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The Grove Journal

Writing on coaching craft and what we're building.

Practical writing for working coaches, a build log from the small studio behind Grove, and notes from the coaching calls in between.

A hand-drawn illustration titled 'The Posture of Authority.' Across a wooden table, a nurse's hands rest beside a stethoscope she has set down, while she reaches an open hand toward a client who is speaking with open, gesturing hands. Subtitle: 'What the difference between a nurse coach and a health coach really means.' Caption: 'She spends her authority earning the right not to use it.'
FeaturedCoach craft9 min read

Nurse Coach vs. Health Coach: What the Difference Really Means

A holistic nurse coach with 30 years as an RN on what makes a nurse coach a different kind of service, and why what matters most in the room isn't the credential but the posture.

Beth Richardson
Jul 28, 2026
Read the essay →

The collection

A watercolor scene of one hand passing a pen to another over a garden plan, titled Client-Led Coaching: Why the Client Must Hold the Pen
Behind the scenesJul 27, 20267 min

Client-led coaching: why clients should own the plan

By Beth Richardson
A hand-drawn seed painted in sage-green watercolor, half-buried in soil and just beginning to split open. Below it, the title The Adulting Checklist That Actually Sticks, A 30-Day Plan, and the note Field Notes on Task Initiation.
Field notesJul 22, 20266 min

The Adulting Checklist That Actually Sticks: A 30-Day Plan

By Beth Richardson
A cream session note taped to weathered wood. A strip of sage-green tape shields the top line where a name would be, while the handwriting below, 'Streak broken. Mentioned her mother's surgery,' stays readable. The serif title reads 'The Pattern Without the Person.' Two labels point to the card: 'Shielded, identifiers and names,' and 'Preserved, the relationship context and the human substance.'
Behind the scenesJul 21, 20267 min

The Pattern Without the Person: Privacy in AI Coaching

By Beth Richardson
A hand-drawn illustration titled 'Do Health Coaches Need a CRM?' A jagged heart-rate line labeled 'Health Coaching Craft' on the left and a sketched sales funnel labeled 'Sales Software' on the right, joined by a sage-green question mark. Below, the quote: 'I came into this because I wanted to help people get healthier. I didn't come in here to do the marketing or the scheduling or the managing of the CRM.'
Starting outJul 14, 20267 min

Do health coaches need a CRM?

By Beth Richardson
A blueprint-style illustration of a framed certificate with a forward arrow beside it, under the title "Beyond the Certificate" and the line "The Unspoken First 90 Days of a Coaching Practice."
Coach craftJul 7, 202610 min

What to do after NBHWC certification (nobody tells you)

By Beth Richardson
A photographic still-life of a dark phone lying beside an open spiral notebook of handwritten checkmarks on weathered wood, under the title "The Practice Outlives the Platform" and the line "Life, habits, and software after Nudge Coach."
Field notesJul 4, 20266 min

What happened to Nudge Coach?

By Beth Richardson
The Meet Sage consent screen: two columns, Sage reads and Never touches, above a single button to enable Sage and see the first Daily Pulse. The coach decides what Sage may see, and can turn it off at any time.
Build logJul 3, 20265 min

What shipped in June: the dashboard learned to remember

By Beth Richardson
Vintage hand-tinted map titled 'The Convergence of Evidence,' showing several rivers winding in from different directions and joining into one stream, captioned 'Where independent sources quietly find the same flow.'
Coach craftJun 30, 20264 min

The Convergence of Evidence

By Beth Richardson
An illustration of a coach at a wooden table in warm window light, reading back through a notebook of her client notes, a coffee beside her and an empty chair across the table, in the quiet minutes before a session begins.
Coach craftJun 26, 20264 min

The five minutes before

By Beth Richardson
A watercolor of an open, ivy-and-flower-framed wooden door leading into a sunlit garden, beside the title "The Graceful Door: When Clients Ghost and Why It Hurts" and the line "Building a practice where leaving doesn't have to mean vanishing."
Coach craftJun 23, 20267 min

The Graceful Door: When Clients Ghost and Why It Hurts

By Beth Richardson
Looking down through the wooden ties of an old railroad trestle into bright teal water below, with the title 'The Bridge and the Water, Coaching Through the Leap' overlaid.
Coach craftJun 16, 20265 min

The bridge and the water

By Beth Richardson
A coach's morning dashboard showing a short Daily Pulse summary for one client
Coach craftJun 12, 20266 min

