Hello

My name is Curt Beckmann. I am a certified life coach and grief educator. I offer life coaching engagements for individuals, as well as witnessing individuals and groups who have experienced significant loss. Thanks for check in here. See below for more about my offerings and clients, what they say about me, my rates, my story and my training.

My offerings

COACHING:

My coaching engagements includes 10 sessions over 5 to 6 months. Here's how it works:
Before we engage, we do a "compatability check-in", a 15 to 20 minute phone call or Zoom meeting where we learn a bit about each other's style, something about the issue you bring and whether the connection feels like a good fit. We "sleep on it" and check back the next day by email or text. If we both feel it's worth a try, we move on to the next step.
If we're moving ahead, I'll share my 1-page Coaching Contract, so it's clear what we are both signing up for.
Once we're agreed on those specfics, our next step is the Intake Session. I ask a lot of questions to get a full picture of you and how you are engaging with your life, and more details about the issue we will be working on. This session is typically not intended to focus on coaching, but clients often feel very seen in this session, which can be very impactful.
After the Intake Session, I will develop a program that I will propose to you in the next session, and we can revise so that we are both aligned. We will check in on our program plan regularly as we move through our engagement.
In the last session or two of our scheduled engagement, we reflect on the engagement and consider whether we feel ready to wrap up, or whether there is more to work on that would suggest another engagement. With many clients, one engagement is enough to achieve the shift that the client is seeking. For others, after our initial engagement we find more that we can do together.

GRIEF EDUCATION:

I support both individuals and groups who have experienced loss.
When working with individuals, our engagements resemble the coaching engagement described above. Clients have a sense of where they want to focus.
When working with groups, my focus is on holding a safe space for sharing and witnessing. The format is more structured (ongoing fixed meeting times). Each week has gentle topic that helps prompt processing, while leaving room for whatever is alive for the participants.

My Clients

On one hand, I have an "open door"policy. If I have capacity for a new client, I am open to having a compatability check-in call with anyone who reaches out. I have had positive engagements with both men and women from their early twenties to their mid-sixties. On the other hand, I have noticed a particular resonance when I work with women aged 40 to 60 who are working through a life transition, prompted by a personal loss or other challenging event, such as a promotion or financial incident.

Note that if we don't quite resonate during our compatability check-in, or if our calendars are hard to align, I know many other coaches that I can point you to who may suit you better.

What Clients Say About Me

BH: "Working with Curt was life-changing for me"

KM: "He's easy, gentle and kind"

TC: "Cheerleader, good friend and sage"

AW: "He has a knack for acknowledging progress without condescending"

ED: "Insightful and intuitive"

My Rates

I offer a sliding scale based on my client's financial needs and relying on the honor system. There are three predefined levels:

Robust: $150/session This level helps me work with pro bono clients
Healthy: $100/session This level pays for my time and other costs
Discount: $50/session This level pays for my time

In addition, I am sometimes able to offer customized pro bono or barter-based engagements.

The Story of Curt

I am "California-born-and-raised," a father of 3 and grandfather of two. I have spent the last three years getting trained as a life coach and a grief educator. Ready to transition, I retired from my high tech career to focus on service. I now live in Nevada City, CA. I serve on two nonprofit boards: ColorMeHuman.org, a Nevada County nonprofit devoted to "empowering unity and embracing diversity"; and The Appropedia Foundation, a CA non-profit I co-founded in 2007. I also volunteer as a Big Brother to a nearby 11-year-old Little.

How did I get here? Until the age of 4, I lived and played in the redwoods east of Oakland, then moved to Orange County, eventually graduating from San Clemente High School. I was the oldest of five kids raised by our single mom, with 3 older kids from her first marriage visiting often. I focused on soccer and bodysurfing, but also math and computers, landing a good tech job before I finished college. Marriage, kids, house, check, check, check. I was an engaged dad but a disconnected spouse. As our daughters went off to college and my wife and I finished our masters degrees, the marriage ran aground. After 20 years, my ex said I was "relentlessly upbeat." I had to learn a lot about relationships to understand that!

Not much later, I joined an early high tech startup that was acquired days before my second wedding day. Life looked great on paper, but something felt amiss. I few years later, I did the amazing Hoffman Process. It opened my heart and cleared many ancient behavioral patterns. I poked slowly along the path of emotional growth and healing. Courageously (or foolishly?), we hauled the family to Paris for a 2 year stint as expats. It was life altering but not quite transformative, and the charms of high tech life continued to fade. Back in the US, I felt a call to do work based on human connection, but did I have the skills? But with the mortgage and 4 more years of tuition coming.... Then COVID trapped us all in our home while our son aimed for college. Empty nest, take 2; another 20 year marriage slipped away.

Soon after separating, my brother's wife died very unexpectedly before our eyes, and I moved into his house for 9 months to help out while he recovered. Soon after, I found amazing mindfulness and somatic therapies to release trauma I had not even acknowledged. Once again I heard the call to be of service, and latent skills began emerging. After an excellent yearlong program, got certified in 2024, then again in 2025. Two of my early clients had recently experienced the loss of loved ones and our coaching engagements were helpful to them. During that same time period, both my surrogate father and my oldest brother passed away. I realized how many are impacted by loss. I decided to get trained, and completed my grief educator certification in 2026.

Every hour of coaching has been a rich and meaningful hour of human connection.

Certifications and Degrees

2026

Grief Educator Certification
David Kessler Training

David Kessler is a globally recognized grief expert that has trained thousands of grief educators in all aspects of loss and grieving.

2025

Associate Certified Coach

International Coaching Federation

The International Coaching Federation (ICF), Associate Certified Coach (ACC) credential is the foundational, globally recognized certification for coaches with at least 60 hours of training and 100+ hours of experience, validating their proficiency in ICF core competencies and ethical guidelines.

2023-2024

Integral Coach PCC

New Ventures West

The New Ventures West Professional Coaching Course (PCC) is a year-long, ICF-accredited program that trains coaches in Integral Coaching®, blending immersive, cohort-based learning with personal development to cultivate a deep, embodied presence for effective client transformation.

1997-1999

Masters of Business Administration

Santa Clara University

I pursued my MBA at Santa Clara University, a Jesuit institution, while working at my first Silicon Valley job at Bay / Nortel Networks. The most important course was Spirituality in Business taught by Andre Delbecq

1984-1991

Bachelors of Science, Physics

CSU Fullerton

I took the long slow road to get my physics degree while working full-time as an Electrical Engineer and coaching my daughters' soccer teams

Contact

Drop me a note to find out more about me or my offerings, or to explore something we might do together.

curt@lifeandloss.com