Positioning himself as an Emotional Wellness Thought Leader, Garth shares his knowledge on Emotional Wellness, which he gained through his personal experiences, via his courses and coaching sessions called ‘A Coffee with Garth’.
Garth defines Emotional Wellness as a state of self-awareness and readiness to proactively and constructively respond and cope emotionally to life’s challenges, or as Garth refers to them, life’s waves. Garth uses the term ‘Emotional Wellness’ rather than the more commonly term ‘Mental Health’. This is because his objective is to provide an early proactive intervention, which builds a strong Emotional Wellness foundation to support an individual’s state of Emotional Wellness when faced with life’s waves.
Garth’s purpose statement is… ‘enabling people to flourish through living a healthy emotional life’. To support this, he has set a personal goal… ‘to expand the Emotional Wellness of 1 Million Individuals by 2030 – starting with Kiwis’. Garth focuses on two areas of Emotional Wellness, for which he has developed Emotional Wellness Models of Practice. His Emotional Wellness Models are evidence-based and endorsed by clinical psychologist Dr Matt Shepherd.
Focus One: Changing the reactive and destructive emotional cycle and pattern around recurring situations.
Garth’s interest in Emotional Wellness evolved from the lessons of his personal journey of emotional self-realisation. He wondered why certain situations triggered emotions within himself, which usually had a negative impact on him to function in a normal and healthy manner. Through wanting to change the reactive and destructive emotional cycle or pattern around recurring situations, Garth created his coaching model Castle’s Coaching Model for EQ Self-Realisation©. Garth believes the better we know and understand who we are, i.e., our ‘Self’, the better we can manage our emotions around current and future situations.
Focus Two: Achieving Emotional Wellness when faced with life’s evitable waves (challenges).
Garth has experienced several of life’s waves, which include losing his house due to business ventures, being made redundant 4 times over a period of 6 years with no pay-outs and encountering long periods of unemployment, supporting his mother to accept and adjust to living in a Care Home after suffering a stroke and then sadly passing, relationship breakup plus dealing with narcissistic people personally and professionally. Throughout these experiences, Garth had times where he struggled emotionally, however, by applying proactive and constructive Emotional Wellness strategies he reduced the window of suffering and managed to successfully ride life’s waves. These experiences resulted in the creation of his Emotional Readiness and Responsiveness Model©. It is this model that is the foundation of his course ‘Riding Life’s Emotional Waves’.
He is a published author of Bite Size Chunks to Success – Controlling Stress, which is endorsed by Sir Stephen Tindall – founder of The Warehouse and is currently writing his second book on the topic of Emotional Wellness.
Garth is a certified International Coaching Federation (ICF) Transformative Coach. As an entrepreneur he has developed several business ventures from conception through to commercialisation. He has a diverse professional background across different sectors including retail, finance, and social services within organisations such as The Warehouse, Westpac, McDonald’s, Youth Horizons Trust, and Aspire2 Business – holding Learning & Development (20+ years), Operations Management, Human Resources, BDM, and Account Manager roles.
Garth’s professional and personal achievements has been featured in a range of published articles in both New Zealand and Australia. These include; the NZ Herald, NZ Business magazine, PC World magazine, Business to Business paper, Start Up magazine, The Aucklander, MLM magazine, Brisbane City News, Gold Coast Health & Harmony Guide, plus appearing on TVNZ’s Good Morning Show.
Garth enjoys sharing his knowledge and experience to support individuals to expand their state of Emotional Wellness. Garth’s delivery style of storytelling, combined with his practical, positive, and engaging personality, ensures that his content truly connects with his audience, whether during a course or in a coaching environment.
Garth’s Key Strengths
- A genuine passion and life purpose/calling to make a positive difference by help individuals
- Exposed to challenging life experiences both professionally and personally. These experiences provide credibility as he links the course theory to real life examples.
- 20+ years in the field of Learning & Development
- Certified International Coaching Federation (ICF) Transformative Coach
- Completed course in Positive Psychology (Member of NZ Association of Positive Psychology)
- Published author on Stress Management
- Held role of Training Manager for Youth Horizons Trust – NZ’s largest NGO working with young people who are at risk of poor life outcomes due to complex behavioural and/or mental health needs, including conduct disorder and antisocial behaviours. This experience provided Garth with insights into clinical intervention programs and clinical models of practice from NZ and overseas
- A passionate life-long learner. Continuously striving to be a better person.