Are you secretly afraid of not reaching your potential as a leader?
The High-EQ Founder is a 6-week online program that equips impact tech founders with the EQ tools, frameworks and training strategies to expand their influence, get the best out of people and execute on their vision.
WITH EXECUTIVE COACH RENITA KALHORN
Program dates: May 25 - June 29, 2023
How well did you interact with your team today?
Did you create deeper connections? Resolve conflicts?
Or did you spend more time trying to prove yourself, dealing with misunderstandings and feeling impatient that things aren't moving fast enough?
Do you feel like you have all this potential as a leader but just can’t figure out how to work toward it?
If so, you’re not alone.
In working with 1,300+ clients, I've seen many of them launch their company and attract world-class talent, only to struggle in getting the best out of themselves and others.
And it's not because they're lacking knowledge or brainpower.
If you're like other high-growth tech founders, you're realizing that…
EQ matters more than IQ in growing a successful company.
When VC David Greenberg ran the numbers on 130+ investments his firm, JMI Equity, made over 25 years, one pattern was clear:
“High-EQ founders are more effective leaders and better able to scale their leadership as their companies grow and evolve — which translates into better returns.”
Here's the thing: many founders are already self-aware and understand the importance of psychological safety, vulnerability and empathy.
But they’re stuck, unaware of their "blind spots." Or, they know why they're stuck but they don't know how to change.
How to further develop their EQ skills. So they're not learning and evolving fast enough.
That’s why I created The High-EQ Founder.
I studied founders who were successful at leveraging emotional intelligence. Which ones broke through their automatic, ego-based patterns and why. And I refined these insights into a course that teaches you how to systematically level up your EQ skills.
Ryan Denner
PROGRAM LEAD SCALING BUSINESS TO $300M
"Not being in survival mode has enabled me to experience exponential growth and contribution."
"Before, when conversations got really emotional and 'messy,' I would just disengage. Now, I'm much less afraid to interject when any conversation is going off-the-rails. I've developed a reputation for not being afraid to ask the hard questions and speak up about the hard topics.
Everyday, I find more mental bandwidth to be creative about my leadership style and have more influence. I'm leading team members from California and Dublin right now, and we'll be onboarding a team from India in the next few months. There's no way I'd be able to build and lead a global team in survival mode - now I'm looking forward to doing this!"
The good news: Everything you need to be a great leader already exists inside you.
You won't be learning about leadership archetypes or organizational theory or the right approach for every situation (it doesn't exist). Instead, you’ll be leveraging your own unique strengths and personality to expand your leadership range.
I'll teach you tools and strategies to increase your self-control, emotional mastery and influence — so you can have the powerful, engaged interactions that accelerate the healthy growth of your company.
You'll be able to show up consistently as your best, authentic self, knowing you're the right person for the role, able to make hard decisions with courage and confidence.
But first, let me introduce myself...
Hi, I'm Renita.
As an executive coach, I've worked with 1,300+ high-performers in 40 countries, from Fortune 500 executives and military Special Forces to Inc 5000 entrepreneurs and scale-up founders.
Tapping my background in high performance as a Juilliard-trained concert pianist and martial arts black belt, I teach leaders how to train to become their best, authentic selves.
The system I want to share with you is the result of 20+ years coaching, teaching, speaking and writing about leadership and emotional mastery.
My work has been featured in...
In this program, you'll learn to use "The EQ Flywheel," a powerful framework that will help you read the room, manage stress and self-doubt, and expand your communication influence, so you can create deep trust and cultivate the full potential of the people around you.
MASTER YOUR BIOLOGY
To keep our ancestors alive, Mother Nature evolved a brain that routinely tricked them into making three mistakes: overestimating threats, underestimating opportunities and underestimating resources.
Mastering your biology means you can override the survival instincts that are keeping you from achieving your goals. You can understand your own emotional triggers and those around you. This awareness process alone will free up 50% of your mental energy.
OPTIMIZE YOUR THINKING
No matter how brilliant you are, you can't access your full cognitive powers in survival mode. I'll teach you the critical difference between "emotional thinking" and "functional thinking," and how to stop wasting energy on worry and second-guessing.
