How I Became a Life Coach
Prior to becoming certified as a full-time professional Life Coach, I spent several decades successfully coaching people in my former career as a Team Leader, Consultant/Account Manager, and finally owner of my own agency. During much of that time I was also a JW elder, before finally leaving that group, so I know what people in or out of high-control groups are going through. In all of those capacities, I would quite often be asked to spend time with fellow workers, employees, and congregation members, in order to help them sort out whatever issues they were dealing with. Being an excellent listener with a non-judgmental approach, I have been able to help the people I have coached reach a state of personal awareness of their strengths and abilities that puts them on a path of achieving their most cherished goals.
As my work clearly became more of Life Coaching than agency owner and boss, I was ready to complete my coaching education with The Coach Training Academy, an ICF accredited coach training program. I am also certified as an Empowered Minds mentor and a coach.
I know from the inside, and outside-looking-in, what works and what doesn't.
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More About Gary
I have been a musician since early childhood. I started taking songwriting seriously in the early 1990s. Since then I have written hundreds of songs, mostly published, recorded and available in CD & MP3 formats.
I have also written several books, a screenplay, and contributed to a book of short stories. Those works range from fiction to autobiographical.
I am an avid baseball fan. As a kid growing up on Long Island, New York, I went to many Yankees and Mets games. Too many to count. In recent years, I have completed my bucket list of visiting all of the Major League Baseball parks, including Shea Stadium in New York, Olympic Stadium in Montreal, all three versions of Yankee Stadium, and the recently repurposed Globe Life Park in Arlington, Texas.
I have been married twice and have three grown children.
I became one of Jehovah's Witnesses in my mid-teens and stayed in that religion until 2016. During that time I served as a congregation elder and at the world headquarters in New York. Soon after my 2016 exit, I embarked on a serious research program in order to make sense of the many anomalies I had observed. Later I expanded that research into other groups, and cults in general. It was only natural that I then merge the results of that research, my love for people, and my Life Coach expertise in order to make helping people who have been members of high-control groups the main specialty of my practice.
Probably the craziest thing I have ever done was traveling over 3,500 miles from New Jersey to London in 2005 just to see the Cream reunion concert at the Royal Albert Hall. A lot of money, a lot of preparation, two cross-Atlantic flights, and a hotel later, I am forever glad I did it.
Published Books
Individual books and collected works featuring Gary Alt.
Based on a true story, Force of Will is a tale of recovery and discovery. In one night, Gil Oldfield is thrust into circumstances that change his life in virtually every way – he loses his freedom, his family, his job, his assets, nearly all of his friends, and his dignity. Determined to get his life back in order and thrive, Gil embarks on a journey of successful recovery that also leads to discovery – discovery of how and why he was forced into such a situation, of his value as a person, and of what he is capable of.
A collection of inspirational short stories by authors who have left and recovered from high-control religion, mostly Jehovah's Witnesses. All seventeen stories are autobiographical.