You have done everything right. It should not cost this much.
Private coaching for high-achieving Black professionals ready to lead, decide, and rest from alignment.
Eight clients a year. Led personally by Anastacia Sams, MA, LMFT, LPC.
The one people count on
You are the one people count on. The one who catches problems before they occur, who reads the room before speaking, who always has an answer ready because you prepared three versions of it last night.
From the outside, this looks like excellence. From the inside, most days it feels like vigilance.
You learned this early. Somewhere around nine or ten, you understood that your margin for error was thinner than other people's, and that being twice as prepared was the price of being taken seriously. It worked. It is why you got the promotion, why the salary followed, why people ask your opinion now and actually value it. You earned all of it, and you earned it carrying more than the people beside you.
Here is what nobody tells you about running that way for twenty years. The scanning is accurate. You do catch the shift in the room. You do notice the remark that reaches you differently than it would reach someone else, the decision that got made before you walked in, the feedback that arrives dressed as a compliment. Every instinct telling you to stay alert has been right.
Your body pays for the accuracy. You leave the office still switched on, you get home and stay switched on, and you lie awake running the day back to be sure you handled it right. The exhaustion underneath is a tiredness that outlasts a full night of sleep, because reading a room correctly all day is work, and you've been working this way for years.
The cost of another year
What this is costing you right now
Most people who read this far will close the tab and decide to fix it on their own, the way they have fixed everything else. That instinct, the one that says I can manage this myself, is the same instinct this page is about. So before you close it, here is what one more year of managing it yourself actually costs.
Your body keeps a ledger
Researchers have a name for the strategy you have been using. John Henryism describes meeting sustained stress with sustained effort, and decades of research link it to hypertension and cardiovascular strain, particularly among Black adults. The strategy that built your career is the same one your doctor is watching.
The next promotion changes less than you think
You have had this experience before. The title changed, the money changed, and by the second month you were working the same way you always had. Same Sunday night dread. Same hour of prep for a meeting other people walk into cold. Same seven o'clock goal to end work that never becomes the end of your work day.
The people closest to you get what is left
Staying composed all day takes something out of you, and by the time you walk through your own door there is very little left. Your patience is thinner at home than anywhere else, with the people who never asked you to perform in the first place. They get the version of you that has the least to give.
A year passes either way
Next August will arrive whether or not you do anything about this. The only real choice is what you are doing when it gets here: still working the same way, or six months into building something different.
A year passes either way. The question is what you are doing when it gets here.
Why me
I know this pattern from both sides
I grew up surrounded by professionals who excelled publicly while privately managing burnout, strained marriages, and the exhaustion of constant self-regulation. I watched people be excellent and be depleted at the same time, and I understood early that nobody was going to name it out loud.
Years later, as a therapist, I saw the same thing in session after session. High-functioning, well-compensated, and quietly running on empty. I had the clinical training to treat the symptoms. What changed everything was grounding the work in our historical and cultural context, in who we were before survival became the requirement. That is when the work started producing change that lasted.
Here is what my credentials do not tell you. We begin already knowing what it is like to be the only Black person in the room. You keep the energy most people spend explaining why they over-prepare, translating what happened in that meeting, or making the case that the double standard is real. I have lived it, and I have sat with hundreds of people living it. We begin where most coaching relationships arrive at month three.
What I bring to the room
- Twelve years of licensed clinical practice across Illinois and Colorado
- Dual licensure as a Marriage & Family Therapist and a Licensed Professional Counselor
- AAMFT Approved Supervisor, training and supervising other clinicians
- More than a thousand people supported in that time
- Author of Legacy by Design
What makes this different
Three things you will not find elsewhere
A licensed clinician, doing coaching
Most coaches carry a certificate. I carry twelve years of clinical practice, two state licenses, and the credential that qualifies me to supervise other therapists. That training means I can tell the difference between a pattern that coaching resolves and one that needs clinical care, and I will tell you which you are dealing with.
Cultural context as the foundation
These patterns did not start with you. Your grandparents were careful because being careful kept them employed and kept them safe. Your parents taught you the same lessons in gentler language. You learned to be twice as prepared before anyone explained why. That history is in the room the moment you walk in, but most coaching asks you to work around it. We start there.
A method, with a sequence
The E.A.S.E.™ Framework is a documented process I have used for years and published as a twelve-week curriculum. You will always know which part of the work you are in, and why it arrives when it does.
The E.A.S.E.™ Framework
How the work moves
Each step depends on the one before it. That sequence is the reason six months is the container.
We map exactly how your week runs and what it takes out of you. The projects you absorbed that were never assigned. The hours of preparation nobody sees. The Sunday nights. You finish these six weeks able to name your own patterns as they happen, in real time, which is the thing that makes every step after this one possible.
Underneath the strategies is what you actually want, separate from what you were trained to want. This is the slowest part and the one people try to skip. It asks you to sit in the discomfort long enough to get to the other side, and it is where self-trust starts rebuilding.
