Here’s a collection of testimonials from people I’ve coached in the past. Reach out here to schedule a session with me!
“We never know when, how and who is going to come into our lives and make a huge impact. That’s how I feel about Steven. We connected on twitter, I kept on seeing his meaningful posts which resonated with a lot of my own values and goals.
So I signed up for a few sessions, thinking we can work through the summer and I can get a few things done.
What started as a casual coaching relationship, has now turned into a collaborative partnership that literally helped me make my dreams come true.
Steven has a really unique set of skills, he is an excellent thinker and writer (and a published author), he is witty, knowledgeable, interesting and interested and most importantly accountable and is always on time. If he makes a promise, he keeps it.
Our work revolves around making the world a better place, Steven’s understanding of human psychology has been instrumental in helping me align my goals and business strategy and plan.
He has been with me since the inception, without his help, I wouldn’t be where I am today. As much as I hate writing this testimonial as I don’t want to share him with anyone, the world needs to know what a great coach and a friend he has become.”
Anya P.
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“When I first came across The Emotion Machine website pretty much every aspect of my life was in disarray. I was 70+ lbs overweight, I was addicted to some seriously hard drugs, I was jobless, living in an RV, in a horrible relationship and still dealing with trauma that happened to me over a decade ago.
Every morning, for years, I woke up into the nightmare I was living. For months I read Steven’s articles. One by one I started implementing his suggestions. I started believing in myself again and wanting more from my life.
One day, after about a year of working through articles on The Emotion Machine, I received an invitation to work with Steven one-on-one. It was exactly what I needed, and I couldn’t pass up the opportunity to get to know the person who had helped me through so much.
It was immediately apparent that Steven was genuinely concerned and knew what he was talking about. I was presented daily with links to professional articles and challenged many times with tasks to help change my thinking and eventually my actions. The quality and quantity of individual attention I received was far beyond anything I expected.
As of today I’ve lost over 50 lbs, I’m sober, I have an amazing job, I live in a nice house, I am in a healthy relationship, but most importantly I’m happy.
What Steven and his coaching offers isn’t some magical, feel better fast, quick fix to all your problems. What it is, is scientifically researched and proven methods that when consistently applied, over time will change you into a happier, more successful, and a more emotionally centered better version of yourself.”
Candice B.
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“I’ve been working with Steven for several months and he has been a huge source of inspiration for me! He has a great way of understanding musicians and artists, and understanding the importance of being business-minded as a creative person in today’s society. 😀 During my time working with him I have found a way to become more organized, to overcome my deep insecurities (or at least understand them more), and get ready to give my music to the world – which is what I am alive for! It doesn’t hurt that Tila, his sweet dog is sometimes part of the conversation and she lights my day up! Keep up the good work, Steven, you make this society better with your work!”
Alex C.
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“After multiple phone calls and emails with Steven, I’m impressed that he can relate to many areas of my life, making small suggestions that have great ramifications. His communications are friendly and simple. His advice is clear, pertinent and profound. Steve sensibly and personally applies scientific and psychological knowledge to me and my life. His teachings demonstrate how he can easily communicate simple steps and processes, and he provides exercises to cement the learning. How is such a smart guy so personal and friendly? He’s a very intelligent and sensitive person!”
Gordon C.
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“As a writer, my progress has dramatically accelerated since I started working with Steven. I haven’t reached my overall goals yet, but with his help I’m now on the right path and moving faster than ever before.
Here are a few ways his coaching has improved my writing: they’ve given me permission to start, taught me to keep going through ‘dips’ in my productivity, and he encouraged my big goals and aspirations.
When I started, I had a lot of hesitation and mental blocks holding me back. After my very first coaching session with Steven, those mental blocks disappeared.
Before that coaching session, I had published 3 articles in 2 months. After the session, I published 5 articles in 2 weeks. Creating that much content gave me a powerful sense of purpose and progress.
During a 3 week period without publishing anything, it would have been easy to throw in the towel. Just say ‘This is not for me’ and give up on writing like I’ve done many times before.
However, that’s when having a coach is the most important. He helped me improve other areas of my life so they weren’t getting in the way of my creativity. He held me accountable to maintaining good habits so I would build the discipline to publish consistently.
