Hidden Gems: Meet Ryan Conklin of The Bridger Coaching

Today we’d like to introduce you to Ryan Conklin.

Hi Ryan, we’d love for you to start by introducing yourself.
I didn’t start out wanting to be a coach. I was living a life that looked solid on the outside, career, relationships, forward motion, but inside something wasn’t aligned. Then a series of losses hit close together and everything I was standing on gave way. I lost my sense of direction, identity, and certainty all at once.

That collapse forced me into a different kind of education. I had to slow down, face grief directly, and get honest about the ways I had been performing my life instead of inhabiting it. I spent years apprenticing myself to that process, through deep inner work, wilderness immersion, somatic practices, and learning how real change actually happens when you stop bypassing what hurts. That reckoning included quitting drinking, facing grief I’d been numbing for years, and walking into the wilderness, literally and metaphorically, to discover who I was underneath the performance.

Over time, people started coming to me, not because I had answers, but because I knew how to stay present in the hard conversations. That became Bridger Coaching. Today, I work with people who are exhausted from pretending they have it together. They’ve built lives that look successful but feel hollow, and they’re ready to stop performing and start living. I guide them through year-long transformational coaching, wilderness immersion, breathwork, and threshold work, for people who don’t need motivation or tactics. They need clarity, connection, and the courage to meet what’s actually asking for their attention.

That’s how I got here: not by building a business or brand first, but by walking through my own reckoning and learning how to be changed by the process, and now guiding others through theirs.

Can you talk to us a bit about the challenges and lessons you’ve learned along the way. Looking back would you say it’s been easy or smooth in retrospect?
Not at all. It’s been a reckoning.
One of the hardest parts was letting go of the version of myself I thought I was supposed to become. For a long time, I didn’t have a clear identity or a tidy story to tell. I was in between, no longer who I had been, not yet who I was becoming. In a culture that rewards certainty and confidence, that kind of not-knowing can feel like failure.
Another real struggle was learning that I couldn’t outwork or outthink what was happening. Grief, shame, and self-judgment demanded to be felt, not solved. Slowing down and staying present with that went against every instinct I had to push forward, optimize, or “fix” myself.
Professionally, I also had to choose depth over performance. This work doesn’t scale through formulas or funnels. It’s built through trust, presence, and word of mouth. That meant tolerating uncertainty and staying aligned even when the path wasn’t obvious.
It hasn’t been smooth. But it’s been real. And that lived honesty is exactly what makes the work land for the people it’s meant for.

Alright, so let’s switch gears a bit and talk business. What should we know?
I work with people who are outwardly successful but inwardly unsettled. They’ve done everything “right,” and yet something inside knows the current way of operating won’t take them where they’re being asked to go next. That edge, that threshold, is where my work lives.

I specialize in contradiction and change. Most of my clients are living in contradiction: successful but empty, knowing what needs to change but not doing it, wanting transformation but terrified to let go of who they’ve been. The gap between knowing and doing is where most people’s lives are lost. That’s where I work.

My methodology:
I guide people through year-long transformational coaching that combines:
– Wilderness immersion (literal backcountry experiences in Colorado)
– Breathwork and somatic healing (working with what the body knows, not just what the mind thinks)
– Threshold work (staying present through identity death and the uncomfortable middle)

This isn’t quick-fix coaching. It’s deep, embodied work for people ready to face what they’ve been avoiding, grief, shadow, the truth beneath their performance, and actually cross the threshold into a life that’s theirs.

What sets this apart? I see my clients as whole and complete, capable people who don’t need fixing. They’ve thrived their way here. And they’re waking up to a hard truth: what got me here won’t take me forward. I work with them to strengthen their relationship with themselves, turn internal monologue into dialogue (listening to body, shadow, grief, wilderness), and create the conditions for real change, not force it.

How people work with me? I offer 1:1 coaching, wilderness immersion and vision quest. The name The Bridger reflects the work itself: walking with people as they cross from who they’ve been into who they’re becoming.

Can you tell us more about what you were like growing up?
Growing up, I was curious and adventurous, exploring outdoors, ideas, people, the world itself. I was insatiable in learning, always asking questions, trying to understand how things worked and why people were the way they were.

At the same time, I carried a deep hunger for connection. Early experiences of lost trust and broken safety left me highly sensitive to others and aware of my own wounds. That sadness and longing shaped the way I move through the world.

Those two threads, wild curiosity and a search for deep connection, became the core of who I am. I learned to explore boldly while noticing the subtleties others often miss. The same instincts that guided me as a child, attunement, curiosity, courage, tracking, now define the work I do today: helping people meet themselves fully at their own thresholds.

Pricing:

• Yearlong 1:1 Coaching with two 4 day wilderness immersions. Investment $15k
• The Mirror Year in Review– 6-Week Transformational Program: Designed for leaders and high-capacity people ready to gain clarity, connect deeply, and map their next steps. Investment $497
• THRIVE By Design – A 16 week program to support you to create the conditions, through energy, environment, relationships, and systems, for your intentions to emerge and flourish. Investment $2997
• Vision Quest – 8 Day Wilderness Rites of Passage

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.thebridgercoaching.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/thebridgercoaching/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100081164994996
• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ryan-conklin-12947640/
• Other: https://ryanconklin.substack.com/

Image Credits
First Image of Ryan Conklin is taken by Attily Spalvins

The second 4 are taken as self portraits by Ryan Conklin