Through reflecting, writing and re-directing my time and energy, and through his method of making me challenge my inner dialogue and decision making process, I now look at all my work as an opportunity to find creativity and joy and I look for ways to encourage others with whom I work to find and re find their spark. 'Realigning' provides a next level of focus and understanding of how to live a sparky life each day. Jeff’s life’s work is so fun and deeply meaningful that is honestly hard to describe.

You are one of less than a handful of people I have met in all of the interactions and personal audiences I have had with a variety of stellar folks, that I have sincerely been inspired and energized by.  It is so easy to be jaded, intimidated and therefore negative about all that is challenging about progressive and justice work. To be positive and more importantly to have the gift to instill that positivity, energy, passion & guts into others, is truly fabulous. Thank you for what you do.  And how you do it. Thank you for the incredible change you create, through getting others to get excited about what they do. As a community organizer, activist and socially conscious person, it is refreshing to have someone like you sharing this world.

It has been an amazing experience to work on myself both personally and professionally and gain the skills to make real changes. I’m not sure that my evaluation was really able to convey how truly appreciative I am to have had the opportunity to work with you and to participate in Building On Success. I cannot express enough how valuable it was for me to work with you. It gave me renewed strength. You helped me figure out precisely what I needed to do and how to get there. This was the best training I have participated in -- by far -- in my career.

Jeff’s approach and tools have been incredibly meaningful and even transformational for me. I have not yet adequately conveyed just how important this work has been to my own personal and professional life. I’ve observed the evolution of Jeff’s teaching, tools, and his intangible magnetic gifts that he shares with others on a daily basis.

The Good Life Index has --on a monthly and yearly basis-- been an invaluable tool for me to aim at and remember what is most important to me, and an essential guide when making life decisions large and small about how to spend my time or what direction to take. I frequently and eagerly look forward to hearing Jeff’s Story Of the Week on Fridays. I also have been learning how to frame and reflect on my own story of the week. The greatest gift I’ve received from this practice is the awareness that how I narrate my own life has a profound effect on my attitude and level of happiness. Life is full of challenges (and opportunities!) and having the ability to create a positive inner dialogue is a great blessing. It is a skill that I will always strive to develop further. Thank you Jeff for sharing your work, your stories, and your gifts with me!"

As a senior level director in a human service agency, I am familiar with burnout, compassion fatigue, and trying to be everything to everybody. The ALIGN program has provided me with tools to take control of my day, go home energized to meet the needs of my family and do the activities that bring me joy in my life. This program has helped me build my confidence, spend more of my days working on what I find to be the most important and satisfying work, and steward my energy to be fully present and effective in my professional and personal life. In addition, I also left with a cohort of compassionate and caring professionals that are committed to supporting one another beyond the program’s end. I feel as though I now have a clear vision of my future successful self and the tools and practices I need to reach for and achieve my dreams.

When I assumed a new and challenging position, Jeff helped me get super clear, very quickly, about how to manage the transition in a way that set me up to be able to contribute and thrive in the new role right away. He helped me think through my own vision of success and how to move toward that while also working to accomplish the top priorities of the organization. He supported me to think about what energizes me the most and how I could make use of that knowledge to optimize my impact and satisfaction at work. He is an incredibly skilled coach, with great intelligence, compassion, vision, and commitment. He has given me tools and practices that I turn to continually to understand what is most important in my life and work, and he is always extremely responsive when I need his valued confidential counsel. This has made a meaningful difference for me and my family and also put me in a position where I could make the greatest possible contribution to the success of my organization now and over time.

with a tool box full of life preservers, paddle techniques, and nautical directions, designed for the most magical trip around our inner world. His humor, genuine engagement, and wisdom of perspective have helped a lot of captains reach their own Sparky shore.

I wanted to write you two years after I completed ALIGN to say that it doesn't matter if I still follow every one of the sparking practices to the letter or not, because I learned the most important thing: I don't need to accept a life less lived!

I have made important changes in my life and I am thinking bigger. Even in my moments of frustration, I have learned to look for windows of possibility. I check in with what really matters, what is meaningful to me and makes more possible for others.

