About Jeremy
The short version: I help people come home to themselves. The long version? Pull up a chair.
Photo coming soon
The Short Version
I'm Jeremy Mattingly. I live in Nashville, where I spend my days walking alongside people who are ready to do the work of knowing themselves better.
I call it self-leadership guidance—not because I have answers, but because I've learned how to ask the questions that help you find your own.
My background is eclectic: wilderness search and rescue, nonprofit work, addiction recovery support, youth mentorship, and more hours than I can count sitting with people in their hardest moments.
What ties it all together? A belief that every person has an inner knowing—a signal—and that most of our struggles come from not being able to hear it.
The Long Version
I didn't take a straight path to this work. Nobody does, really.
I spent years in jobs that looked right on paper but felt wrong in my body. I chased credentials and achievements, thinking that if I just accomplished enough, I'd finally feel at home in my own life. Spoiler: that's not how it works.
The turning point came when I started volunteering with search and rescue. Something about spending time in the wilderness, looking for people who were lost, cracked me open. I realized I'd been lost myself—not in the woods, but in my own life. And I realized that finding your way back requires the same things whether you're on a trail or in a career crisis: the courage to stop, the honesty to assess where you are, and the faith that a path forward exists.
That realization led me down a winding road. I trained in mindfulness-based approaches. I studied somatic work—how the body holds wisdom the mind often ignores. I spent years in addiction recovery communities, witnessing people find their way back from the deepest kind of lost. I worked with teenagers on the margins, young people who needed someone to believe they had an inner compass worth listening to.
Through all of it, a philosophy emerged:
- People are capable of leading themselves. They just need support remembering how.
- Direct experience teaches what theory never can.
- Sustainable change comes from connection to self, not from willpower alone.
- The goal isn't to become dependent on a guide, but to become your own expert.
Today, I sit with people one-on-one, walk with them on trails, and create space for the kind of conversations that actually change things. I'm not interested in surface-level productivity hacks or motivational speeches. I'm interested in the deep work of coming home to yourself—whatever that looks like for you.
That's the long version. Or at least, the version I can put into words.
My Philosophy
Partner, Not Authority
I don't have answers for your life—you do. My job is to help you hear them. I'm a thinking partner, a fellow traveler, someone who's walked similar roads and can point out some of the pitfalls. But I'll never tell you what to do.
Direct Experience
Reading about swimming doesn't teach you to swim. Real growth happens when you test your insights in the arena of your actual life. I'll ask you to take action, not just think about it.
Whole Person Focus
Your career stress isn't separate from your relationship patterns, which aren't separate from your childhood, which isn't separate from how you breathe when you're anxious. Everything is connected. We work with the whole picture.
Sustainable Pace
Transformation takes time. I'm not interested in breakthrough moments followed by burnout. We work at a pace you can maintain, building capacity that lasts.
Background & Training
My training is eclectic—part formal education, part lived experience, part sitting with people in hard moments for over a decade.
Outside the Work
When I'm not sitting with clients, you'll probably find me on a trail, guitar in hand, or reading in a coffee shop. I take rest seriously—not as a reward, but as a practice.
I make music, though I wouldn't call myself a musician. I volunteer with organizations I believe in. I try to spend time in nature every day, even if it's just ten minutes in the backyard.
I believe in slowing down, in real conversations, in the radical act of paying attention. I believe that how we spend our days is how we spend our lives, and I try to spend mine accordingly.
Fun Facts
- 🎸Plays guitar and writes songs that nobody asks to hear
- 🥾Has logged 500+ miles on local trails
- ☕Takes coffee seriously (maybe too seriously)
- 📚Reads 50+ books a year, mostly non-fiction
- 🎬Can quote The Big Lebowski from memory
- 🌿Believes in the restorative power of sitting outside
Want to Learn More?
The best way to know if we're a fit is to talk. No pressure, no pitch—just a real conversation about where you are and what you're looking for.