Shannon Kiprich’s coaching journey began at age 17 with the Poplar Bluff swim team. Today she can draw a line from those first experiences to her international life coaching business, Higher Achiever.
“Coaching has always been a part of me. Just never I never put it together with a career outside of the water,” she said.
Kiprich — a licensed life coach, entrepreneur, mother and wife — grew up in Poplar Bluff. She studied psychology and business intending to work in industrial organizational psychology, but explained her life took a different path when she joined the Peace Corps, and then became a missionary in Estonia, where she met her husband.
“When I was a missionary, we were given a life coach, and it totally changed my world,” she said. “I could not believe that there was someone who wanted to sit across from me and listen to me, judgment-free, and then ask me to go deeper. It blew my mind...Because therapy, the counselor is telling you what to do, but coaching, someone is asking you deeper into your own wisdom and thoughts.”
Kiprich was inspired. She earned her life coaching certification and launched her service from the family’s home in Estonia. Thanks to the internet, she now has clients living in Estonia, America, the Philippines and Dubai.
“Just last year, I was surprised because I had more Estonian clients than I did American,” she noted. Three of her American clients are from Poplar Bluff as well, and she enjoys seeing them when she returns every couple of years with her husband and children to see family.
Her clients come from many backgrounds but are united by entrepreneurship.
“I define entrepreneurship as having a dream, even if it hasn’t been spoken out loud — a dream, a ministry of some type, or a business idea. So I don’t want someone to think that there can only be an entrepreneur in the business realm,” said Kiprich.
Kiprich’s approach highlights spiritual well-being in addition to physical and mental care to realize a client’s goals.
“I recognize people are very quick to put mental and physical stuff together when it comes to the workplace, a work-life balance, but there’s definitely a spiritual side to all of us, whatever type of spiritualism you decide to practice,” she explained. “So when that is left out of people, there is always this missing aspect.”
Her spirituality is grounded in Christian beliefs, she added, but she does not suggest one type of spirituality over another to her clients.
Kiprich takes on 10-12 clients yearly. Balancing her business with family life and her side project — International Business Women in Estonia — requires cooperation and boundaries.
“I have a very supportive husband, who helps me with my kids...Most of my calls have been at 7 a.m., so thank goodness I’m a morning person by nature,” she laughed.
She also sees a life coach of her own every two months, which she likened to “a personal trainer actually working out themselves.”
“Every two months I work with a coach to recognize, how were these two months? Did I do what I wanted in my work...Do I need to fix anything?” she said. “So it’s not just that I’m promoting coaching but I’m also being coached.”
While it can seem like a big, vulnerable step, Kiprich emphasized the client is in control of each life coaching session, and their first session is free.
“Be open-minded and try it. You’ll never know what it is until you try it. It’s like anything else. You can think about going to the gym, but unless you actually do it, you’ll not know what the results are,” she said.
More information is available at shannonkiprich.com. Kiprich also has a YouTube channel, searchable as @higherachievercoachshannon.