No Meaningful Work Is Created Alone

Dean Prichard: Partnership and Shared Creation

My husband, Dean Prichard, is my co-founder and partner in building Happy Whole Human®. His belief in this work, and his contributions to the company, its technology platform and the broader ecosystem, helped bring it into its current form.

Scholarly Foundations

Dr. Deborah Jacobvitz, my graduate advisor at the University of Texas at Austin, guided me through writing and defending my master's and doctoral theses. Debby's scholarship and mentorship in attachment, family systems and developmental research shaped my academic foundation.

I am grateful to Debby and to Dr. Nancy Hazen-Swann for allowing me to participate in and draw upon their Partners and Parents Project.

Thank you as well to Dr. Lisa Raskin, Dr. Tommy Darwin, Dr. Anita Vangelisti, Dr. Joan Mullin, Dr. Melissa Curran, Dr. Silvia Bartolic, Dr. Peg Syverson, Professor Cynthia Bryant, Dr. Ted Huston, Dr. Cathy Surra, Dr. Timothy Loving and Dr. Elisabeth McKetta for the application of their theoretical and conceptual expertise, and to Judi Rosall, who encouraged me to pursue an advanced degree and has been an outstanding mentor and friend.

Intellectual Catalysts

Years later, Mary Henderson's mentorship helped catalyze the emergence of Human Systems Architecture™, as I articulated a framework decades in the making. Her intellectual generosity and encouragement helped me organize what research, coaching and practice had been teaching me.

Profound gratitude to forest ecologist Dr. Dominik Kulakowski, whose musings about carbon and the nature of life captured my imagination and sparked my long inquiry into what constitutes optimal relationship dynamics. That conversation became the seed of Carbon Mutuality™.

Many thanks to David Flaxbart of the UT Austin Mallet Chemistry Library, to Jeremy Denbow, and to the chemical information professionals around the world, including organic chemists, who generously commented on the Carbon Mutuality™ metaphor. Their generosity helped me keep the metaphor honest: a way of thinking about relationships, not a scientific claim.

And thank you to Cole Harmonson for his insight that self-absorbed patterns can be overcome in any given moment by bringing yourself into the moment and connecting to yourself and another. It really can be that simple, and it sits at the heart of what I now call catalytic connection.

Early Belief and Investment

Some of the most meaningful support came from relationships formed in earlier chapters of life. I came to know Jamie Schulze in Taos Ski Valley, New Mexico, where she and her husband, Thomas Schulze, owned the Bavarian Lodge and Restaurant. Years later, Jamie believed in Happy Whole Human® and provided financial investment and support to help bring the vision to life.

My mother, Susan Loch, provided important early financial investment and practical support.

I am also grateful to Suzanna Ceballos Albright, Dawn Madigan and Ellen Airhart for invaluable support in bringing the original Happy Whole Human® program into being.

The First 800 Austin Clients

Between 2005 and 2015, approximately 800 clients worked with me in person in my little office on Lake Austin Boulevard. Thank you for your courage, dedication, trust and commitment to growth. We were learning together, and what we learned shaped my practice. Those conversations remain confidential, as they always will.

Special thanks to Lindsay Redwine, Kevin Burns and Paula Greenfield Burns for invaluable support in establishing and building my private coaching practice.

The Undergraduate Writing Center Community

At the UT Undergraduate Writing Center, where I managed day-to-day operations, my forever friends and colleagues taught me the power of acceptance, the power of questions, and what enlightened instruction, leadership and facilitation look like. Thank you to Michele Solberg, Vince Lozano, Peg Syverson, Alice Batt, Chris LeCluyse, Scott Blackwood, Sue Mendelsohn, Alison Perlman, Eliana Schonberg, Alanna Bitzel, Andy Jones, Andrea Saathoff and so many others. The Happy Whole Human® coaching approach draws on their stellar practices and teachings.

Earlier, in New York, my former boss and mentor Stephen Revell, managing partner of the New York office of Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer, showed me what operational excellence and leadership look like. He remains the most efficient and effective person I have ever known.

Building Happy Whole Human®

To the patient and supportive first rounds of Happy Whole Human® coaches, Terra Peters, Maggie Brubaker, Tricia Osborn, Kaitlin Robinson, Dawn Madigan, Michele Aubry, Kelly Belliveau, Evan Schmiedehaus, Sue Steinfeld, Behnam Arzaghi, Colette Fischer, Andrea Finch and David Preslar: thank you. Your feedback helped turn ideas into practical tools.

To the team at Brillium, Curt Rogers, Rob Dugre and Michael Hurczyn, thank you for your brilliant support in creating and supporting the Happy Whole Human® self-assessment. Thank you to Mitchell Westmoreland for composing original music for the Happy Whole Human® self-hypnosis recordings, and to Zoilita Grant for mentoring me in Hypnotic Coaching and licensing her content to Happy Whole Human.

Thank you to the people of Whole Foods Market who gave us the opportunity to pilot early programs with creative and progressive thought leaders: Steph Steele, John Morgan, Jessica Agneessens, Evan Schmiedehaus, Sue Steinfeld, Leisha Barnette, Vaishali Jadhav and Glenda Flannigan, and especially Jessica Agneessens for championing the work. Thank you also to Vidar Jorgensen, co-founder of Grameen America and Grameen PrimaCare, for kindness and mentorship; to Conscious Capitalism, Inc.; to Laura Garnett of Garnett Consulting and Bruce Fritch of Fritch Consulting; to Corey Bell and Katie Gutierrez at Round Table Companies; and to Angela Gohokar, John Dunn, David Dunham, Jennifer Garcia and the team at Texas Monthly.

Friends, Family, and Fellow Travelers

I am deeply grateful to my family for your absolute and unconditional support and encouragement. To my friends, clients, bosses, mentors, professors, employees and students: you have been such amazing teachers for me, and every one of you remains part of this story.

The Happy Whole Human® programs also draw upon countless authors, researchers, teachers and thought leaders. Many thanks to all of them for the work that supports this program.

Acknowledging My Own Perseverance

And I want to acknowledge my own part in this journey.

For more than two decades, through remarkable opportunities and considerable challenges, I have continued to ask questions, develop ideas, learn from experience, and work toward bringing this vision into the world.

I am proud of that perseverance. I am equally grateful for the relationships that helped sustain it.