
Susan Hobson
High Performance Leadership Coach
Susan Hobson is a High-Performance Leadership Coach, published author, Founder/CEO of Elite High Performance Inc., host of the podcast ‘The Leadership Launchpad Project’ and a member of the Forbes Coaches Council.
Susan’s science-based Elite High-Performance Coaching process draws on her first hand experience competing at some of the most competitive environments on the planet – Princeton & Harvard Universities and The NWHL (National Women’s Hockey League).
Susan Hobson is a High-Performance Leadership Coach, published author, Founder/CEO of Elite High Performance Inc. and host of the podcast ‘The Leadership Launchpad Project.’
Susan’s science-based Elite High-Performance Coaching process draws on her first hand experience competing at some of the most competitive environments on the planet – Princeton & Harvard Universities and The NWHL (National Women’s Hockey League).
She now leads a practice of High-Performance Mindset Coaches based in the financial district of downtown Toronto, Canada.
Susan has been leading the industry for 15 years, working with some of the world’s highest performing people and teams: Professional Athletes, C-Suite Executives, Entrepreneurs and many of the world’s leading tech companies like Google.
Her specialty is in the area of mindset strategy architecture, which essentially means that she teaches High-Performers how to think strategically so that they can play their biggest impact.
Your highest potential is her passion, so join her on her mission to change the way the game of life and business is being played forever.
Read Susan's Story
As a kid, growing up in Mississauga, Ontario, I started playing hockey with a dream – I wanted to be the best. I dreamt of playing in the NHL for The Boston Bruins. It didn’t take me long to realize that as a girl, I probably wasn’t going to grow up to be making millions of dollars playing in the NHL, so I quickly pivoted and made it my goal to get the best education that I could with my talent for hockey.
As I grew older and progressed in my journey to be my best, I soon learned that “being the best” meant being at the front of the pack, scoring the most goals and getting straight A’s. It not only meant being better than your opponents but your teammates and classmates as well.
These strategies seemed to work – they landed me a full ride to one of the most elite private schools in all of New England, and at just 14 years old, I packed my bags and said goodbye to my family and friends, and moved to the states. I say they seemed to work because I gave myself a life-threatening disease in the process of using these externally motivated strategies to “win.”
That didn’t stop me though – my sheer determination and grit not only helped me white-knuckle my way around these health obstacles, but they helped me get recruited to the #1 IVY League school, Princeton University.
Success, right? I had achieved my goal after all – little did I know it was all about to come crashing down all around me.
Overnight, I went from being a big fish in a small pond (being one of the top recruited hockey players in North America, on the high honour roll at an elite New England prep school), to a tiny minnow in the ocean (being in one of the most competitive environments on the planet, riding pine and getting C’s and D’s for the very first time in my life). And, as if that wasn’t enough, my father got diagnosed with terminal cancer and passed away my freshmen year.
This was a real crossroads moment for me – my brain felt like a total failure. All of my hardwiring and programming had taught me that in order to feel like a success, I had to be the best, and that meant getting the external validation of ice time, scoring goals, getting A’s and the recognition of my father up in the stands cheering for me when I was doing well. Without these resources for my motivation and confidence, I literally lost my sense of self. I had no idea who I was or how to get what I needed back internally so that I could regain my feelings of success.
Naturally, my brain told me to do what it thought was right – run for its life. Quit and go home.
Lucky for me, I didn’t listen. I still wanted to be the best. So I chose to listen to those resources around me at the time who taught me how to think my way to get back to feeling that I was.
Places like Princeton do not like to see their student athletes fail, and I was fortunate to be surrounded by resources who helped me retrain my brain’s strategies for success. I learned all about the power of intrinsically motivated goals, where true self-confidence and self-motivation come from and most importantly, and how to redefine success.
Once I re-hardwired my brain in these powerful ways, the results spoke for themselves. I went from bench rider of the century my first year of being on the top lineup as one of the leading scorers my second year. I went from almost failing most of my classes to being on the National’s Dean’s List.
