Meet Rhiannon Batchelder of Rebuild with Rhia Coaching and Consulting

Today we’d like to introduce you to Rhiannon Batchelder. They and their team shared their story with us below:

Rhia Batchelder is an ICF-certified anti-burnout career coach, corporate wellness speaker and consultant, and former BigLaw attorney. She specializes in helping professionals thrive in their careers by prioritizing fulfillment, confidence, stress reduction, and stress management while consulting with companies on making anti-burnout culture shifts. Rhia graduated from New York University in 3 years, summa cum laude, with a degree in Politics. She received her J.D. from the University of Chicago Law School on a full-ride scholarship.

Prior to starting her own coaching and consulting business, Rhia practiced law at the highest levels in New York City and then in Denver, CO, where she now resides. When she began her career in law, Rhia was solely focused on achieving and winning external approval—often to the detriment of her own health and well-being.

Through college, law school, and her career in law, Rhia noticed a pattern: high-achieving professionals have many exceptional skills to offer, but they frequently do not know how to take care of themselves effectively, handle stress, or set themselves up to have long, productive, and fulfilling careers. Eventually, with the added stressors of the pandemic, the civil rights uprising, and an upcoming high-stakes election, Rhia suffered from extreme burnout that came with decreased motivation, low capacity, exhaustion, brain fog, and more.

She realized that she had been approaching her career all wrong. Although she amassed all the credentials she needed to be successful, she had not prioritized taking care of herself, addressing the beliefs that were holding her back, or finding work environments that met her needs. She shifted gears and began to focus on self-care and building self-worth.

These realizations and the growth they sparked inspired her to start Rebuild with Rhia to support other professionals in balancing their ambitions with the desire to live happy, fulfilling lives. It was evident from conversations with her peers in almost every industry that a change in approach is sorely needed.

Women especially have been taught to give, give, give, without thinking much about what they need and how to meet those needs. This fact results in higher levels of burnout, and dissatisfaction, and fewer women advancing to their fullest potential.

Both employers and employees can learn to create healthy work environments that boost employee retention, innovation, growth, and productivity. Rhia is here to facilitate those conversations and guide both sides of the equation toward tools and solutions that will have a big impact on corporate culture—for everyone’s benefit.

I’m sure it wasn’t obstacle-free, but would you say the journey has been fairly smooth so far?
Absolutely not! Transitioning from a traditional career–corporate litigation–to entrepreneurship came with a steep learning curve. Although the substantive work I do overlaps with the skillset I built as an attorney, there were so many gaps in knowledge that I had to fill to build my business to what it is today. For example, marketing, sales, and social media all felt completely foreign to me when I started Rebuild with Rhia 3 years ago.

Beyond that, I was still recovering from burnout as I started to build my business, which meant I did not have the capacity to pour the hours a new entrepreneur typically works into my business. I had to let go of perfectionism and allow myself to learn, fail, and retry. Learning that it is okay to be seen trying, growing, and learning was essential to remaining committed through all the roadblocks.

We’ve been impressed with Rebuild with Rhia Coaching and Consulting, but for folks who might not be as familiar, what can you share with them about what you do and what sets you apart from others?
My business aims to eradicate burnout. I offer coaching for high-achieving professionals who need realistic strategies for reducing stressors in their lives alongside stress management tools that actually work–even for the busiest people. I also help professionals identify what works for them at work and what doesn’t, so they can stay in their zones of genius and avoid unnecessary stressors. Most professionals come to me feeling stuck and leave understanding that there are realistic solutions that will make their work lives run smoother.

At the same time, I believe that burnout is ultimately a cultural and institutional issue–and my business also works to address the root cause of the burnout crisis. I offer consulting and speaking to teach others about the shifts that need to happen to reduce our overall stress loads as a society.

I consult with companies across the world, helping them identify realistic culture and policy shifts that they can make to reduce undue stress, and therefore increase productivity, loyalty, and profits while reducing attrition. I utilize my prior experience as a corporate attorney who performed internal investigations to conduct personalized corporate culture audits that will actually move the needle for the organization’s workforce.

Not only does burnout harm the individual professional experiencing it, but it can remove professionals from the workforce for months to years. Considering that high-achievers and diverse professionals are at higher risk of burnout, society as a whole should be incredibly concerned about the impact burnout is having on the future of the workforce.

The crisis has affected us all in different ways. How has it affected you and any important lessons or epiphanies you can share with us?
Absolutely. The COVID-19 crisis was the first time I was able to slow down enough to realize how unhappy I was practicing law. I was so busy prior to COVID, it was hard to reckon with how I was really feeling. COVID and the BLM uprising opened my eyes and made me reassess my true values, which ultimately led me to the conclusion that I needed to stop overgiving to work and start taking care of myself again.

I started to rebalance my life and pour into myself in 2020, which ultimately gave me the confidence to start my own business. Prior to 2021, I had not even considered that I could become an entrepreneur. I don’t think I would have taken the leap had I not had my worldview shaken so intensely!

Pricing:

• 90-minute coaching sessions cost $299 and can be geared toward creating a burnout-fighting strategy or getting clarity on what’s next at work.
• Hourly coaching packages start at $549
• Long-term coaching support starts at $2,700
• Powerful: the End of Burnout is a self-paced course for high-achievers that costs $549 for lifetime access

Contact Info:

• Website: www.rebuildwithrhia.com
• Instagram: @rebuild.with.rhia
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/rhiannon-batchelder-b5424a22/