Head Coach Cameron Powell

For me there is only traveling on paths that have heart, on any path that may have heart. There I travel, and the only worthwhile challenge is to traverse its full length. And there I travel looking, looking, breathlessly.
— Don Juan, according to Carlos Castaneda

I’m the founder of, among others, Feroce Coaching, its sister site Hot Blue Coaching, and Charles River Recruiting. I coach executives, attorneys, business owners, artists, and others on raising their respective games to new levels, and on getting their lives and actions truly aligned with their stated goals and values.  One of my gifts is that of clear and compelling communication — I am a coach and entrepreneur, adviser and consultant, lawyer, and writer — of fiction, of business plans, of a travelogue and memoir I’m turning into a book, and of a major non-fiction book to be published in 2012).  I have also tried my hand at other communication-intensive efforts:  literary agent, law professor, public speaker.

My job is to help you to understand your story, to have the courage to speak it and follow where it leads, and to tell it in the most effective way possible.

I bring to my clients the perspective and habits of mind of both the entrepreneur and the artist.  I empower people to be and act and even work for themselves, artists of their own lives and work, and to that end I help them to begin to release fears and worries about the opinions of others even as they become better able to identify and escape their influence.  You can’t operate at your highest ability if you’re filled with the values and passions of other people.  (Besides, people who live or work for themselves, in service of their own passions, are simply happier than anyone else.  See our small business coaches!)

Consistent with these values, I also care enough about my clients not to impose on them a cookie-cutter system copied from a coaching school or franchise.  Like all Feroce coaches, I customize my approach. I listen carefully on calls and hear things you don’t know you’re saying.  I also engage with you between calls, via instant messenger, email, and text message . Using my analytical skills, a form of literary analysis, and my own instincts, throughout each week I listen and respond with detailed commentary on your thoughts as well as constructive suggestions.  I like a lot of intellectual and emotional stimulation, so I can’t just do the boilerplate stuff.  I want to walk with you through the transformational space of coaching.

I also work with clients to:

• navigate the choppy waters of organizational politics with effectiveness and integrity, in order to rise honestly and authentically in their careers
• create compelling, persuasive business plans (I also tell clients when I think their time would be better spent on something else)
• develop sales and marketing systems that really work, including online, search engine, and social media marketing
• craft speeches or presentations
• strategize difficult or challenging conversations and negotiations at home and work, with loved ones,  bosses, peers, and others
• practice strategies for greater mindfulness and self-awareness, for exercising the compassion and forgiveness without which no meaningful success is possible
• and even to do what I have done with my own work and life — to be independent of the yoke of others and master of my own time, to allow myself at last to seek out joy in place of merely, and always, responsibility.

I’m certified by the International Coach Academy.  More importantly, I’ve worked in many fields and have a wealth of experience, including numerous business start-ups, some of them venture- and angel-backed.  And I recently finished ghost-writing a book for Random House and three foreign publishers covering over 80 countries.  Whew!

I have a Juris Doctorate from Harvard Law School, where I was elected (and somehow remain) president of my class, and a B.S. in Business Administration from the University of Colorado at Boulder, summa cum laude. I have studied psychology and growth for decades. I recently completed the New Warrior Training of the wonderful Mankind Project. I bring a wealth of experience and aptitudes to the exciting and fulfilling work of coaching. You can read some of my testimonials here.

For fun, I read everything and am writing a trilogy of novels. I’m also turning my experience walking across Spain with my mother into a book. See Camino Not Chemo for the inspiring, amusing, and moving story.

A More Personal Biography

I offer summaries of my background for two different levels of attention span and due diligence.  In the short version, you’ll find career and educational information.

In the longer, memoir version, you’ll be able to see in more detail what I’ve done and why I have perspective on many different facets of life and work — and how I’ve become a jack of many trades, master of several, and continually reinvented myself as I follow the paths that appeal to me.  You’ll also see how ingeniously spectacular mistakes coupled with mindfulness are an ideal combination for a great coach.