Rachael Pius is originally from Dallas, Texas, where she currently resides. Rachael is a Life Coach at Sweetwine Enterprises and a former NCAA ice hockey player whose athletic journey began in middle school and continued into college.

Hockey was Rachael’s primary sport. She played on and off from middle school through college, competing for two years at the collegiate level before later spending several years coaching ice hockey. She also participated in cross-country and tennis during high school and has experience in fitness modeling and competition.

Throughout her athletic career, Rachael struggled with living at extremes. She became accustomed to pushing herself relentlessly in an effort to become the best hockey player she could be. At the same time, she experienced feelings of shame and emptiness outside of sports and found it difficult to create a healthy middle ground between constantly pushing herself and simply allowing herself to be.

Her athletic experience taught her that while someone can win a hockey game, life does not operate according to a scoreboard. Goals, wins, and trophies may matter in competition, but they do not determine someone's overall value.

Rachael also began recognizing that some of the intensity developed through competitive sports was difficult to sustain long term. Athletics challenged more than her body. It also forced her to examine the way she treated herself, the expectations she placed on herself, and what self-love looked like beyond temporary rewards or physical recovery.

Rachael did not fully understand those experiences while she was still playing. It was after getting older and retiring from hockey that she began looking back with greater awareness.

She recognized how naturally hardworking, driven, motivating, and willing to push herself she had always been. Instead of continuing to shame herself for “overdoing it,” Rachael began learning how to use those qualities as strengths while also incorporating greater balance into her life.

This experience shaped one of her core beliefs:

Athletes should not have to measure their value by a scoreboard, their performance, or how much they can push themselves.

Today, Rachael helps current and former athletes build confidence, strengthen their identity beyond sport, manage pressure, develop greater self-trust, create balance, and discover direction both during and after athletics.

Her goal is to help athletes recognize that losing a game does not mean losing their value, and losing their sport does not mean losing their purpose.

WHAT RACHAEL HELPS ATHLETES WITH

• Confidence

• Identity beyond sport

• Transitioning out of athletics

• Managing pressure

• Building structure

• Balancing life + sport

• Direction after sports

• Life planning

Her own experiences required her to navigate confidence, identity, pressure, balance, self-worth, purpose, and life after competitive athletics.

Rachael understands what it feels like to be constantly pushed to push yourself.

Athletes are often expected to motivate themselves, motivate their teammates, improve constantly, and perform when others are depending on them.

But when the team, practices, games, coaches, and competition are eventually gone, athletes can be left wondering what replaces the structure that once organized so much of their lives.

Rachael remembers asking herself questions such as:

What does the “real world” look like when you are no longer training for a game every Saturday?

What happens when the teammates who once felt like family are no longer people you see every day?

Who tells you what to do when you feel like you need a playbook for life?

Those were questions Rachael felt no one answered for her.

Her wide range of experiences and hardships has helped shape her passion for connecting with athletes who are ready for guidance and who want to continue developing into the strongest version of themselves.

COACHING STYLE

Rachael brings an encouraging, reflective, self-discovery-focused coaching style that emphasizes confidence, self-trust, balance, personal awareness, and internal growth.

When someone comes to her for support, she wants them to know that they have someone who genuinely hears and sees them.

At the same time, Rachael does not want athletes to become dependent on someone else to provide every answer.

Her goal is to encourage athletes to build trust within themselves and develop confidence in their ability to answer many of their own questions.

Rachael understands this personally because she once relied heavily on outside motivation, external validation, and other people for answers and direction.

Athletes working with Rachael can expect:

• A space where they feel heard and seen

• Encouragement without unnecessary judgment

• Support building confidence from within

• Greater awareness of external validation

• Guidance toward stronger self-trust

• Conversations around identity and self-worth

• Support creating greater balance

• Help navigating pressure and overexertion

• Reflection around mistakes without unnecessary shame

• Support transitioning into life beyond competitive athletics

• Structure for turning personal insight into action

• Encouragement to recognize strengths that already exist within themselves

Rachael believes athletes are often conditioned to continue working until exhaustion, sometimes in ways that can eventually become self-defeating.

Rather than simply telling an athlete what to do, she prefers to guide them layer by layer as they discover different parts of themselves.

She believes parts of an athlete's identity that may appear unrelated to physically playing their sport can still have everything to do with how that athlete performs, responds to pressure, develops confidence, and handles important moments.

Her approach recognizes that how athletes see themselves can strongly influence how they experience both sport and everyday life.

