Samantha Sutton, Ph.D. Life Engineering
Welcome!
If you are like many successful professionals I work with, you have been pretty successful in certain areas of your life, and you know that you are capable of more.
Maybe you have a career that looks good from the outside... but you know you could be taking it to the next level.
Maybe you are so busy putting out fires in your daily life that you don’t get to spend time doing what is most important to you... and you know that needs to change.
Maybe there are relationships in your life that feels like they are sucking all of the joy out of the room... and you are ready to shift them.
Maybe you are so focused on your never-ending list of ToDos that you don’t spend time taking care of yourself... and it's starting to drain you.
Maybe you want something different in your life, and you aren't ever sure what it is.
The truth is, a “dream come true” life takes vigilance and a set of tools to adroitly design and implement it. That is where I come in.
I am a life, career, and executive coach, but first and foremost I am a life engineer. I have a Ph.D. in science and engineering from MIT, and have spent the past eight years getting my clients lives they love.
I uniquely combine engineering design principles with coaching insights to help you articulate what you truly want, and then overcome obstacles to get it. You have your own unique needs, and so I tailor the life engineering process just for you.
Like a heat-seeking missle, I hone in on what you most need, and make sure you get it. We won't know until we dig in. That is the beauty of this work: I help you see what you aren't seeing, so that you can address it.
My approach that is practical, intuitive, challenging, and fun, and gets results.If you are looking to engineer something more in your life, I would love to work with you.
Let's build it!
Where I've Coached
Praise
Tackle your core questions
"My coaching with Samantha has made me a much more effective competitive academic scientist, allowing me to keep my creative edge by fully embracing the management challenges. For anyone who wants to be both a scientist and a leader, coaching is an effective, deep and personal way of tackling the core questions."
Jackie G.
Professor of Neuroscience, New York, NY
A valuable partner through life
"Samantha helped me become the 'hero' I always knew I had inside of me. This means that I bring happiness into work rather than trying to get happiness from work. This means that I rebooted my relationship with my brother and father in time to be supportive through my mom’s passing. I now bring joy, passion, and generosity to the party.
Samantha is insightful, an assertive supporter, and a valuable partner through life."
Scot J.
CEO, Providence, RI
Create a vision for your life
“I started coaching with Samantha because I felt I wasn’t achieving enough in my graduate program. My anxiety about schoolwork and my colleagues’ opinions of me were creating a perfect storm of negative thoughts that were running my life. Samantha helped me create a version of myself that I never even knew could be so powerful and impressive… and had fun doing it!”
Irene H.
Graduate Student, Berkeley, CA
Become more daring and bold
"Because of my work with Samantha, I am more accepting, daring and outspoken, and have become a stronger leader in my field. I designed a clear vision for where I see myself in 5 years—a super-empowering vision that sits at the edge of possible/impossible—and it has inspired me to be bold about what I really want in life as a scientist, mother and wife! Because of this training, I have never met anyone quite like Samantha!"
Dr. Mandeep Virk-Baker, PhD, MPH, MSc, RD
National Cancer Institute, Bethesda, MD
Direct, logical, and scientific approach
"Samantha’s seminar for MIT students was excellent! Her approach to “life engineering” appealed to our engineering and science students because she spoke their language. Her own experience conducting lab research in biological engineering gave her direct, logical and scientific approach extra credibility. She asked the students to approach their life goals as they would an experiment and that engaged the audience completely."
Katie Maloney
Director, Parents Association & Student/Alumni Relations, MIT
The tools to never settle for less
"Samantha quickly identifies an insightful approach to any situation, and delivers it with the appropriate sensitivity and/or toughness. I've become a powerfully positive force in my profession! Life is too short to keep putting off living the one you want to live; Samantha's given me the 'tools' to never settle for less."
Ela B.
Entrepreneur and Designer, Cambridge, MA
Compassionate and challenging
"Samantha combines a deep love of her clients with a engineer's way of thinking critically and solving problems. She is compassionate, and challenged me to set personal expectations higher by searching for creative solutions. She really wants her clients to live their most amazing life and be their happiest, their most successful and their highest version of themselves."
Juliana R.
BS MIT 2008, Newport News, VA
A relationship that lasts a lifetime
"With my background in HR and time in therapy, I thought I knew ‘it all’ already. But Samantha showed me a different way of looking at things that changed my life. Years later, I still hear Samantha’s voice in my head every day. She reminds me of who I am, what I need to do, and that I CAN do it. This is a relationship that lasts a lifetime.”
Lynne C.
Burlington, VT
Stand up for what you are worth
"Samantha helped me see my value and negotiate a higher starting salary for my new job. I didn't want to 'make waves' with my new employer, but the negotiation went great and I am so proud of myself for asking for what I am worth. Next time, I will be even more brave!”
Kerry A.
Department of Education, Boston, MA
My Story
Here I am culturing yeast at my lab bench in graduate school.
I am on a mission to help you have a great life. And not just parts of it: ALL of it.
I come from a rigorous background of science and engineering: I have a Ph.D. in Biological Engineering from MIT as a Howard Hughes Predoctoral Fellow, and before that a B.S. in Electrical Engineering from the University of Illinois as an Intel Scholar. I am a believer in structured education, logical analysis, proven skillsets.
My highly-educated self was an expert at achieving. I had figured out how to get into the top schools, win the top awards, and become a top-notch scientist and engineer.
But then I hit a wall. I realized the one tool I lacked was how to determine what made me happy. What was I passionate about? I looked around at the life I had built for myself--my career, fiance, body, community--and realized that I felt a bit numb about it all.
So I embarked on a journey to find my passions, and build a life around them. Twelve years and many teachers later, I can honestly say that I am living that life. I never knew such joy, fulfillment, or deep satisfaction was possible.
Along the way, I realized something. I wasn’t the only one who needed a few lessons in how to "master" life. In the halls of the best universities, companies, and institutions, were walking a lot of great people, like you, who weren’t having as much fun conquering the world as they could be. It struck me that, if I really wanted to help out this world of ours, the best way to do it would be to help the people of it live great lives.
So I spent five years working as a Coach, Director, Vice President, and finally President of a professional life coaching company, coaching and teaching over a thousand individuals in how to make the leap from good to exquisite.
I saw that it wasn't just scientists and engineers who needed these tools. It was businesspeople, doctors, journalists, artists, caregivers, writers, lawyers students, entrepreneurs, producers... just about everyone.
I started my own company, Samantha Sutton, Ph.D. Life Solutions, based around a methodology that I created that combines my experiences as a coach, scientist and engineer. My methodology is deep, intuitive, analytical, challenging, fun, caring rewarding, practical, bold, and gets results. I am based out of Manhattan, and work with individuals, companies, and organizations across the globe.
Achieving a great life is a science, and can be learned. It involves consciously re-working your brain and how you think on the inside so you can change your world outside.
As for me, THIS is what I discovered at the end of my passion-hunt. I am deeply passionate about helping you invent a life that you are head over heels in love with.
If you let me into your world, I will illuminate, challenge, care, push, prod, reason, rally, build, intuit, engineer, and grow you into the person you know you can be, living the life you know you want.
Spend 15 minutes with me and I will hone in, like a heat-seeking missile, on the ways in which you are extraordinary. And I won't rest until that "extraordinary you" is unleashed on the world.
This is real work, but the end result is a life beyond what you ever thought possible.