder
The Alignment Coach
Education
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Masters of Business Administration, Loyola University Chicago
Specific Areas of Expertise
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Aligned, purpose-filled, and impactful work/life balance
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Stress management strategies for overwhelm, lack of energy/motivation, and burnout
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Executive presence, mindfulness, and confidence
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Career goals + personal values and vision
Certification/Qualifications:
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Professional Certified Coach, ICF
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Certified Professional Coach, iPEC
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Master Practitioner, Energy Leadership Index
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Mental Fitness Coach, POSITIVE INTELLIGENCE®