Program of Sessions and Events for the 2026 Conference

Matthew LeBaron

A creative workshop inviting participants to honor the community that formed this weekend not through words but through creative play. A non-verbal, low-pressure creative experience that helps coaches witness the "we" that emerged among them: the connections, the shared field, the people they did not know on Wednesday and now do. You'll leave with something tangible that holds the imprint of this community.

Mark Schall

In the world of virtual coaching, your presence doesn’t stop at the webcam—it’s time to own the Zoom room like the fabulous professional you are! Whether you’re leading a webinar, facilitating a group session, or hosting a virtual event, mastering Zoom’s features and engagement techniques is essential to creating a seamless and impactful experience.

This interactive and lively workshop, designed specifically for LGBTQ+ coaches, will teach you how to command the virtual stage with confidence, charisma, and clarity. From avoiding common Zoom disasters to leveraging breakout rooms, chat, polls, and spotlighting like a pro, you’ll leave with the skills and strategies needed to lead engaging, polished, and effective online sessions.

No more “Can you hear me?” or “You’re on mute” moments—just smooth, professional, and dynamic virtual coaching!

Elias Scultori

In a profession built on powerful questions and meaningful dialogue, silence is often overlooked—or quickly filled. This interactive workshop invites coaches of all backgrounds to experience silence not as an absence but as a powerful element of presence that deepens awareness, trust, and insight. Through guided exercises, real-time practice, and reflective inquiry, participants will explore their relationship with silence, notice what arises when they resist the urge to speak, and discover how intentional pauses can transform the coaching conversation. Grounded in a coaching mindset aligned with the current standards and ethical principles of professional coaching, this session offers a practical and thought-provoking exploration of what becomes possible when we allow space—both for our clients and within ourselves.

Matthew Bennett

Drawing from extended metaphors often used in hypnosis, Matthew will give you four different metaphorical stories that you can use with your clients in coaching. They include ways of helping clients find resources deep within, how to replace unwanted thoughts and how to meet parts of your client that will help them on their journey. This interactive workshop will introduce the stories and include practice to help coaches get used to using them in your coaching sessions.

Chris Cooper

As the opening session of the conference, this plenary brings everyone together to start our journey. While we are skilled at supporting the journeys of others, this session invites you to step back and explore the impact you want to have in your own life. Through self-exploration and interactive connection, we will focus on how we build meaningful relationships with our clients, our communities, and ourselves.

David DeWitt

For most of us, part of the coaching process (sometimes a long part) is moving clients from diffuse ideas about what they want (even in a session) to clear, authentic goals. Every thought along the way can be useful to accomplish that mission. But what if there were an exercise to accelerate and energize that thinking process — to move faster from stuck to activated? This presentation will bring a tool from the invention process of composition that can help the client push through to their immediate, unfiltered ideas — and quickly! It might also be a useful tool for coaches in those few minutes before a session. You'll need paper and a writing utensil for this workshop, and prepare to share with your fellow coaches. (If arthritis or some issue demands you use digital assistance, that's fine, of course. But the exercise works way better in a messy, analog way.) We'll also devote some time to brainstorming similar exercises ("morning pages," anyone?) and any other uses coaches might have of writing. 

Todd Hess

When Judgment Softens, Connection Emerges is an experiential workshop introducing The Work of Byron Katie, a powerful method of self-inquiry that helps individuals question stressful thoughts and deepen connection with self and others. Through guided reflection, live demonstration, and paired practice, participants will experience how softening judgment can create greater clarity, compassion, and presence in coaching relationships and community.

Nick Duggan

Ever had a client who’s going through some kind of change? Pretty much all of them, right? And research shows that today people are experiencing more frequent and disruptive change than ever – at work and in the world.

In this session, you’ll learn how to support clients (and yourself!) to navigate our increasingly chaotic world through a client-centered process of symbolic intelligence based on intuitive reflection and personalized nature archetypes.

You’ll leave with an enriched ability to help the individuals and teams you work with to get more deeply grounded in what really matters to them, so they can drive meaningful impact even in the midst of constant change.

