Gonzalo Leon Uriarte is one of the coaches that we found this month and we did a little interview with him. He impressed us with his wisdom and honesty.
He started his life in a unique cross cultural environment, blending the influences of South American heritage with Swedish upbringing. From a young age, his fascination with human behavior was piqued by the startling realization of colorblindness, sparking a lifelong quest to understand the intricate rules governing our perception of reality.
His journey from childhood curiosities to a career in existential conversational coaching is marked by a deep commitment to emotional intelligence and meaningful connections. By challenging conventional coaching methods, he brings a fresh perspective to psychological safety, active listening, and wellness, making personal development tangible and accessible.
He is creative and innovative. He offers a cutting edge program for remote and hybrid teams, emphasizing the importance of personal relationships in professional success. With a multidisciplinary wellness agency, he provides a holistic approach to wellbeing, combining psychology, mind and body techniques, and immersive experiences. Here is what he said.
Meet Life Coach Gonzalo Leon Uriarte:
Name: Gonzalo Leon Uriarte
Pillar: The Mind, The Heart
Who is this coach for: Anyone who wants to master their emotions, liberate themselves, and live a life designed for wellness.
How they can help: By using various coaching tools and techniques, as well as his platform https://www.qantarel.se/.
First of all, how are you and your family doing after these Pandemic times?
Thank you!
The pandemic was undoubtedly a challenging period for so many of us, and it shaped my own journey with grief, burnout, growth and resilience, deeply influencing my approach as a coach.
You see, just when the pandemic hit, I received the devastating news that my father was diagnosed with stomach cancer.
And, due to the pandemic restrictions, our family was unable to be by his side during his treatment.
It was an incredibly isolating and heartbreaking experience.
In response, I made the decision to fully self isolate during his treatment so to be sure that I would not risk giving him the coronavirus.
For this entire year, I worked remotely as the head of community at Quora and continued my individual coaching work remotely, as well.
My entire focus outside of work was on supporting my father and processing this immense grief, taking a huge toll on my personal life.
It became evident how important relationships and activity are for wellbeing, resilience and recovery, and even more so when working from home (!).
Tragically, my father passed away in hospice care, 6 weeks after we were allowed to visit him for the first time.
This was shattering.
I had neglected my own well being, and it caught up with me in severe stress and physical issues.
It was a wake up call that forced me to reevaluate my approach.
I realized that the tools and insights I’d been sharing with coaching clients were just as vital for my own healing and growth, however, I learned the hard way that wellness needs so much more seemingly unrelated input to stand strong over time
How did the coronavirus pandemic affect your clients? Did it affect you at all?
It is safe to say that it impacted my clients and myself, a great lot.
Mass layoffs and financial difficulties stirred up immense mental health challenges.
Many struggled to make ends meet and adapt to remote work, taking a toll on overall well being.
These challenges drove me to develop innovative resources for hybrid and remote teams, as well as to launch my wellness agency, Qantarel.
Because, it is more important today than ever to foster sustainable wellness in a self propelling way.
The pandemic has underscored the vital need for these kinds of solutions to support mental health and productivity, regardless of work environment.
What are the biggest lessons that you learned in this pandemic?
I realized no one can be truly healthy, happy and productive without a strong support system, the courage to fully feel all our emotions while constantly having immersive experiences that fulfill us in unexpected ways.
I am referring to the necessity of constantly challenging and indulging ourselves (read that twice), whether through learning new skills, exploring hobbies, or finding joy in food, art, music, locations, physical activities, and more.
This is all part of a sustainable and impactful approach to personal development and well being.
The Origin:
Tell us about you, your career, how you started with your coaching career?
Sure!
My passion for people, behavior and meaningfulness started as early as I can remember.
Being born and raised in Sweden by South American parents I actually thought I was in a Spanish speaking country until I was left at kindergarten and heard Swedish for the first time.
This was a brutal initiation in the art of understanding human behavior and what actually makes us people tick.
My fascination grew when my optician told me I was colorblind.
It made me think, at 6 years of age, that “there is a reality behind our experience, that is strictly neutral information. This information is put together differently by us all, making me see colors differently”.
I remember thinking that if there is a process leading to how we experience reality, it is based on some sort of rules.
These rules can be understood and used to navigate our experience.
Ready, set, go!
