How Samka Keranovic Brings Leadership Experience to Desert Roots Wellness

Leadership experience often teaches lessons that cannot be learned from a textbook. Managing expectations, navigating difficult conversations, making decisions under pressure, and balancing professional responsibilities can reveal how personal habits influence success. For some leaders, the greatest challenge is not managing others but recognizing when their own needs, values, and judgment have taken a back seat to external expectations.

For Samka Keranovic, Co-Founder of Desert Roots Wellness (DRW), these experiences helped shape a coaching philosophy centered on boundaries, self-trust, and intentional decision-making. She brings more than 20 years of corporate leadership experience and 16 years of private coaching to her work with high achievers and business owners. Together with Co-Founder Tyler LaBarge, she developed an approach that combines lived experience, structured reflection, and practical accountability.

How Corporate Leadership Experience Shaped Samka Keranovic's Perspective

Keranovic’s corporate background includes serving as Vice President and Chief Operating Officer with oversight of a $5.2 million P&L. Over more than 20 years in corporate leadership, she navigated environments where performance, responsibility, and professional expectations shaped everyday decisions. Alongside that career, she coached privately, building 16 years of experience supporting personal and professional development.

Her experience shaped a central belief: professional achievement does not always reflect personal alignment.

A dependable employee may consistently deliver results while avoiding difficult conversations. A manager may accept additional responsibilities to maintain approval. A business owner may hesitate to establish boundaries because disappointing others feels uncomfortable.

Keranovic identifies this repeated pattern of overriding personal needs, values, and judgment as self-abandonment.

She explored the relationship between this behavior and professional burnout in her July 2026 Fast Company Leadership article, This Habit Leads to Burnout. Are You at Risk?.

Rather than viewing leadership development exclusively through performance and productivity, Keranovic encourages professionals to consider how their decisions reflect personal values.

Her decision to step away from full-time corporate executive work and make coaching her primary focus reflected that philosophy. The transition allowed her to help others examine questions of priorities, expectations, and personal responsibility.

Building Desert Roots Wellness Around Lived Experience

Keranovic founded Desert Roots Wellness alongside Tyler LaBarge, whose professional background includes sales, marketing, business management, finance, human resources, team building, and leadership.

LaBarge also brings experience navigating the competing expectations associated with family businesses, adding another perspective to the company's understanding of professional responsibility.

Together, the founders developed Desert Roots Wellness as a coaching company serving high achievers and business owners who want to build lives and careers that better reflect their priorities.

Both founders are Certified Geo Love Healing Practitioners, trained in energetic boundary practices.

The company’s Mind, Body, Soul coaching philosophy emphasizes practical application. Clients examine established habits, develop clearer boundaries, and practice making decisions that reflect their values and responsibilities.

The founders draw on their professional and personal experiences, emphasizing practices they have tested in their own lives.

For clients, this means coaching is organized around reflection, consistent action, and accountability rather than promises of immediate transformation.

The DRW Approach to Boundaries and Intentional Decisions

At the center of Desert Roots Wellness is the belief that lasting personal development requires more than understanding a problem. Individuals must also examine how their everyday choices reinforce established patterns.

The company's Mind, Body, Soul approach encourages clients to recognize situations where they override personal priorities, seek unnecessary approval, or struggle to communicate limits.

Keranovic views boundaries as an essential part of this process.

"Boundaries are not walls or punishments. They are acts of self-respect," she explains.

In professional settings, this may involve clarifying responsibilities, questioning unrealistic expectations, or declining commitments that conflict with existing priorities.

Self-trust represents another important element of the DRW approach.

"Self-trust is rebuilt through small, kept promises to yourself," Keranovic says.

Rather than encouraging dramatic changes, the company emphasizes manageable actions that individuals can practice consistently.

Private coaching is available through individual sessions and a 90-day package. The package combines regular sessions with practices, assignments, and accountability between sessions.

This structure helps clients connect personal reflection with practical decisions in their professional and everyday lives.

