meet sarai johnson
author * speaker * coach
and now! Joint Housing and Shelter Strategist for Lane County and City of Eugene
first: my gift to you, a (relatively) normal-person bio
Sarai Johnson is a best-selling author, sought after speaker, and executive coach, now parlaying her experience working to transform lives, organizations, and systems into a three to five year project in her hometown to make homelessness rare, brief, and nonrecurring. Too many people in our community have lost their homes due to affordability, loss of income, and other crises. The county and city have come together to co-invest in ten key strategies to increase shelter and housing for people who don’t have a safe place to sleep at night and to redesign our system to work better for the people it is meant to serve.
Sarai has two decades of experience managing businesses, nonprofits, people, projects, and as a creative entrepreneur. She earned her Master of Public Administration and a Graduate Certificate in Nonprofit Management from the University of Oregon, and certifications in Cognitive Behavioral Therapy, Book Yourself Solid® Coaching, 200 RYT Yoga Alliance, and project management, among others, and is an Emerge Oregon alumna.
At home, Sarai enjoys her rambunctious boys, Kalevvi and Taavi, her boyfriend, Isaac Judd, and her dog, Penny, in their hometown of Eugene, Oregon. When she isn't creating, writing, speaking, or coaching, she is probably getting lost in the woods or floating down a river somewhere.
how i roll:
Speaker
Freedom, liberation, and self-determination are my driving force. I have spent my entire life working to help myself and others courageously liberate ourselves from the expectations and trappings of our unconsciously created roles and choices in life. Sharing through keynotes, workshops and facilitation is the most powerful way to share this message of empowerment, self-discovery, healing, and action. When I speak, people jump to their feet for their right "YES!"
I help people see what is possible, that all the magic they need is already inside them, and how to make their dreams happen. I speak, I share, I shake it up.
Not only do I do keynotes and other big-stage presentations, but I also love to conduct workshops to help people gain and hone practical skills that help them in life and in their important work.
Coach
At this time, I don’t have capacity to take on new coaching clients so I can stay attuned to the few clients I still work with while I invest my efforts into our homelessness response systems.
Author
My books, articles, and blogs are meant to help people transform their ideas into achievable action steps, to identify unconscious ways we hold ourselves back, and to draw attention to the space where individuals meet systems so we can better understand how our lives, work, passions, and actions are shaped by the cultures and mythologies in the spaces where we engage and invest - especially work and organizational culture.
sarai's specific cred
Aside from the fact that I am a delight to be around and good at the stuff I choose to do, with decades of building a body of work I am proud of under my belt, I am also credentialed by several bodies that exist for the purpose of credentialing people with fancy things. Here are a few of mine:
Master of Public Administration // University of Oregon
Graduate Certificate in Nonprofit Management // University of Oregon
Certified Associate in Project Management (2013-2018) // Project Management Institute
Certified CBT Group Facilitator // National Association of Cognitive-Behavioral Therapists
Book Yourself Solid® Certified Coach // Book Yourself Solid
RYT® 200 (Registered Yoga Teacher) // Yoga Alliance
Reiki Level II Attunement // Susan Tate, Eugene Energy Medicine
EverythingDiSC® Certified Facilitation // Wiley Publishing
Accredited Five Behaviors of a Cohesive Team® Facilitator // Wiley Publishing
My philosophy in life is that learning is forever. I invest a lot of time, money, and energy into my own professional development, and my clients benefit greatly from that effort. The above-listed certifications and licenses are most pertinent to my business and work today.