Jumping 15 years forward I was hired at the institution of psychology while collecting data for my thesis, extending on my existential interest from childhood.
I highlighted the present moment as a mental representation and showed that people differ in regards to the level of abstraction in the construction of these representations of past, present and future events.
I learned that these differences can and should be understood, because they will severely impact our emotions and behavior.
After 4 years of teaching psychology I was in love with that spark in people’s eyes when they understood something new about their psychology, and I could sense the immense potential for personal growth that lies therein.
This was the foundation of my first 3 years working full time as an existential conversational coach in 2014.
It was my fierce mission to help people understand how we can use the principles of perception to find meaning in life, and use this as an antidote for depression and as a source of happiness and creativity.
What was your biggest obstacle that you had to overcome in your life that made you who you are today?
This is a very interesting question.
I like to call this phenomenon “the bow and arrow”, the friction in our lives, challenges, problems, and hurdles can be seen as pulling the arrow back, putting strain on the bow.
The ways we survive these challenges build new skills within us.
When we stop focusing on the pain and notice the value, it’s like releasing the arrow, the new place it reaches represents our gift to the world.
Knowing this makes hardships easier to endure, as the time spent in pain can be significantly shortened.
The above, framed in my personal perspective: growing up trilingual in Sweden, as well as my experiences working remotely while overcoming grief and burnout, have taught me the importance of emotional intelligence, recovery, resilience, joy, and healthy relationships.
These are the gifts I aim to share going forward.
The Coaching Style:
How do you innovate with coaching your clients?
I’m on a crusade to challenge conventional approaches to building psychological safety, to active listening as a technique and to wellness as a whole.
Allow me to elaborate!
The coaching world is saturated with strategies for cultivating psychological safety, yet they overlook the vital role of emotional intelligence.
You can solicit feedback, encourage diverse perspectives, and constantly ask how you can help, but without emotional intelligence, these tactics won’t genuinely build trust and safety.
The same goes for active listening.
If we’re checking the boxes of active listening techniques, the person speaking will intuitively sense the inauthenticity.
True active listening stems from our own personal development, it’s about who we’ve become, not just what we do.
When we lack the headspace to listen attentively, emotional intelligence helps us communicate that upfront, which itself builds trust.
Emotional intelligence is the foundation for creating psychological safety and authentic connections.
It’s non negotiable for leaders, teams, families, partners, anyone striving for healthy, meaningful relationships.
Similarly, behavioral science shows that our personal lives are the primary source of recovery and resilience.
After 5 years of fully remote work, I’ve seen firsthand how strains in our personal relationships directly impact our work performance.
That’s why I’ve developed a program specifically for hybrid and remote teams, using their personal lives as a source of productivity and renewal.
Given the explosive growth of remote work and mental health challenges, I gently urge you to check out my innovative approach at www.remoteam.se.
My innovative approach to wellness as a whole is shaped by my own journey through post pandemic burnout.
I’ve learned that true, sustainable wellbeing requires regular input from diverse, even unexpected sources.
This means nurturing a sense of fun, adventure and discovery.
Constantly challenging ourselves, learning new skills, and exposing ourselves to beauty, art and immersive experiences.
The key is cultivating a rich, multifaceted life (!).
Wellness requires joyful physical pursuits, mastering central nervous system regulation, creative expression, and personal growth.
With this in mind, I’m pioneering an innovative wellness agency, Qantarel, that blends psychology, proven mind body techniques, and exciting events and retreats.
Whether you need personal support or your organization seeks to elevate employee performance and wellbeing, Qantarel offers this cutting edge, multidisciplinary approach.
Explore our services at www.qantarel.se and sign up!
We would love to connect with anyone reading this and wanting to learn how to integrate this approach into their lives.
What’s unique about your coaching approach?
Besides what I have shared so far, the core of my unique coaching approach is using the brain’s perceptual processes as a framework to make personal development tangible and relatable for clients.
Fundamentally, our attention span is very limited holding about 10% of the information we have gathered throughout our lives, at a time.
The remaining 90% can be understood as unconscious assumptions that shape how we perceive ourselves and the world around us.
For example, when my mother bought a new white Volvo, I suddenly started noticing white Volvos everywhere, even though they were there all along.
A pregnant woman may start seeing baby carriages more frequently, and so on.
Our 10% attention span only picks up on the information that aligns with our 90% subconscious assumptions, if that makes sense?
