The higher you rise, the fewer people tell you the truth.
A confidential thinking partner for owners, executives, and senior leaders in Northwest Arkansas — the one conversation in your week with no agenda except your effectiveness.
Everyone who reports to you needs something from you. We don’t.
Past a certain level, the feedback stops being honest. Your directs manage up, your peers compete, your board evaluates, and your family — rightly — wants you home, not debriefed. Executive coaching exists because the people carrying the most consequence get the least disinterested truth. The research is blunt about what works: it is the quality of the relationship and the candor inside it, not the brand of the framework, that predicts results.
This is a standing, confidential engagement with a coach who has operated at Fortune 1 scale and federal scale — Amazon, Microsoft, Walmart, the U.S. Treasury — and who is also a licensed clinician. Strategy and psyche in the same chair, because at the executive level every business problem is eventually a human one: the COO you can't confront, the founder's pace you can't sustain, the decision you keep not making.
Who executive coaching is for — and who it is not
We don't work with everyone. Premium coaching only works when the fit is right, so we choose clients as carefully as you should choose a coach. If we're not the right room for you, we'll say so in the first conversation — and point you toward who is.
This is for you if
- You own or lead a Northwest Arkansas company, division, or practice and the decisions on your desk affect other people's livelihoods
- You want one ruthlessly honest, fully confidential conversation in your calendar — about strategy, people, and yourself
- A specific leadership challenge is costing you: a succession, a conflict at the top table, a transformation losing steam
- You've been promoted past your training — most executives are — and you'd rather close the gap deliberately than perform around it
- You can hear hard things without needing them softened
This is not for you if
- You want a cheerleader, or a coach your company can audit — neither is on offer here
- You're looking for a leadership seminar with workbooks — see our Workshops & Training practice instead
- What's underneath is clinical — burnout shading into depression, drinking that's stopped being social — we will name it and walk you to the right door, including our own therapy practice
- Your business itself needs the work — org design, operations, strategy — that's our consulting practice, and we keep the two engagements distinct
What clients hire this room to change
Executive engagements are anchored to outcomes you can feel in the P&L and at the dinner table:
- Decisions that used to take a quarter now take a meeting — because the real constraint was never information
- The conversation you've been avoiding — held, survived, and useful
- A top team that argues in the room instead of after it
- A calendar that reflects the three things only you can do
- Succession that's a plan with dates, not a hope with a name on it
- An executive who is home for dinner without the Sunday-night dread
Illustrative of engagement objectives — results vary by person and are not guaranteed.
We don’t sell coaching. We demonstrate it.
Our practice grows by invitation and referral, one powerful conversation at a time — no funnels, no webinars, no countdown timers. The way to find out what coaching with us is like is to experience it.
Apply in writing
Send a short note to [email protected]: what you want to build or change, why now, and what you've already tried. Four sentences is enough. We read every application personally and reply within two business days.
The discovery conversation
If the fit looks right on paper, we invite you to a complimentary discovery conversation. It is not a sales call and there is nothing to buy at the end of it. It is two hours of real coaching on the thing you most want to change — the most useful conversation we know how to have. Many people leave with what they came for; some decide they want more.
Conceptual agreement
If we both want to continue, we agree on three things in plain language before any fee is discussed: the outcomes you're after, how you'll know they happened, and what reaching them is worth to you — in your work, your health, your relationships, or your bank account.
A written invitation
You receive one page with three ways to work together at different depths, each with a single fixed investment for the whole engagement. No hourly meters, no per-session tickets, no surprises. You choose, or you walk away with our respect either way.
One fixed investment, set against the outcome — never the clock
We do not bill by the hour or by the session. Per-session pricing quietly rewards keeping you a client forever; a fixed engagement fee points our interests at the same target as yours — the result, reached as directly as possible.
Focused
One defined outcome, addressed directly. The leanest path to the change we agreed on.
Partnership
The outcome plus sustained partnership — we stay alongside you while the change becomes who you are, not just what you did.
Transformation
The full engagement: the outcome, the partnership, and the surrounding habits, systems, and relationships that make it permanent.
Fees are discussed in one place only: the discovery conversation, after we agree on what the work is worth to you. They are serious, they are fixed for the engagement, and they are quoted in writing. If the number isn't right for you, a respectful no costs nothing — and the discovery conversation was still yours to keep.