I’d recommend hiring a coach for improving the most important aspects of your life. Sometimes we can spin our wheels for years without making progress. Then you hire a coach and start seeing massive growth.
As a coach, Steven has also been a very empathic and insightful listener. The Emotion Machine is a great example of his wide-ranging knowledge of self-development. I highly recommend him!”
Joel S.
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“I am an entrepreneur and I was feeling very overwhelmed with my work situation and perceived lack of progress on a number of fronts. I started working with Steven on the advice of a friend who was in a similar situation and had benefitted from his help. I found Steven to be extremely compassionate and easy to talk to. He listened without judgment, helped me identify some patterns around my negative self-talk and gave me practical advice on how to regain some control with tips that were easy to implement on a daily basis. And I really appreciated the follow-up emails that outlined our calls and reminded me of my action steps. Working with Steven over several months, I definitely made some positive changes. I wouldn’t hesitate to recommend him as a coach or use his services again myself!”
Shelley T.
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“Steven is a caring and kind coach whose deep knowledge of the mind and soul enables him to make meaningful relations with people from all different ages, cultures, and walks of life. Anyone who is struggling to find their better self, or in search of meaning in their life, can ask for Steven’s authentic and sincere companionship. Steven can make this hard journey much safer and tolerable. I strongly recommend him if you need someone by your side.”
Shokoufe K.
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“I came across Steven’s ‘The Emotion Machine’ after doing a search for psychology topics that I was researching for a creative project. After reading his profile and learning about his passion with writing scripts, I knew he was the one I needed to help me with my project. Working with Steven has been a life changing experience; he’s extremely personable, knowledgeable, optimistic and fun. He helps keep me motivated and on track by checking in with me periodically. I feel like he goes above and beyond the regular sessions by sending follow ups and input of his own homework assignments, which is greatly appreciated. It feels like he becomes a friend vs. a coach. I would highly recommend Steven and continue to look forward to working with him.”
Rhonda S.
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“I highly recommend giving coaching sessions with Steven a try. It’s nice to have someone with such a wide variety of practical psychology knowledge in your corner. I think the most valuable part of working with Steven has been his unique and often unconventional viewpoint. I have a tendency to get sucked into caring a lot about the ways that society typically defines success, and Steven has pushed me to divorce my self-worth from these standards. As evidenced by the numerous articles on The Emotion Machine, Steven really knows his way around the human mind, and that’s the type of person I like to enlist for advice.”
Ben H.
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“I used to see myself as someone who is not very confident. I used to collect motivational thoughts and images to comfort me, studied Psychology etc.
Deep down there was this feeling that ‘working on your self’ is not something on which I could talk to people openly. I would not say openly that I loved reading self improvement related books. If I want people to understand something I would use ‘Psychology’ because the meaning associated with the word ‘Psychology’ has greater acceptance.
I assumed that ‘Self-improvement’ implies something is lacking in you and improvement is needed. It means that you are less capable, it means that using this words shows you less in comparison to other people and so on so forth. For the person who already consider herself as low confident using this word was out of question. You can understand that.
This is something that comes into my awareness much later when I started reading ‘The Emotion Machine.’ Reading ‘The Emotion Machine’ made me feel that there is another vista, which was very liberating, where I feel and say openly that yes I am more into self improvement. Where I take pride in feeling and saying that yes I am into it.
You have created such positive meaning around this word that I stopped judging myself from others’ viewpoint & accepted the word.
So I want to thank you for all your work & the coaching you gave to me!”
Abby P.
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“I have had 4 sessions with Steven and I can honestly say that he is amazing and I would recommend him to anyone. He is such a caring and compassionate individual and always gives his all to help you see what you need to do and give you advice on where you need to go in life. Obviously this only works if you actually put it into practice. Recommend 100 percent.”
Dustin H.
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“I worked with Steven during a challenging transition – both in my professional and personal life – and without his support I believe it would’ve been a lot more difficult and I’d be in a worse position. For me, it’s hard to ask for help, but I am grateful I decided to lean on Steven and his excellent listening skills and relied on his insightful perspective. He was completely down to earth and approachable, I look forward to working with him again.”
Matt K.
