Lauren Handel Zander. Photography by Jack Plunkett.
Lauren Handel Zander is the Co-Founder and Chairman of Handel Group®, an international private coaching company. Zander is a life coach with a sense of humor and she specializes in bringing dreams and visions to life.On Jan. 16, 2016 whilst she was in attendance of Prevention Magazine’s third annual R3 Summit held at ACL Live at The Moody Theater in Austin, Texas: Zander consented to a short yet insightful interview with A&E Austin Examiner, Nicolette Mallow. Prior to the interview within the Press room, Lauren Handel Zander shared the stage with other talented professionals that included Joan Lunden, Naomi Whittel, Dr. Jennifer Ashton and Dr. Lauren Streicher to present the keynote “Love Your Age”.
Nicolette Mallow: During the presentation, you spoke of the past and hating the shape of your own shadow. That stuck in my mind. The way you described nitpicking yourself so deeply to the point it became absolutely absurd: disliking your literal shadow while walking about… I believe many people can relate to that sort of melancholy unkindness directed to the self. We often speak silently to ourselves, in our mind, and say such horrible things we’d never allow others to say to our face. Ultimately, my questions revolves around this: how did you overcome such negative self-feedback and rewire your mind to see things positively, accurately and with kindness? How did you conquer the inner-voice that was trying to hold you back and distort the truth?
Lauren Handel Zander: Yes; editing the voices can be a challenge. My journey of self-discovery began in my 20’s. The first step was being honest with myself and everyone around me. It’s easy to become afraid to be our own individual. To stay true to ourselves, we must be honest. In the past, I was hiding truths from myself, and others, because I was hiding myself away. I was lying to everybody. I was the epitome of a bad girl. One day I simply decided to reveal everything that was truthful. And that was when my life changed. I was born to be a life coach, it’s in my blood. I just had to learn to edit my own voices and learn to be true to myself, first, before I could coach others.
NM: Once we edit the voices, then we can get to the truth?
LHZ: Absolutely. One of the aspects I love most about my job is that I can get to the root of things. Throughout the process of life coaching, I want to know why someone is doing what they’re doing. I want to understand what’s going on beyond surface level and why they’re feeling whatever it is they’re feeling. I want to understand what they’re thinking. That way I can help find the blocks and I can fix it. Bringing shadows to light helps people reach their highest self. Whether it’s a relationship, a job, an investment, family issues or whether someone is unsure why they’re doing what they’re doing as if running on autopilot… I want to know everything so that we can work on fixing it. I like fixing things. But people have to be willing to do the work.
NM: So you help bring dreams and visions to life?
LHZ: Yes. I like to say that I have ‘a vision for my visions’. Having a vision and following our dreams helps us to reach our highest self. I want people to find the truth and find a vision so they can turn their dreams into a reality.
“Lauren Handel Zander is a life coach, university lecturer, public speaker and, above all, a purveyor of the truth. As the Co-Founder and Chairman of the Handel Group®, she has spent over 20 years coaching thousands of private clients: entrepreneurs, couples, families, professors, politicians, Emmy and Academy Award-winning artists, Grammy-winning musicians and Fortune 500 CEOs. Her corporate clients have included executives from Sony BMG, The New York Times, News Corp, J. Walter Thompson Agency, Citibank, Dropbox, LinkedIn, Uniworld, The Gap Inc., BASF, NYU Langone Medical Center, and Vogue. She is a mediator, who has fixed corporate business relationships, mediated contract negotiations, reconciled marriages, and helped resolve complex family issues. In the early 2000s, Lauren created a groundbreaking methodology, The Handel Method®, which she developed and taught at MIT. Her methodology, supported by top educators and psychologists is now being taught at Stanford Graduate School of Business, MIT, NYU, Columbia, Yale Drama School, and Wesleyan, as well as in over 35 other universities and educational progrlauren-zander-candid-2ams across the country.”
Note: This article was originally published on Examiner.com in January 2016.
Nicolette Mallow 
Interesting. As she says about herself: I was lying to everybody. I was the epitome of a bad girl. I’m glad Lauren turned herself around and stopped lying, hopefully not just to herself, in like I”m not hurting other people when I lie, but also stopped lying to others. For most liars the rewards are too big to stop doing what they’re doing.
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