1. Certified Empowerment Life Coaches

2. Certified Empowerment Workshop Trainers

3. Stories of Life Coaches and Workshop Trainers

Certified Empowerment Life Coaches

The purpose of life coaching is empowering a client to envision and create the life they want. This has been the express purpose of Gail Straub and David Gerhon’s acclaimed personal development training, the Empowerment Workshop. The Institute provides a fully developed and tested transformational coaching program. Their best selling book, Empowerment serves as the foundation, along with a 12-session coaching curriculum. The following individuals have successfully participated in a 165-hour empowerment life coaching certification program. They have been personally trained and supervised by David Gershon and Gail Straub.

Certified Empowerment Workshop Trainers

For over 25 years David Gershon and Gail Straub have presented their acclaimed Empowerment Workshop to thousands of people around the world. It is considered one of the most profound transformational trainings available. The following individuals have successfully participated in a 169-hour empowerment workshop trainer certification program. They have been personally trained and supervised by David Gershon and Gail Straub.

Empowerment Institute Graduate Stories

These stories describe the learning, aspirations and successes of Empowerment Institute graduates in making a difference in the world – person-by-person, community-by-community.

Dignity and New Possibilities for the Homeless

“I work with the homeless population in San Francisco. As a participant in the Empowerment Institute I learned to facilitate the Empowerment Workshop. As part of my certification I provided two Empowerment Workshops in the Tenderloin district to the homeless community. The people who participated in the Empowerment Workshop gave me very positive feedback about their experience. In particular, by using the empowerment methodology people were excited to have the opportunity to dream – to envision the way they would like life to be. Most of the participants are people who depend on professional help – social workers, psychiatrists, counselors, case managers – to deal with daily life. Rarely in these interactions are they given the opportunity to envision life in a different way. Rather, these ‘rehabilitative’ sessions tend to focus on the problem areas of life, thereby reinforcing the self-limiting beliefs that individuals living under extreme conditions of poverty have, i.e. ‘I am a failure’, ‘I am psychotic’, ‘I am an addict’, ‘I make bad decisions’, ‘I am worth as much as I own, which is nothing’.

The Empowerment Workshop offered the participants a radically different approach – time to imagine a different reality, therefore motivating them to make behavior changes by working with the tools provided throughout the workshop. A by-product of the workshop was the camaraderie experienced by both groups. The workshop built a strong sense of connection, something that is often absent from the lives of people who are homeless. The groups have continued to meet with each other for on-going connection and support. My vision is to get this nascent group of empowered residents in the homeless community more actively involved in helping the larger community, adapting their personal empowerment skills to the work of neighborhood and societal transformation.”

– Shelley Rodner

Women In Trauma: From Victimization to Empowerment

“The Empowerment Institute showed me that my mission and purpose in life is to help women heal from their trauma. I am a gang rape survivor and I have a passion for helping other female survivors to look for the sunshine within their hearts, and to assist them in transforming their lives from victimization to empowerment. I took the Empowerment Life Coaching track and this provided me with the tools and confidence to reach out to my African-American community and provide them with the healing they need. I have a dream to plant positives seeds into the lives of trauma survivors and strengthen their self-esteem. Now I have a coaching program that can make this dream real. What I like best is that the Institute gave me a real business which provides me a livelihood while I help others heal. The Institute was very demanding and I felt like I was getting a graduate degree in empowerment.”

– Netanya Bell

White and Blue Collar Empowerment in Corporate America

“What a week this has been! I'm very happy to report that yesterday I secured my first paid client – one of the organizations which experienced the first set of empowerment workshops last month. The General Manager said the behavior changes she has witnessed from the workshop participants are dramatic. In fact, there has been a major relationship healing between two leaders who were previously in deep conflict. Now, she wants more!

She is very keen to embark on the long journey of culture development. She started by saying; “The day shift employees are so unhappy here...it seems no matter what we do, they remain in their misery. The whole environment is poisoned by the negative energy.’ I responded by asking what her vision was and she said; ‘To see the employees genuinely happy!’ I explained the whole process involved with developing the work culture (preparing the soil) in order to develop new behaviors (plant new seeds) + the creation of affinity groups to sustain the momentum, interpret the feedback and measure the results. She responded by saying; ‘Fantastic, when can we begin?!’ It was almost too easy!! She even wants to start a second ‘early adopter’ group to keep the vision alive and the internal support strong.

WOW - I'm now going to Africa to seed empowerment there even more excited to return and begin this exciting work here!”

