You don’t need a guru.
You need a Sherpa.
Coaching for the long middle of life.
With Brian Callaway.
The Midlife Sherpa
A Sherpa knows the mountain, having climbed it many times before. Walking beside you through hard, unfamiliar terrain so you can get where you're trying to go.I'm Brian Callaway. I've traveled through the valleys of obesity, addiction, and trauma. Today I help men and women navigate midlife with greater strength, clarity, and intention.
Not sure where you are? Try this.
The Sherpa Assessment
A short, honest read on where you are. The Assessment asks specific questions about your body, your habits, your relationships, and the direction you're moving in. Some of them are physical, try-this-now style. Others are quieter.When you finish, you'll get your Sherpa Profile. Where you're strong. Where you're slipping. What I'd focus on first if you were sitting across from me.Free. Ten minutes.
Three threads. One life.
Health & Longevity
Baseline, then beyond.Most people drift into the decline of midlife. The body you have now is the one you'll carry the rest of the way. The first work is getting it back to normal. The basics that should be running before anything else can.Then we push past it. Healthspan isn't more years. It's more good years. Labs, strength, and recovery past what most doctors call normal. Normal is the floor. This is the ceiling.Weight · Sleep · Mobility · Strength · Labs · Nutrition
Stress & Recovery
How well your system holds up.Midlife is loud. Work, family, money, the news, the body itself. Most people are running ahead of their ability to recover. Sleep slips. The drink at night becomes the drink every night. Sugar, scrolling, snapping at the people you love. The patterns work until they don't.This is the work of finding what's actually causing the load and building a system that lets you come back down. Sleep, stress response, the habits you can't seem to break. The quiet stuff that makes everything else possible.Sleep · Stress · Habits · Recovery
Direction & Meaning
What it's all for.Midlife is the part where the patterns you've been getting away with stop working. With your partner, your kids, your parents, your friends, and yourself. The work is facing them honestly while there's still time to change them.It's also the part where the list you've been carrying starts to feel heavier. A pivot. A purpose. The work that would actually mean something. The conversations you keep putting off. This is the work of getting them done while you still can.Marriage · Parenting · Friendship · Self · Purpose · Time
Meet your Sherpa
I come from a broken and traumatic childhood. A middle-aged maladaptive man. That's what I was.In my forties, I lost 75 pounds, moved to whole-food plant-based eating, and reversed high blood pressure and cholesterol. In my fifties, I found sobriety, finished multiple ultramarathons after knee surgery, and learned how to work with late-diagnosed ADHD.Those were the visible changes. The harder part has been quieter and ongoing. Doing the trauma work. Becoming a better husband. Raising two daughters. Rebuilding friendships.Crafting a life that feels less like survival and more like choice.I'm not new to this work. As a coach, I spent fourteen years coaching photographers and other small business owners. One-on-one, in workshops, and from stages. The work was always the same: confidence, showing up, and closing the gap between where someone is and where they know they could be.That's the work I do here.Brian Callaway
How we work together
An eight-week working method. One session a week. One quarterly recalibration.
i. An honest conversation.
One unhurried hour. Where you actually are, where you'd like to be, and an honest read on the distance between the two.
Week 1
ii. Take inventory.
Body, habits, relationships, time. We map what's working and what isn't. No judgment. Just the truth.
Week 2
iii. Build the plan.
A small number of moves that matter. We collaborate on the steps you can actually achieve in a week.
Week 3
iv. Do the work.
Put the plan into action. I help you stay honest about what's working and what isn't.
Weeks 4-7
v. Recalibrate.
Week eight. We take stock. What's holding. What needs rebuilding. What's no longer worth carrying. Fresh line, fresh legs.
Week 8
Start here
Once a week I publish an article on Substack and Medium.
Follow the links below to read my favorite essays.
The Little Boy Inside
Coming of age. At fifty.
Have You Seen My Wallet?
The adult ADHD signs I missed.
Descent From the Apex of Gordo
How I lost 75 pounds.
The Day My Feet Disappeared
How I gained 75 pounds, and made the change.
Read more
The Midlife Sherpa on Substack
New essays every week. Subscribe for free.
Brian Callaway on Medium
Featured in Crow's Feet, Sober (forthcoming), Illumination, and Health and Science.
One honest
conversation
Sixty minutes. No pitch, no obligation. We'll talk about where you actually are, and whether I'm the right person to walk with you for a while.
Brian Callaway
Midlife Sherpa