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Meet Daniel Brisbon of Above Treeline Coaching in Capitol Hill

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Today we’d like to introduce you to Daniel Brisbon.

Thanks for sharing your story with us Daniel. So, let’s start at the beginning and we can move on from there.
My story began the day I was born into this beautiful world. My mom becoming pregnant with me back in 1985 was about as unplanned as you can get.

To give you a little context, my mom was a 24-year-old college student, living in Walnut Creek, CA, and my dad was a 38-year-old fire captain that happened to work at a fire station that was directly across the street from my mom’s home at the time. My dad was already married to his high school sweetheart with two kids, my older brother and sister, and was the captain of a crew of highly trained firefighters in the East Bay Area. And I’m not going to dive into the details of their romance, but suffice to say, the two of them met, sparks flew between them, and nine months later I arrived. It’s pretty much something out of a day time soap opera.

Strong, good-looking and well-rounded fire captain meets beautiful, young college students from across the street. And even though nothing should happen between these two characters, they defy the odds and lean into their desires for each other. My parents never got together after I was born. My dad stayed married to my step-mom and my mother and father decided to work together on taking turns raising throughout my childhood and teenage years.

And the reason I share this little fun fact about me is because the uniqueness of my being born into this world has had a major impact on my perspective and outlook on life. I don’t perceive our existence through the same lens that most people do. And that has had a major impact on my journey into my career as a Nature-Connected Life Coach. I knew I was different. I knew I was unique. And I knew I was going to live a life that honored that.

But it wasn’t until February 1, 2008, that I realized that I was not meant to live a mediocre or run-of-the-mill kind of life. It was on this specific day that my life changed forever because it was on this day that the woman that brought me into this world and raised me into the man I am today, passed away. My mother was diagnosed with leukemia in January 2005 and after a three year battle with that ugly cancer, her body could no longer fight the battle. And when you are standing over the person you love more than anything or anyone else and watch her breathe her last breaths, something happens to you. You are given a choice. Will I allow this experience to send me in a downward spiral of fear and loss? Or will I use the loss of my mother to amplify and inspire my purpose and direction in life?

I was born on January 21, 1985, and if you are able to do some quick math, you will see that my mom also passed away the day after my 23rd birthday. And over the three year battle with leukemia, the relationship I had with my mom only became stronger and stronger as I visited her every day in the hospital as she underwent chemo sessions. Every event that happens in our life has the opportunity to make us or break us. Nothing that happens to us in this life is good or bad, right or wrong, but we do have the freedom to choose what we do with it. And after several years of drowning in guilt and shame around the death of my mother and literally hitting rock bottom in my personal life, did I finally realize that I had this opportunity to choose. I knew if I stayed on my current path that I would probably end up a drug addict, a complete train wreck, a waste of life. Or maybe I’d be dead. Or both.

And I remember like it was yesterday, sitting in my room, exhausted after a long day of work and riding mountain bikes that I had my epiphany. My “AH-HA” moment. I realized that I had the power to choose how I would honor my mom’s life and her death. And that I would honor her the only way I knew how. Through my own personal life and vision. I knew I couldn’t control who my parents were, how I was born into this world, or when I would lose my mother, but I realized in that moment that I had the power to control how I would move forward with her death. And so that’s exactly what I did. Rather than go through the motions each day and live from a place of fear, doubt, and shame, I decided that it was time to change. And not just change what I was doing with my life, but also how I was being in my life. I decided that I would do this by going on my own personal journey into healing my core wounds and that I would do whatever it takes to live a life of peace, joy, purpose and abundance.

At first, I was able to channel this new spark of inspiration and dedication to my mountain biking career. I decided to go from being a novice mountain biker to becoming a professional mountain bike racer that was competing with the fastest racers throughout the world. I was going to devote my time, focus and energy to becoming the best mountain biker that I was physically and mentally capable of becoming. And after graduating college with a degree in Construction Management from Cal Poly, SLO I decided that I was going to move out of California and fully pursue a career as a project manager for a construction firm. I decided to move away from California and settle down somewhere near the mountains and nature. Which brought me to Denver, CO. I’ve been living in Denver for the last five and a half years and my first year was spent working in the construction industry.

And after moving away from all my friends and family to an unknown place where I didn’t know a single soul and stepping into a devoted life in my career in construction did the little voice in my head start to turn up the volume knob. Every day I would go to work and this voice in my head would tell me, “You’re doing a great job, but there’s something more for you…”. It never said anything more than that. And it never went away. And after roughly a year of listening to this voice chime in every day to let me know that there was something more for me in this world, that I finally decided to take action on it and explore what I was supposed to be doing with my life.

So I quit my job. And decided to spend some time doing some deep listening and soul searching. And after a couple of months, all I knew was that I wanted to learn about leadership skills and how the outdoors can be utilized to empower leadership skills in other people. Because nature and all my time spent in the outdoors taught me more about myself than any college degree ever could.

And through a frantic Google search, I stumbled upon a life-coaching school in Boulder, CO that focused on transformation and nature-connection. At the time I had no idea what life coaching was, but I trusted my intuition and signed up for the year-long training program in Boulder. The little voice in my head decided to make its presence known and started almost screaming at me to lean into discomfort and sign up for this coaching program at this school called the Earth-Based Institute. I began my journey into learning how to practice life coaching in February 2016 and then graduated in the summer of 2017.

And after graduation, I decided to start my own personal coaching practice called Above Treeline Coaching. I knew I wanted to work with men on some of the common themes that I experienced on a very deep and profound level so that I could teach and coach them how to create purpose and vision in their life and then how to take action and create a whole life that honors the gifts, skills and abilities that they can share and empower in their personal and professional life.

