Private Coaching Engagement
One-to-one work in real time, with the pressures, patterns, and relationships shaping your days. The work is the same at both levels. What changes is how close Carla is between sessions.
Private coach for founders and CEOs
For when your businessis doing better than you.
For the person behind the company and the questions strategy cannot answer.
Ways to work together1990Began as a licensed psychotherapist
2011Began coaching professionally
2019Practice centered on founders
You already have excellent advisers.
Strategy is covered. What founders rarely have is someone who knows the person carrying the company, and can stay with the questions that can't be answered inside it.
Under pressure, founders tend to work more, step in more, control more, or get angry faster. Those habits may have served you for years. At some point they start costing judgment, energy and relationships.
Inside the business
A decision that won't settle. A fracture in the senior team. A transition you've never had to navigate before.
Outside it
A marriage under strain. A health scare. A loss. Something happening privately while the company still needs to be led.
Over time Carla learns how a founder thinks when grounded, what pressure distorts, and which patterns repeat. That knowledge lets her see what is hard to see from inside the situation.
Clients describe knowing themselves more deeply, leading with greater clarity and confidence, and being more present in their relationships, with more room to enjoy life beyond work.
Some of what matters most is not about the company at all.
The Blue Ridge, outside Asheville, North Carolina, where Carla's practice is based. She works with founders across the United States.Coaching engagements
Three ways to work together.
Every engagement is confidential and shaped to the situation. Each one starts with a call to see if it's a fit.
The Two‑Day Intensive
For an inflection point, a decision that can't wait, or a stretch where pressure has narrowed how clearly you can see.
- Format
- Two days, in person
- Before
- A private preparation conversation
- After
- An integration conversation
Company Engagements
When what's happening can't be held in a one-to-one. The founder, senior leaders, selected team members, or some mix.
- Length
- Short or long, depending on the situation
- Terms
- Scoped to the situation
Client testimonials
In their own words.
Founders describe what they were carrying, and what changed.
More client stories“I'm more confident leading my team than I've ever been. I'm clearer about where I'm taking the company and more courageous in the face of challenge and uncertainty. It's one of the best investments I've made.”
“I had been very successful in my entrepreneurial career, but I had a ton of anxiety. Carla was there for me, even between the sessions. I wake up, I love what I do. I'm no longer stuck.”
“After unimaginable trauma, I believed I didn't need help. I was wrong. Working with Carla revealed who I am and where I'm going, and elevated my success on every level.”
“I've started many companies and was the classic burn-myself-out, work-24/7 entrepreneur. I work less, focus on my health, get more done, and my business is growing faster because I changed.”
“I had crippling anxiety as the company grew. I was waking up scared to start the day, couldn't sleep, and couldn't turn my mind off. After working with Carla, things shifted within weeks.”
“I've launched nine businesses, seven of which have absolutely failed, but never felt the kind of anxiety and panic attacks I did. Since we started doing our two-day intensives every quarter, I'm a changed man.”
“My business grew fast. I became overwhelmed and disconnected. Within a couple of months of working with Carla, everything shifted. I'm a steadier leader and better partner.”
“She listens for what hasn't been said yet. Maybe I would have eventually figured it out. That's a maybe. But working with Carla, I'm there sooner than I would have been.”
“As we scaled from a few employees to fifteen full-time staff, the pressure grew fast. We brought multiple members of our team in to work with Carla. Her work has had a real impact on both me and the company.”
About Carla
Carla Royal, M.Ed.
Carla began as a psychotherapist and later moved into coaching. Since 2019 her practice has focused on founders, and most of them also run their companies as CEO.
By founder, Carla means the person who carries the company as their own, whether they started it, bought it, or took it over from family. Founders who work with her describe being met without being managed, and understood without being put into a box.
Certified Integral Master Coach™Integral Coaching Canada2013 to now
IFS-Informed CoachInternal Family Systems2023 to now
Certified Strategic Intervention CoachRobbins-Madanes Coach Training2011 to now
Licensed Professional CounselorNC Board of Licensed Professional Counselors1990 to 2005
M.Ed., CounselingUniversity of South Carolina1990
Podcast
What Holds
Conversations with founders and leaders about the work that holds what they're building.
All episodesWhen a Legacy Becomes Yours to Carry with Leah Wong Ashburn
42 minWhen the Business You Built Starts to Cost Too Much, with Patrick O'Cain
51 minThe Cost of Leaving Yourself Out, with Dr. Mamta Bhatt
35 minThe Messy Work of Being Fully Alive, with Renee Moorefield, PhD
56 minSurrender, Acceptance, and What Happens When You Stop Fighting Your Own Mind, with Mike Oglesbee
49 minIf the way you've been operating has started to take more than it returns, start here.
The first call is to see if this is a fit, not to sell you something.