From that point on, I was hooked and I was sold. I had to know everything I possibly could about the power of brain training so that I could go on to teach and train other high-performers on these winning, sustainable strategies for success.
So that’s what I did. While playing professional women’s hockey for the Toronto Aeros in the NWHL, and winning a National Championship and NWHL Cup, I went on to study high-performance coaching and NeuroLinguistic Programming so that I could open up my practice in downtown Toronto over a 15 years ago. Since then, I’ve been helping high-performers in life, sports and business achieve excellence and in doing so, I’ve developed a powerful science-based coaching process that gets results quickly and predictably.
Make every performance count!
Coach Susan
Meet the Team
Rob Kalwarowsky
High-Performance Leadership Coach
Rob is on a mission to spread the message of people-centric leadership & the importance of mental health throughout the world. Rob envisions a world where happiness, inclusion, psychological safety & engagement are commonplace in the workplace. Rob is a Fearless Organization Practitioner & an Elite High Performance leadership coach. Before transitioning into leadership, Rob spent over 10 years as an engineer within mining, oil pipelines, and consulting in heavy industry. Rob is also the co-host of The Leadership Launchpad Project & Dismantling the High Performance Narrative...
Rob is on a mission to spread the message of people-centric leadership & the importance of mental health throughout the world. Rob envisions a world where happiness, inclusion, psychological safety & engagement are commonplace in the workplace. Rob is a Fearless Organization Practitioner & an Elite High Performance leadership coach. Before transitioning into leadership, Rob spent over 10 years as an engineer within mining, oil pipelines, and consulting in heavy industry. Rob is also the co-host of The Leadership Launchpad Project & Dismantling the High Performance Narrative podcasts and the founder of Maintenance Disrupted. Prior to starting his career, Rob graduated from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) with a Bachelor of Science degree in Mechanical Engineering with a minor in Management, was a 3-time Academic All-American in NCAA Water Polo and played on the U18 Canadian National Water Polo team.
Liane Wansbrough
High-Performance Coach
Liane’s mission is to help self-starting women who want to level up and move forward with clarity, motivation, purpose and fulfillment. She works on mindset strategy to improve the results her clients get in all areas of life.
Liane is certified in High Performance Coaching and is based in Toronto. She has a background in clinical nutrition, nutritional genomics and corporate wellness. Past clients include Mount Sinai Hospital, Facebook, The Royal Bank of Canada and the TD Centre of Learning. Along with a diploma in holistic nutrition, Liane has a certificate of...
Liane’s mission is to help self-starting women who want to level up and move forward with clarity, motivation, purpose and fulfillment. She works on mindset strategy to improve the results her clients get in all areas of life.
Liane is certified in High Performance Coaching and is based in Toronto. She has a background in clinical nutrition, nutritional genomics and corporate wellness. Past clients include Mount Sinai Hospital, Facebook, The Royal Bank of Canada and the TD Centre of Learning. Along with a diploma in holistic nutrition, Liane has a certificate of training from the Integrative and Functional Nutrition Academy and is a Functional Medicine Certified Health Coach. Liane has also written for The National Post, The Globe and Mail and the Toronto Star.
Before I became a high performance coach, I worked as a nutritionist in a medical practice. My life looked perfect on paper. I had checked all the boxes for a successful life: marriage, kids, house, busy social life, 6am workouts and up and coming in my career. Yet on the inside I felt adrift and unsatisfied. I was just going through the motions and struggling with a lot of self-doubt. I knew that I wanted to have more of an impact with my work and that I was capable of more but I held myself back because I thought that I wasn’t ready or expert enough to step into a bigger league.
In my personal life my lack of fulfillment professionally had spread into my relationships and I was in a constant state of irritation. I felt depleted and drained by everything I had to do. I lived by my to-do list but it was getting harder and harder to feel motivated and to power through the day. Somehow I had lost control over the big picture. I didn’t know what was behind my lack of action and why I couldn’t move forward.
