Sustainable Success
Develop the mindset, emotional intelligence, and communication skills you need to thrive in relationships, business, and beyond
If you keep hitting the same walls in your relationships, career, or personal life, it’s not your willpower…
It’s the patterns you’re stuck in.
Acknowledging the Trap of Personal Development
Ever wonder why personal development never seems to stick? It’s because you’ve been taught the wrong way to think about growth. As a Relational Therapist and Master Success Coach, and I’m going to show you what actually works.
The Sustainable Success Program equips you to master your emotions, communicate with clarity, and think systemically so you can create lasting growth in your relationships, career, and personal life.
Personal Development typically creates temporary outcomes that lead to more frustration than real success because it focuses on individual performance or self-perception.
The truth is: Personal development fails because it focuses on you while ignoring the relationships and systems that shape your life.
Alternatively, Relational Development succeeds because it addresses root patterns and interactions that shape sustainable growth and create lasting change.
Personal versus Relational Development
What's the difference?
PERSONAL |
RELATIONAL |
|
|---|---|---|
| Often emphasizes individual change: habits, mindset, or willpower. |
Focuses on interconnection, patterns, and how different parts of a system influence each other. |
|
| Focuses on "fixing" the person rather than understanding systemic interactions. |
Emphasizes feedback loops, unintended consequences, and context. |
|
| Sometimes encourages simplistic cause-and-effect thinking: “Change this thought → change your life.” |
Encourages contextual awareness and aims at the "difference that makes the difference" to meaningfully reshape relational cycles. | |
| Example: A personal development program might tell someone to “communicate better” without addressing underlying relational patterns that sabotage their communication. |
Example: If partners are struggling, a relational development approach will examine not just their communication, but the relational patterns, emotional cycles, environmental influences, and contextual stressors. |
|
| Often relies on formulas, checklists, or motivational techniques. |
Looks at leverage points in patterns that can create effective changes which ripple across the system. |
|
| Change is framed as linear: “Do X, get Y.” |
Change is framed as interactive and must be embraced by all members of the system. Change is strategic and contextual, not just motivational. |
|
| Less concerned with context, feedback loops, or relational dynamics. |
Depends on intrapersonal and interpersonal awareness and change. |
|
| Tools are generic and scalable (courses, self-help books) and may overlook the uniqueness of context. |
The work is collaborative; you map the system, uncover patterns, and intervene at points of leverage. |
|
| Outcomes can be temporary or surface-level if underlying systemic issues remain. |
Outcomes are sustainable because they address root patterns and interactions. |
|
| Focuses on individual performance or self-perception. |
Focuses on developing systems that work, not just individual behaviors. |
Bottom Line
Relational Development is fundamentally about transforming the systems in which you operate, whether that’s your relationships, your health context, or your business environment. The personal development industry is often about optimizing you as an individual within the existing system, which may not solve deeper relational or systemic problems and can lead to backsliding into old patterns that keep you stuck.
Unlike typical personal development programs that focus on individual habits or mindset shifts, Sustainable Success teaches you how to look at the bigger picture: the systems you are part of (your relationships, patterns, and environment) and how they influence your results. By understanding and strategically working with these systems, we create lasting change that goes beyond temporary motivation or surface-level fixes.
When You Join the Sustainable Success Cohort
You Will Master How To:
-
Identify and break patterns that keep you stuck
-
Replace negative cycles with empowering habits and behaviors
-
Build interconnected success plans to support exponential growth
-
Think and problem-solve systemically
-
Predict and leverage behavioral and motivational traits for personal and team development
-
Use techniques to rewire your mind for self-empowerment and success
-
Resolve objections and overcome resistance
-
Model the mindset and strategies of high achievers to replicate success
-
Mediate, resolve conflict, and negotiate effectively
-
Discover and leverage internal resources to stay present, resilient, and effective under pressure
Why do so many business owners hit a ceiling of achievement?
You were taught an unsustainable way to think.
There is a well-known metaphor about crabs in a bucket. If you put one crab in a bucket, it will find a way to escape as long as it can reach the top. However, if you put two or more crabs in a bucket, none will escape because each will pull the others back into the bucket, maintaining them all as prisoners of the same environment. (This has even been demonstrated on crabbing boats where buckets can be overflowing with crabs, far more than the bucket can hold, and none escape because of this phenomenon.)
