Transformation
"Transformation is an evolutionary process that we deeply feel and experience. Once it occurs, we move beyond just understanding it intellectually to fully and sustainably living the change. We embody a rooted version of our authentic self, with acceptance and clarity that transcends our past. This shift is such, that even under pressure or when very relaxed, we do not unconsciously revert to our old ways. Such transformation can occur multiple times in our lives." Lutz Otto
Lutz
Otto
♾️ Executive, Counselling, & Life Coach
♾️ Leadership Consultant
♾️ Retreat Facilitator
♾️ Wilderness Guide
I am a seasoned and qualified executive, life, counselling, and team coach, who is comfortable working with depth and challenging processes. Partnering with clients to work through complex internal and external challenges, navigate transitions, make conscious choices, develop better relationships, build leadership capacity, and better understand themselves in a way that allows for continuous movement towards evolving potential, is where I find my purpose.
My experience, developed over 35 years, has been gained in coaching, leadership roles, retreat facilitation, counselling, mentorship roles, change management, and living a full life. Before starting my coaching practice, I gained extensive local and international executive leadership experience. I am admitted as a fellow member of the Association For Coaching. Explore my work foundation and approach.
Losing my father to cancer at the age of 13 profoundly affected my family and me - Feeling lost, hurt, and different, at 18 years old I started a process of sense-making, connecting to my authenticity, and exploring how to make the most of our time on earth - This ignited a passion that became my vocation, and continues to evolve into a deep working understanding of psychology, leadership, systems thinking, neuroscience, and holistic well-being.
Labels aside, I am multidimensional and evolving. Care, courage, focus, love, service, resilience, and adventure form my essence, and I accept that at times I feel the opposite. I am committed to living consciously and authentically. I have learned from success and failure, and have consciously grown through significant personal and professional change.
The bush, mountains, wild beaches, and the garden at home, are my sanctuaries for renewal. I love music and reading. I am a lifelong runner, both road and trail, backpacker, climber, and adventurer.
Vulnerability
"Believing that vulnerability is unsafe is at its best a basic defense, and in reality, an illusion. Our psychological and physiological makeup, our humanness, makes each of us vulnerable, whether we would like to believe it or not. The vulnerability and courage of doing the work necessary to find and show our truth far outweighs the lifelong burden of living an inauthentic life." Lutz Otto
Experience
My professional experience, developed over 35 years, has been gained in coaching, leadership roles, retreat facilitation, counselling, mentorship roles and change management.
I am a seasoned executive, life, leadership, group, and counselling coach who assists clients to work through complex internal and external challenges, navigate transitions, make conscious choices, build leadership capacity, develop better relationships, and better understand themselves in a way that allows for continuous movement towards evolving potential. Through Spirited Adventures, we have positively impacted many lives with our well-being, healing, and leadership retreats.
Prior starting my coaching practice I acquired extensive local and international executive leadership experience, including the implementation of numerous change processes, business turnaround, and serving for over a decade on the South African executive team of a London Stock Exchange-listed multinational.
Through my journey I have come to understand what growth, leadership, healing and transformation processes, uniquely expects from us. Extensive depth coaching has shown me the growth which can arise for clients when working through difficult internal and external challenges, personally navigating executive leadership has taught me about the anxieties associated to high stakes, having worked and lived globally has taught me much about cultural diversity, and leading mountaineering and backpacking trips, time spent on the fringes of conventional experience, has taught me what cannot be learned in books. The unique combination, time on different sides of the fence, differentiates me from many coaches, psychologists, and consultants.
I graduated from business school in 1993 and completed numerous additional programs and certifications. I hold several international coaching and counseling certifications, and am a certified assessor. Supporting the work we do on our retreats, I am a qualified walking safari, nature, and mountain guide. To ensure that I practice in a manner that best serves you, I continue to invest in therapy, supervision, and ongoing professional development.
I founded an Honorary Ranger Initiative in the Greater Kruger National Park, served for 6 years on the executive committee of the Field Guides Association Of Southern Africa, and in 2015 I was awarded the Order-of-the-Bateleur for my then volunteer contribution to various conservation initiatives.
Work Foundation
At a foundational level, I practice integratively combining psychology, coaching, mentorship, counselling, trauma-informed, leadership, systems thinking, change management, neuroscience and holistic well-being principles. My work is oriented by the psychodynamic, existential, and cognitive behavioural psychological philosophies.
My work is underpinned by the beliefs that:
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Sometimes life is easy, and sometimes life is really hard. Forced positivity fails us. We are in an infinitely better psychological position by validating what we are feeling, in the reality of our experience, and moving forward drawing on our inner resources, a growth mindset, and when possible hope.
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We are continually evolving, and if we choose to, we can grow through challenges in a way we never believed possible.
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All human desires, responses to our needs, and mental activity are alive to a continuous, dynamic, interaction between feelings, cognition, and behaviour. They are inseparable in their link.
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The past is with us in the present and will be with us in the future. It need not determine the future.
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We are subjected to conscious and unconscious cognition - Our unconscious mind drives most of our responses, desires, fears, and behaviours, and until we bring awareness to this, we are driven, not driving.
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Nothing happens in isolation.
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The mind ♾️ body connection is inseverable.
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Psychological freedom can only be found by doing the work within. You are it. The only way is through.
How effective is the psychodynamic approach?
Jonathan Shedler, a distinguished psychoanalyst and clinical professor, gained global recognition for his research that empirically proved the effectiveness of the psychodynamic approach. Read the outcomes in his article The Efficacy of Psychodynamic Psychotherapy
“Lutz is direct and insightful, driven yet humble, compassionate and kind. He easily connects to people, whilst his authenticity, veracity and depth of holistic experience position him uniquely to facilitate both personal and leadership transformation work”
Approach
The people who decide to work with me are committed to their goals and intentionally wish to work with an experienced practitioner. Our time together can serve as a powerful catalyst for sustainable change and provide deep insights into understanding your behavior, relationships, and the unique workings of your mind.
I practice with dedication and respect. My approach is integrative, supportive, engaged, curious, gently honest, intuitive, informed, and outcomes-focused.
Depending where we are in your journey, we will work with either emergence, or towards a specific goal. To develop the necessary insight to assist you, I get to know your life story, beliefs, challenges, hopes, and ambitions. I am skilled at working with depth, and am comfortable working with challenging processes. Where we can, I bring lightness into our work.
Our journey together acknowledges that "energy flows where attention goes, form follows flow". Changing behaviours, habitats, and beliefs, result from many actions, consistently, compounded over time. Transformation starts unfolding, even if it differs from our initial expectations, when we intentionally shift from thinking and talking, to action.
Confidentiality & Professional Association
Crucial to the success of your process, is working with someone you can trust and with whom you can speak to without reservation. Confidentiality, ethical practice and psychological safety are bound into our terms of working together.
All our work together starts with an alignment exploration, a discussion as to what you can expect, and a contracting process. I am admitted as a fellow member* of the Association for Coaching and work by the association's Global Code of Ethics.
*Fellow membership is an exclusive admission category granted to practitioners with significant coaching experience, that has been gained over an extended period of time, and who are able to demonstrate their contribution to the coaching profession.
Contact
If what you have read resonates with and you would like to learn more or have questions, let's schedule a discovery call to see if we can work together to help you meet your goals.
My practice and office are located in Sandton, South Africa. I provide my services in person, either indoors or outdoors in nature, as well as via online video conferencing. I work with clients in South Africa, the UK, Europe, and the USA. Simply submit your form to arrange a suitable time.