Samantha Sutton, Ph.D. Life Engineering
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Welcome!
If you are like many professionals I work with, you have been successful in certain areas of your life, and you know that you are capable of more.
Maybe you know you could be taking your career to the next level.
Maybe you are so busy putting out fires in your daily life that you don’t get to spend time doing what is most important to you... and you know that needs to change.
Maybe there are relationships in your life that feels like they are sucking the joy out of the room... and you are ready to shift them.
Maybe you are so focused on your never-ending list of ToDos that you don’t spend time taking care of yourself... and it's starting to show.
Maybe you want something different in your life, and you aren't ever sure what it is.
The truth is, a fulfilling life takes vigilance and a set of tools to adroitly design and implement it. That is where I come in.
I am a life, career, and executive coach, but first and foremost I am a life engineer. I have been coaching for 16 years, leveraging a Ph.D. in science and engineering from MIT and eight years as an HR executive at a rapidly growing biotech startup. I uniquely combine engineering design principles, organizational understanding, and coaching insights to help build a journey that is tailored to your unique needs.
Like a heat-seeking missile, I hone in on what you most need, and make sure you get it. If you let me into your world, I will illuminate, challenge, care, push, prod, reason, rally, build, intuit, engineer, and grow you into the person you know you can be, living the life you know you want.
Over the past sixteen years, I feel fortunate to have been able to make a difference in the lives of thousands of individuals across the globe… and would love for you to become one of them!
Let's build it!
Where I've Coached
Praise
Tackle your core questions
"My coaching with Samantha has made me a much more effective competitive academic scientist, allowing me to keep my creative edge by fully embracing the management challenges. For anyone who wants to be both a scientist and a leader, coaching is an effective, deep and personal way of tackling the core questions."
Jackie G.
Professor of Neuroscience, New York, NY
A valuable partner through life
"Samantha helped me become the 'hero' I always knew I had inside of me. This means that I bring happiness into work rather than trying to get happiness from work. This means that I rebooted my relationship with my brother and father in time to be supportive through my mom’s passing. I now bring joy, passion, and generosity to the party.
Samantha is insightful, an assertive supporter, and a valuable partner through life."
Scot J.
CEO, Providence, RI
Create a vision for your life
“I started coaching with Samantha because I felt I wasn’t achieving enough in my graduate program. My anxiety about schoolwork and my colleagues’ opinions of me were creating a perfect storm of negative thoughts that were running my life. Samantha helped me create a version of myself that I never even knew could be so powerful and impressive… and had fun doing it!”
Irene H.
Graduate Student, Berkeley, CA
Become more daring and bold
"Because of my work with Samantha, I am more accepting, daring and outspoken, and have become a stronger leader in my field. I designed a clear vision for where I see myself in 5 years—a super-empowering vision that sits at the edge of possible/impossible—and it has inspired me to be bold about what I really want in life as a scientist, mother and wife! I have never met anyone quite like Samantha!"
Dr. Mandeep Virk-Baker, PhD, MPH, MSc, RD
National Cancer Institute, Bethesda, MD
Direct, logical, and scientific approach
"Samantha’s seminar for MIT students was excellent! Her approach to “life engineering” appealed to our engineering and science students because she spoke their language. Her own experience conducting lab research in biological engineering gave her direct, logical and scientific approach extra credibility. She asked the students to approach their life goals as they would an experiment and that engaged the audience completely."
Katie Maloney
Director, Parents Association & Student/Alumni Relations, MIT
The tools to never settle for less
"Samantha quickly identifies an insightful approach to any situation, and delivers it with the appropriate sensitivity and/or toughness. I've become a powerfully positive force in my profession! Life is too short to keep putting off living the one you want to live; Samantha's given me the 'tools' to never settle for less."
Ela B.
Entrepreneur and Designer, Cambridge, MA
Compassionate and challenging
"Samantha combines a deep love of her clients with a engineer's way of thinking critically and solving problems. She is compassionate, and challenged me to set personal expectations higher by searching for creative solutions. She really wants her clients to live their most amazing life and be their happiest, their most successful and their highest version of themselves."
Juliana R.
BS MIT 2008, Newport News, VA
A relationship that lasts a lifetime
"With my background in HR and time in therapy, I thought I knew ‘it all’ already. But Samantha showed me a different way of looking at things that changed my life. Years later, I still hear Samantha’s voice in my head every day. She reminds me of who I am, what I need to do, and that I CAN do it. This is a relationship that lasts a lifetime.”
Lynne C.
Burlington, VT
Stand up for what you are worth
"Samantha helped me see my value and negotiate a higher starting salary for my new job. I didn't want to 'make waves' with my new employer, but the negotiation went great and I am so proud of myself for asking for what I am worth. Next time, I will be even more brave!”
Kerry A.
Department of Education, Boston, MA
My Story
Here I am culturing yeast at my lab bench in graduate school.
I am on a mission to help others have great lives. And not just parts of it: ALL of it. I am excited to be leading you on the journey that awaits.
I was born and raised in the midwest (Urbana, Illinois, to be exact) and consider myself to be “midwestern” in my mannerisms, candidness, and penchant for crock pot meals. I was born into a Polish immigrant family, and they instilled in me a strong work ethic. At heart, I am a mix of a scientist who wants to understand the world around me, and an engineer who wants to build neat things that help nudge humanity forward, even just a little bit.
The story of my career is one of me trying to figure out exactly what I wanted to engineer. I received my BS in Electrical Engineering from the University of Illinois as an Intel Scholar, and then after a summer internship at Oak Ridge National Lab got very interested in Biology, specifically, the field of Synthetic Biology that strives to reprogram cells to perform useful functions for humans.
But then I hit a wall. I realized the one tool I lacked was how to determine what made me happy. What was I passionate about? I looked around at the life I had built for myself--my career, fiance, body, community--and realized that I felt a bit numb about it all.
So I embarked on a journey to find my passions, and build a life around them. Twelve years and many teachers later, I can honestly say that I am living that life. I never knew such joy, fulfillment, or deep satisfaction was possible.
Along the way, I realized something. I wasn’t the only one who needed a few lessons in how to "master" life. In the halls of the best universities, companies, and institutions, were walking a lot of great people, like you, who weren’t having as much fun conquering the world as they could be. It struck me that, if I really wanted to help out this world of ours, the best way to do it would be to help the people of it live great lives.
So I spent five years working as a Coach, Director, Vice President, and finally President of a professional life coaching company, coaching and teaching over a thousand individuals in how to make the leap from good to exquisite.
I saw that it wasn't just scientists and engineers who needed these tools. It was businesspeople, doctors, journalists, artists, caregivers, writers, lawyers students, entrepreneurs, producers... just about everyone.
I started my own company, Samantha Sutton, Ph.D. Life Solutions, based around a methodology that I created that combines my experiences as a coach, scientist and engineer. My methodology is deep, intuitive, analytical, challenging, fun, caring rewarding, practical, bold, and gets results. I am based out of Manhattan, and work with individuals, companies, and organizations across the globe.
Achieving a great life is a science, and can be learned. It involves consciously re-working your brain and how you think on the inside so you can change your world outside.
As for me, THIS is what I discovered at the end of my passion-hunt. I am deeply passionate about helping you invent a life that you are head over heels in love with.
If you let me into your world, I will illuminate, challenge, care, push, prod, reason, rally, build, intuit, engineer, and grow you into the person you know you can be, living the life you know you want.
Spend 15 minutes with me and I will hone in, like a heat-seeking missile, on the ways in which you are extraordinary. And I won't rest until that "extraordinary you" is unleashed on the world.
This is real work, but the end result is a life beyond what you ever thought possible.