Deborah Martin is a graduate of Coach University and a Coach University Professional Mentor Coach. She is a member of the International Coach Federation (ICF) and is an ICF Master Certified Coach. Deb holds a Bachelors Degree in Business Education and a Masters Degree in Career and Technical Education. In March of 1996, Deb began her coaching business, Portage. She has attracted an international clientele of leaders, high achievers, entrepreneurs, coaches and visionaries. Deb is extraordinarily intuitive and passionate about all things wild. She spends as much time as possible getting to know herself better and testing her limits in the wilderness. She gives Mother Nature credit for being her first coach. Her style is to guide clients toward their own truth using compassion and fun. In addition to her regular one-on-one coaching sessions, Deb combines her intuitive abilities and her passion for nature to offer what she calls Wilderness Adventure Coaching. Deb maintains a practice of approximately 15 clients. One of Deb's favorite back-county activities is portaging her canoe from one lake to another. She loves the discovery process. "The portage itself is as much fun as getting to the next lake." Thus, Deb believes any transition must be driven by a value that reflects the core of who you are. "When you get to the who, the what and how happen naturally. Once you've set your sites on an outcome, hold it very, very lightly and focus on the process instead. Gratitude for the process may take you down a path you can't yet envision and leave you much more open to the insights that will come your way." Deb says you can still make plans, but be curious and also make space for surprises. "Intuition is blocked when we practice traditional either/or thinking when setting goals. These surprises and insights will perhaps move you away from the original goal but can lead you to something much richer." Deb believes that we all can significantly simplify our lives. She says that many clients come to her wanting to do something, in order to have something, in order to be somebody. Deb says, "Be somebody first and the doing and having are natural outcomes. The more you discover your truth about who you are, the more you'll get what you want." Deb's Vision: An Adventurous world where everyone has what it is they most desire. Deb's Mission: To help everyone I meet discover what it is they most desire and easily live a life full of what energizes them.

The Portage Trail

I named my business Portage because I love back-country canoeing and fishing. And my favorite part of these back-country activities is portaging from one lake to another, either to continue my canoeing route or to find the next great fishing lake. 

Portage means carrying a canoe or boat over land to avoid a water obstacle like rapids or a waterfall or to get from one navigable water body to another. I found the definition a wonderful metaphor for what I do as a coach. 

As a coach, I help folks navigate their personal transitions, from where they are at the moment to where they want to be and, at the same time, discover and deal with the obstacles they need to go around. 

Portaging generally requires unloading the boat or canoe and carrying it and its contents over the portage trail. If it's a portage that many have taken before you, the path can be quite clear of obstacles and easy to navigate. On other portages a trail must be blazed and the terrain can be very difficult.

As a coach, I do the same, helping my clients decide what they want to take with them on their next transition and what no longer serves them and is best left behind. I help you find the path that others may have taken before. And if there is no similar path, I help you blaze a new trail.

To portage efficiently, a tump line on your pack, which goes around your forehead, and a yoke or tump line on your canoe are valued tools. The tump line sounds awkward but with the bearing of your load beginning at your forehead, it helps distribute that weight evenly and efficiently down your spine. It's incredibly more efficient than having your load begin at your shoulders. This is the way the early voyageurs and natives managed their portages.

I guess I could have named my business Tump Line or Yoke as a metaphor for those things that make the Portage easier, but they're not very pretty words. You'd all be laughing and the “yoke” would be on me. But as a coach, I do have a wealth of "tools" to help you transition with the least amount of discomfort.

Portages can be very short as in a few rods or meters to many miles or kilometers in length. And all portages, by their nature, are the result of elevation changes. Either the destination lake is higher or lower than the one you are leaving, or the land between two bodies of water rises and falls, or, as in the case of a river, the elevation of the river changes dramatically creating swift rapids or a waterfall that must be safely portaged around. This results in all portages involving some climbing and/or descending.

This is not unlike a personal transition, although the elevation changes are emotional rather than physical. I've discovered over the years that there are four distinct stages in every transition. First is the stage I call Discomfort where one is reluctant, fearful, uncertain and often reactive and edgy. The second stage I call Going Internal but it is no less emotional as one becomes more contemplative, protective, spiritual, and often detached and withdrawn. Can you picture the portage trail? So far it's an uphill trek with a heavy load. In the third stage, Exploration, we begin to feel like we have some direction. We're beginning to crest the peak of the portage trail and we can often look ahead instead of constantly down at our feet in order to avoid pitfalls. We find new reserves of energy and become optimistic, confident and even eager. This is the stage where our vision for the future begins to emerge, much like reaching the peak of the portage trail. And the final and fourth stage is Renaissance. We become committed and creative as everything begins to feel possible. We move at a faster pace. On the portage trail, this is the wonderful downhill stage where the new vista is clearly in front of you and your load is lighter as you shift from trudging uphill to flowing downhill.

The thing to remember about portages, as in transitions, is that Renaissance feels like it will last forever. But sooner or later we become restless. Then we find ourselves looking for the next portage and the newness it holds at the other end.

"Do not go where the path may lead, go instead where there is no path and leave a trail." ~Ralph Waldo Emerson