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Kristen Bentley

Kristen is a gentle leader and coach with surprising strength, tenacity and compassionate insight. She creates energizing conversation to push the limits of what people, families, organizations and communities think they know. Applying critical thinking to individual, societal and systemic assumptions and conditioning is something that Kristen believes is critical for personal change & the change and transformation required for our world.

After owning and operating a successful Optometry business for 16 years, married for 23 and raising 3 boys, she recognized that success on paper was and is not all that it is chalked up to be. This realization has sent her on a trajectory of personal learning and discovery that conveniently and transformatively collided with the realization that her own personal growth, as a white cis-gendered heterosexual educated middle-class female with the resulting power and privilege, cannot be separated from the social and collective systems and structures that have been created throughout history.

She firmly believes that the cycles of socialization* that have created our internalized thought patterns and expected ways of being in society (that, for many of us, get to a point where they become life-diminishing and not aligned with the truth of who we are) are the same cycles that have created oppressive patterns (like racism, colourism, heterosexism, ableism, etc.) in society. She also firmly believes that interrupting these cycles with deep awareness and action, that breaks the status quo, is leadership of the future - leadership that will serve one's whole life and the whole of life.

Now an International Facilitator/Trainer and Faculty for the largest, global in-person coach training school, The Co-Active Training Institute, and owner of her own boutique Coaching and Leadership company, Kristen is particularly passionate about working with people that decide that it is their responsibility to create the future success of their business, families, communities and world.

She is committed to an integrative, inclusive, equitable and humble approach in her work to leave a footprint of transformational change that is deep, authentic, relevant, innovative, just, ever-evolving and open to further growth. Her work is deeply inspired and influenced by several bodies of work and thought leaders in the industries and ideologies of coaching, leadership, human behaviour & development and social change & justice. She is deeply grateful to reside and work on the beautiful land of the Anishnaabeg people and is focused on moving forward in the spirit of reconciliation and respect and continuing to learn what that means.

Kristen's clients value the combination of her soft and yet direct approach in her coaching and training. Her clients come from a range of identities, countries, cultures, histories and choices around how they want to live their life. What they have in common is a desire to intentionally leave a footprint and legacy that is important to them in all key areas of their life and to really "be the change they wish to see in the world"** where their inner growth and liberation is inextricably connected to collective growth and liberation.

*Bobbie Harro/Desiree Adaway

**Mahatma Gandhi

Read more about Kristen in her note to you.

My note to you is in transition as is my website.

The understanding of my brand is evolving. For the last several years, Whole-Life Leadership had an identity whose tagline was: When investing in you invests in your work, marriage & family. This represented the personal deep dive and investment that it takes to integrate the real you into the key aspects of your life that matter to you. Most of my clients were like me - the key aspects of their life that were important to them were these 3 main aspects. 'Work', which represented finding a meaningful career or vocation where one can be connected to what matters about how they spend their days contributing either in a paid or unpaid role. 'Marriage' actually represented any important relationship or relationships in one's life. Many of my clients worked with me to help them create and deepen the relationship(s) they were in and/or to end their relationship(s) consciously and intentionally. Lastly, 'family' represented the parent-child, adult child-aging parent, sibling or extended familial relationships. Many of my clients used our coaching to break dysfunctional family patterns and create new, loving, healthy, intentional family relationships in alignment with who and how they want to show up in these relationships and family systems. To summarize, I have helped clients become conscious leaders, that are responsive rather than reactive, in all key aspects of their life - their Whole-Life.

This is all still true for what I offer and work with with clients AND as I have worked with clients and been on my own personal development journey, I witnessed a pattern. As my clients gain awareness of themselves, they realize that they have internalized messages about 'how they SHOULD live their life'. In order to find their truth about how they WANT to live their life, they have to let go of this conditioning, think out of the box, beyond what is deemed 'normal' and make some choices that may feel radical, non-conformative and even rebellious.

What I have more recently become aware of is, where this conditioning originates from, how pervasive it is in society and how harmful it is on a personal and larger social level. I am realizing that our personal development cannot be separated from the social systems and structures that created the initial conditioning that we are developing away from AND for all of us to personally thrive, the beliefs, socialization and systems have to be dismantled and reconstructed. This, I believe, is leadership of the future that is going to have individuals thrive in their whole-life and for the whole of life (all people and our planet) to thrive.

So, as a result, my brand and my website is in the middle of the evolution of this messaging. My musings are strictly from a personal level for now and I am in the process of writing more musings that integrate my thoughts...at the intersection of personal development and social change. So, stay tuned!

Thank you for your patience.