What does a sustainable performance coach do?

A sustainable performance coach helps high-achieving founders and students build systems and strategies for long-term performance without burnout. Ellyn Schinke diagnoses what's actually blocking performance before building anything — because motivation isn't the problem, design is.

What is the Heroics Economy?

The Heroics Economy is when a business only moves when the founder is in crisis mode — running on adrenaline instead of systems. It's a design problem, not a discipline problem. When heroics become the operating strategy, burnout is inevitable.

What is dependence by design in coaching?

Dependence by design is a coaching model built to keep clients paying rather than make them capable. Most coaching containers produce attachment instead of autonomy — the client feels supported inside the container but falls apart the moment they're on their own. Real coaching should make itself less necessary over time, not more.

What is the diagnostic-first methodology?

The diagnostic-first methodology means identifying what's actually blocking performance before building any solution. Most coaches sell generic frameworks to clients they've never assessed. Ellyn Schinke diagnoses the specific constraint first — whether that's a founder's business systems or a student's executive function — and builds the playbook around that.

What is Notion and why does it matter for founders?

Notion is an all-in-one productivity and automation app that can replace multiple disconnected tools in a founder's business. As a Notion Ambassador, Ellyn Schinke builds custom Notion systems for founders who need to get everything out of their head and into a structure that runs without them.

Does Coach Ellyn work with students as well as founders?

Yes. Ellyn Schinke works with both high-achieving founders and high-achieving students. The methodology is the same: diagnose what's blocking performance, build systems that fit how the person actually works, and create a sustainable path to long-term results. For students, this means academic tutoring, SAT and ACT prep, and executive function support.

What is work-life balance and why doesn't it work?

Work-life balance is a cultural frame that treats a structural load problem as a personal character flaw. It fails because it's vague by design — a standard you can never hit. The real model is load vs. resources: when your load exceeds your resources, the answer isn't better habits. It's reduce the load, increase the support, or redesign the system.

  The Course
  Systems School
  est MMXIX

Live · 8 Weeks · Twice a Year

Your Business has Outgrown your Brain. Build the System that Holds It…

Eight weeks, live, with me in the room.
Not another template you customize alone and
hope for the best — a system built with your actual
business, until you trust it enough to stop carrying
everything yourself.

Come Sprint with Us →

Because You've Tried to Build This Alone
Enough Times Already…

You built Something Real. So why are you still 3 tabs deep in a Notion tutorial at 9pm, trying to figure out if this is a database or a page you actually need?

Pausing the video. Rewinding it. Building the thing exactly like the walkthrough, then watching it fall apart the second your actual business doesn't match the example.

And you chalk it up to a "not techy enough" problem. A "just need to focus" problem.
No, babe.

The problem was never you. It's that nobody's been in the room while you build — watching what's actually breaking, telling you what to fix versus what to leave alone, building it with your real clients and your real offers instead of a made-up example.

Here's where it gets different.
Most programs hand you a system and wish you luck implementing it. This one gets built with you, live.

You've been the only judgment call in every system you've ever tried.
The Founder Systems Sprint is where that stops.

GAME ON

• • •

Settle the Score

• • •

Leave it ALL on the Field

• • •

In the Pocket

• • •

For the LOVE of the Game

• • •

If you STAY Ready, You Don't Have to GET Ready

• • •

GAME ON • • • Settle the Score • • • Leave it ALL on the Field • • • In the Pocket • • • For the LOVE of the Game • • • If you STAY Ready, You Don't Have to GET Ready • • •

Introducing the
System Sprint

01. You don't just learn the diagnostic lens.

Most of what breaks in a system only shows up once you're actually building it. In the Sprint, that happens on the call, with me watching it happen, not months later when you finally open the dashboard again.

02. Your personal life and business get integrated in real time…

One brain, one architecture, built together instead of bolted on later. The Sprint doesn't hand you the framework and wish you luck applying it — we build both layers, live, in the same eight weeks.

03. You walk out with your Solopreneur OS actually built.

By the end of week eight, it's not a system you understand in theory. It's the one you've been running for two months, with someone else's judgment already built into every decision you made along the way.