Blueprint Workbooks Support Reflection and Practical Application

Desert Roots Wellness offers a library of 20 self-guided digital Blueprint workbooks and practical guides, organized into five themed Collections. The Boundary, People-Pleasing, and Self-Trust Blueprints are three featured resources within this broader library.

These workbooks help readers examine habits that may influence professional confidence, communication, and decision-making, then put their insights into practice.

The Boundary Blueprint focuses on recognizing where personal limits are being overlooked. It encourages individuals to consider whether their commitments reflect genuine priorities or a sense of obligation.

For leaders, this reflection may involve evaluating workload expectations, communication habits, or the tendency to accept additional responsibilities without considering available capacity.

The People-Pleasing Blueprint explores how the desire for approval can influence decisions. Professionals may recognize situations where they avoid disagreement, seek reassurance, or prioritize others' comfort over honest communication.

Rather than discouraging collaboration, this approach encourages individuals to distinguish between thoughtful cooperation and automatic agreement.

The Self-Trust Blueprint centers on rebuilding confidence through consistent personal commitments. It encourages individuals to consider whether their actions reflect their values and whether they follow through on decisions they make for themselves.

These three Blueprints reflect the company’s broader coaching philosophy while providing resources people can use independently. Enrolling in coaching is not required to work through them.

They are intended as personal development resources, not clinical assessments or substitutes for professional treatment.

Turning Leadership Insights Into Practical Action

Desert Roots Wellness recognizes that understanding personal habits is only one part of professional development. Applying those insights consistently requires structure and accountability.

Through its 90-day coaching package, clients work on practical assignments and reflect on their progress between sessions.

The company also offers the self-paced, video-guided 30 Day Reset and video-guided digital toolkits. These offer a different learning format from the workbook-based Blueprints.

For organizations, Sustainable Success: Burnout Prevention for Leaders & Teams addresses workload conversations, boundary-setting, prioritization, and team practices. Facilitated by Keranovic, the training pairs individual communication skills with management responsibilities for priorities, resources, delegation, and clear expectations.

All coaching sessions take place by video, allowing the company to serve clients worldwide.

The company's services focus on personal and professional development and are not intended to replace therapy or clinical treatment.

Across these offerings, the emphasis remains consistent: helping individuals recognize the habits influencing their choices and develop more deliberate approaches to responsibility, communication, and personal priorities.

Desert Roots Wellness Earns Arizona Coaching Recognition

Desert Roots Wellness, co-founded by Samka Keranovic and Tyler LaBarge, received Best of Best Review's Best Burnout Prevention Coaching Service in Arizona of 2026 award. Keranovic's corporate leadership experience, personalized coaching, and practical Blueprint workbooks distinguish the company's approach to boundaries, self-trust, and professional growth.

Explore The Desert Roots Wellness Approach To Leadership And Growth

Keranovic's journey from corporate work to coaching reflects the philosophy behind Desert Roots Wellness: meaningful professional development begins with understanding how personal values influence everyday decisions.

Her experience, combined with LaBarge's business and leadership background, shapes an approach that connects practical coaching with individual reflection.

For executives, business owners, and high-achieving professionals, the Boundary, People-Pleasing, and Self-Trust Blueprints provide focused workbooks for examining communication, responsibilities, and confidence in decision-making.

A free 30-minute Clarity Call gives prospective clients an opportunity to discuss their goals and whether coaching is a fit.

Find fresh inspiration for building healthier habits, supporting personal growth, and maintaining balance in everyday life. Discover Samka Keranovic’s approach to wellness and burnout awareness through the official website, and connect with Keranovic on LinkedIn, Instagram, and Facebook. Stay connected with Desert Roots Wellness on Instagram and Facebook for more perspectives on mindful living and personal well-being.

For professionals seeking a more intentional approach to leadership, the opportunity begins with examining the habits behind their decisions and identifying which ones genuinely support the lives they want to build.