I can more easily let go of things that matter less, because I've realized that what matters to me is unique and makes me who I am.

your teaching has been a really powerful experience for me. I feel more clarity in my life than I ever felt.

While previous coaches encouraged me to get clear on a personal mission statement, Jeff went further and taught me how to develop and utilize specific, quantifiable tools that helped me get concrete about what activities I want to spend my time doing and what meaning and experiences in my life I want to create. After Jeff taught me the basic method of his frames and guided me a few times through the process of making decisions using them, I now use them on my own on a daily basis. Following his suggestion, I have also adopted the practice of recording three things for which I am grateful every day.

Working with Jeff helped me realize that I wasn’t really enjoying my job and inspired me to negotiate a new employment agreement that I enjoy much more and in which my talents are unleashed to achieve optimal social impact. My new role has freed my energy to pursue other projects, which I am much more excited about. 

I know a master when I see one. When I met Jeff Bercuvitz, I knew I could learn something profound. Jeff is not merely a coach, but an example and teacher of living to the fullest, in personal life and work.

Jeff has a deep and broad knowledge and experience of all facets of non-profit management and he is tapped into a fundamental energy Source that he manifests through everything he does. He helped me tap into this Source, also.

He is the mad-wizard, the court-jester, as well as the King of all Sparks. His heart is huge & his love for the world around him is awe-inspiring. I love Jeff’s unswerving commitment to his important life's work of helping others help themselves and help change the world! I was constantly amazed by the complete devotion & dedication—& self-sacrifice—he gave to our group.

Thank you for the countless hours that you have put in for each and every one of us – not just at the two retreats but in all the planning, thinking, coaching, responding, visioning and for making us all feel special and worthy of having a good life! Seeing the possibility, telling and showing us that you believe in us. Thanks for the individual attention that you gave me, thanks for caring about my dietary needs, thanks for being funny and for all of your kind words. Thanks for making sure we were pampered with really incredible food and beautiful accommodations. Spark on! I want to spark it forward because of you!

Jeff changed my life by helping me realize that I only have my Good Life if I prioritize (in lots of day to day decisions) living that which matters most to me, and not the million other things that get in the way of doing so. Jeff's lessons should be obvious to all of us, but it takes a concerted effort...and months of practice...to really start living your GLI.

While I say the word “work,” because of the time and commitment I have been inspired to give it, it’s actually been really pleasurable, usually downright fun, and I’ve learned an incredible amount. Jeff is a delightful person to be around. When I’m in his presence I almost always have a smile on my face - or at least a highly attentive ear as I listen to his creative ideas – that eventually bring out a smile or a laugh. He has a wealth of experience and knowledge working with people all over the world who are in transition and wanting to move forward in their lives to find happiness, combined with financial success. He’s created a number of highly inventive techniques to facilitate this change, all of which I find very illuminating and enjoyable.   If I say to you, “It’s time to put your GLEE glasses on and think as your Best Self so that you can record your Good Life Index and prepare your Story of the Week” I doubt you’ll know what I’m talking about, but I highly recommend you talk with Jeff to find out! He’ll get you thinking in new ways that will help you specify what you want and work with you to create a Vision of Success to get you there.

For me the best thing about working with Jeff has been a great balance between personal engagement in which the conversation can be light and extremely humorous, while at the same time very personal and addressing serious issues that have been obstacles for me in moving forward. He hasn’t been afraid to challenge me, to investigate with me what’s holding me back from doing something I want to do and from holding me accountable to my vision by encouraging me with both compassionate gentleness and a firm belief in my abilities. He’s identified strengths that I have which I hadn’t validated. He’s come up with innovative ideas and approaches for me to combine my interests which I hadn’t considered. He’s been a friend when I’ve needed emotional support and a coach when I was facing a concrete challenge that needed a quick resolution. I can’t say that my way forward is 100% clear yet. There are a lot of variables in my life and I’m taking the time to consider them carefully. But I’m not turned upside down anymore. I’m definitely on my feet, I’ve got a path in front of me and I’ve got a great guide to help me along, for which I’m infinitely grateful.

