Health and Wellness Coaches are professionals dedicated to helping individuals achieve their personal health goals by developing positive behavioral changes. By offering personalized support, they empower clients to lead healthier, more balanced lives and develop sustainable habits for long-term well-being.
A health and wellness leader Brad Berger, the Founder and Master Certified Integrative Life Coach at Ideal Life 360, LLC views coaching as a comprehensive, client-centered process. He recognizes that everyone’s health journey is unique, requiring a tailored approach that reflects each person’s values, challenges and aspirations. For him, coaching is more than a service—it’s a transformative partnership that empowers clients to take full ownership of their health.
Brad believes this approach creates a stronger affinity between coach and client, enabling individuals to explore their potential and make lasting changes. By respecting each person’s unique path, he helps clients embrace responsibility for their well-being, pursue their goals confidently and recognize their power in shaping their health journey.
Brad emphasizes strategies focused on setting clear, achievable goals and guiding clients through behavioral change techniques. He provides educational support on nutrition, exercise, stress management, emotional intelligence, and longevity mindset while promoting accountability to help clients stay committed. As a visionary, he sees coaching as a catalyst for societal change, using innovative tools to develop a global culture of wellness.
A New Approach to Personal Growth
Brad’s journey into life coaching began with his experience as a financial planner. Throughout his career, his primary objective was to help clients achieve their ideal lives. Over time, he recognized a recurring pattern among individuals he successfully guided through the financial planning process.
Once individuals had freed up physical and mental space and had shifted their focus to aspects of life more important than money, they found themselves seeking guidance beyond finances—they needed a life coach.
Understanding this need, Brad decided to become a life coach, aiming to serve his clients more comprehensively. After dedicating 33 years to the financial planning field, he retired to pursue his boyhood dream of flying professionally while continuing to assist others on their life journeys.
Today, through his work with Ideal Life 360, he remains committed to helping people realize their fullest potential, combining his financial expertise with his passion for life coaching.
Balancing Career Success and Personal Dreams
The concept of the “Culturally Conforming Conveyor Belt™” (CCCB) was coined by Mark Pace, the Founder of the Vital Longevity Institute, where Brad serves as an ambassador. CCCB represents the cultural script dictating how individuals are expected to behave and the “normal” choices they are pressured to make in life. It reflects a mindset of ‘going along to get along,’ but he believes this societal force significantly limits one’s ability to dream freely.
Brad’s personal experience with resisting the CCCB dates to his childhood. At the age of nine, he had the opportunity to fly on a Boeing 747, and from that moment, he knew he wanted to become a pilot. However, in the early 1980s, airline jobs were predominantly reserved for experienced military pilots, and due to his vision, he was disqualified from flying in the military. Following his non-flying military service, he pursued a different path, establishing a successful career in financial planning, where he became a partner and CEO of a firm.
Despite his achievements, Brad never lost sight of his boyhood dream. When the opportunity to fly professionally part-time presented itself, he sold his share of the firm and boldly decided to pursue his passion for flying. This might seem like a risky or even irrational choice according to societal norms, given the security and success he had already built. However, he embraced his dream, defying cultural expectations. Today, he enjoys the best of both worlds—flying and coaching—on his terms.
Strategically Thriving in the Wisdom Economy
Brad’s realization that he had bought into the ‘Prime-Time Myth™’ came during his tenure as a senior-level executive at an international financial planning firm. He was on a clear path to rise into the C-Suite, but the lifestyle was taking a toll.
Constant travel—being on the road two days out of every three—meant missing many significant events in the lives of his children and family. In his mid-forties, he subscribed to the belief that he might have “one good sprint” left in him if he chose to make a change, which he eventually did. However, upon reflection, he recognized the absurdity of this mindset.
The Prime-Time Myth perpetuates the idea that one’s most productive years are limited to a certain age range and that by the mid-fifties, individuals are on the “backside” of their careers, often coasting toward retirement.