One day as I was listening to a podcast, I heard a high performance coach describe the importance of mindset and how our beliefs either serve as resources to support us or limit us. It clicked for me as I began to understand that I was struggling because I had a default map of disempowering beliefs that were keeping me stuck in a cycle of self- sabotage. Of course I didn’t do anything initially. It took another 2 months of thinking over whether or not coaching was right for me before I finally decided that I was sick of wasting time spinning my wheels and hoping things would somehow work out.
It isn’t an understatement to say that deciding to help myself move forward by working with a high performance coach was one of the best investments I’ve ever made. Confronting the dysfunctional mindset that was holding me back was fundamental to my success. I learned that because of my outdated belief system I was trapped in a chronic sense of falling short and that was why I hit a glass ceiling on my growth and my happiness. The enormous pressure I felt to do things flawlessly in all areas of my life was a breeding ground for feeling anxious and dissatisfied. I also discovered that a lack of boundaries had set me up for unhealthy relationship dynamics. The depletion and overwhelm I was struggling with were the result of autopilot choices that were all based on external strategies for validation. Who I was and what I needed wasn’t even on the map.
As I learned to shift my belief system away from the mindset of a high achiever to that of a high performer, which is based on proven growth principles and intrinsic strategies for success, I began to move forward. I was able to execute and close the gap by stepping into a bigger arena with my work because I started to have the confidence to go out of my comfort zone and take risks. With increased clarity for the first time about what was important to me I could make higher quality choices that were aligned with my purpose. That led to a reset for me with increased energy and mental well-being. The emotional resilience that I learned through my coaching gave me an understanding of myself that feels liberating because I can use that skillset to proactively manage any challenge as I go forward.
That was my aha moment. I realized that I wasn’t the only person who had built my life around self-sabotaging habits. I could see that many of my nutrition clients—millennial women with young families struggling with burnout or in a rut with their health, work and life—were not hitting their goals because they were roadblocked by the same mindset that had kept me stuck. That was when I decided to switch gears and make high performance coaching and mindset strategy my focus. Now my specialty as a coach is helping my clients deconstruct the mindset of a high achiever that leads to a glass ceiling of self-sabotage and helping them rearchitect with the proven growth strategies of a high performer so they can realize their highest potential.
Lauren Williams
High-Performance Leadership & Athletic Mindset Coach
Lauren Williams is a former NCAA Division 1 and professional ice hockey player. Her experience with coaching began in high school as she pursued playing hockey at the highest levels in Canada while navigating significant life struggles for the first time in her life. Using mindset coaching to propel her to the highest levels of the sport, Lauren became a two-time Team Ontario member, 3-time WCHA All-Academic team member, two-time all Big10 student-athlete, and senior captain. She graduated from the University of Wisconsin with degrees in Psychology and Sociology and after...
Lauren Williams is a former NCAA Division 1 and professional ice hockey player. Her experience with coaching began in high school as she pursued playing hockey at the highest levels in Canada while navigating significant life struggles for the first time in her life. Using mindset coaching to propel her to the highest levels of the sport, Lauren became a two-time Team Ontario member, 3-time WCHA All-Academic team member, two-time all Big10 student-athlete, and senior captain. She graduated from the University of Wisconsin with degrees in Psychology and Sociology and after completing her collegiate career and undergraduate degrees, she moved on to graduate school and to the CWHL.
Lauren holds a Masters of Education in Counseling, focused in Clinical Mental Health and is an ELITE certified coach. As Elite’s lead Brain Training for Athletes coach, Lauren has worked with numerous athletes at the youth and elite levels, helping them develop the mental skills necessary for peak performance. As a leadership coach, Lauren has worked with several leaders in over 500 hours of certification work through the ELITE coaching certification process. Lauren’s passion lies in helping people understand their own experiences to unlock their true passion, create sustainable goals, and reach their peak performance potential.
