Scottsdale, Arizona · Online Worldwide
Life Coach in Scottsdale for High Achievers
Desert Roots Wellness is founded and operated from Scottsdale, Arizona. We work with high achievers navigating burnout, people-pleasing, major life transitions, and the quiet exhaustion that comes from living a life that looks like success but doesn't actually fit. All sessions are online.
Book a Free Clarity CallRooted in Scottsdale. Built from lived experience.
Desert Roots Wellness was founded by Samka Keranovic and Tyler LaBarge — two people who came from very different professional backgrounds and arrived at the same realization: the most common obstacle to growth isn't strategy or skill. It's the slow accumulation of decisions made for the wrong reasons — for approval, obligation, fear of conflict — until the life you're living no longer belongs to you.
Samka spent over 20 years in corporate leadership — including Vice President and COO roles — before burnout made it impossible to keep going. She had been coaching privately for 16 of those years. Tyler navigated the pressure of family business expectations and the particular kind of exhaustion that comes from building toward other people's definitions of success. They built Desert Roots Wellness because they needed what it offers — and because they watched many high-achieving professionals they worked with need the same thing.
Samka's work on burnout and self-abandonment was published in Fast Company's Leadership section in July 2026. Both founders are Certified Geo Love Healing Practitioners, trained in energetic boundary practices — because they believe real change is not just mental. It is physical, emotional, and energetic.
What Scottsdale life coaching covers
We work across six core areas. Most clients come in through one — and find that the others are part of the same underlying pattern.
Burnout Recovery
For high achievers who are exhausted in a way rest doesn't fix — and need to address what's actually producing it.
Learn more →People-Pleasing Patterns
For those who say yes from fear, not choice — and are done building their lives around everyone else's comfort.
Learn more →Self-Abandonment
For anyone who has spent years overriding their own needs, instincts, and judgment to keep others comfortable.
Learn more →Boundary Setting
For the people who know what they want to say no to — but feel the weight of the guilt before the conversation starts.
Learn more →Rebuilding Self-Trust
For those who have spent so long outsourcing their decisions they no longer trust their own judgment.
Learn more →Life & Career Transitions
For professionals navigating a pivot, a loss, a shift in identity — and needing structure and support to move through it.
Learn more →Who we work with
Our clients are high-functioning. They hold demanding roles, run businesses, manage teams, and maintain relationships that look, from the outside, like evidence of a life well built. Internally, many of them feel like they're carrying more than they should have to — and have been for a long time.
Common patterns we work with:
Exhaustion that doesn't respond to rest, vacation, or cutting back
Saying yes from fear and no from guilt — and the resentment that builds from both
Making decisions based on what others need or expect, not what you actually want
Achieving everything on the external checklist and feeling hollow about it
A major transition — career change, relationship shift, identity loss — that needs structure to move through
A persistent sense that the life you're living was built for someone else's version of you
Coaching is not for people in active mental health crisis or seeking a diagnosis. If you need clinical support, we will always refer you to the appropriate professional. Coaching is for people who are functional, motivated, and ready to do the work of building something different.
How online life coaching works at Desert Roots Wellness
Everything is conducted online — 60 to 90-minute sessions, one-on-one with Samka or Tyler. The first session maps your specific situation: what's depleting you, what's kept you stuck, and what you actually want to build toward. From there, you get a practical roadmap — frameworks for decisions, tools for boundaries, and a structure for daily life that supports who you actually are rather than quietly undermining it.
We use the Mind, Body, Soul framework — meaning we address the pattern at every level, not just cognitively. That includes nervous system regulation, somatic practices, and energetic boundary work. Because the patterns that produce burnout and people-pleasing don't only live in your thinking. They live in your body.
Between sessions, premium clients have access to a direct text support line for the moments — a hard conversation, a decision that can't wait — when clarity is needed and the next session is days away.
Free Clarity Call
30 minutes. No pitch. Just a real conversation to confirm fit.
Single Session
$300 — 60–90 minutes, one-on-one.
90-Day Package
$2,500 — structured sessions, homework, accountability, and text support.
Practitioner Research
2026 High-Achiever Burnout & Self-Abandonment Practitioner Report
An evidence-informed look at the recurring patterns Samka observes in high-achieving clients — including perfectionism, chronic over-responsibility, and the role chronic self-override can play in sustained burnout. Grounded in 16 years of coaching observations and supported by published research, including the WHO burnout definition and a peer-reviewed perfectionism meta-analysis.
Read the full report →Frequently asked questions
Is Desert Roots Wellness based in Scottsdale, AZ?
Yes. Desert Roots Wellness was founded and is operated by Samka Keranovic and Tyler LaBarge from Scottsdale, Arizona. All coaching sessions are conducted online, which means we work with clients in Scottsdale, throughout Arizona, and worldwide. The Scottsdale community is part of who we are — the values and culture of the practice are shaped by it.
Do you offer in-person coaching in Scottsdale?
No. All Desert Roots Wellness coaching sessions are conducted online via video. This makes it easy to work with us from Scottsdale, anywhere in Arizona, or from anywhere in the world — with the same depth and consistency, and more scheduling flexibility.
What does a life coach in Scottsdale help with?
At Desert Roots Wellness, we work with high achievers on burnout recovery, boundary setting, people-pleasing patterns, self-abandonment, rebuilding self-trust, and major life and career transitions. Many of our clients in Scottsdale and throughout Arizona are executives, entrepreneurs, and professionals who are successful externally but privately exhausted or stuck.
How is life coaching different from therapy in Arizona?
Therapy is a licensed clinical service that diagnoses and treats mental health conditions, often by processing past experiences and trauma. Life coaching at Desert Roots Wellness is forward-focused: it helps you identify the patterns — people-pleasing, chronic over-responsibility, misaligned commitments — that are keeping you stuck, and builds practical tools to change them. Coaching is not therapy and is not a substitute for clinical mental health care. We always refer clients who need therapeutic support to the right professional.
How much does life coaching cost at Desert Roots Wellness?
A single coaching session is $300. The 90-day package is $2,500 and includes structured sessions, homework and accountability between calls, and direct text support for premium clients. We also offer a free 30-minute Clarity Call — no commitment required.
How do I get started?
The first step is a free 30-minute Clarity Call. It's a real conversation — not a sales pitch — about where you are, what's not working, and whether Desert Roots Wellness is the right fit for you. Book directly at drwmbs.com or call 480-953-0443.
Scottsdale, AZ · Online worldwide
Book a free 30-minute Clarity Call
No pitch. No pressure. A real conversation about where you are, what's exhausting you, and whether coaching with Desert Roots Wellness is the right next step — whether you're in Scottsdale or anywhere else in the world.
Book Your Free Clarity CallOr call us: 480-953-0443