Could it be there’s a future version of you waiting for you?
I didn’t plan to become a coach.
People just kept showing up at my desk. Not for work stuff, usually. For the harder things. The decision they couldn’t make. The dream they couldn’t quite let themselves say out loud. The thing that had been sitting in their chest for longer than they wanted to admit. They came because something in them knew I would listen, really listen, and ask the questions that helped them hear themselves more clearly.
I was doing this for years before I had a name for it. I called it mentoring, or advising, or just being a good friend. But looking back, it was always coaching.
The Long Way Around
I started my career as a mental health counselor and behavior technician, working directly with adults living with chronic and persistent mental illness. That work taught me something I’ve carried ever since: the most powerful thing you can offer another person isn’t advice. It’s presence. The willingness to sit with someone in the hard place, not to fix it, but to help them find their own way through.
From there I spent six years at Idea Connection Systems and HumanGrid, where I designed teams, facilitated workshops, built curricula, and led culture change strategy for organizations ranging from a worker owned bakery to Hallmark Cards. I did archetype research with military experts. I redesigned personality assessments with statistically validated reliability scores. I helped healthcare leaders build cognitively diverse teams that could actually innovate together.
I published my graduate research on using Human Centered Design to create mentoring systems for youth aging out of foster care. I earned a Master’s degree in Creativity, Innovation and Change Leadership. I became a Certified FourSight Facilitator, a Master Certified Trainer for the Innovation Strengths Preference Indicator, and a Cognitive Behavioral Coaching practitioner.
And through all of it, the throughline was always the same: I was trying to understand how people work. What blocks them. What frees them. What makes the difference between a life that feels like yours and one that doesn’t.
The Part Nobody Tells You
Here’s what I didn’t talk about for a long time.
While I was helping other people unlock their creativity and find their purpose, I was quietly struggling to do the same for myself. I knew I was a creative person (I’ve always known that) but I spent years talking myself out of it. Afraid to fail. Afraid to be seen. Convinced that making space for my own creative life was something self indulgent I hadn’t earned yet.
I also live with chronic illness. And chronic illness teaches you things the hard way: that the mind, body, and creative life are not separate systems. That you cannot pour from an empty cup. That creativity isn’t a luxury you access after everything else is handled. It’s the thing that makes you feel like yourself. It’s self care. It only works when it becomes a practice, not a reward.
I coach myself through this every single day. The tools I bring to my clients are the same ones I rely on to stay grounded, creative, and well in my own life. That’s not a marketing line. That’s just the truth.
What Blue-Eyed Birds Creative Is
I founded Blue-Eyed Birds Creative because I believe every person has something important to contribute to this world: a story worth telling, a creative life worth living, a version of themselves worth becoming.
My work sits at the intersection of psychology, creativity, and intuition. I am a certified health and wellness coach, trained in Motivational Interviewing, Appreciative Inquiry, and Cognitive Behavioral Coaching. I bring validated psychological assessments, from VIA Character Strengths to FourSight to the PERMA Profiler, into every coaching relationship. And I integrate intuitive and somatic tools, because I believe lasting transformation requires the analytical mind, the intuitive mind, and the body working together.
My proprietary framework, The Blue-Eyed Birds Creative Human-Centered Design Process™: Connect. Create. Cultivate., guides everything I do. It’s rooted in the same Human Centered Design principles I’ve applied across 15 years of work with individuals, teams, and organizations.
Who I’m Here For
I work primarily with purpose driven women, femmes, and they/thems who are self aware, deeply curious, and at a point where they know something needs to shift. They’ve often done therapy. They’ve read the books. They’ve tried the productivity systems. And something still feels out of alignment.
I also work with solo entrepreneurs and small business owners, particularly those in creative, helping, or values driven fields, who have the work but not yet the words. Who know what they do but can’t quite make other people feel it.
They’re not broken. They’re not lost. They’re just carrying a version of themselves they haven’t fully stepped into yet.
That’s who I’m here for.
The Invitation
Could it be there’s a version of you waiting for you?
If something in you just said yes, even quietly, I’d love to talk.
Book a free 30 minute discovery call. No pressure. No pitch. Just a conversation about where you are and where you want to be.
I’m here to help you find her.
Jenn Potratz is a certified health and wellness coach and the founder of Blue-Eyed Birds Creative, a coaching and consulting practice for people navigating transition, creativity, and the question of what comes next. Learn more at blueeyedbirds.com.