Margaret Jennings
High-Performance Leadership Coach
MJ is an NCCP High Performance Certified Coach. She holds a Bachelor of Arts w/ Great Distinction in Human Resources, and a Graduate Diploma in Adult Learning & Development from Canada’s #1 education faculty. She is also an ELITE certified “Leadership Launchpad” and “Brain Training for Athletes” coach.
MJ has over 15 years of successful coaching experience. She has worked extensively with provincial, national, and international athletes, entrepreneurs, managers and executives to support their growth and development, and help them actualize their highest...
MJ is an NCCP High Performance Certified Coach. She holds a Bachelor of Arts w/ Great Distinction in Human Resources, and a Graduate Diploma in Adult Learning & Development from Canada’s #1 education faculty. She is also an ELITE certified “Leadership Launchpad” and “Brain Training for Athletes” coach.
MJ has over 15 years of successful coaching experience. She has worked extensively with provincial, national, and international athletes, entrepreneurs, managers and executives to support their growth and development, and help them actualize their highest potential.
Her track record speaks for itself. In sport, the athletes and teams she has coached with have won provincial & national championships, broken performance records, and had inaugural award recipients at the provincial and national levels.
In business, MJ has supported hundreds of entrepreneurs, coaches, managers and executives in improving their health, happiness, leadership capabilities and overall performance. Her clients have reported substantial improvements in their quality of life at work and at home. As leaders, they have also experienced greater employee engagement, decreased turnover, and improved team performance, efficiency and results.
MJ’s mission is to help leaders maximize their impact and create a lasting legacy that they’re proud of. The key to doing this is improving mental performance. MJ has seen folks struggle with mental performance at all levels, and has experienced and overcame mental performance challenges herself, both as an employee and as a leader.
When she was 17, she left her small, rural hometown in Ontario to attend Princeton University. Unfortunately, she didn’t have the
resources she needed to cope with this dramatic change of environment and the stressors that it presented. Not having any sort of skillset when it came to her mental performance lead to a lot of maladaptive strategies and limiting belief systems that had a lasting negative impact on her self-worth and quality of life for several years; they ultimately held her back from accomplishing goals that were important to her.
Fortunately, in her mid-20’s, she made the decision to engage in mental performance training, and it dramatically improved her performance and quality of life personally, academically and professionally. The benefit was so massive that she knew she had to play a part in providing this valuable knowledge to others who needed it just as much as she did.
Coach MJ has always had a burning passion to positively impact the lives of others; just ask the many athletes and employees she has worked with over the years. She is on a mission to educate people on neuroscientifically-proven strategies that boost mental resilience and strength. Her ultimate goal is to improve the performance and quality of life of people for years and generations to come.
90% of our performance is mental. It’s now more critical than ever that we put an emphasis on strengthening the most vital muscle to performance in sport, business and life: the brain.
Jen Patel
High Performance and Leadership 2.0 Coaching
Jen comes to Elite with over 25 years’ experience in a variety of leadership and technical roles in the cybersecurity field. Although technical by training, her passion is working with people and she delivers a rare combination of empathy, experience and systems thinking when working with clients. Jen’s extensive corporate background, combined with her own mindset work as an Elite client and subsequent training in Elite’s science-based mindset coaching process, offers clients a unique perspective to help leaders go from good to great in their internal lives, their business...
Jen comes to Elite with over 25 years’ experience in a variety of leadership and technical roles in the cybersecurity field. Although technical by training, her passion is working with people and she delivers a rare combination of empathy, experience and systems thinking when working with clients. Jen’s extensive corporate background, combined with her own mindset work as an Elite client and subsequent training in Elite’s science-based mindset coaching process, offers clients a unique perspective to help leaders go from good to great in their internal lives, their business lives, and their personal lives.
In addition to her coaching certifications in High Performance Coaching and Leadership Coaching with Elite, she also holds a Master of Science in Systems Engineering from the University of Virginia and a Bachelor of Science in Mathematical Science/Computer Science from University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.