108. Creating Your Own Space with Temple’s Senior Associate Athletic Director for Mental Health, Wellness, and Performance Stephany Coakley

108. Creating Your Own Space with Temple’s Senior Associate Athletic Director for Mental Health, Wellness, and Performance Stephany Coakley

Introducing Stephany Coakley

Today I’m talking to certified mental performance consultant and Temple’s Senior Associate Athletic Director for Mental Health, Wellness, and Performance Dr. Stephany Coakley about creating your own space.

Her Career Journey

Stephany earned her bachelor’s and master’s in psychology and counseling psychology from Temple. She then went on to work with children and their families for ten years. Next, she pivoted to the field of sport and movement and got her PhD in sport and exercise science with a concentration in sports psychology from UNC Greensboro. While a grad student, Stephany began her own sports performance consulting business, Maximum Mental Training. She has worked with a range of clients, from soldiers at Walter Reed Hospital to rookies in the NFL and NBA. Stephany most recently returned to her alma mater and is working to normalize mental health in the lives of student-athletes and beyond.

Creating Your Own Space

When Stephany started her private practice during grad school she was creating her own space to develop her craft by working with the athletes in her community. She then took advantage of the opportunity to work with warrior-athletes in the military to help them develop resilience. By creating her own space, she was able to gain experience, grow, and learn, and ultimately serve her higher mission to help people realize their best lives through sport.

Inside this episode:

    • Stephany knew she wanted to be a psychologist since she was 11 but never anticipated the exhausting nature of her first job working with children and families facing generational neglect. After ten challenging, but rewarding, years, she was able to acknowledge the burnout she was feeling from her career and pivot to a new path to serve her mission.
    • Facing the harsh reality of how difficult it is to break into the world of sports, Stephany created her sports performance consulting business to begin working with motivated athletes in her community.
    • She created her opportunity to gain experience again when she took a job working with the military. Stephany practiced her craft while serving a higher calling. 
    • Working with athletes was always the goal and she began networking early. Stephany remembers the first time she met another Black woman working in sports, doing what she wanted to do, and made sure she built this relationship with her eventual mentor.
    • Stephany talks about her work to normalize mental health with her college student-athletes but points out that the work needs to start much earlier. She’s calling for kids in elementary school to be given the tools to name their feelings and take steps to address them.
    • Her book, Tye The Dreamer, shows boys and girls that they have the power to dream big things and that both men, especially Black men, and women can nurture. Stephany wrote the book in recognition that childhood stories have the power to shape the rest of our lives.
    • Stephany shares her own mental health practices, which are centered around making a list of the activities that help you out to turn to when times get tough.

Resources

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