FLEX YOUR EMOTIONAL MUSCLE
Now it’s time for practice. The two previous steps — mastering your biology and optimizing your thinking — are geared toward one ultimate purpose: raising your self-awareness and self-control so you can have more influence and impact, with less effort.
With the building blocks in place, you can start practicing active listening, curiosity, vulnerability and empathy — the emotional intelligence traits that will allow you to create deep trust with the people around you and inspire them to give their best.
The success of your company depends directly on your ability to manage yourself.
BASED ON RENITA'S WORK WITH THE FOLLOWING ORGANIZATIONS AND OVER 1,300 CLIENTS
What Alumni Are Saying:
Iza Tigli
GLOBAL PROGRAM MANAGEMENT LEAD
"I use the FASTT Map to orchestrate conversations with senior executives and keep stakeholders engaged and to shift my team out of survival mode."
"I work with global, multi-functional teams to solve complex problems with tight deadlines. In these high stakes and fast-moving environments, it's easy to undermine yourself or be overwhelmed. Renita's program gave me tools and mindsets to better understand my team’s needs and perspectives.
These are powerful tools that I wish I knew before. Now, I cannot wait to use them more often."
Rocky Lala
FOUNDER
Turned investor rejection into $5M in funding
"You gotta take this course. It’s gonna teach you how to master your emotions, how to put your mindset in other people's shoes and vice versa.
This is a course where you can really learn and self-reflect on yourself on how you can make yourself better. I think that was one of the most powerful things — is listening to other people’s struggles and how real it is and how everyone has roller coasters every day."
[I realized] it’s not only me that’s failing at a certain thing or struggling at a certain time, a lot of people go through this – and how you fight through it and the tools that you teach that helps you step by step, baby steps, to get back to where you want to be."
Program Details
- Length: 6 weeks
- Dates: 2025
- Investment: US$1,800
Johan Nel
CEO, LETGO
Working with Renita helped me access my true self and, as a result, I’m a much better leader.
"I grew up with the mindset that you have to over-perform to stand out and make it. So I was putting a lot of pressure on myself to prove that I can lead this business, that I deserve to be CEO. I would go into 'bulldozer mode’ — push my teams too hard, micro-manage and end up losing their trust and support.
Renita equipped with me many practical tools and alternative options for how to respond so I don't have to default to my usual way of doing things. I’ve become a better listener, I have more empathy: understanding others’ POV helps me make better decisions. My team feels more inspired and takes accountability. I feel more genuine and open with my family. I’m learning how to enjoy my success, that I don’t have to suffer to be deserving.
Rosella Vejar
ENTREPRENEUR/INVESTOR
Transformed board dynamics
"This program has been a great toolkit for my role as a board member, I've noticed (and others have too) that I'm less reactive, I can handle my triggers better and understand/identify others' triggers so we are more effective in the decision-making process. As well, this program has given me clarity and strength to initiate/have challenging conversations."
The High-EQ Founder is a 6-week program for impact-focused leaders who want to...
Build respect and extreme ownership into the fabric of your team so they become a loyal tribe who will walk through fire for you.
Stop playing chief fire-fighter so you can focus on the long-term vision and growth strategy while your team focuses on execution.
Eliminate "imposter syndrome" so you can energize others with your clarity and confidence, and generate momentum to hit key milestones.
Do all this WITHOUT sacrificing your values, your health or running people into the ground, while maintaining the passion and drive of creating your vision.
Increase your capacity for stress so you can stay in control and nail the high-stakes decisions that drive the success of your business.
Develop a well-rounded repertoire to navigate paradox, manage "wicked" problems, and empower your people with the skills and mindsets needed to deliver exceptional work.
The Promise of the Program
You'll learn a systematic method to optimize your thinking, master your emotions and have authentic influence, leading to exponential breakthroughs in your teams and business.
What's Included:
Everything you need to level up your leadership fast
Interactive Live Sessions
6 LIVE master class sessions (90 min) taught by Renita, with hot-seat coaching and role-play in a safe space
Office Hours
Office hour sessions where you'll have the opportunity for 1:1 coaching on your top leadership challenges
Video Lessons
Learn the "High-EQ Flywheel" framework with lifetime access to future updates
Private Online Community
Get access to a private online discussion forum with guided coaching and a community of high-EQ leaders
Practice While Getting Real Work Done
Practice the exact situational leadership skills you need -- while getting actual work done
Next Cohort: Fall 2023
Myron A.
