Derek R. Haswell

exec coach, entrepreneur, community steward, farmhand, school builder, dad x3 || cultivating high consciousness x high agency

[Derek R. Haswell @DRHaswell]

@schlaf @dan2hunt Sounds glorious. Teach me your ways.

[Derek R. Haswell @DRHaswell]

@schlaf @RyanHVaughn 💪

[Derek R. Haswell @DRHaswell]

@kishan22504 @schlaf Thanks Kishan!

As a fellow builder, I also get very excited about that too...

[Derek R. Haswell @DRHaswell]

@dthorson Thanks Daniel 🔥

[Derek R. Haswell @DRHaswell]

Here. We. Go!

Steve and Ryan are incredible humans, coaches, business partners, fathers, and friends. I can’t wait to see what we build together.

“If we believe that human development is a team sport, what’s the experience that someone would have when they enter that field?”

This is the question we’ve organized around and, in the coming years, hope to answer with Camerado.

It fell out of a mid-summer “website jam,” where we called bs on anything that felt hollow or generic.

If we really, truly, radically believed it, everything would be different: how we support clients and one another, who we collaborate with, what we offer, how we use AI.

So we've laid the foundations, and today is just the beginning...

More at https://t.co/k5QwmOOdf7

[Steve Schlafman @schlaf]

After nearly a decade as a solopreneur, I’m ready to be part of a team again.

Today, I’m excited to introduce Camerado, an executive coaching studio founded by @RyanHVaughn, @DRHaswell, and me.

My coaching practice has given me an incredible amount of freedom. I’ve been able to choose who I work with, set my schedule most days, and follow my curiosity. I loved the independence, but I missed having teammates.

I wanted peers I could learn from, create with, and count on to challenge me as a practitioner and entrepreneur.

Last fall, Ryan, Derek, and I were at a retreat in the Catskills. One evening, we peeled off from the larger group and sat on the porch, talking about our lives, our coaching practices, and how technology might change human development over the next decade.

An idea began taking shape: a small studio of deeply committed practitioners who had built and led companies and spent years doing their own inner work.

We imagined a firm with both coaching and building in its DNA. We could bring our different strengths to supporting clients and help one another create products, services, and experiences we couldn’t bring to life alone.

That conversation eventually led to a daily text thread, a weekly Zoom, an offsite at my house, and a commitment to become partners. After six months of working behind the scenes, we’re ready to share what we’ve been building.

Ryan spent fifteen years building and leading multiple venture-backed companies before becoming an executive coach. He brings directness and operational rigor that inspire and stretch me.

Derek co-founded Ten Percent Happier and helped build it into one of the top meditation brands in the world. He brings a product builder’s mind, deep care, and an attention to detail that often leaves me thinking, how the hell did he do that?

I bring my years as an operator, venture investor, and coach, along with my love of helping people navigate meaningful transitions.

Between us, we’ve coached hundreds of founders. We bring different strengths and experiences to the studio, and I love what we bring out in each other.

We serve founders, leaders, and investors at the frontiers of their work and lives. That could mean leading a company that’s scaling faster than you are, navigating a conflict with your co-founder, finding the courage to leave the startup you’ve poured your life into, or pursuing your ambitions without missing your kids growing up.

Each client works closely with one of us, with the whole studio behind them. We help each other think through the challenges our clients are facing, question assumptions, and bring in another partner’s perspective or expertise when it would help.

We’re guided by a belief that the company we keep shapes who we become and what becomes possible. We’re putting that belief into practice in how we support each other and our clients.

Our name comes from Walt Whitman’s “Song of the Open Road.” A camerado is a fellow traveler on the open road, which captures what we want to be for our clients and each other.

There’s more we want to create together: retreats, workshops, and new ways to support the leaders we work with. Part of the adventure is discovering what we can build that none of us could have imagined alone.
I’m excited, a little scared, and proud to be taking this step with Ryan and Derek. I’m grateful I don’t have to navigate it alone.

Come meet my partners and check out what we’re building. Link below.

[Derek R. Haswell @DRHaswell]

@Montebello That's the question... Feels like you're answering it too, just in a different container.

[Derek R. Haswell @DRHaswell]

@jonnym1ller Thanks Jonny. Gonna be a fun ride.

[Derek R. Haswell @DRHaswell]

@mbrown_co Thank you, good sir.

[Derek R. Haswell @DRHaswell]

@vinayjunejaa @schlaf @RyanHVaughn Thanks Vinay!

[Derek R. Haswell @DRHaswell]

@robgo Thanks Rob!

cc @schlaf

[Derek R. Haswell @DRHaswell]

@tomowenmorgan @britton @schlaf @RyanHVaughn Haha

[Derek R. Haswell @DRHaswell]

@jcap49 @schlaf @RyanHVaughn John! It's been a minute since the Boston days, but hope you're well!

[Derek R. Haswell @DRHaswell]

@kishan22504 @schlaf @RyanHVaughn Thanks Kishan 🔥

[Derek R. Haswell @DRHaswell]

@ztsekouras @schlaf @RyanHVaughn Thanks Zaharo 🔥

[Derek R. Haswell @DRHaswell]

@tomowenmorgan @schlaf @RyanHVaughn Thanks Tom 💪

[Derek R. Haswell @DRHaswell]

@p_millerd @schlaf @ungatedlife @RyanHVaughn Thx Paul.

[Derek R. Haswell @DRHaswell]

@Evanish @schlaf @RyanHVaughn Love that you guys know each other too :)

Hope you're well, Jason!

[Damien Echols @damienechols]

I have absolutely no interest in magick, alchemy, esotericism, or any of the other things I’ve spent most of my life studying and practicing. I don’t care about rituals, initiations, secret teachings, spiritual hierarchies, or collecting mystical experiences. I spent decades immersed in these things, and I understand their value. But they were never meant to become permanent occupations or identities. They were tools intended to accomplish something. The problem is that people become so attached to the tools that they forget what they were trying to accomplish in the first place. They build an entire identity around being a magician, an alchemist, or an initiate, and then spend the rest of their lives defending and reinforcing that identity. The very thing that was supposed to free them from the ego becomes another way of keeping it alive.

The purpose of the Great Work is not to become a better magician or a more accomplished alchemist. It is to become free. Free even from the need to practice magick or alchemy. At some point, you have to stop preparing to live life and actually live. It. I want to practice my sword, drink my tea, spend time with my wife, and give my complete attention to whatever I’m doing. I have no desire to escape the world, transcend the material plane, or become something other than what I am. I spent years trying to reach something beyond ordinary life, only to discover that ordinary life was what I’d been looking for all along. If your spiritual practice never allows you to put it down, you haven’t found freedom. You’ve just built yourself another prison.

[Derek R. Haswell @DRHaswell]

@Hadley 👏

It sounds cliche to do this kind of thing, but it reliably works if you stick with it… Love that you just went for it.