Our Story
Different backgrounds. Same wall.
Samka Keranovic
Samka has spent the better part of her adult life helping people find their way back to themselves — first in private, and now publicly.
Since 2006, she built her career in corporate transportation, rising to VP and Chief Operating Officer — managing a $5.2 million P&L, leading large teams, and earning recognition as a top woman in the industry. From the outside, it looked like a story of professional success. And in many ways, it was.
What most people didn't see was what she was doing alongside it. For 16 years — while holding down a demanding executive career — Samka coached privately. Under confidentiality agreements, she traveled to companies and worked directly with their staff on burnout, boundaries, indecision, and the quiet pressure of trying to be everything to everyone. The work was real. The results were real. The only thing missing was a public name for what she was doing.
When corporate life stopped feeling like a fit, she made the decision most high achievers dread: she left. Not because she had failed — but because she had grown beyond it. She knew what she was meant to do next, and she had 16 years of proof that she could do it.
The work is not new. The visibility is.
Tyler LaBarge
Tyler spent 20 years in transportation education — and most of that time, he was doing more than running operations. Since stepping into a Vice President role in 2011 and becoming President & CEO in 2020, he led teams of up to 35 people and quietly built a reputation for something that rarely shows up in a job description.
He helped people figure out what to do with their lives.
For years, Tyler coached graduates one-on-one — helping them assess career opportunities, build business plans, navigate the decision to become owner-operators, and develop the time management strategies that turn a license into a livelihood. It was practical, direct, and grounded in real outcomes. He was doing coaching work long before he ever called it that.
When corporate life stopped matching the work that actually lit him up, he made the same call. Building something from the ground up — with a partner who had been walking the same path in parallel — felt less like a leap and more like the only honest next step.
Failure is rarely about talent. It's almost always about misalignment.
Together
In May 2026, Samka and Tyler launched Desert Roots Wellness — a coaching practice built on lived experience, practical frameworks, and the kind of honest conversation most people have never had with anyone. Together, they hold certifications as Life Coach, Transformational Coach, Neuroscience Coach, Trauma Healing Coach, NLP Practitioner, Meditation Coach, and Geo Love Healing Practitioners — internationally accredited by CPD, NCCAP, CMA, IPHM, and ICAHP. The certifications span evidence-based coaching methodologies, neuroscience applications, trauma-informed approaches, and somatic practices — because sustained change involves more than mindset work alone.
Our Mission
Helping people break free from everyone else's version of their life and build something real — rooted in clarity, boundaries, and self-trust.
No complicated vision statement. No corporate jargon. Just two people who show up — fully — for anyone ready to stop settling and start building the life they already know is theirs.
Who We Serve
Holistic Life Coaching for High Achievers Ready for Real Change
We work with individuals and businesses who are done with people-pleasing, burnout, and living by everyone else's rules. You might be our client if:
- You know you are capable of more, but indecision keeps pulling you back
- You feel the weight of other people's expectations more than your own
- You have tried to push through on your own and keep ending up in the same place
- You are financially and mentally ready to invest in deep, sustainable change
- You are looking for a partner who will be honest with you, not just supportive
We do not work with people who want a quick fix; we work with people who are ready to build something that lasts.
What Makes Us Different
We have lived what we teach.
We are not coaches who studied struggle from the outside. Samka and Tyler have navigated family pressure, business failure, personal reinvention, and the specific kind of paralysis that comes from not knowing who you are underneath everything you have been told to be.
We combine practical business and leadership experience with deep personal development work. That means you get both: the inner clarity and the outer structure to act on it.
Our approach is direct, honest, and grounded. We will not tell you what you want to hear. We will tell you what you need to hear — with care, and without judgment.