Hatch Academy provides a whole course of study for the whole human being, not just a big reading list, not just coaching support or valuable lessons. We provide a curriculum that addresses every critical component of a person’s life. Our experience is that by educating and supporting someone from many different angles, by burnishing weaknesses and building on strengths, the whole person begins to grow.
First, we spend two days going deep with a client, drawing on stories of their past to identify the big themes in their life and what excites them, combining these with their highest vision for themselves to forge a purpose statement that connects them with what matters most.
Once we know we’re pointed in the right direction, we work on the things that will get us there quickly and in one piece: effective project management and task planning based on a values-based assessment of ones roles in life and attendant goals. And we work a lot on self-care — diet, exercise, recreation, sleep, journaling, meditation, and consistent morning and evening routines.
We start talking about money, how to build systems to manage it, how to budget in order to save, and how to invest that savings — not just for the future but as an exciting business model we are developing right now.
We look at the things that get in the way and we handle them — toxic friends and relationships, device addiction, shame and self-hatred, and all the forms of procrastination that any person has to deal with. Through conversation and writing assignments we make enough progress with these things to maintain momentum and stimulate powerful insight.
We define priorities in relationships, whether a romantic connection is something important at the moment, and what standards a client would want in a potential partner. We examine friendships and let dead wood from the past fall away and cultivate new friendships of lasting quality.
We work on critical communication skills — writing especially, but also speaking, body language, eye contact, and social fluency. We develop deep listening skills and work on identifying and managing emotions, both ours and those of others.
We work on writing a lot — good spelling and grammar, proper tone and address, assertive style and clarity — and one way we do that is by reading a lot. It helps develop optimal language as well as critical thinking. Unlike book summary programs, Hatch Academy integrates books into a full curriculum of whole-person growth, as well as recommending highly curated books targeted for specific challenges or interests a student faces. It’s the difference between studying something because it’s assigned and studying something because it’s what you need and are interested in at that moment — in other words, all the difference in the world.
Then we point all that growth in self-knowledge, communication and organization towards the professional world. Drawing on Hatch’s expansive network of experts and our coaches’ business mastery, we chart out the possibilities for entrance and growth in a particular career, with a special emphasis on meeting and impressing the kind of mentors that can make a radical difference in a professional’s life.
We work on building a personal brand within that field, as well as mastering requisite equipment, software, and industry knowledge. We teach design thinking to allow for a continual expansion of perspective and creative problem solving. And we connect you to an incredible network of experts and peers, something you can build off of for the rest of your life.
Of course, the world of work always involves a certain amount of failure and disappointment, and cultivating an open relationship to those experiences produces resilience and the kind of personal growth that can’t be bought or taught. As artists, entrepreneurs and teachers, we have first-hand familiarity with strategies for making good use of the struggles of the work world.
In all of this we try to instill a sense of confidence based on commitment to one’s work, and a spirit of leadership based on service to others. Integrity lies at the foundation of every truly successful life, and defining that integrity and discovering how it must be applied is what creates wisdom and, ultimately, lifelong fulfillment.
