Meet Coach Key
Are you
coming back
tomorrow?
Mrs. Brown asked me that every day of tenth grade. I was a kid in foster care with every reason to stop showing up — and I kept coming back.
LaKeysha Cobbs-Hayes, MAT, BCBA. Behavior Change Strategist for people who already know what to do and still aren’t doing it.
Excerpt from Redefined
Read the full story — 5 min“That was the question my tenth-grade world history teacher, Mrs. Brown, asked me every single day that school year. School had become optional for me by then. I was ditching class. But Mrs. Brown had an open-door policy, and she let me be exactly who I was. She never scolded me for acting a fool. She never pressed me about where I had been. She just asked, every day, as I reached the door: Are you coming back tomorrow?
And honestly — it annoyed me.”
That isn’t a nice story.
That’s the whole method.
Where the name came from
For every door that was barricaded, I made myself a rule: find the key — and find the person who could teach me how to use it. That rule is why people call me Coach Key. Not because I’m holding the keys. Because a key is useless until somebody shows you how it turns.
Before any of this
- A neglected child in the foster care system.
- High school diploma anyway.
- A mother as a teenager.
- College anyway — one course at a time.
I worked hard the entire time. Plenty of people work hard and stay exactly where they are. What changed my direction was environment, access, skills, and people who asked better questions.
“To Mrs. Brown, my tenth-grade world history teacher and mentor. Thank you for seeing the potential in me before I could see it in myself.”
2000s · Teacher and program lead
2010s · Board Certified Behavior Analyst
1999 · Paraeducator, LACOE
Today · CEO and Coach Key
Founder and CEO of Strategic Behavior Consultants. Mentor to clinicians, entrepreneurs and leaders.
Why behavior?
- Intention isn’t behavior.
- Knowing isn’t behavior.
- Planning isn’t behavior.
- Wanting isn’t behavior.
Behavior is the part
anybody could film.
So I don’t spend my time trying to convince you to want your life more. I want to know what’s happening between what you say you want and what you’re actually doing.
The teacher who kept asking
Things I believe about change
People aren't always unmotivated
Sometimes we are asking motivation to solve the wrong problem. It shows up loud and leaves early.
The conditions are doing more than you think
Something in your environment is making the behavior harder than it looks. That is not a character flaw.
A decision is not action
A decision without action is still just an idea.
Different Gaps need different strategies
A skill problem does not need another pep talk. An environment problem does not need more discipline. A goal you no longer want does not need better accountability.
Where you start influences you
It does not have to become where you finish.
Success is a behavior
Not a destination. It is what you actually did on Tuesday.
LaKeysha Cobbs-Hayes, MAT, BCBA
Master of Arts in Teaching, Specialization in Applied Behavior Analysis
Board Certified Behavior Analyst
Wife, mother, grandmother. I have my own Gaps and I work on them out loud. You don’t have to arrive here with the tidy version.
So. Are you
coming back
tomorrow?
Tomorrow — are you going to have the conversation, send the application, set the boundary, do the thing you’ve been describing for a year? I can help you find out what’s been stopping you.
Find Your Gap →Find Your Gap™ is a self-reflection and coaching tool. It is not a psychological, clinical, or diagnostic assessment, does not diagnose any condition, and is not a substitute for care from a licensed professional.