The personal development industry co-opted this metaphor as a reference point for how important it is to surround yourself with people who will support your continual growth rather than hold you back or keep you stuck wherever you currently are. While it is certainly important to put yourself in an environment that will support you and your ability to succeed, this mindset has unfortunately resulted in people destroying their most significant relationships in pursuit of something they cannot define very well. Entrepreneurs, solopreneurs, and people seeking their own personal growth have taken this concept and used it as an excuse for leaving their marriages, cutting ties from their families, ending lifelong friendships, and becoming hyper focused on “getting in the room” where some new person will inevitably be their next leverage point in their own success.
“Don’t listen to the haters” has been expanded to include anyone who is less than 100% supportive. The toxic mentality that the people around you are supposed to believe in you and lift you up no matter what has stunted people's ability to develop relationships where honesty, vulnerability, and differing opinions can safely exist.
There are a surprising number of famous quotes that are often proselytized by the personal development industry. When these quotes are shared as mantras for how to be successful, they quickly become dangerous beliefs that can damage and destroy people’s lives.
Ignoring the feedback of those who know you best isn’t strength, it’s sabotage.
Have you lost the very people who once believed in you, all because someone told you they weren’t ‘growth minded’ enough?
Real, sustainable growth doesn’t happen in isolation; it happens in your relationships, your patterns, and your systems.
The Sustainable Success Program
What to expect
A Yearlong Journey of Growth, Emotional Mastery, and Lasting Change
This program is designed for professionals who want to communicate more effectively, regulate emotions with confidence, and think systemically to create sustainable success in every area of life.
Over the course of 12 months, you’ll develop the skills and awareness to become your most resourceful, grounded, and sustainably effective self. Each quarter builds on the last, blending powerful lessons from achievement psychology, NLP, and systemic thinking with practical application and reflection.
Quarter 1: Build Self-Awareness and Foundational Skills
Focus: Understanding yourself and the systems that shape your results.
You’ll start by setting clear, achievable goals and learning how to grow through relational awareness rather than personal development. By exploring your communication style through the DISC model and sharpening your sensory acuity, you’ll learn to read others more effectively and respond more effectively. You’ll finish this phase with a strong foundation in systemic thinking and radical self-compassion, which are two essentials for sustainable success.
Quarter 2: Strengthen Emotional Intelligence and Systemic Communication
Focus: Managing emotions and communicating with flexibility.
This quarter deepens your emotional awareness and equips you to communicate with empathy and adaptability. You’ll learn how to use the RAIN process for emotional regulation, reframe challenges with new perspectives, and practice flexible communication strategies that build trust and reciprocal engagement in any relationship.
Quarter 3: Master Your Emotions and Elevate Your Relationships
Focus: Emotional rewiring and compassionate communication.
In this phase, you’ll learn how to use anchoring techniques to manage your internal state and show up at your best, even under pressure. You’ll apply advanced tools for compassionate communication and systemic problem-solving, helping you navigate challenges in both personal and professional relationships with clarity and confidence.
Quarter 4: Integrate, Lead, and Create Sustainable Success
Focus: Integration, transformation, and mastery.
In the final quarter, you’ll bring everything together by reframing emotional experiences using TRIGGERS™ Therapy and Rewind techniques and applying relationally aware Solution-Focused strategies to real-world challenges. You’ll end the program with a capstone project that showcases your growth and demonstrates your ability to lead yourself and others with emotional intelligence, compassion, and systemic awareness.
The Result:
By the end of this yearlong journey, you won’t just have new tools, you’ll have a new way of thinking, relating, and leading. You’ll walk away with the confidence to navigate complex emotions, communicate with impact, and create truly Sustainable Success.
Are you ready to grow?
Learning to relate differently is the difference that makes the difference.
Relationships are the context in which all significant growth occurs. Nobody exists in a vacuum, and no amount of personal development can outperform what can be accomplished with the support and perspective of others. Gaining that support, and reciprocating it, is the foundation of sustainable growth.