Coaching outcomes depend on factors within your control; no specific result is promised or guaranteed.
Stephen Velasquez
Cornell MBA, licensed clinician, two decades inside Amazon, Microsoft, Walmart, and the U.S. Treasury — the commercial judgment of an operator and the human depth of a clinician in the same conversation. Supported by ZipHealthy’s coaching and clinical team; every engagement is designed and led by Stephen personally.
Coaching, held to a research standard
We make no promises about your results — and we don't need to. The peer-reviewed literature on professional coaching speaks for itself.
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Across 156 client–coach pairs, the working relationship and client self-efficacy — not technique fashion — best predicted coaching effectiveness.
de Haan, Duckworth, Birch & Jones (2013) — “Executive coaching outcome research: The contribution of common factors,” Consulting Psychology Journal: Practice and Research, 65(1). doi.org/10.1037/a0031635
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Randomised controlled study of executives: coaching enhanced goal attainment, resilience, and workplace well-being, and reduced depression and stress.
Grant, Curtayne & Burton (2009) — “Executive coaching enhances goal attainment, resilience and workplace well-being: a randomised controlled study,” The Journal of Positive Psychology, 4(5). doi.org/10.1080/17439760902992456
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Meta-analysis of workplace coaching: positive effects on learning and performance outcomes — with internal-format and practice-based designs performing strongly.
Jones, Woods & Guillaume (2016) — “The effectiveness of workplace coaching: A meta-analysis of learning and performance outcomes,” Journal of Occupational and Organizational Psychology, 89(2). doi.org/10.1111/joop.12119
Citations describe study populations and the coaching field generally — not claims about ZipHealthy's services or a promise of results for any engagement.
Coaching is not therapy — and we keep the two separate
Coaching is a forward-looking, goal-directed professional service for people who are fundamentally well. It is not psychotherapy, counseling, or healthcare: we do not diagnose or treat any condition, coaching is not medical or clinical care, and it is not billable to insurance. Because ZipHealthy also operates a licensed therapy practice, we hold the line deliberately — coaching and therapy are separate services, separate relationships, and separate records, and we will tell you plainly if what you're describing belongs with a therapist rather than a coach. Here is how to tell which door is yours, and here is our therapy practice if that's the right one.
If you are in crisis or thinking about harming yourself, this is not a coaching matter — call or text 988 (Suicide & Crisis Lifeline) or call 911 now.
Recognize yourself on this page? Apply for a discovery conversation — applications are read personally, and replies come from a person, not a funnel.
Asked before applying, answered directly
Consulting changes the business; coaching changes the person running it. In consulting we deliver analysis and build systems with your team. In coaching, you are the engagement — your judgment, your leadership, your blind spots. Many clients use both over time; we keep the engagements, fees, and files cleanly separate.
Yes — contractually. No HR debriefs, no board reports, no notes shared with anyone. If your company sponsors the engagement, the boundaries of what (if anything) is reported are agreed in writing before we begin, and you see every word of it.
A single fixed fee for the engagement, agreed after the discovery conversation — sized to the stakes of what we're working on, never to a clock. Executives bill their own time in outcomes; so do we.
A standing confidential conversation — typically every other week — plus real access between sessions when something breaks. Anchored to two or three outcomes we defined at the start, reviewed against them, and ended when they're reached.
No — and the line is kept deliberately bright. Coaching is forward-looking work with a well leader on goals and effectiveness; it is not diagnosis or treatment, and it isn't billed to insurance. The clinical training simply means that when something deeper is going on, we recognize it early and tell you the truth about which door it belongs behind.
The same reason top athletes have them at the top of their game, not the bottom: the cost of an unexamined blind spot scales with your altitude. Randomised trial evidence shows executive coaching improves goal attainment and resilience — but the practical answer is simpler: when did you last say the whole truth out loud to someone with no stake in it?
One honest conversation, standing.
Tell us what you want to build, why now, and what you've already tried. Four sentences is enough. If the fit looks right, we'll invite you to a complimentary discovery conversation — two hours of real coaching, nothing to buy at the end of it.
By application and referral only · Bentonville · Rogers · Springdale · Fayetteville
Most clients come to us by referral. If someone sent you here — tell us who, so we can thank them.