VP, SALES
"This program and the other participants are a gift and I am forever grateful."
"What these tools do is allow you to create a foundation with your own team, navigate the politics and emotions and everything that goes into chasing large corporate accounts but then have the confidence, preparation and discipline so that when you do get in front of a client, not only do you know your content and your product, but you know how to effectively read a room and your team and how to navigate the emotional piece of that transaction in a way that allows you to drive all facets of that experience."
Christopher Duggan
ENTREPRENEUR
"So many micro-keys...small realizations that added up to big things, giving me the power to make powerful choices."
"So many things in the teaching that Renita did with us were unexpected. They're like little micro-keys, you know those little tiny keys you had when you were a kid that were so much fun, and just being able to open those tiny little locks one after another started me on these trajectories, like when you’re on a spaceship heading toward the moon, and that little micro-change changes your course. Small realizations that added up to big things, taking me off automatic pilot and giving me the power to make powerful choices."
What you'll be learning and doing, week by week
A comprehensive curriculum on leveraging your strengths as a leader
Week 1: Apply The Trust Equation
How to amplify the single biggest opportunity for creating trust without taking time or having to prove your credibility
The four key components of trust and how to avoid the results-focused approach that can actually destroy trust
Learn the actual mathematical formula for diagnosing the level of trust in a relationship and a checklist to pinpoint how to restore it when it’s lost: The Trust Equation
Take the Survival Orientation Snapshot for a 9-point evaluation of your current trust-building patterns
Identify the “low-hanging fruit:” communication habits you can adopt that immediately increase your trustworthiness with anyone
Weeks 2 & 3: Master Your Biology
Understand how to override the three cognitive mistakes that keep you on the treadmill of survival — access new levels of focus, clear decision-making and compound learning
Learn how to minimize the impact of uncertainty (global, long-term, daily) on productivity
Discover the neuroscience behind the five FASTT drivers of human behavior – how to transform social threats into meaningful rewards for greater motivation, trust and engagement
How to identify and neutralize thousands of daily “stealth triggers” so you can increase your capacity for stress without impacting your cognitive functioning or immune system
A new way of managing stress using “micro-shifts" instead of stop-gap measures – people who miss this are destined to eventually suffer from adrenal fatigue and burn out
Dreading difficult conversations? Complete the FASTT Map for greater self-control, situational awareness and ability to influence stakeholders, especially when the stakes are high
Week 4: Optimize Your Thinking
Why "emotions as chemical reactions" is the missing link in most people's attempts to change – and how factoring it in can unlock new behaviors as soon as your next conversation
Decoding the hidden payoffs of unproductive behaviors (e.g. proving yourself, micro-managing, second-guessing) so you can change your default behavior once and for all
Understand how to cultivate self-compassion and kindness as the key skills required to achieve ultimate levels of performance and leadership
A little-known distinction – between emotional and functional thinking – that can completely revolutionize your productivity and get you off the emotional rollercoaster
Eliminate overthinking using the "what not why” technique to instantly shift to productive, intentional action
Week 5: Master Your Ego + Emotions
Learn Ego Negotiation techniques – the new, far more effective way of dealing with your inner critic that becomes possible once you have a Mental Six-Pack
Discover the subtle power of personal Rules of Engagement, with a specific template and guidance on how to create them for yourself and your team
Become bullet-proof: "BBC-style narration," wiggling and micro-recovery as potent sources of calm and self-control for leaders
Week 6: Flex Your Emotional Muscle
What Got You Here Won’t Get You There: a step-by-step walkthrough to identify "blind spots" and upgrade outdated achievement strategies
Learn to turn conflict into “bonding moments" that allow you to access more of your team’s potential and create extreme ownership
Don’t have time for 1:1s? Increase the ROI of each interaction by training your team how to talk to you
Learn to "see the invisible" so you can give more valuable, targeted feedback
Afraid to be your true self? “Own Everything" is the mindset you need to recover all the energy you put into hiding parts of yourself, and experience a lasting sense of peace, freedom and confidence
THE HIGH-EQ FOUNDER
A six-week sprint to reach your full potential as a leader
$
1,800
regular course
One sentence summary of what they get
$
99
Advanced course
One sentence summary of what they get
$
127