Bryan Coleman

This experiential session invites participants to slow down and explore how dominant cultural habits shape the way we coach, connect, and care. Rooted in the Deep Adaptation framework and informed by the ESCAPE mindset, we’ll use breathwork, self-touch, and deep listening to return to presence and build emotional stamina. Together, we’ll practice meeting discomfort with curiosity, consent, and care reclaiming friendship as a form of social repair. All practices are optional and adaptable to diverse access needs. Participants will leave with embodied tools and relational insights to deepen belonging in their coaching and community spaces.

Tim Kincaid

This experiential “play-shop” brings the Enneagram to life through movement, interaction, and scenario-based role play. The Enneagram is a widely used developmental framework describing nine core ways of thinking, feeling, and relating. Each “Enneatype” reflects distinct motivations, patterns, and growth pathways, while wings and stress/growth arrows illuminate how individuals shift under stress, challenge, and possibility. Using a large floor-mat diagram, participants step into their type, wings, and stress/growth arrows to explore how patterns shape connection—with self, with clients, and within communities. Coaches will leave with deeper personal insight and practical tools to evoke awareness, strengthen relational presence, and facilitate meaningful growth. This dynamic session is designed to cultivate authentic connection in all coaching contexts.

Aaron Listhaus

What if the person you're meant to become is already inside you, waiting to be awakened?
This transformative workshop reveals how aspirational visioning—grounded in cutting-edge neuroscience—can override self-limiting beliefs, dissolve hidden barriers, and fundamentally transform your identity from the inside out.
Drawing on Richard Boyatzis's groundbreaking research on brain-based change, along with proven frameworks from Emotional Intelligence, Positive Intelligence, and the Immunity to Change model, you'll discover why traditional goal-setting often fails and what actually rewires your brain for lasting transformation.
In this intensive, hands-on experience, you'll:
✓ Create a vivid, emotionally resonant vision of your Ideal Self that activates your brain's natural change mechanisms
✓ Identify the mental "Saboteurs" and hidden commitments that have kept you stuck—and learn how to weaken their grip
✓ Practice guided self-hypnosis that embed your vision at a subconscious level
✓ Design a personalized action plan backed by neuroscience to bridge the gap between who you are and who you're becoming

Robert Bellarn

Storytelling is at the heart of meaningful coaching. In this experiential workshop, participants explore how to help clients give breath to their own stories through presence, embodied awareness, and consent-based communication. Using breathwork, grounding, and heart-centered listening as supportive tools, coaches will learn how to create safe, trusting spaces where authentic narratives can emerge and evolve. This session offers practical approaches for deepening client relationships by honoring self-acceptance, agency, and the power of being witnessed.

Kevin Martin

Sexual shame lives in the nervous system, body, and erotic identity—not just the mind. This advanced session teaches trauma-informed, somatic, and identity-based tools to facilitate deep sexual growth for gay men. Integrating the SHAMELESS Method, participants will learn how to guide clients beyond coping strategies and into embodied confidence, emotional freedom, and erotic self-trust.

Mike Jackson-Polek

You will participate in an interactive discussion about the relationship between loss, grief, and depression. Discover how to work with your own grief, so you can assist others in their grieving process.

Pat Boze

Building on his popular 2024 session, Pat Boze returns with an experiential deep-dive into psychedelic integration coaching. As plant medicine and therapeutic psychedelics become increasingly mainstream, coaches are encountering clients mid-transformation who need skilled support during the critical neuroplasticity window following ceremony. Through partner exercises and small group practice, participants will explore practical frameworks for holding space, recognizing integration challenges, and supporting lasting change—without needing to facilitate the journeys themselves. Whether you're curious about this emerging niche or already supporting clients post-ceremony, you'll leave with immediately applicable tools and greater confidence in this profound work.

David Sherrod

How do you handle it when a client’s logic doesn’t add up? Or when your own bias clouds your listening? This session provides a practical toolkit for identifying and navigating the cognitive biases and logical fallacies that get in the way of connection. We will move beyond theory into practice, utilizing diverse client scenarios to simulate real-world coaching challenges. You will leave with a clear process for recognizing these mental patterns and specific, ethical questioning techniques to help clients dismantle their own limiting beliefs. Join us to learn how to clear the fog and facilitate deeper growth.