Now, imagine the white Volvos being a negative self image, we could be receiving constant confirmation that we are loved, but it wont get registered until we reshape our assumptions.
This is where the power of my approach lies.
By surfacing and addressing those deep seated assumptions, whether related to depression, low self esteem, or any other challenge, we can actively reshape the emotions, and experiences generated for the 10% conscious mind through a series of steps that break down the mountain into movable grains.
It’s a tangible, step by step process of ‘fishing up’ those subconscious building blocks, modifying them, and putting them back to create new patterns.
Even for clients who feel hopeless, this relatable framework provides a clear path forward.
It is easy to just focus on what colors of Volvos we see today and which we would like to see tomorrow.
What benefits do your clients get after working with you?
Many of my clients have described an incredible sense of ease and joyfulness when they learn that what they need to do is not as dangerous or difficult as they initially thought!
Instead of struggling to get past certain emotions, I support them so as to feel safe to feel them, without getting stuck, alongside a structured way of extracting the information that needs to be found.
Parallel to supporting my clients in attaining specific goals, I’m very keen on making personal development a way of life, with seemingly unrelated micro situations designed to propel them forward.
This might include guided visualization exercises, habit building challenges, or group coaching sessions that allow clients to practice new skills in a supportive environment.
And now that I’ve initiated both the program for remote workers and the multidisciplinary wellness agency, there’s access to a wealth of value and resources.
I gently urge all readers to send me a message and learn more about all of this!
Do you use any specific tools to be efficient with your clients?
Overall, I seek to stay organized, connected, and productive with my clients, no matter where they’re located.
Video, messaging, and collaboration tools help streamline our workflows and keep projects moving forward smoothly.
Zoom and Teams are go to`s for video conferencing and screen sharing during meetings, allowing us to collaborate in real time.
Depending on the client’s location, I’ll also utilize WhatsApp or Slack, as useful tools for international clients.
The flexibility to adapt my approach based on the client’s preferences and needs is crucial.
The Impact:
If you had a super megaphone that, when you speak into, the whole world will hear your message, what would you say?
I love this.
Please, pass me that megaphone!
I know exactly what I would say:
Feel everything!
We have all learned to avoid certain feelings, and certain parts of ourselves.
By doing so we are painting ourselves into corners that require the justification of suffering, our own and that of others.
All emotions are important parts of the human experience.
Yet we’ve built up layers of defense mechanisms to keep them at bay.
We numb ourselves.
We put on a brave face.
We power through.
But the truth is, if we just allow ourselves to feel it all, deeply and fully, the dust will settle.
Feel everything!
What is the greatest lesson you have learned in your life?
The greatest lesson I’ve learned is the value of empathy and keeping an open mind.
Growing up colorblind taught me that we can all perceive the same situation very differently.
This has cultivated deep curiosity in me, I know I can never fully understand another person’s experience or motivations, and that is a resource.
Rather than believing my automatic judgments, I’m always eager to learn more about what’s driving the behavior of others.
Approaching the world with humility and a willingness to feel difficult emotions and to consider new perspectives is vital.
It’s led to far richer connections and a more nuanced understanding of the human experience.
Your final thoughts?
There’s certainly a lot more to explore on the topics I’ve touched upon so far.
I’d welcome the opportunity to dive deeper through further discussion and interaction, please feel free to reach out, as I’m always happy to connect.
Send me a hello! on LinkedIn, or send me a message through my webpages.
I always answer everyone myself!
One key takeaway I’d emphasize is the importance of aligning our lives with how our brain processes information.
It’s about swimming with the currents, so to speak.
Another crucial point is the need to occasionally shift our focus away from immediate challenges in order to overcome them.
Cultivating emotional intelligence, for instance, or having a thriving physical life, helps us navigate obstacles more effectively.
Ultimately, the boundaries separating our personal and professional lives have grown increasingly blurred.
It’s time we address this head on with a multi disciplinary approach to our lives.
Where Can You Find Gonzalo Leon Uriarte?
If you liked this interview and you would love to liberate yourself from your emotions and establish a lifestyle designed for wellness, go to https://www.qantarel.se/ and see how coach Gonzalo can help you.
And if you’d like to connect with him more personally, you can do that through his LinkedIn or by sending him a direct message on his Email [email protected]. It was an honor having this interview with him.