WHAT MAKES RACHAEL DIFFERENT

Rachael’s approach is built on her firsthand experience navigating competitive athletics, intense self-expectations, external validation, retirement from hockey, identity, and learning how to create balance without losing the qualities that once made her a strong competitor.

She understands:

• The pressure athletes place on themselves to constantly improve

• What it feels like to push yourself toward exhaustion

• The challenge of finding a middle ground between intensity and balance

• Feeling empty when sport is no longer providing structure

• Feeling “not enough” and “too much” at the same time

• Depending heavily on external motivation

• Depending on other people for validation or answers

• The challenge of developing self-trust

• The difficulty of separating personal value from athletic performance

• Losing the everyday structure that comes with practices and games

• Losing daily access to teammates who once felt like family

• Wondering what your new “playbook” is after sports

• Learning how to use competitiveness and drive differently after athletics

• Looking back on overexertion without shaming yourself for it

• Learning to incorporate balance without abandoning ambition

• Reframing hardships as meaningful parts of personal development

• Learning from mistakes without allowing shame to become the motivator

In addition, she brings:

• NCAA Division III collegiate ice hockey experience

• Experience coaching ice hockey after her playing career

• High school cross-country experience

• High school tennis experience

• Fitness modeling and competition experience

• A strong will for personal development

• A passion for writing and expressive art

Rachael’s personal development journey also led her to become interested in subconscious beliefs, internal states, manifestation, energy, frequency, and how a person’s internal perspective may influence the way they experience their life.

She is passionate about exploring core beliefs and helping people examine the internal narratives underneath feelings of inadequacy, pressure, ego, identity, and achievement.

Rachael believes her own work in these areas helped her move away from feelings of being “less than” and from relying so heavily on ego and external validation.

A NOTE FROM RACHAEL

“I know what it feels like to feel not enough and too much at the same time.”

“As athletes, we are pushed to push ourselves. We are motivated to motivate our teammates and ourselves. But who does that for us when we are no longer part of a team or a sport?”

“What does the real world look like when I’m not training for a game every Saturday with the family of teammates I used to see every day? Who tells me what to do when I need a playbook for life?”

“I have no regrets, but I don’t want anyone to feel like they lost their value because they lost a game or because they lost the sport that once gave them their sense of purpose.”

“I used to rely on other people for motivation, validation, answers, and direction. I want athletes to develop enough confidence and self-trust to eventually realize that many of the things they have been searching for already exist within themselves.”

“I learned that you can win a hockey game, but there is no trophy waiting at the end of life. It isn’t always about how many goals you score. I had to learn that the intensity sports taught me could not control every part of my life forever.”

“When I got older and retired from hockey, I finally had enough awareness to look back and recognize how hard I worked, how much I pushed myself, and how naturally I motivated others. Instead of shaming myself for overdoing things, I learned how to use those qualities to my advantage while also creating balance.”

RACHAEL’S PHILOSOPHY

“Athletes struggle most when they rely on motivation to achieve their goals.”

Rachael believes motivation can sometimes become confused with the actual bridge between an athlete and their goal.

Her philosophy is centered on helping athletes create structure around who they want to become rather than constantly chasing the feeling of motivation.

She wants athletes to focus not only on reaching something, but on developing into the person capable of living it.

“Athletes grow the most when they learn to laugh at their mistakes instead of shame themselves.”

Rachael believes a good laugh or smile can bring someone back to their humanity and remind them that they are not alone.

For her, shame, fear, and harsh self-judgment do not create healthy growth.

She wants athletes to acknowledge mistakes, learn from them, and continue moving forward without allowing one difficult moment to define the way they see themselves.

“My goal is to help athletes not just want something, but BE someone and BE themselves.”

Rachael does not believe personal development should become an endless search for who someone is supposed to be.

She wants athletes to become more comfortable enjoying their own being instead of constantly seeking another version of themselves.

She also encourages athletes to reframe hardships as worthy parts of the process rather than evidence that something has gone wrong.

Outside of coaching, Rachael enjoys finding different ways to express herself and reconnect with the playful parts of life.

Some days that means painting with her hands. Other days it may mean spending time outside, exploring new foods, or doing something simply because it allows her to feel curious and childlike again.

Fun Fact: Rachael loves writing and creating almost any kind of expressive art.

Rachael is also currently working on a book exploring topics she is personally interested in, including quantum physics, frequency and energy fields, the subconscious, healing, and reconnecting with nature.