Empowering brave business owners with tools to thrive beyond trauma.
Welcome! This website is a pro-consent choose-your-own adventure!
Explore in whatever order you'd like. :-) You'll find a lot of *freely* available resources, blog posts, podcast episodes, and even a chance to breathe!
If you'd like to chat about us or our paid offerings, I'd be happy to sit down for a super chill meet-n-greet!
My name is Emily Ann Peterson (she/her).
I help my clients dismantle the undue influence of their trauma through empowered business decisions & strategy.
I believe that the economic structure of your life & business can support your whole self & well-being. I also believe that your business can transform into a daily practice of intentional healing.
Here are a few ways my clients and I often spend time together...
- identifying trigger spots in their business
- finding recipes for auto-replenishing bravery
- creating templates for sustainable & creative growth
- building ethical marketing maps that don't feel icky
- taking the cult out of their difficult business
- we also put the pun back in punny. ;-)
Note: Although I work with those who've experienced all kinds of trauma (big T or little t) my life experience makes me exceptionally well-suited to helping entrepreneurs with religious trauma or survivors of high-control groups.
Does your business trigger your trauma?
"Business + Trauma?!"
Yep. If you live with the long-term effects of your trauma, then you know...
We're ALL working out our trauma. All. The. Time.
In general, this is a good thing. Repressing trauma helps no one.
Small business owners are no exception to this.
For entrepreneurs with trauma, the demands of running a business can create an exponentially haunting ripple effect on post-traumatic life.
The mental, physical, emotional, and financial effects are often chronic and some experts out there say it can even be permanent for some trauma survivors.
Entrepreneurs are *already* prone to:
- mental illness: depression, low self-worth, chronic anxiety, panic attacks, addiction, bi-polar disorder
- physical illness: hypertension/heart disease, joint & circulation problems, sleep disorders, insomnia, vision-related problems
- lifestyle factors: ADHD, sexual or erectile dysfunction, hormone suppression
Entrepreneurs with *trauma* have:
Sources: World Psychiatry, PsychCentral
- terminal risks: hypertension/heart disease, diabetes, obesity, stroke, cancer, autoimmune diseases, high-risk behaviors, suicide
- chronic risks: anxiety, panic attacks, sleep disorders, night terrors, insomnia, flashbacks, obsessive and/or compulsive behavior
- emotional risks: hyper-arousal, extreme startle reflex, addiction, self-medicating, self-numbing
- mental risks: easily agitated or angered, disassociation, over-intellectualizing, self-injury, self-harm, excessive or inappropriate guilt, cognitive disfunction, poor memory
So how might trauma show up in career & business?
This is an incomplete list of potential post-traumatic stress symptoms and other problems in someone's career & business:
- Mindset: impostor syndrome, self-sabotage, low confidence, second-guessing
- Finances: feast or famine financial patterns, budget blindness, money burns a hole in your pockets, stress dreams about money
- Operations: people-pleasing exhaustion, chaotic time management, difficulty planning ahead, dropping important balls
- Human Resources: difficulty or avoidance in hiring & firing, micro-managing or "helicoptering", short temper, easily frustrated
- Marketing: fear or lack of self-promotion, fake-it-til-you-make-it, icky feelings, avoiding or dreading social media,
- Growth & Strategy: procrastination & perfectionism paralysis, existing on a hope and a prayer, inflexibility, over-planning or under-planning,
- Burnout: you've lost that lovin' feeling, "Sunday Scaries", no vacation time, constant rotation of dwindling and changing interests, sheer exhaustion from fighting the above list of symptoms
Many of our new clients know or quickly learn a long and personalized list of ways that trauma keeps rearing its (often ugly) head in their career and business. Book a meet-n-greet here to discuss your personalized list of business symptoms.
About The School of Bravery
1) We teach entrepreneurs with post-traumatic chaos to find sustainable sources of confidence & holistic growth.
The School of Bravery teaches our clients and students trauma-sensitive methods and practices that strengthen and empower life, career, and creativity. We've seen that the same ingredients and bravery skills which can transform extreme adversity into surviving can also transform surviving into thriving.
We believe that commerce and career can support post-traumatic healing. We believe true bravery reflects the wholeness of humanity and we believe that everyone deserves well-being in their life, career, and business.
2) We teach helpers & healers to do no (further) harm in their business & marketing.
Hand-in-hand, we also work with beginning and experienced professionals in the helping and healing industries (i.e. therapists, counselors, medicine) to find trauma-sensitive marketing that aligns with their personal and professional values.
About Our Clients & Community
We're proud and honored to work with entrepreneurs who've been labeled as:
heretics, heroes, subversives, shunned, heathen, excommunicated, cynical, misfits, outliers, glass ceiling breakers, freethinkers, whistleblowers, devil's advocates, activists, revisionists, rebels, renegades, revolutionaries, lone rangers, pioneers, mavericks, survivors, outlaws, escapees, fugitives, runaways, quitters, dissenters, and black sheep—they're all welcome The School of Bravery!