I also was hired by the Earth-Based Institute in December 2017 to mentor and coach students going through the same coaching program that I graduated from and I have been mentoring students ever since. So now my life revolves around coaching transformation with my personal clients as well as teaching and mentoring my students to effectively do this in their own personal coaching practice as well. I eat, live and breathe transformation and growth. I love it more than anything in the world. And I am so grateful that I took the leap into the unknown and pursue a life and career that can be used to honor myself and to honor the most amazing woman to ever walk this earth, my mom.

We’re always bombarded by how great it is to pursue your passion, etc – but we’ve spoken with enough people to know that it’s not always easy. Overall, would you say things have been easy for you?
It has been the bumpiest road I have ever travelled. But I like bumpy. Being a true and authentic life coach means living out what I coach, practicing what I preach. One thing I learned early on in my journey from being a project manager in the construction industry to becoming a life coach is that I cannot successfully guide my client down a path or journey that I have not gone down myself. If I am truly going to transform people’s lives and make the impact in the world that I have always dreamed, then I must go down those dark and scary trails inside of my internal wilderness. I must learn to see, accept and transform my inner demons in order to do the same with others.

Over the last four years, I have transformed my shame into a deep sense of power and connection within myself and others. I learned to turn my resentment and frustration into gratitude and forgiveness. I’ve learned how to turn fear into one of my best friends. And in today’s day and age people need to learn that one simple truth more than anything. I’ve gone into the darkest and scariest aspects of my identity and my beliefs so that I could see them for what they are, heal them, and then transform those aspects of myself into something amazing.

And because of this, I can confidently and passionately share myself and my story with the world. I’ve gone most of my life being closed off and hiding myself from the world and now I can honestly say that those old parts and old beliefs that I held are no longer there. When my mom passed away 12 years ago, most of my best friends didn’t even know that she had passed because I didn’t know how to share with them. I was very private and closed off about my personal life.

Now I look forward to sharing my story with anyone who will listen, and I look forward to hearing their story and how they can apply the same principles that I have learned and mastered into their own personal life. This journey of being a life coach has been the bumpiest and darkest road I have ever walked down. And I am forever grateful that I took the plunge into my own personal transformation and never looked back. I thank my mom and my dad for teaching me how to be resilient, gritty and to always persevere through the hardest times of our lives.

We’d love to hear more about your work.
My business is called Above Treeline Coaching and I am a certified life coach that specializes in guiding my clients toward creating their unique personal vision for their personal and professional life and how to walk their journey of creating that vision in the real world with focus and grace. I train my clients to understand the doubts, fears and beliefs that may suffocate their progress of creating the unbelievable in their life. And my unique twist is that I utilize nature in my work. Rather than meet in an office, I prefer to take my clients into the outdoors.

From a multi-day trip into the awe-inspiring Rocky Mountains to a nice stroll in Cheesman Park in Denver. Nature is a teacher and a metaphor for our personal lives. We are connected to nature and this planet in deeper ways than most people are consciously aware of and through deep listening practices and getting rid of the normal distractions of everyday life, my clients are able to connect the dots of what needs to change in their life. Nature has a natural baseline energy that is peaceful and clarifying, and when we spend enough time in nature then our internal state will naturally start to match that of nature. Plus who doesn’t love being in nature? I moved here from California because of the amazing potential to explore the great outdoors.

My time in nature has taught me so many powerful qualities about myself, especially in the world of leadership, that I want to share with everyone that is willing to listen to apply nature-connection in their own personal growth and vision for their life. I could go on and on about the benefits of spending time in nature, but the most important thing is that I have experienced those benefits and I am inspired and excited to share with my clients how they can experience those benefits as well.

What I am most proud of with my company is that it’s really my story, my experiences, and my learning edges that I get to share with the world! That’s connection and love at the deepest level in this world. And I don’t make cookie-cutter versions of myself in my clients, I train them to apply these exercises and principles in the way that works best for them. I empower others to use their creativity and imagination to apply these life-changing practices in a way that works best for them.

My work is constantly changing and evolving with each person and therefore my work inspires me to be forever present and grounded with each client. I learn from my clients and they learn and grow from me. My work is never stagnant or boring and my own ego cannot be a part of the equation when working with others. I must be compassionate and understanding in order for my client to trust and be vulnerable with me and I promise to be that way with them. What better way to walk through this world than to live every day intentionally growing within myself and walking with others on their own personal growth! To get myself and my clients into a new perspective and way of being… to move from the confusion and into clarity… to move out of the dense forest and Above Treeline!

So, what’s next? Any big plans?
Other than continue to build my business and client base, my big plan is to grow and expand my impact. I will be doing this by growing my men’s vision empowerment group which I began this year. I am creating a tribe of men that grow and empower each other on creating and maintaining their own personal visions.

In today’s day and age, there aren’t many effective men’s groups that focus on vision and forward movement while also being open and honest about our doubts and fears. There is great strength in vulnerability and my vision in my men’s group is to train and empower all the members to show up, share, and support each other through their own journeys. I’m very excited about creating this tribe and seeing what comes to fruition from this journey of mine to create that.

Pricing:

  • I require all of my clients to sign up for a minimum of 4 sesssions with me in order to shift, empower and maintain their new habits and lifestyle. 4 sessions is $350 and all other pricing from there is discussed in person with me and my client.

Contact Info:

Image Credit:
Tara Sproc Photography
Lukas Gordon Photography

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