Holding the thread

By Beth Richardson
Two-panel hand-drawn illustration. Left panel: a coach and a client stand beside a vintage car, leaning over a road map spread across the hood, the client pointing at the route. Caption: 'Decides the destination.' Right panel: the same pair now riding in the car. The client drives, the coach sits in the passenger seat holding an unfolded map. Caption: 'Holds the map.' Below: 'In the practice of Mayo Clinic-certified coach Hartley Newell-Acero, the roles are clear. You are the driver. The coach rides shotgun. Together, you decide where you're headed. Let's call it Chicago.'
Coach craftJun 9, 20264 min

Inside the Practice: Hartley Newell-Acero, in her own words

By Beth Richardson
Vintage botanical illustration titled 'The Quiet Convergence' showing intricate roots branching beneath dark soil and three young sprouts emerging above, captioned: What 23 credentialed health voices were actually saying in May 2026 beneath the noise of the algorithm.
Coach craftJun 5, 20265 min

The Quiet Convergence

By Beth Richardson
A green phone face-down at the edge of a worn wooden table at the end of the day. A steaming mug and a closed leather notebook sit nearby, with warm evening light coming in from the side.
Field notesJun 2, 20265 min

Your mood is not running your practice

By Beth Richardson
A two-column hand-illustrated diagram on cream. Left column, 'What we teach,' shows a stack of papers, an open book, an audio waveform, and a brain. Right column, 'What happens on a Tuesday,' shows a meal scene, a person carrying groceries, a wall clock, and a group of figures. A sage-green suspension bridge spans the center, connecting the two columns.
Coach craftMay 26, 20269 min

Why your most informed clients still stall

By Beth Richardson
The new May analytics surface, a coach-level rollup of streaks, consistency, mood, habits, and goals across the practice with drill-down into a single client's trend.
Build logMay 22, 20264 min

What shipped in May: programs got teeth, and the front door opened

By Beth Richardson
Six smooth stones arranged around a small card, illustrating six questions surfacing the shape of a coaching week.
Coach craftMay 18, 20266 min

The weekly reflection that actually gets answered

By Beth Richardson
Side-by-side illustration of two coaches under the title 'Check-in, not check-up.' On the left, a coach watches a client through a monitor under the heading 'CHECK-UP' with the traits 'done to them, focused on what's missing, feels monitored, data without context, coach in control.' On the right, a coach holds a phone showing the client's current focus and a reflection question, under the heading 'CHECK-IN' with the traits 'done for themselves, focused on what matters now, feels supportive, context before data, client in control.' Center text reads 'Same words. Same form. Different posture. Coaching is a posture before it's a process.'
Coach craftMay 9, 20264 min

Checking in is not checking up

By Beth Richardson
The Focus Funnel: an inverted-triangle diagram of the eleven minutes, broken into five phases — Minutes 0-3 the briefing, 3-5 one thread, 5-7 the last commitment, 7-9 questions and resources, 9-11 the opening line.
Coach craftMay 6, 20268 min

A session-prep template you can steal: the 11-minute pre-call ritual

By Beth Richardson
The shipped Grove mark, a tree with a full leafy crown above a trunk and deep visible roots, rendered in cream on a dark slate background.
Behind the scenesMay 2, 20265 min

Finding the mark: from generic leaves to a rooted community

By Beth Richardson
The redesigned coach dashboard introduced in April, a card-based caseload rollup replacing the prior eleven-tab client profile and check-in-centric layout.
Build logApr 30, 20264 min

What shipped in April: the rebuild that made the next month possible

By Beth Richardson
A smooth green river stone with a single fern leaf imprint resting on weathered wood. Headline reads 'The Working Playbook for Habit Stacking. What actually survives a real client roster.'
Coach craftApr 28, 20269 min

Habit stacking for behavior-change coaching: a working playbook

By Beth Richardson
Two dots labeled Session 1 and Session 2 with a long wavy line between them, captioned 'The 167 hours in between: where we become who we want to be.'
Coach craftApr 19, 20265 min

On the 167 hours between sessions

By Beth Richardson
A handwritten notebook with a short checklist next to a coffee cup and a small plant. Headline: 'The Undone Things (and How to Move Through Them).' A gentle reminder that progress isn't about perfect, it's about presence.
Coach craftApr 14, 20267 min

How to ask a client about something they did not do (without flinching)

By Beth Richardson
More on the way. New essays most Tuesdays.

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