Unlocking Work-Life Innovation – Exclusive Interview With Hedi Schaefer
Hedi Schaefer is a leader in work-life innovation through identity work, and future skills. An identity crisis and depression made her question herself and work-lifestyle as a jet-setting innovation consultant. She understood that to create a business and life based on true passion, purpose, ease, and flow, the key is inner work. Hedi created strategies to shift dramatically and turn everything around. She has since dedicated her life to helping others do the same and become the authentic changemaker and creative leader they wish to be. She is CEO of the Hedi Schaefer Academy, the online hub for Work-Life Innovation, an author, and a speaker. Her mission: Light up and lead! inspires people across the globe.
Hedi Schaefer, Business Coach
Introduce yourself! Please tell us about you and your life so we can get to know you better.
Hi, I’m Hedi Schaefer, passionate online coach supporting you on your journey to awaken to your full potential and create a work-life-style based on your authentic purpose and passion. I’m a work-life innovation expert since 2010, an author, speaker, mom to a 5-year-old daughter, and wife to a stonemason. We live in a small town in Germany and travel the world. I thrive on the sun, the ocean, Korean and Mediterranean food, and a lifestyle where I can truly be myself.
Tell us about a pivotal moment in your life that brought you to where you are today.
I've been a high performer until 2018, when I became a mom, and everything changed yet again. But this time for real. I worked for well-known German artists in my early twenties until my health broke down. In my thirties, I jet-setted across the globe as an innovation consultant and trainer and supported corporate teams in creating new business ideas, strategies and healthy team identities.
What I preached, I wasn’t fully living myself; I was always living from the outside in. Never feeling enough. Addicted to outside recognition, stress and work. Inauthentic, often depressed and exhausted from the life I created.
My identity crisis in 2018 and forced break were a blessing. I learned to redesign myself and my life from scratch. I reframed my brain from fight and flight to peace and calm, discovered my true light, and created programs I wish I had back then. Becoming a mom helped me face my shadows, break cycles, discover and use the most effective tools to heal, and become the most energetic person in a room.
The essence of this time became my destiny. It is what I’m passing on to my dearest clients to do just the same: go from surviving to thriving.
What is unique to your work?
I offer VIP coaching, energetic healing and masterminds based upon the InnovationCanon, a unique three-step framework: Clarity, Clearing and Creation.
1st. In order to really create the work-life-style that is meant for you, you first need clarity. Clarity where you are going and why. With me, you find out about your real purpose, values and visions, which are fundamental for staying focused and in high energy on your unique path. That becomes your strategy and unique blueprint.
2nd. To become really successful and not be blocked by beliefs like “I can’t do that” or “I’m not good enough”, clearing your inner blocks is key. Luckily, nowadays, you do not need to go to therapy for years and years anymore, but we have very efficient tools to unblock limiting beliefs, unhealthy patterns and (generational) trauma by tapping into the subconscious mind and energetic field. Your subconscious is like a mega-hard drive with all information and emotions stored. The process of spotting the block and releasing it is quick and gentle when you're using the relaxed but highly alert and connected hypnostate. There is not a single session where I’m not blown away by the results.
3rd. Using state-of-the-art innovation tools like Design Thinking, Workshop Design and Change Leadership helps accelerate creation processes. My clients create their work-lifestyle based upon agile principles such as prototyping and testing their business idea with clients, getting feedback and refining it accordingly. This approach allows them to fail early and create the best product for their dream clients with speed and meaning. Also, they create workshops, mostly online, that turn their passion into a meaningful and engaging product.
If you could change one thing about your industry, what would it be and why?
Leading by example and creating breakthroughs and impact as a new normal!
I believe the coaching industry is frequently under attack because it’s often dishonest, rather conceptual, and therefore cannot create the impact and speed clients deserve.
Coaches often tell clients what to do but have not experienced it or, more importantly, solved it for themselves. It’s purely concept-based.
I wish for more coaches who walk the talk and who share what they’ve experienced, honestly went through and succeeded with. Creating shortcuts for their clients. And believing wholeheartedly that they could overcome their hurdles with more ease and grace than they did. If you, as the coach, hold a vision for your clients, they can easily step into that identity and succeed.
I also wish for more effective and time-sensitive support by getting to the core of the issue faster. We have the tools! Let’s stop using only 5 % of the human potential, the rational mind. Let’s use the “rest”: the subconscious, the energetic body, too. And combine tools, experience and inner wisdom creatively to create breakthroughs.
Lastly, I wish for more coaches who create coaching experiences clients enjoy. Let’s put time and effort into creating those experiences that favor interaction, creativity, fun (even and especially when it’s about the pain and darkness), and all senses, i.e., by using digital whiteboards such as Miro when in an online context to interact and document. Or creative tools, such as vision comics or love letters, that spark the imagination.
Clients are kings and queens investing in their growth. We must honor that!
How do people get in contact with you?
The waitlists for VIP coaching and mastermind groups can be accessed by booking a short, non-binding first call. Book here. I'm so delighted to meet you.