We practice building bravery, together.
We do this to enhance our collective freedom of choice, autonomy, and empowerment to individually do what we do best—applied to our businesses—and leave this world a better place. (Corny, but 100% true.)
Founding Director & Coach
Emily Ann Peterson is the founder and creator of The School of Bravery. She authored the book Bare Naked Bravery: How to Be Creatively Courageous and facilitates our group events and coaching experiences.
Guest Interviews
We have a stellar lineup of ongoing contributing guest faculty and a growing archive of exclusive interviews from featured guests on our podcast over the last several years.
Students & Clients
Anytime a group of us get together, it's a good bet that it'll be a fun time! If you'd like to read some case studies, listen to or watch some student interviews, or read testimonials, then we've got it all in one spot.
How The School of Bravery Works:
Step 1: Book a Meet-n-Greet Consult
Schedule your appointment upon confirming your email address.
Step 2: Say Hi & Show Up
Let's chat & tailor your next steps to match your unique story & business.
Step 3: Build Your Bravery
Your bravery can begin to feel easier as you intentionally practice it every day!
How We Started
In 2017, after I published my book Bare Naked Bravery, I realized that all of my clients were dealing with really similar bravery and business issues—regardless of their respective industries or business models.
In an effort to stave off my own burn-out and give my clients a deeper coaching experience, I got the idea to gather everyone together for some one-off workshops.
There really is something magical about doing business from a place of personal priorities and values, because those first workshops went really well!
My clients learned that they weren't alone. They weren't the only ones with those same or similar struggles. The collective representation of bravery from all of us in attendance was rich, warm, imperfect, filled with hope, and so wonderful.
As a result, each client got 10x more support, advice, and encouragement than they would've gotten from just little ol' me, even on my best day!
Obviously, those workshops went so well that we did it again. and again. and then again... Since those first workshops, we've continued to grow, change, evolve... we've added a bunch of other fun things too (listed below).
If you think you're a good fit to join us or if anything on this page resonates with you, I'd love to chat with you!
Thanks in advance for your consideration!
xoxo!
"Bravery begins one step at a time. It can be learned.
The School of Bravery is a chance to discover how."
Build your business bravery one step at a time with regular check-ins and accountability! This option is good for coaching clients working on a longer-term project or those seeking ongoing support from a business coach like Emily Ann Peterson.
Each Month You'll Receive:
- Recurring Private Coaching Session(s)
- Monthly, Bi-Monthly, or Weekly
- Weekly Office Hours (via email)
- Guest Faculty Classes & Content
- 1 Creative Journaling Class
- 1 Yoga Class Audio
- 1 Meditation Audio
- 50+ Archived Group Class Replays
- Plus! Student discounts on other offerings
“Bravery has many faces. It peeks out from under the covers of circumstances and wants to be seen, but fear chokes out our brave parts. Fear grabs us by the heart and mind and tells us lies that are easily believed. It’s a blanket that wraps itself around us and holds on tightly. Fear won’t let bravery shine.
Sometimes we need help to pull away the covering of fear and find the courage to be brave. Sometimes that help is a person: Emily Ann can be that one.
Bravery begins one step at a time. As it’s given the soil of courage and understanding, bravery blooms inside us and becomes large enough to walk under. I needed help to do that, and if you do too, this is the place to start. Bravery can be learned. Working with Emily Ann Peterson and The School of Bravery is a chance to discover how.”
Student & Client Testimonials
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Emily Ann Peterson
Working with Emily Ann exceeded my expectations and beyond. She not only improved my project tenfold, but made me excited and confident before the launch. It’s been incredibly helpful to have her expertise, support, and valuable feedback!
Mia Rose Lynne
songwriter & actress
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Emily Ann Peterson
Emily Ann helped me work out the kinks while my business was in its baby stages. We discussed business names, branding, pricing models, and audience strategy. She has a laser-like vision of how to help develop and market your creative works for success.
Evan Law
author & creator of the Law Thriller series
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Emily Ann Peterson
I joined The School of Bravery after Emily Ann gave me a website audit and I was so excited, inspired and motivated that it was really a no-brainer. Doing brave things is easier now because I can recognize when I'm procrastinating, resisting or just plan scared.
Heather Hobbs
author & educator
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Emily Ann Peterson
Emily Ann Peterson is a rare combination of inspiration and practical execution. Not your typical consultant, coach or singer-songwriter, for sure! She has a gift of seeing things and figuring out systems to see them through. She encouraged me to perform outreach (something I dreaded), and I’m so glad I did.
Monicka Clio-Sakki
brand strategist & coach
The School of Bravery applauds the work of the following groups & organizations:
