About Coach DShen
David Shen
My coaching journey began from the health and fitness side of things, which was my side passion as I navigated the corporate world for many years.
I spent many years racing triathlon and marathons, having made it to the finish line of 6 Ironmans and numerous smaller races, as well as the Waikiki Rough Water Swim and many Alcatraz crossings.
Leaving the corporate world (see my LinkedIn profile), this led me to coaching for sport, starting with swim coaching with Total Immersion. However, one aspect dogged me for years: why was it that clients, who came to me for improvement and paid me for my time, would never practice what we had discovered was needed to address their swimming?
As this aspect continued to persist, I also had discoveries that traditional notions about health and wellness were flawed. This was first evident when I read Tim Ferris’s 4 Hour Body, where I went low-carb and discovered that nutrition, not more training, had a much greater effect on one’s body composition. Up to that point, I had been racing Ironman and wondered why I didn’t just lose all the fat off my body as I peaked for races. You’d think that training nearly every day, and also for a marathon swim, century bike race, and a marathon simultaneously would have burned all the fat off my body. Instead, it only made my body fluctuate 7-9 pounds between off season when I trained very little, and when I reached the starting line of a race.
When I went low carb, I was training for the Los Angeles Marathon and ended up at my typical race weight at the starting line. However, after the race my weight continued to drop and leveled out at 4 pounds *below* my Ironman race weight and stayed there!
It was then I began to question everything, and got into biohacking to run experiments on myself with the various weight loss and other interesting techniques out there, as well as enrolling in Precision Nutrition nutrition coaching and gaining my Level 2 certification. I also discovered functional medicine which works to uncover the root cause of health issues and address those. This then led me to enter (the now defunct) Chris Kresser’s ADAPT Health Coach program, to see if I could learn more about functional medicine and coaching people to better health.
I also realized that I had also uncovered the solution to one of my longstanding unsolved mysteries, which was how to motivate people to sustain training. Through coaching techniques, we help generate awareness of the true root cause of the problem, then with awareness, derive a path to their desired state.
Still, coaching only for health wasn’t enough for me. I got introduced to broader categories of coaching in the areas of life and workplace/executive coaching, which touch on all sorts of areas in peoples’ lives. In my view, it is all connected. Work is a major part of everyone’s lives; just the time people spend at work makes it so! And then there is personal life that we are always trying to balance. Navigating this dance between the two then is interconnected with one’s health; if you don’t do either or both well, and have dissatisfaction in one or both, then your health ultimately suffers!
This led me to further education in life coaching. I got my ACC credential from the International Coaching Federation, after taking Marion Franklin’s excellent Laser Focused Coaching Course. I tend to follow whatever resonates, and so I began training with Tijen Genco in her Genco Method Somatic Coaching, Neurological Approaches, and Reiki courses, all of which she has tied back to improving one’s coaching abilities. I also dived into shamanism through Shamanic Reiki from Shamanic Reiki Worldwide by Llyn Roberts, where I continue to explore the melding of spirit and how it improves our overall well-being. It also brought forth the concept of holistic coaching, which is the coaching of the body, mind, and spirit together.
Ultimately, one of my joys in life is to see others succeed, thrive, and flourish. It is my goal with every client I meet, and to help them reach whatever state they desire. It does not matter whether it is coaching in the workplace, or in your personal life, or if it’s about improving your health. Remember, it’s all connected! If this sounds like something you’d like to explore further, contact me for a conversation!