Good Neighbor Podcast: TN-WNC-SWVA

EP#360: High-Performance Coaching That Protects Your Health And Career

• Skip Mauney & Emily Heird • Episode 360

Share episode

What if burnout isn’t about how many hours you work, but how you recover and perform under pressure? We sit with high-performance coach and licensed mental health counselor Emily Heird, founder of Vantage View Coaching, to unpack a practical, science-backed approach to thriving in high-stress roles without sacrificing health, relationships, or purpose. Emily draws on her years in mental health and her love of sports and performance psychology to teach tools most professionals never learn: attention control, time management, motivation and commitment, self-discipline, mindfulness, and leadership culture that supports sustainable excellence.

We walk through her pivotal shift from therapy to coaching, where root causes like chronic stress and poor recovery often masquerade as clinical problems. Emily explains why coaching is an unregulated field and how to vet a coach for credentials and fit. She also challenges a common myth: your coach doesn’t need your exact job title to help you win; they need a robust playbook for resilience, pressure management, and consistent execution. Her story includes a powerful wake-up call at home that pushed her to rebuild her habits and ultimately focus full-time on this mission.

You’ll hear concrete steps for designing recovery into your day and week, building resilience skills that travel across careers, and shaping team norms that prevent burnout while preserving high standards. Emily works one-on-one with clients and delivers workshops for organizations across the U.S. and abroad, offering virtual and in-person options. Ready to find your baseline and take action? Explore her mental performance assessment and book a complimentary 30-minute consult to turn insight into momentum. If this conversation resonates, subscribe, share with a colleague who needs it, and leave a review to help more high performers find sustainable success.

SPEAKER_01:

This is the Good Neighbor Podcast, the place where local businesses and neighbors come together. Here's your host, Skip Money.

SPEAKER_02:

Hello, everyone, and welcome to the Good Neighbor Podcast of East Tennessee and Western North Carolina. So today we're fortunate to have a very special guest with us in the studio for the first time, and we're thrilled to have her and learn all about her and her uh business. So I'm sure you will be as well because today I have the pleasure of introducing your good neighbor, Miss Emily Hurd, who is the owner, operator, president of Vantage View Coaching. Emily, welcome to the show.

SPEAKER_00:

Thank you, Skip. Thank you very much for having me.

SPEAKER_02:

Well, like I said, we're very excited to have you and uh all excited to learn about Vantage View Coaching. So if you don't mind, why don't you start us out by telling us about your business?

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, so um at Vantage View Coaching, I am a high performance coach and a burnout advisor for individuals and organizations. Uh so the mission of my work is to help high-performing professionals who work under uh stressful conditions uh continue to thrive in work while not sacrificing what is the most important, which is their health, their relationships, and their life.

SPEAKER_02:

Wow, that's super important. Um and that's a big need, and especially in the corporate world. Yes. Um so uh interesting, Emily. How did uh how did you get started in in the uh coaching business?

SPEAKER_00:

So my background is in mental health. I am a licensed mental health counselor and I've been in the industry for 15 years. At one point, I had um started my own private practice and I grew that from just me to three office locations and a staff of about 20 and an internship site. Um and I experienced burnout in that time period, which was part of my mission to start a coaching company to essentially try to help prevent burnout, um, especially around workplace stress. And in about 2020, I noticed that I had started working with a lot of high-achieving clients, particularly attorneys. They were coming in for therapy. Um, but I also noticed that really the root cause of their anxiety or depression or really even substance use issues wasn't necessarily organic mental health issues, but it was more the chronic stress that they were under, and that they didn't have the psychological skills necessary that would equip them with resilience, with um learning how to perform under pressure in a in a sustained way. And so I took that experience my experience, uh, that knowledge working with clients. I'm also married to an attorney and my dad's an attorney, so I'm very familiar with that world and combined it with uh my love for an education in sports psychology, sports and performance psychology. And so when I started combining kind of my mental health knowledge and expertise with the sports and performance, and started working on all kinds of skills that people don't necessarily get in traditional therapy, like time management, motivation and commitment, self-discipline and control, uh, mindfulness and meditation, leadership skills, culture building in an office, how to build resilience and capacity, that my clients saw really great results in their mental health as a result, had better lives and more career success. And so that was the kind of the impetus behind starting my coaching business because I really love this work. And in 2023, I sold my counseling business to focus on this full time.

SPEAKER_02:

Wow. Well, I imagine there's no the the number of potential clients are limitless, I would think. Yeah. Um after you know, I spent 40 years in the corporate world myself, and I can totally get why why this is necessary. So um, so um can you think of any myths or misconceptions in the coaching business? I don't know about specifically for stress-related, you know, performance, but uh anything come to mind?