Sustainable Success Syllabus
Quarter 1: Building Self-Awareness and Foundational Skills
Objective: Develop self-awareness, recognize communication styles, and introduce systemic thinking.
Months 1-3: Key Topics and Activities
1. Self-Awareness and Goal Setting (Month 1)
- Benchmark: Cohort can articulate specific goals and focus with a focus on growth over perfection.
2. DISC and Sensory Acuity (Month 2)
- Benchmark: Cohort can effectively adapt their communication style based on sensory observations and DISC insights.
3. Systemic Thinking and Radical Self-Awareness (Month 3)
- Benchmark: Cohort can identify systemic patterns and practice self-compassion effectively.
Quarter 2: Emotional Intelligence and Systemic Communication
Objective: Deepen emotional awareness, expand systemic thinking, and refine communication.
Months 4-6: Key Topics and Activities
4. Emotional Awareness and Radical Compassion (Month 4)
- Benchmark: Cohort effectively uses RAIN for emotional regulation and deepening of empathy.
5. Flexible Communication and Adaptability (Month 5)
- Benchmark: Cohort demonstrates resourceful and flexible communication strategies with others.
6. Reframing Perspectives (Month 6)
- Benchmark: Cohort can adjust internal representations and practice reframing effectively.
Quarter 3: Mastery of Emotions and Strategic Communication
Objective: Refine emotional regulation, enhance relationship skills, and apply systemic thinking.
Months 7-9: Key Topics and Activities
7. Emotional Regulation Through Anchoring (Month 7)
- Benchmark: Cohort effectively uses anchors to regulate emotions.
8. Compassionate Communication in Relationships (Month 8)
- Benchmark: Cohort demonstrates compassionate and effective relational communication.
9. Navigating Challenges (Month 9)
- Benchmark: Cohort can apply systemic thinking to solve complex challenges.
Quarter 4: Integration, Problem-Solving, and Personal Mastery
Objective: Solidify knowledge, self-manage internal states, and solve complex interpersonal challenges.
Months 10-12: Key Topics and Activities
10. Timeline Therapy and Rewind Techniques (Month 10)
- Benchmark: Cohort can effectively reframe and reintegrate destructive emotional narratives.
11. Solution-Focused Problem-Solving (Month 11)
- Benchmark: Cohort can use solution-focused language patterns to resolve personal and relational complex problems.
12. Capstone Project and Final Reflection (Month 12)
- Benchmark: Cohort members showcase mastery and integration of Sustainable Success concepts.
Meet Your Coach
Eli Schaugh, MFTC, MNLP, CHt
Join Relational Therapist and Master Success Coach, Eli Schaugh, and learn about how to sustain growth and success by going beyond the limits of the personal development field.
Eli Schaugh earned his Master’s Degree in Marriage and Family Therapy from Capella University and has certifications and/or advanced training in Success Coaching, Neuro-linguistic Programming, DISC & Motives, Negotiation, Emotionally Focused Therapy, Solution Focused Therapy, Hypnotherapy, and Emotional Freedom Techniques (tapping).
Eli has been coaching and training entrepreneurs, leaders, and business owners since 2016.
Eli Schaugh's Credentials
- Marriage and Family Therapist (MFTC)
- Certified Master Success Coach
- Certified Master Practitioner of Neuro-Linguistic Programming (NLP)
- Certified Master Practitioner of TIME Techniques™
- Certified Master Practitioner of Hypnotherapy
- Certified Practitioner of Emotional Freedom Techniques (EFT)
- Certified SUCCESS® Coach
- Certified in DISC and Motives
- Master Certified Negotiation Expert®
- REALTOR®
Certified / Educated / Trained by:
- Capella University (MS in Marriage and Family Therapy with distinction)
- Brandeis University (BA in Theater Arts with honors)
- The International Centre for Excellence in Emotionally Focused Therapy
- International Board of Coaches and Practitioners
- SUCCESS®
- The Abelson Group
- The Real Estate Negotiation Institute
- The Palace of Possibilities™
- Mike Mandel Hypnosis Academy
- Transform Destiny
- The Empowerment Partnership