Hi, I’m Matthew LaRochelle.
I came to coaching after fifteen years of building things with other people.
I spent a decade as co-owner of Cold Tea, a bar and venue in Toronto. I learned how to create culture, manage partners, make decisions under pressure, and keep something alive through the ordinary chaos of business.
I also learned that being good at carrying a lot does not mean you should keep carrying it the same way forever.
For the past seven years, I have run Atlantic Avenue Athletic Club, a group strength and conditioning gym built around consistency, honest effort, and people showing up for one another.
Eight years ago, I got sober. That was the beginning of a different education.
why i coach
I became interested in the distance between understanding something and being able to live it.
People often know exactly what they do. They know they avoid conflict, overfunction, second-guess themselves, control too much, disappear into other people's needs, or keep moving so they do not have to feel where they are.
The problem is rarely a shortage of information.
The pattern has a logic. It protected something, achieved something, or helped create a life that mattered. That is why it cannot simply be argued away.
Good coaching respects the intelligence of the old strategy while helping you become capable of something new.
That is the work I care about.
how i work
I am candid, curious, practical, and difficult to impress with polished nonsense.
We will take your inner life seriously without making every conversation solemn. We will use precise frameworks without pretending a framework can explain a human being. We will talk, but we will also experiment, practise, observe, and adjust.
My job is not to become another authority you depend on. It is to help you see yourself more clearly, increase the range of responses available to you, and make those responses usable when life is actually happening.
training + tools
I trained with Integral Coaching Canada and hold an ACC credential with the International Coaching Federation. I am also an Advanced SuccessFinder practitioner and a certified iEQ9 Enneagram practitioner.
These systems give us useful maps of motivation, behaviour, development, and context. I use them to sharpen the work- not to reduce you to a type, score, or tidy story.
The point is not to know yourself as an idea.
The point is to have more freedom in how you live.
"Coaching with Matthew helped me reconnect with a steadier part of myself, rather than staying caught in the chaos. I'm still practicing, but I feel more grounded and more confident in creating moments to pause and reset." -Nicole, Teacher
"Matt is a visionary leader that is able to unlock people's individual potential and lay out an objective plan to realize it. His solutions are bespoke and tailored to each person's individual strengths, needs and limitations." -Elliott, VP Strategy