You bring me the real decisions while they are still open. The promotion you are unsure about. The workload you need to hand back. The conversation with your director you have been rewriting in your head since March. We work them one at a time, before they are settled, so you practice deciding differently on decisions that actually matter.
We build the version of your week that keeps working when the quarter goes badly, because that is when old patterns come back. By now the boundaries belong to you: the hours you protect, the work you decline in a single message, the self-trust to hand back what was never yours. And the joy and creativity that survival mode takes first come back within reach, because a life built on more than vigilance has room for both. You leave with all of it written down.
What changes
Six months from now, here is what is different
Your joy and creativity come back
When your days stop running purely on survival mode, the part of you that plays comes back. Clients name this one first: joy returns, curiosity returns, and the creative energy that constant vigilance had been quietly spending is yours again. You start making things, and wanting to.
You stop over-preparing
You walk into the room having read the material once, and you speak up anyway, because you have come to trust yourself in the room. The hours of over-preparation were standing in for that trust; as it grows, they fall away.
You make a real decision without a committee
A role, a move, a boundary at home. You decide, you act, and you move on to what comes next.
Your evenings come back
You get home and you are actually there, with enough left for the people who never asked you to perform.
These are the changes clients report most often. They are specific on purpose. If you could produce them on your own, you would have by now, because you have never lacked discipline. What has been missing is someone who can see the pattern while you are inside it.
Proof
Why there are no client testimonials on this page
Confidentiality is the foundation of this work. The people I sit with privately stay private, and that will be true of you. What I can show you is the work itself, in the settings where people agreed to be named.
Asked to describe how they were leaving in one word: uplifted, calm, prepared, hopeful, reoriented, encouraged.
The training was tailored specifically to our staff and the work that we do. It gave us practical ideas our team could take back and use in their everyday work.
— Douglas County Department of Human ServicesAna's sessions are consistently the most talked about and transformative workshops that the interns experience. She provides clear and grounding guidance, while centering the participants' agency and leadership.
— Jess Tang, Program Manager, Just Roots Chicago · three-year partnership, renewed each yearTraining has helped with more clarity in communicating with clients and highlighted adjustments we needed to make in our own behavioral patterns.
— My Employment Options, counselor staffThose are groups of thirty and seventy-five people who agreed to be quoted. The private work stays quiet by design, and you will get the same discretion.
Who this is built for
You will recognize yourself here
- You have achieved what you set out to achieve, and you feel the cost of how you got there.
- You are ready to lead and decide from alignment.
- You want the depth of a licensed clinician guiding the work.
- You can protect ninety minutes, twice a month, for six months.
You have seen how the work runs. The next step is an application I read myself.
Apply to work togetherThe two ways in
Choose where to begin
Twelve sessions · Six months
The full sequence, from naming the pattern through building the life that replaces it. Twelve ninety-minute sessions, correspondence between them, materials built for your specific pattern, and a written map at the close.
Eight clients a year. When the seats are filled, the next opening is the following cycle.
Apply to work togetherOne half-day
A pre-session assessment, three hours together, and a written map of the patterns running your days. You leave with a copy of Legacy by Design and one 45-minute follow-up at thirty days. This covers the first half of the framework, Expose Survival and Access Self, for the person who wants clarity before committing to anything longer.
Four intensives a quarter.
Book the intensiveApplying
The application is eight questions and takes about ten minutes. I read every one myself.
Is this coaching or therapy?
Coaching. I am a licensed therapist, and that training shapes how I work. Our work together is forward-facing, developmental work. If something surfaces that calls for therapy, I will tell you and help you find the right person.
What if I am not sure I have time for this?
Most people who apply are busier than they have ever been. Twelve sessions across six months is ninety minutes every two weeks. The pattern you are working on already takes far more of your week than that.
Can my employer pay for this?
Often, yes. Many organizations fund executive development from a professional development or leadership budget. I can provide an invoice and a scope description for your approval process.
Do you work with people outside Illinois and Colorado?
Yes. Coaching is not restricted by state licensure. Sessions are held virtually.
Do you offer payment plans?
Yes. Six monthly payments of $2,000 for the six-month program. We confirm the arrangement during your consultation.
What happens after six months?
Most people finish. Some continue at a lighter cadence. There is no automatic renewal.
If the timing is wrong
Start smaller
Applying is a real commitment, and some seasons are the wrong season for it. Two things you can take with you either way.
The Ease Audit
Nine questions, about two minutes. It names the specific pattern running your days along with one practice to work with this week. It costs nothing.
Take the Ease AuditLegacy by Design
The twelve-week workbook I wrote, covering the same ground you would work through with me, at your own pace. $30.
Get the workbookNext August is coming either way
The only question is how you will be working when it gets here. Eight clients a year, and the application takes ten minutes.