David Ridley-Parris

What if your most powerful coaching tool isn’t another question—but your embodied presence?
In this experiential session, coaches will explore how somatic awareness helps them arrive more resourced, attuned, and impactful in their coaching sessions. Through simple, practical practices drawn from somatic coaching and Focusing, you’ll learn how to work with the body—yours and your client’s—to deepen connection, enhance insight, and support meaningful change.

Tony Smith

75‑Minute Storytelling Skills Building Workshop for Coaches

Stories shape what we notice and what we try. As coaches, helping clients see the drafts of their stories—and giving them tools to rewrite one paragraph at a time—creates new pathways for action. Which paragraph will your client rewrite first?

Audience: Professional and aspiring coaches who want practical storytelling tools to help clients overcome barriers, reframe change, and pursue goals.

Matthew Thomas LeBaron, Joshua New, Chris Cooper

Many coaches struggle with marketing because it often feels performative, overwhelming, or disconnected from the work they actually care about.

This plenary explores a different approach: connection-led marketing.

Rather than focusing on complicated systems, AI tools, or social media tactics, this interactive workshop helps coaches reconnect with the fundamentals of meaningful client engagement.

Through facilitator insights, reflection exercises, and small-group conversations, participants will explore three real-world approaches to attracting clients. Attendees will clarify how they present themselves, identify marketing approaches aligned with their strengths, and commit to one concrete step they can implement immediately after the conference.

The session is designed to help coaches feel more confident, energized, and authentic in the way they connect with potential clients.

Jayme Roderick

Coaching as Sacred Practice™ invites gay male coaches into a deeper relationship with themselves, their clients, and their calling. As gay men, we carry lived experiences of resilience, adaptation, and transformation. When we hold our coaching not only as a profession but as a sacred practice, something powerful emerges: presence becomes ministry, listening becomes devotion, truth becomes liberation, embodiment becomes reclamation, and service becomes love in action.
This workshop is both reflective and experiential, designed to awaken participants to the sacred dimensions of coaching while honoring the unique wisdom of queer experience.

Justin Meli

Many coaching clients are thoughtful, reflective, and deeply self-aware—yet continue to feel stuck in repeating patterns despite insight and motivation. This interactive workshop builds on themes introduced in ADHD Unmasked, exploring why highly aware clients—particularly those with ADHD and other forms of neurodiversity—often lose trust in their own capacity to change after repeated attempts that haven’t worked. Participants will learn coaching-specific approaches to help clients move beyond insight and self-blame into sustainable change by addressing patterns, adaptation, and access to choice.

Corey Powell

This workshop invites participants to explore branding as a creative, imaginative, and collaborative process—without the pressure of perfection. Instead of focusing on existing businesses, participants will work in small triads (groups of three) to invent a fictional brand from scratch. By doing so, they can experiment with storytelling, authenticity, and brand voice in a low-stakes, fun environment while gaining insights applicable to their own coaching practices.

Pillion is the highly acclaimed 2025 adaptation of Adam Mars-Jones’ novel Box Hill, a stirring exploration of how we, as gay men, often seek connection in the most unexpected of places. The story centers on Colin, a shy traffic warden living a quiet life in Bromley, England, whose world expands after a chance encounter with Ray, the enigmatic leader of a gay biker gang. Tying in the theme of our Conference, the film offers a unique lens: it suggests that connection is often found not by conforming to mainstream expectations, but by embracing our "capacity for devotion" and the specific subcultures where we finally feel “seen”.

The story follows...

Daniel Rodriguez Schlorff

Explore the foundational theories and practical strategies that drive meaningful transformation in individuals, organizations, and society. This interactive workshop will equip participants with tools to understand and implement change effectively, fostering growth and alignment across various contexts.

Key Takeaways:
- Personal Transformation: Review how to identify and overcome barriers to personal growth using evidence-based coaching techniques.
- Organizational Change: Discover strategies for fostering a culture of adaptability, innovation, and purpose within teams and organizations.
- Social Impact: Understand the dynamics of societal change and how to contribute to movements that create lasting, positive impact.
- Theories in Action: Apply transformative theories to real-world scenarios through guided exercises and group discussions.
- Holistic Approach: Integrate spiritual, emotional, and practical dimensions of change for comprehensive transformation.

This workshop is ideal for life or leadership coaches, as well as anyone who self-identifies as a change-maker seeking to deepen their impact and drive meaningful progress in an unrecognizably conflicted world.