The one that really stands out to me in this moment is that he has given me a set of tools that I see myself using for the rest of my life as guides, and references in both work and personal growth. These four frames, and all of the subtleties that come with them have really helped me to manage and keep my life going in a direction and manner that I not only enjoy, but one that helps me thrive, and supports my efforts to be my fully ALIGNED self.

Like a plant being re-potted I instantly felt my roots dangling in the air as ALIGN pulled me out of the pot in which I had been root-bound for some time. The startling openness and sincerity of the group made me feel slightly unhinged but at the same time excited and revived.

I am walking forward from ALIGN with my former pot under my branchy arm. A plant in search of a new garden. Free to stop for nourishment and deep root connections anywhere along the way.

I have been reminded of my Best Self. When I operate from a place of Joy, possibilities are limitless, helpful relationships abound, opportunities are revealed and my creativity is unleashed. I will walk forward as my Best Self.

I have examined the wellsprings of my life, the connections and activities that are my Fuel Sources for a happy, engaging, satisfying life. I see a Good Life within my grasp, if I build it to be so. I will walk forward ready to stoke and feed my fire.

I have an arsenal of Favorite ING’s to lift my spirits on the dullest days and from the most overwhelming minutes. I have the skill to craft a day that balances low ING’s with high and allows me to maintain an awareness of Spark Number and continue to grow as my Best Self. I am walking forward, because walking is a favorite ING!

I have an ACE Challenge to create the framework of possibly the best year of my life. My “Good Life Calendar” will be rich with reminders of building Joy into daily life, celebrating/letting go each week, feeding myself with fuel sources throughout the month and enjoying what each season of the year brings. I am walking forward into my Sabbatical Year.

Jeff’s work with us has been immensely successful on a number of fronts. Staff morale got a noticeable boost, cohesion increased, and people found new specific ways to improve or arrange their work in order to reduce stress and burnout. New and more creative ideas about programs, community interactions, and cross-collaborations came as a direct result of staff interactions with Jeff. The plans that emerged have been concrete, and do-able.  We have a greatly expanded sense of what is possible. What has been particularly striking about the way Jeff works is that he has been able to “customize” his programs and his delivery of them to our particular needs, and the variations in the particular individuals in the groups we had him work with. Jeff brings an array of tools, a widely applicable set of strategies, attention to feasibility, outcomes, and follow-through and an energy that is amazingly successful in reaching wildly different kinds of people.

Jeff, we are now launching the most exciting and strategic programmatic efforts for the Foundation that got hatched and nurtured through the grants restructuring effort you led us through.

Our organizational effectiveness is vastly improved thanks to your help in developing strategy that helps meet our dual mission of impactful grantmaking and increasing philanthropy in the state.
Even more than that I appreciate all that you have done for me personally with my professional life and personal aspirations.

Again, your knack for pushing for clarity was instrumental in helping me step further into my own leadership and define my vision of success for myself. I’m more energized and thriving at work now thanks to my work with you and it shows.

You are a wonderful person with such a generous spirit.

Wow! This year’s Vermont Leadership Institute day was the best ever. After the amazing work you have done with these groups for us over the past twelve years, that is saying a lot! The level of engagement in the room this year was truly extraordinary.

You are amazing in the way you can engage such a diverse group of people and help each one find something of real value to them.

Several of the associates mentioned how much they appreciated the time you took to learn about them and to connect with them very personally.

The way you use your energy, your personal style and stories, the examples that illustrate the 'hot tips', all create a genuine atmosphere of fun and possibility, allowing people to really be introspective without feeling 'touchy-feely'.

There is a long list of creative ways in which Jeff has helped the City of Prince George overcome challenges and effect positive cultural change.

After taking taking Jeff's workshop, we restructured our division and the portfolios of the existing staff so that each person was able to focus on the type of work that most fired them up.

The fact that each of the HR team members is now focusing on work that they are excited about and interested in is hugely beneficial to the organization in other ways, because we're much more productive and enthusiastic about our jobs. As well, the workshop created even stronger bonds between our team members and we have now sent our whole team through Jeff's workshop.

With great skill, uncanny insight and a deep well of compassion, you merged these lonely flames into a leaping conflagration of hope and love. I’m so glad to have been a witness and a support to the magic you created.