About Darren Stehle

Cultivate Your Influence and Impact as a Human-Hearted Leader

Through my coaching and writing, I share strategies to help you courageously stand up for what you know is right, support a common humanity of dignity and equity, and share your unique wisdom with those who need it most.

On my website, you’ll discover how to:

• Embrace your role as a thought leader and advocate for change.
• Define your core message and align it with your values.
• Develop tools and a mindset to lead with clarity, compassion, and purpose.
• Prioritize your self-CARE and well-being

Whether you’re just starting to make a difference or refining your leadership approach, my ideas will help you navigate your path to meaningful, transformational impact with compassion and integrity.

• If you’re a Thought Leader or LGBTQ+ Change Maker, you may feel stuck or overwhelmed by fully embracing your role as a thought leader or advocate for change and standing up for what you believe is right and ethical.
• Maybe you're struggling to commit to one core message and method, or you're looking for a way to truly stand out as a powerful and impactful leader in your field. Perhaps you feel unseen, unheard, or even misunderstood.
• Occasionally, it feels like you're trying to do too much—juggling multiple causes, constantly switching up your approach, or changing your focus. That can leave you feeling scattered, with your energy and impact diluted. I get it—you’re driven by a deep desire to help others and create positive change.
• You also desire clarity, focus, and a clear path forward that aligns your efforts with the greater good in your life, advocacy, business, or organization.

This Is What I Believe

Your wisdom, leadership, and guidance are exactly what someone needs right now—so don’t hold back! Every time you stand up for what’s right—thinking critically, leading with integrity, and cultivating dignity—you create real change and advance equity for our common humanity.

If you don’t know what you stand for, you won’t have a leg to stand on...

As a Leadership Coach, my work is informed and inspired by the ethical leaders and LGBTQ+ change-makers—like you—who think critically, lead with integrity, and actively cultivate dignity and equity for our common humanity.

As a queer-identified gay man, I feel an affinity and connection with other creators, change-makers, and leaders who want to make the world less contentious, more understanding, and accepting. I understand the fear, doubt, over-thinking, and overwhelm of being a creative entrepreneur, a social change advocate, and someone who has lived on the margins.

My clients come from diverse backgrounds:

• A drag performer teaching diversity and inclusion through their art
• A trans person teaching somatic body awareness and gendering
• A visionary leader who created the first-ever LGBTQ+ Cricket Club
• A gay Christian cultivating the union of queer sexuality with spirituality
• A compassionate community builder developing an organization to support LGBTQ+ health & well-being in their community

Appreciation From Clients

Find out what my clients are saying about my coaching, their personal transformation, and results.

Darren StehleDarren Stehle

As a writer, I've published over 700 articles and counting.

From lived experience and research I’ve written about,

• Fitness, health, wellness, and well-being
• Nutrition, cooking, and meal planning
• Practical personal transformation based on neuroscience
• Personal productivity, critical thinking, and creativity
• LGBTQ+ social justice and human rights issues

I now focus on sharing my ideas and philosophy about leadership, morality, ethics, well-being, and a common humanity based on the wisdom of the Tao Te Ching, the neuroscience of behavioural change, and queer theory to help you deconstruct, recognize, and transcend socially imposed norms.

My top article of all time, "The Internalized Homophobia Of 'Straight-Acting' Gay Men" has received over 43,000 views. My second most-read article, "The Good Old Days of Meeting Men for Sex at a Gay Bar," has had over 20,000 views.

As a podcaster, I created Think Queerly, a show that explored LGBTQ+ history, social change, and political issues that ran for over four years and produced almost 250 episodes. My current podcast is called The Changemaker’s Compass: Guiding Human-Hearted Leaders.

Biography

At a young age, I was diagnosed as dyslexic and having ADHD. Furthermore, during my adolescence, I struggled to different degrees with being a completely self-accepting gay man.

Like many, I was conditioned by society to act normal and be like everyone else. That affected how I perceived the world, and as a result, how I felt about myself. By trying to fit in and not draw attention to myself as a gay man, I hid away the most authentic parts of who I am. Gay shame reared its ugly head later in life when I realized I was afraid of success — I was afraid of being visible.

I believe these early challenges led me to pursue higher education as a need to prove that I was smart enough and worthy of acceptance. This started with a year of Chef School, followed by University where I maintained an A- average, and then pursued my Master’s in German Language and Linguistics, spending two summers and a year abroad studying in Germany.

Following university in 1993, I worked at Pink Triangle Press, a Canadian Gay and Lesbian print-media non-profit, moving quickly into a top leadership position. From 2004 to 2020, I worked as an independent Fitness & Nutrition Coach.

I began studying live coaching in 2019 and in February 2022, I was certified as a MindMap Mastery Neuro-Coach. This qualifies me to conduct threat and behavioural assessment and transformational coaching. The program was created by one of the top coaches in the world, Dax Moy, and is grounded in the neuroscience of creating lasting and effective behavioural change.

Learning and practicing strategies to improve my well-being, creative production, and ethical, humanitarian leadership are my core passions. I have attended numerous conferences and enrolled in countless courses covering various subjects over the last 25 years than I can remember — to the tune of a small fortune spent on my personal and business development!

In late 2023, I moved to Montréal with my partner of now 13 years, Christiaan.

Fun fact: my last name, "Stehle" is pronounced, "steel". When my father and grandparents immigrated to Canada from Germany in 1956, they were advised to "Anglicize" the pronunciation of the family name.

Be well 🙏

Darren