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, so um I'll give an answer for both of those. One of the one of the myths or misconceptions, I would say maybe just rather something to be on the lookout for. If you are interested in working with a coach, be curious about their credentials, be curious about their experience, and make sure that what they are bringing to the table matches what you need. Unlike the mental health profession, coaching is not a regulated industry. So anyone can say that they're a coach. And I'm not saying all coaches out there are bad, um, but you want to make sure that the person that you are interested in working with has the credentials and the experience. Another misconception that I hear sometimes is that you should only work with coaches who have done exactly what you want to do. And so, like sometimes I hear lawyers say, uh, in particular, you know, if if you're a lawyer, you should only work with a coach who's also a lawyer. Um, to that I say things like, you know, the the coach of football teams may not have ever been a quarterback, but they have a different skill set and they know how to, you know, uh teach players, develop their skills, bring out the best of their potentials, develop game plans, uh, and and that is the expertise that they bring to the table. Um, and then in terms of misconceptions about stress and burnout, one of the biggest misconceptions about burnout is that it's related to the number of hours that you work. And that's not that's not the case at all. I have clients that work a lot of hours each week. Um the key is that there needs to be more recovery built in and more um stress management tools to to prevent burnout.

SPEAKER_02:

Wow. That's a lot. Yeah, a lot of misconceptions, but you know, it's a it's a deep subject. So um it sounds like you're working a lot yourself, a lot of hours. Um, but when you're not uh in your spare time, what do you like to do for fun?

SPEAKER_00:

Well, I have a a nine-year-old daughter. Um, so I spend a lot of time with her. She just got a new mountain bike, so we've been enjoying going on long bike rides recently. I enjoy reading and cooking. I'm a pretty introverted person, so after spending all day talking to people, um, at time at home, I like to do uh more quiet activities for my recovery. And then golf is uh is a hobby and a lifelong sport that I enjoy.

SPEAKER_02:

Very good and also very relaxing. Yeah, can be. It can make you angry. Yeah, yeah, it can make you angry too. But yeah, um, well, so let's switch gears for a second. Can you describe either professionally or personally a hardship or a life challenge that you've overcome and how it made you stronger in the end?

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, so I I I I think probably the the biggest challenge that I had was experiencing burnout. And it is such a slow burn that when you're in it, you don't really realize what's happening, or you think, okay, when things slow down, or you know, I'll just I'll schedule a vacation and then I'll be able to take care of myself. And I had one moment on a Sunday afternoon in 2019 with my daughter, where we had this moment and it was a huge wake-up call. Um, she fell into a bucket of hot water. She is okay. Um, but in that moment when we were in the bathtub, and I'm sitting there with my tennis shoes on and cold water pouring on her, and she's screaming at the top of her head. And I'm thinking, you know, this loud voice came into my mind and said, enough of this, Emily. Like you have to change things, you have to take care of yourself. Um, and so it was a slow progression of you know, redoing patterns and behaviors that I had to invest in myself and my well-being so that I could be the type of mother that I wanted to be, the type of employer, the type of professional that I want to be. But those years um leading up to that moment were definitely challenging from a stress and energy and mental health perspective. And then the recovery was a journey as well, but it has absolutely fueled the mission for my work today.

SPEAKER_02:

Awesome. Awesome. The fuel for your work. I love it. Um so um if uh Emily, if you could think of one thing that you would like our listeners and our viewers to remember about Vantage View Coaching, what would what would that be?

SPEAKER_00:

Well, um the first thing is it would would be is that uh I do one-on-one coaching, but I also do workplace trainings where I go in and either teach on topics related to stress management, resilience, mindset, leadership. Um, and it's in-person and virtual. So I work with clients all over Tennessee, all over the United States. I've even had some clients over in Europe, and then uh I will do virtual or in-person trainings as well.

SPEAKER_02:

Very good. And not just for individuals, but for groups as leadership groups, I would imagine.

SPEAKER_00:

Absolutely, yes.

SPEAKER_02:

Awesome, awesome, good to know. And for those of us who, you know, uh interested uh or in a very high stress job and and uh think, oh my goodness, this is exactly what I need. Um, how can we learn more?

SPEAKER_00:

Well, you can visit my website, vantageviewcoaching.com. You can connect with me on LinkedIn at Emily Herd, H-E-I-R-D, and then I'm on Instagram and um Facebook as well. I have a newsletter, I have a mental performance assessment that people can go on my website and take if you want to kind of get a baseline with where you're at, with your strengths in terms of your psychological skills and mental performance. Uh, then it will give you some recommendations for areas to work on and an invitation to book a complimentary 30-minute call for me to discuss those results and give you a few more strategies that you can put into action right away.

SPEAKER_02:

All right, awesome. And that's on the website.

SPEAKER_00:

That's on the website, yep.

SPEAKER_02:

Awesome, awesome. I will definitely check that out. Great. I deal with a lot of stress. So, anyway, well, uh Emily, I can't tell you how much we appreciate you spending time with us today to tell us all about yourself, your journey, and uh about your company. And we wish you and your family and your all your clients all the best living forward.

SPEAKER_00:

Thank you so much, Skip.

SPEAKER_02:

And we'd love to have you back sometime. It's you've got a lot to talk about.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, I would love that.

SPEAKER_02:

All right. Thanks so much, and have a great rest of the day.

SPEAKER_00:

You too.

SPEAKER_01:

Thank you for listening to the Good Neighbor Podcast. To nominate your favorite local businesses to be featured on the show, go to GNP Try Dash Cities dot com. That's GNP Try Dash Cities dot com or call four two two two two two two two two two two three seven one nine five eight seven three.