04. You don't go it alone the moment the Sprint ends, either.

Three months of Burnout-Proof Business are included after your final call — so the support doesn't disappear the day the system does the most obvious learning.

Join the Systems Sprint →

The Training Plan

8 Weeks. 8 Sessions. One System.

Eight weeks. One shared spine with Systems School — except here, you're not watching it get built. You're building it, live, in the room with me.

01 — Core

02 — Goals

03 — Market

04 — CEO

05 — People

06 — AI

07 — Automations

08 — Life

01

Core Systems & Habits

Build your Home Base, Quick Capture system, connected tasks and projects, notes, resources, and the essential habits that keep your business out of your head.

02

Goals (aka the Big Game)

Connect your goals to the projects and tasks that move them forward. Then build dashboards and review practices that show whether progress is actually happening.

03

Marketing Playbook

Create one Notion backend for ideas, content, advertising, campaigns, publishing, and repurposing—without turning your content system into another full-time job.

04

CEO Scoreboard

Build your financial views, CEO dashboard, Products and Services records, operating resources, and weekly, monthly, and quarterly business check-ins.

05

Sales Playbook

Track contacts, leads, clients, meetings, follow-up, and sales opportunities without relying on memory or creating endless data entry.

06

AI Training Camp

Give Notion AI and AI Agents the context, instructions, and workflows they need to do genuinely useful work inside your business.

07

Heavy Lifting (aka Automations)

Use Notion automations, buttons, forms, and integrations to remove stable, repetitive work from your plate.

08

Stay Ready

Use your completed OS to manage your calendar, priorities, schedule, energy, reviews, and low-capacity days—then build a reliable way to return when life knocks you out of rhythm.

  Systems Sprint
  est MMXXI
  Coach Ellyn

The Promise

A Notion Dashboard is NOT the goal. A System you TRUST is.

Stop calling it a discipline problem, laziness, or not being “tech savvy” enough. It's a design problem, and it's costing you more than time.

The Sprint is where that stops: not eight weeks of building alone and hoping it holds, but eight weeks of building with someone whose judgment you can borrow until you trust your own.

Come Sprint With Us →

Fit Check

Is this the right room, or is
Another Program Better?

✓

Systems Sprint

Live · 8 Weeks

Built for you if…

You want it built with me, live — not alone, and not waiting weeks to figure it out.
You've tried self-paced before and want someone else's judgment in the room this time.
You want your actual business built during the calls — not just the concept taught.
You want a defined start and finish, not an open-ended commitment.

Is this more you?

Get on the Sprint Waitlist

✓

Systems School

Self-Paced

Built for you if…

You want to build it yourself, at your own pace, on your own schedule.
You want the method and the templates — not a live weekly call.
You're motivated by understanding how the system works, not just having one handed to you.
You want continuous access you can return to whenever life gets messy again.

Is this more you?

Enroll in Systems School

✓

Burnout-Proof Business

Live · Ongoing

You might want this instead if…

You want live weekly accountability, not a self-paced course.
You've started self-paced courses before and rarely finish them.
You want a real team — guest experts, a standing call, hands-on execution help — not just training.
You want the Quarterly Game Plan Workshop and ongoing support built in.

Is this more you?

Check out BPB

Enroll Now

Your Business Systems.
Built Live.

Guided by your real business, brain, routines, clients, real offers, and real capacity — not a hypothetical one.

$3,500.00

One time

A live implementation program for founders ready to stop running their business on memory, scattered tools, and personal heroics. We’ll turn the Solopreneur Life & Business OS into a right-fit system for your offers, marketing, sales, operations, AI, automations, schedule, and actual capacity.

