About Sabrina

Hi, I’m Dr. Sabrina Chang—a somatic leadership and communication coach, and the founder of Motif Coaching.  I’m a Certified Organizational Coach (University of British Columbia) and an ICF Associate Certified Coach (International Coaching Federation).

I partner with high-achieving introverted women leaders to help bring their communication and confidence up to the level of their expertise. I am passionate about helping women take up space, fearlessly speak up, and go after opportunities they’ve long envisioned. By working with and through the body, clients are able to finally shift long-held patterns and take new actions aligned with their values and goals even when faced with ongoing familiar pressures.

As a leadership and communication coach, I draw from my background as a team and group facilitator, cognitive scientist, music performance coach, and competitive pianist and violinist (with over 44 years of playing). As a long-time musician, I sometimes employ music-based principles in my work with leaders. I’m also an improviser in improv theatre and that spontaneity and adaptability deeply influence how I coach. (Plus, playing make-believe as an adult with other adults in improv theatre is pretty silly and fun.)

I am also currently an instructor/facilitator in the Organizational Coaching Program at the University of British Columbia (UBC).

I hold a PhD from UBC where my doctoral research examined the cognitive psychology of performance, as well as how applied improvisation can impact performance in the workplace and public health.

More specifically, my research looked at performance through the lens of enactive cognition—basically, how action is fundamental to cognition and that cognition is not just about our mental processes. In other words, our mental states, thoughts, perceptions and experience of the world actually arise through the ongoing, dynamic interplay between our bodies, actions, sensory experiences, and physical environments. Importantly, this approach can provide critical insight into how we show up in the world as leaders in the workplace and in everyday life.

In deepening my understanding of the role our bodies play in our thoughts, perceptions, and behaviours, I completed the Embodied Transformation leadership course at the Strozzi Institute for Somatics in California.

I also hold a certificate in Neuroscience for Business from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), a certificate in Inclusive Leadership Through Behavioural Science from the London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE), and a certificate in Trauma Informed Practice from the Association for Psychological Therapies (APT). Learning is a lifelong passion, and I’m always looking for ways to bridge the art and science of clients’ lived experiences with practice in my coaching.