– Elizabeth Soltis

A Nine Year Olds’ Growing Edge

“An unbelievable thing happened today. I did a session last week when one of my students came to me in tears about an issue centered around her ability to listen and learn in her fourth grade classroom. I wasn't prepared to do an empowerment session, but it seemed like the perfect opportunity. So I listened carefully, and asked questions which led her to limiting beliefs, vision, and an affirmation, which I wrote on a card so she could keep it with her when she went into her class. So the unbelievable thing that happened today is that she came to see me and asked if we could do another ‘session with the cards.’ I was floored! This time the issue was that she keeps forgetting her planner at home (with all of her homework in it) and wanted help in figuring out how to remember to bring it to school. This is so simple and powerful that even a nine year old can recognize it and ask for it by name ‘the session with the cards!’ This is so exciting! I already thanked Jane, my principal and especially the Supernintendo!”

– Vicki Hoener

Single Teenage Mothers Find Their Power

“As a community organizer and educator, I work with domestic and community violence and child sexual abuse. Central to my work is empowering communities and individuals to develop responses to root problems and integrating personal transformation with social justice. In order for people to transform their communities, they need to feel ‘whole and powerful’ enough to do so. The Empowerment Workshop is a very effective holistic tool that I am using with the communities I'm engaged with. I've also found the empowerment methodology to be extremely helpful in thinking through my work strategically, articulating my work and engaging communities in developing long term visions. Personally, the Institute has been transformative and allowed me to conduct my work from a more powerful and grounded space.

In a recent Empowerment Workshop, I had 13 young, single mothers  who lived in a home together and ranged in age from 11 to 19. They kept saying, ‘I'm glad we're doing this’ and told the program coordinator in between sessions: ‘Thank you for getting us this workshop. It's good. It's different from anything we've ever taken.’ They loved the ‘letting go’ exercise and really got into creating release rituals. Afterwards some of their comments were: ‘I feel so much lighter’; ‘I didn't realize I had so much anger in me’; ‘That was fun.’ They loved the self love context lecture and really got it. They really liked the fear guided exercise. Most of them focused on family. Some of their comments were: ‘I need to learn to accept my mother more’; ‘I want to be stronger in myself so I don't keep letting myself get manipulated into having sex.’ As you can see, the Empowerment Workshop was a success!

This experience confirmed for me the importance of bringing this work not only to young women, but to urban youth in general. The information is totally accessible and applicable to their lives. The success of this experience has motivated me to continue working to find ways to outreach to more organizations and bring this workshop to young people in under resourced communities around the city.”

– Ijeoma Ude

Reclaiming the Crown:
Healing and Transforming the African-American Wound

“Well, we did it!! The first official offering of Reclaiming the Crown: From Hurt to Healing to Harambe, was held this past weekend. It was AWESOME! We had 8 participants – all women – from NY, Wisconsin, NC, and Maine. They ranged in age from 50 something to almost 80. It turns out that the younger women came seeking to connect with African-American elders (all had recently lost their mothers, fathers or other significant elders in their lives), and the elders came seeking value and purpose in their lives. You can't script this stuff.

The connections that were made were just unbelievable. The growing edge work and affirmations were hard for them, but they did it with such care and thoughtfulness, and such support of each other. The various African rituals that we've incorporated and adapted created such sacred space in which to work, grow and receive – that it was hard to leave it at the end of the weekend. They spontaneously exchanged gifts – jewelry, cloth, etc. All have a partner to continue working and checking in with. The elders are forming a support group for African-American women elders – and plan to build on an idea of doing some work with African-American and Ghanaian children. THIS IS RECLAIMING THE CROWN!

Another one of the women owns 70 acres of land. She knows that she is zoned for commercial property; as a result of this experience and in collaboration with some of the other women in the group, she is considering creating a retreat space -- owned and operated by African-Americans. THIS IS RECLAIMING THE CROWN!

We are going to bring all participants together to broaden the network and to explore how their affirmations are growing the healing process and empowerment in the larger African-American community. We now really know that this is a winner.”

– Robyn Brown Manning and Larry Mack

Helping Refugees in America Create Meaningful Lives

I came to this country when I was a young woman. I tried to find myself and to identify who I was. During this time I survived a crippling car accident and learned how to walk. I survived cancer and had about 16 surgeries. I even survived the war in Kosovo. But what I didn't survive, was the fact that I didn't know how to look inside myself and release all the trauma from my life. Even though I was in direct service helping people, especially immigrants and refugees, I wasn't able to provide real guidance for a successful life in America.

The Empowerment Institute opened my eyes and made me aware of my self as a human being. It taught me how to look inside my soul and turn fear into faith. It taught me how to respect and heal my pain and trauma. It taught me to create a vision for my life and walk towards it with joy. It taught me to think positively, to be open and fearless. With my training as an Empowerment Life Coach I found my identity. I feel secure and I feel proud. Now I am ready to coach other refugee and immigrant women. I am ready to show them how to lead empowered lives.”

– Shqipe Malushi