CEOs, founders, and business owners
Who have advisors for everything except the person making the decisions, and who are carrying more than anyone around them can see.
Brian Bachman: The Licensed Counselor Executives Hire When the Problem Isn’t the Business
Ten years of clinical practice. A seminary degree. A whiteboard. And a real interest in the moment you see your own story differently.
I am an executive coach and a Missouri Licensed Professional Counselor based in St. Louis. I work privately with CEOs, founders, business owners, surgeons, attorneys, pastors, and professional athletes, people who are winning by every visible measure and who know something underneath is not right. My job is to find the pattern connecting the things they thought were separate problems, and to help them change it.
Why I do this
I did not come to this work from the outside. I came to it because someone showed me my own blind spots.
For a long stretch of my twenties I felt like an orphan. Not literally, but I had no home base: no relationships where I did not have to perform, no place to recover when I got chewed up. I was also, without knowing it, choosing people who would confirm the story. My type was emotionally unavailable. When someone showed real interest, my first thought was what’s the angle? I was pushing away the exact thing I needed and blaming everyone else for the distance.
I could not see any of that. Nobody can see their own blind spots; that is what makes them blind spots. A counselor saw it, and was kind enough and direct enough to say so. That experience is the reason I do this. I know what it is like to be capable and stuck, to understand your patterns intellectually and keep repeating them anyway, and to have someone finally draw the loop in a way that made it visible. I have spent a decade learning to do that for other people.
Who I work with
High-responsibility people who are functioning well and know something is off.
Physicians, surgeons, and attorneys
Whose vigilance keeps patients and clients safe and keeps them awake at 3 a.m., and whose families get the depleted version.
Pastors and ministry leaders
Who cannot say the unedited thing to anyone in their congregation, and whose formation has quietly fallen behind their platform.
Professional athletes and high performers
For whom the pressure to never look weak became the thing holding them back.
Successful families
Where wealth removed the constraints and did not answer the questions: adult children who went quiet, a marriage that became logistics, gifts standing in for repair.
Christians who want faith integrated
Not decorative. Central, when it matters to you, and left out when it does not.
How I work
Direct, down to earth, and visual. I use a whiteboard more than a workbook.
You use consultants. When a problem is complex enough to reach your desk, you know it is rarely caused by one thing; it is a system, and you bring in someone with enough expertise and distance to see it. Humans are no different. When a client tells me five complaints, a board that finds him defensive, a marriage gone quiet, a drinking habit, sleepless nights, a company he cannot stop running from bed, I am looking for the one system producing all five. When it is drawn out, the response is almost always: “oh, that makes a lot more sense.”
That is the moment I am after. Clients tell me I see patterns other experts miss, which I credit to the clinical training, and that I am obviously rooting for them, which I credit to the fact that I am. I am joyful about this work. I celebrate breakthroughs out loud. And I will tell you the truth, including when the truth is that what you have is not a coaching problem.
Background
Clinical training. Theological training. A decade of practice.
Missouri Licensed Professional Counselor
An active clinical license and ten years of clinical experience. My counseling practice, New Pathways Counseling, is separate from the coaching on this site, and it is the reason I can tell a leadership problem from a clinical one.
Master of Arts in Counseling, Covenant Theological Seminary
Graduate training in counseling and theology, which is why faith can be integrated seriously when a client wants it rather than bolted on.
Author of Turn Off Porn
A whole-person framework for compulsive behavior: the premise that compulsion is an unmet-need problem, not a willpower problem. The same premise runs through everything I do with executives.
Speaker
On leadership psychology, formation, and the patterns beneath high performance.
200+ clients, 10 years
Executives, physicians, pastors, athletes, and families. 94% of clients who provided feedback said they would return for future growth.
Independent corroboration
Psychology Today verified profile, LinkedIn, and New Pathways Counseling. Links below.
On faith
I am a Christian. Faith is integrated when it matters to you and left out when it does not.
Many of my clients want faith at the center of the work, and for them the questions about what success is serving become formation questions, taken seriously with Scripture, prayer, and the psychological work underneath. Many of my clients do not, and the work stays exactly where they want it. I do not have a hidden agenda in either direction. Christian executive coaching is the pathway for those who want it central.
Coaching, not therapy
The credential is background. The value is synthesis.
The coaching on this site is coaching: future-oriented, goal-directed, under a written coaching agreement, and not psychotherapy. My license does not convert an engagement into treatment. What it does is let me recognize when something is clinical, and say so, and help you find the right care. Clients are not paying for a diagnosis or a set of scores. They are paying for a working model of how they operate, tested against six months of real life. See a sample Whole-Person Profile
Selected client feedback
What clients say.
“Brian sees patterns other experts miss. I could never turn my brain off or simply enjoy the life I built. Now, with Brian’s expertise, money serves me. I do not serve it anymore.”
“Through Brian’s wisdom and direction, we’ve recalibrated my home life. Our family has never been so close. Instead of repeating generational failure, we’re fixing it.”
“Brian’s guidance is invaluable. He quickly assessed the stuck points and I found a sustainable path. Imposter syndrome was holding me back in my performance. Brian helped me unlock my fullest potential.”
Questions
Questions people ask before the first call.
What actually happens on the 20-minute call?
You tell me what is going on. I ask a few questions. I tell you honestly whether it is the kind of problem I help with, whether coaching or clinical care is the right door, and which depth of engagement fits. No pitch, no pressure to decide on the call.
Is it confidential?
Completely. Nothing goes to your company, your board, your church, or your spouse unless you choose to bring it. For St. Louis-area clients I meet at your home or office; there is no waiting room.
Are you a therapist or a coach?
Both, in separate practices. On this site I am your coach. The license means I can tell the difference between a pattern and a condition, and I will.
Do you only work with Christians?
No. Faith is integrated when it matters to you and left out when it does not. Roughly half of my clients want it central.
Do you work outside St. Louis?
Yes. Most engagements are by video across the United States. In-person meetings are available in the St. Louis region.
Private whole-person coaching
If you have been capable and stuck for a while, it is probably not a lack of insight. It is a blind spot, and those need a second set of eyes.
A 20-minute private conversation. No pitch. You tell me what is off, I tell you honestly whether I am the right person, and we decide together whether to go further.
Book a private 20-minute consult