69. Steve Schlafman: How to Navigate Life’s Biggest Transitions

Steve Schlafman spent 15 years as a venture capitalist, a partner at one of New York's top firms, before walking away to become a full-time coach to founders, investors, and operators navigating the biggest inflection points of their lives. He's trained under the Conscious Leadership Group and is deep in the somatic tradition of Hakomi. His clients call him Schlaf.

If you've ever wondered what actually happens inside a person when their whole identity is shifting: a business ending, a career pivot, a relationship dissolving, this conversation will serve as a well-rounded introduction.

Here are some of my favorite themes that we explored…

Your stuckness isn't the problem. It's protecting one.

Schlaf described how, whenever a client is stuck, his instinct isn't to push through the resistance. It's to get curious about what the resistance is guarding. The defense isn't the enemy. It's evidence of something that once needed protecting.

"Rather than making it a problem, how do I in some ways help them support that defense so that we can really get to know what it's protecting and how it's protecting them."

Whatever pattern you keep calling "bad," it's actually just a strategy you built for a reason.

These aren't negative patterns. They're strategies.

Schlaf told me about a client who'd mapped out all of his so-called "negative patterns" using ChatGPT. Schlaf offered a single reframe, and the entire session shifted. The behaviors weren't flaws to eliminate. They were solutions the person had built, once, to survive something.

"I want to offer a reframe. These aren't negative, they're patterns, view them as strategies."

That reframe isn't just therapeutic. It's a management principle. The employee who over-controls, the founder who can't delegate, the leader who needs constant validation: none of it is a character flaw to be lectured out of someone. It's a strategy, built for a reason, that's overstayed its welcome.

Change is doing something different. Transition is becoming someone different.