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“I’m so glad to have found Steven! It really is possible to shift your behaviour without always having to psychoanalyze everything all of the time. He helped me focus on taking small steps forward during a difficult time in my life, and kicked me in the butt to stay motivated without ever being mean or condescending. I found him to be both logical and compassionate, things we really need these days. He was also very generous with his time and had no problem going over our time limit to make sure we ended the coaching session on the right note. I really appreciated that, thank you!”
Simone O.
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“I’ve been following Steven’s articles at The Emotion Machine for a few years and I love them. They are very easy to follow and he has great suggestions for everyday life’s problems. So after a while I decided to be a member of his website.
Since then, I decided to reach out to him for coaching. I’ve been struggling with family issues and I trusted Steven enough to open up to him.
I asked him for help. He listens with patience and kindness. From the first session, I felt so comfortable to talk to him deeply from bottom of my heart without any hiding emotions. Even though English is my second language and I’m from a very different cultural background, I feel very connected.
He is very good at encouraging me to bring up my struggles and tangles. He absorbs my talking and really understands me. Then the day after he gave me practicals suggestions through email that I find very thoughtful and helpful. He is amazing!
I feel I have some one to tell freely all my sadness and the emotions, which I am not able to tell anyone. I feel I am stepping in the road to find some peace inside me.”
Indi F.
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“As a professional in the mental health field, I have no hesitations in endorsing and recommending Steven as a personal coach. The Emotion Machine has been a bookmarked page on my work computer for several years and I have utilized the articles in my personal & professional work. Additionally, I am grateful for Steven’s personal guidance during a difficult transition period in my life. I feel as though he genuinely listened to me and provided constructive feedback that was unique to my circumstances. Steven’s perspective is supportive, creative, and within the scope of current best practices in mental health and personal growth. After our session, Steven provided me with a write-up summary, highlighting significant points within our discussion and a plan of action, which was extremely helpful for me as well. It is refreshing to work with someone who is genuinely invested in the growth of themselves and others, I am happy to know that Steven is available as a resource for me in the future.”
Melanie G.
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“I was a little apprehensive about working with a life coach initially. Because I knew I would have to talk about the thing that I am most uncomfortable talking about, myself. Being in recovery from years of substance abuse I became disconnected from myself, my emotions, feelings and those that are close to me. As I developed a little clean time I became committed to embracing the resources and support available to recovering addicts. The NA meetings and having a sponsor I found helped me to manage my disease, but managing my emotions and feelings was different. I needed to understand why I was running away from my emotions for so many years and willing to suppress my feelings with something mind or mood altering.
So I decided to take a step outside of my comfort zone and reach out to Steven. At the time I had about 4 months clean and made the commitment to engage myself in the life coaching process. From our very first meeting I felt really comfortable with Steven. I didn’t feel or have any reservations about talking to him about the things I’m most uncomfortable talking about. I always carried a lot of guilt and shame from my days in active addiction, which in turn caused me to carry a lot of negative emotions and beliefs about myself. To the point where I would obsess over these negative beliefs daily to the point where I would feel physically sick.
During our first session Steven suggested I create a list of positive beliefs vs. negative beliefs. The negative beliefs once written down were to be destroyed, disempowering them. While using the positive beliefs about myself as motivation and inspiration. Reflecting on them daily when I need a boost in inspiration and to constantly remind myself of all the good that’s in me. This simple, but powerful exercise helped me to reduce and on some days eliminate the stress and anxiety I was creating. This exercise in addition to the daily mental habits like reflecting on one of my strengths, identifying one thing I’m grateful for and reframing one negative thought that Steven recommended has also been helpful with getting my emotions in check.
Working with Steven has been a great experience and one of the best decisions that I could have made on this journey to survive my emotions. The recovery process and sobriety unleashed a storm of emotions. Some were difficult to identify and some I would just bottle up and not address head on. With Steven’s help I’m now able to better identify these emotions, more importantly to attach a label to them. In the past I would run from them or suppress them with something mind or mood altering. Today I don’t have to run anymore. Having worked with Steven for 7 months now he’s provided me with a wealth of life changing tools, of which some are daily habits and rituals.
I never thought that I could commit myself to this type of process. But after seeing the results from our very first session I knew that it could work for me. I was sick and tired of feeling the way that I was feeling. Although I still have some work to do I’m very happy with where I’m at today. I’m looking forward to continuing this journey with Steven, and growing in areas of my life that I consistently hindered with my past.”
David J.