Brad came to challenge this conventional belief, understanding that such thinking undermines the vast potential of later years. He now advocates that in today’s Wisdom Economy, individuals in their mid-fifties and beyond are not in decline but are instead just hitting their stride. From ages 55 to 80 and beyond, he believes people have the most to contribute, and this insight has become a central element in his work and life philosophy.
The Ripple Effect of One Motivational Event
Brad recalls a couple he was working with where the wife had a strong desire to travel, but her husband was hesitant due to his weight and mobility issues. They attended an “Ideal Life Day” event, which proved to be a turning point.
Inspired by one of the guest speakers, the husband acted, lost a significant amount of weight, and completely transformed his outlook on life. He reignited his passion for travel and was eager to explore the world with his wife once more.
At a later meeting, when the husband was not in the room, the wife expressed her deep gratitude to Brad for inviting them to the event and providing the spark that motivated her husband to prioritize his health. He reflects on how that experience changed not just one life but two, making it an incredibly rewarding moment for him.
Break Free from Cultural Conformity
Brad views living life on one’s terms as embracing what truly resonates with one’s heart and accepting the unique journey that pursuing one’s passions can offer. Early in his life, he had fully subscribed to the Cultural Conforming Conveyor Belt™ (CCCB), which outlines a conventional path concerning education, career and family.
Although these aspects are significant, he came to realize that they are not as crucial as living a life aligned with one’s true desires. For him, the essence of fulfillment lies in pursuing passions and creating a life that reflects personal values and aspirations.
Achieving Fulfillment through Life Area Integration
One of the most significant concepts Brad teaches, which he learned from his esteemed coach and mentor Doug Carter, is the Life Operating System. This approach extends well beyond traditional goal setting, integrating values and the significance of achieving objectives across multiple areas of life.
The central question of this system is: “What if we developed, tracked and held ourselves (or others) accountable for all the areas in our lives that we consider important?” These areas include Family, Health, Spirituality, Financial, Career, Community, Recreation and Fun, and Personal Development. By addressing and balancing these facets, individuals can create a more holistic and fulfilling life.
Cultivating a Success-oriented Mindset
One of the greatest gifts Brad received was the principle: “Ask for what you want and expect to get it!” He emphasizes that overcoming internal barriers, such as negative self-talk and beliefs like “I am not good enough,” “I don’t deserve that,” or “I could never ask/have/achieve that,” is crucial.
While acknowledging that hard work is an integral part of success, he asserts that believing in one’s ability to ask for and obtain what they desire is the essential first step. This mindset, he believes, sets the foundation for achieving one’s goals and aspirations.
The Power of Living by Your Own Life Operating System
Brad adheres to his own Life Operating System and benefits from a robust support system, which includes his coaches and family. They play a crucial role in reminding him to live according to his values, particularly the importance of walking his talk. Like anyone, he occasionally needs reminders to relax, slow down and breathe.
He regularly reviews his Life Operating System to ensure he is in greater alignment with the way he has committed to living his life, reinforcing his understanding of both his goals and the reasons behind them.
Maintain Vitality by Nurturing Relationships
One of the key attributes of Successful Centenarianism, according to Brad, is community and connection. While he values his occasional alone time, he also acknowledges that remaining engaged and involved in the lives of people he genuinely cares about and in organizations he is passionate about is essential for maintaining a fresh, youthful and positive outlook.
For him, active participation in meaningful relationships and pursuits is crucial for sustaining vitality and optimism throughout life.
The Path to Personal Growth
Brad is a dedicated proponent of the Positive Intelligence Program and highly values the insights provided by assessments such as PrinciplesYou and PrinciplesUs. He has carefully curated and developed content designed to promote growth from the inside out, focusing on areas such as Health and Wellness, Self-Development & Spirituality, Career & Finances, and Family and Relationships.
His methodology incorporates powerful training, profound mindset shifts and bio-hacking techniques intended to help individuals build deeper connections, pursue remarkable life adventures, and discover opportunities to expand their impact. He aims to empower people to engage in a larger, more ambitious game and to significantly enhance their ability to achieve more than they previously imagined, all within a condensed timeframe.
