What to Expect When Working with Kenji: Q&A

Q: What’s It’s Like to Work With Kenji?

A: “In coaching use the Co-Active Training Institute’s model of holding powerful space, knowing that you are ‘creative, resourceful, and whole’, while asking simple but honest questions that assist you in finding the choices and understandings that move you towards what you define as success and/or shift or understanding. My longest running client (of a decade!) calls me a “master at drawing out. But spiritual direction is an entirely different experience. We create a conversational space together, that’s about your discovery of what you define as goddess or god or spirit or no words at all! From there we may discuss your experience in life, past experiences, and or what your current journey looks like. It's what's called "non-directive interfaith spiritual direction”! Where direction isn't the point!”

Q: What’s Coachable?

A: "Anything and everything. Whether it’s deepening your soul journey, becoming more effective in your work, making more money, or finding balance and ease in daily life, everything and anything can be coached. I’ve assisted a long term clients be: “more fulfilled,” shift professions, move cross country, “truly transform,” partner in being a “catalyst for positive change,” develop a deeper understanding of “flow,” while being a “kind, considerate, understanding, empathetic” guide, with “a nice relaxed and caring vibe.”

Q: How is Coaching Different From Therapy and Spiritual Direction?

A: "Therapy is past-focused, coaching is focused in the present and the future. In coaching we use self-inquiry to discover hidden knowledge and create, if asked for, accountability practices, combined with regular meetings that move you towards your goals. In therapy you’re (me too!) processing issues from the past in order to affect your current life. In coaching you’re processing your current life with the focus on action.

Spiritual direction, also known as spiritual guiding or companionship, we co-create a safe space for you to discover what your sense of the divine is, not what anyone else told you. In spiritual direction I am speaking, only “when spoken through.”

No matter what the modality, together, we’ll walk the path of self – we create a relationship that supports you in discovering your most effective understandings.”

Q: How Long Should I Expect to be Coached or in Spiritual Direction?

A: “Seeing changes in coaching takes 3-18 months. Coaching isn’t a quick fix – it’s a commitment to you. That said, some clients appreciate a short-term relationship in which intense transformation can occur relatively quickly, and some clients are interested in exploring a path that lasts a long time and enables exploration that builds upon itself.

Spiritual Direction clients, if you feel well matched, can come for a few sessions or years.”

Q: What’s Your Style?

A: “My style is free of judgement and creates an environment where we get to find what works and what doesn’t. Using inquiry and thought provoking conversations as a starting point, you’ll commit to only the things that feel best for you, while I keep you motivated, cheer you on, ask questions, take some notes, believe in you/your process, and help you set and meet goals (if that’s what you want!). When we’re together, expect 10% tools and 90% intuitive co-creativity. One recent client said: “Your coaching is very brass tacks with an implicit promise of you can want more, do more, and feel better. Not only do I get to explore how I feel about a current situation but you help me find my best solutions to my questions.” Many of my clients internalize my coaching style and have reported back to me that when they’re stuck they ask themselves ‘Kenji Type Questions.’”

Q: How can I get to know you?

A: “This is a very important question. Just like you don’t want to work with someone who doesn’t “get” you, I don’t either. Working with me is a very personal relationship and each session should feel like you’re spending time with a caring colleague who has your back. So, schedule a Sample Session and let’s chat. We’ll meet and you’ll get to experience my best coaching on-the-spot. We can decide together what’s next!”

Q: What if our intro call doesn’t work for me?

The intro call is a discovery session where we both find out where you are on your path and what you think you need. I'm not wedded to being your coach or spiritual Director, I am here to help you figure out the next step. I may suggest some of the online coaching companies, I may suggest other professionals. Let’s start in appreciation and abundance and see what happens. Your first coaching assignment is to make 3 appointments with perspective guides – I hope I’m one of them.”

Q: What are your qualifications?

A: “My B.S. From Lesley University and was in psychology; however I studied myself and people I admiredstudied, not so much the classics. My certification from the Co-active Training Institute was in 2011, and I was studying coaching before that with world renowned author Kate Kelly. I think my biggest accomplishment in coaching is having spent over 5,000 hours working with clients. Not to mention the decades I've been a coaching client, in spiritual direction myself, and in therapy. I graduated from the Chaplaincy Institute in Berkeley in 2021. My biggest teacher, however, is the school of hard knocks of which I've been in for over six decades!

Q: Tell Me More About You.

A: "I’ve lived a life of multiple professions, experiences, self-development, challenges, and learning. I bring 6 decades of living, growing, and learning to my coaching practice, 3 decades of working in multiple professions, and 3 decades into my own self development. I’ve been meditating for half my life, have developed a spiritual path in both Western and Eastern philosophies, but most importantly, I have an advanced degree in the ‘school of hard knocks.’ I’ve learned to live with multiple invisible disabilities and lived as a gay-cis bicultural and biracial man in a society struggling with race and oppression. Having created a wonderful diverse life of success, I am curious and excited to walk with my clients as they do the same.”

I have a bachelors of science, I am a certified co-active professional coach, and I am a certified interfaith spiritual director.

In the smorgasbord of my life experiences, I’ve:

• Attended 4 universities (B.S. from Lesley University in Cambridge, Massachusetts)

• Worked in the restaurant industry for a decade as a teenager and a young adult

• Studied Buddhism under core teachers Larry Yang and Mushim Ikeda for years at East Bay Meditation Center

• Was the full-charge bookkeeper for 2 multi-million dollar organizations, including a real estate company (when I was 22!)

• Traveled the US as a national Asian HIV prevention community organizer providing weekend organizational development retreats for boards of directors in 8 major cities in the US

• Teaching mindfulness and ‘the Dharma’ at a disabled Sangha in Oakland

• Managed the customer service & office management staff for a 17-million dollar 17-month dot.com rise and fall (what a blast!) in 1999.

• Managed a 2,000 square foot private dorm facility at UC Berkeley for 7 years; catering exclusively to high-performing students – overseeing maintenance, construction, payables, receivables, and on site management

• Managed the 9,000 square foot gut rehab for a non-profit with 40-staff (with a teeny budget of $100k); assisted in the merger for that same non-profit developing their HR processes, an employee handbook, and an HR department

• Owned my own small business as a Macintosh computer support consultant for a decade

• Developed curricula for the State of California for the LGBTQI population for state funded substance abuse counselors

• Been an HIV/AIDS/LGBTQI activist, public speaker, writer, spoken-word performer, singer, graphic designer, dishwasher, son, administrator, uncle, godfather, mentor, mentee, friend, leader, facilitator, waiter, mechanic, spiritual director, and now coach

• Studied coaching, spiritual direction, graphic design, industrial design, metaphysics, psychology, Buddhism, and consulted with a MacArthur Genius grant awardee on wheelchair design, repair, and construction; volunteering to repair wheelchairs for unhoused individuals

• Attend a monthly spiritual direction group supervision, as well as have my own monthly meetings with my spiritual director, and have seen the same marvelous therapist for the last decade

• And … when I was 16, scooped ice cream at ‘Friendlys!’ (it’s a lot of fun, because all of your customers are happy and satisfied!)

I give back by coaching, spiritually directing, and mentoring a few individuals who couldn’t otherwise afford coaching, teach the Dharma, and do my best to bring kindness and patience to my whole life and those I encounter. I focus my time living in the Bay Area on coaching, teaching, and loving my wonderful friends/family and community who make up the awesome world I’m lucky to be part of.”