✓ 8 Weekly LIVE Hot-seat, Q&As, and live workspace reviews

✓ The Solopreneur OS + Lifetime access to Systems School

✓ One private strategy call

✓ 3 months inside Burnout-Proof Business after the Sprint

✓ Guided support configuring your system, AI, + automations

Everything That's Included

One Enrollment.
Everything You Need to build it LIVE and Keep it Running LONG After…

✓
Eight Live Group Calls
90 minutes each, capped to the cohort. Hot-seat coaching, live workspace reviews, real builds using your actual business — not a demo, not a recording you watch alone.
✓
Systems School — Full Access
All eight modules, the five-beat rhythm, structured audits, end-to-end walkthroughs. The mechanics aren't the hard part anymore — you're building them live instead of figuring them out solo.
✓
Your Solopreneur OS
The deliverable you walk out with — not a template you downloaded and hoped would fit. A system built for your business, on the calls, with someone else's judgment already in it.
✓
Notion Ninja Course
The complete beginner-to-confident course. Start here if you're new to Notion or want the fundamentals solid before we build.
✓
One Private Strategy Call
Redeemable anytime from enrollment through the end of your BPB access — for the moment you need me one-on-one, not in the group.
✓
3 Months of Burnout-Proof Business
Weekly calls and ongoing support after week eight ends, so the momentum doesn't stop the day the Sprint does.

The Scoreboard

What the ALL STARS are Saying…

"You've saved my business. I signed up for some SEO schooling and I'm getting so much more than that…
You may just save my business. No joke."

Megan Devito
Life & Anxiety Coach

"I have a feeling my mind is about to be blown with everything I can do in Notion without flipping back and forth between the 10 tabs that are open on my computer at all times."

Anonymous
Coach / Consultant

This is a brand new program built around the Systems School curriculum! I can’t wait to add more testimonials to this page!

Got Questions? I’ve Got Answers…

Each of the eight calls is 90 minutes, live, capped to the cohort. I open workspaces on screen — sometimes mine to walk through the build, sometimes yours for hot-seat coaching — and we build that week's module together, in real time. Not a lecture. A working session.
Live attendance is strongly encouraged — the hot-seat coaching and live workspace reviews are where the actual building happens, and a replay can't recreate that. Replays are available if you miss one, but each module assumes the one before it is already built.
Calls are from 12:30-2pm Pacific Time on Thursdays. For future cohorts, call times may be set per cohort and shared before enrollment opens, so you can check your calendar before you commit. If a specific week conflicts, replays cover you — but plan around live attendance where you can.
I’ll be honest…I have strong opinions about paid vs free tools for business owners. You’re going want a paid Notion account to ensure your systems are comprehensive.
A paid plan unlocks advanced features like AI, Automations, formulas, etc.
Systems School is self-paced — you learn the mechanics on your own schedule, alone. The Sprint is live: I'm in your actual workspace while you build, with diagnosis, decisions, and troubleshooting using your real business. Systems School's full curriculum is included in the Sprint, so you're never paying twice to learn the same thing.
The Sprint is one eight-week cohort with a defined start and finish. BPB is ongoing — weekly calls, no end date, no cohort to wait for. Sprint graduates get three months of BPB included afterward, so the two aren't really competing; the Sprint is how you arrive, BPB is how you stay.
No. You keep lifetime access to Systems School, and you move straight into three months of Burnout-Proof Business — weekly calls and support, no gap between the Sprint ending and the next layer of support starting.

The Notion Ninja Course is included and gets you from beginner to confident before we start building. You don't need to walk in already knowing the tool.
If you're a coach, consultant, service provider, or solopreneur whose business is real but still runs on your memory and your energy — yes. The build is yours; the framework flexes to fit it.
That's usually the exact signal the Sprint is built for — eight weeks of live building is what gets you out of the cycle of losing hours to tutorials and half-finished setups. The system is the thing that gives you time back, not one more thing competing for it.
That being said, if you can’t commit, don’t join. Maybe look at Systems School which is more self-paced.
Twice a year. The January cohort opens on Black Friday and enrolls in early January; the September cohort opens for enrollment in July. There's no open, always-available cart — cohorts are capped to keep the live calls actually workable.
Yes — pay in full or split it into monthly payments. You can find the options here.
Because this is a live implementation program with limited seats, all sales are final. If you show up and do the work, you walk away with a system that holds — that's the commitment on both sides.
This is not a passive program and as such requires your participation and commitment. If you're willing to do the work, I’ll be committed to your success.
As such, refunds are not available. However, if a significant life event interferes with your participation, you may request to transfer your enrollment to a future cohort.