Tyler LaBarge on Sustainable Leadership and Career Coaching

Tyler LaBarge helps leaders build sustainable success, empower teams, and stop carrying every problem.

Tyler LaBarge did not learn leadership from a boardroom first. He learned it in the day-to-day work of a business. In 2003, he began washing trucks at U.S. Truck Driver Training School. Over the next two decades, he earned his commercial driver’s license, became an instructor, worked across the organization, and eventually became President and CEO in January 2020.

That progression gave him more than a résumé. It gave him firsthand experience with operations, people, accountability, and the pressure that comes when more and more of a business begins to depend on you. Today, as Co-Founder and Leadership Coach at Desert Roots Wellness, Tyler brings that perspective to business owners, executives, emerging leaders, and high-achieving professionals who want success they can sustain.

Leadership Built From the Ground Up

Desert Roots Wellness, based in Scottsdale, Arizona, and serving clients virtually, was launched in May 2026 by Tyler and Co-Founder Samka Keranovic. The practice helps people build richer lives and careers through self-awareness, healthier boundaries, stronger relationships, and a more sustainable approach to success. At the center of the work is a practical question: how do you keep achieving without allowing responsibility, pressure, or other people’s expectations to take over your life?

For Tyler, that question is rooted in years of helping people find direction. Long before Desert Roots Wellness existed, he guided graduates through career decisions, business planning, and the transition into owner-operator work. He helped people think through goals, time management, opportunity, accountability, and the practical realities behind a major career decision. Those conversations were rarely only about work. They also involved confidence, identity, family, risk, and what kind of future a person was trying to build.

That perspective now sits near the center of Tyler’s coaching. He works with people who are often praised for their reliability while privately feeling trapped by it. They answer every question, solve every problem, and step in whenever others hesitate. Over time, competence can become its own form of pressure. A business may rely on the leader, but the pattern leaves little room for rest, relationships, reflection, or the strategic work only that leader can do.

Tyler’s background keeps his approach grounded in the realities of running a business. He has worked at multiple levels of an organization, from entry-level responsibility to executive leadership, with experience across operations, sales, team development, workforce development, and accountability for people and results. That experience allows him to speak to leaders without hiding behind theory-heavy language. Better boundaries must become better conversations. Delegation needs clear expectations. Team development has to show up in how work is assigned, reviewed, and owned.

The Pressure to Carry It All

One of the clearest themes in Tyler’s work is the pressure of becoming the person everyone depends on. Many leaders do not arrive there through ego. They arrive there through care, urgency, competence, and habit. They want the work done well. They do not want to disappoint employees, clients, or the people closest to them. They build their reputation by going the extra mile and making sure nothing falls through the cracks. Eventually, the same strengths that helped them rise can become the patterns that wear them down.

Tyler helps clients examine those patterns with honesty and practicality. Why is delegation difficult? What happens when a team member asks a question the leader believes they should already know how to answer? Where are expectations unclear? Where has being responsible quietly turned into feeling responsible for everything? These are personal questions, but they are also operational ones. They shape how a business runs, how teams develop, and whether a leader can step away without fearing that everything will unravel.

This is where Tyler connects internal patterns with visible leadership behavior. If a leader feels compelled to fix every issue, the team may never develop judgment. If a business owner avoids difficult conversations, standards can become inconsistent. If a high-achieving professional has tied identity to productivity, rest may feel like failure. The answer is not simply to work less. It is to understand what is driving the behavior and then build stronger practices around communication, accountability, delegation, and trust.

Family-business dynamics can make those patterns even more complicated. When personal relationships and professional roles overlap, expectations may go unspoken and ordinary business decisions can carry emotional weight. Tyler’s approach combines care for people with clear standards, helping leaders separate respect from avoidance and responsibility from overextension.

The result is coaching that considers both the person and the organization. Desert Roots Wellness does not treat leadership pressure as a character flaw. It examines the habits, systems, expectations, and relationships that contribute to overload. Sustainable leadership, in that view, is built through clearer choices repeated over time - not through one dramatic reset.

Building Sustainable Success at Desert Roots Wellness

Desert Roots Wellness brings together practical leadership experience with a mind, body, and soul approach to growth. Tyler contributes the perspective of business operations, team development, decision-making, and accountability. Samka brings executive leadership and private coaching experience, with a focus on boundaries, people-pleasing, self-trust, and self-abandonment. Together, they help clients consider both the demands around them and the personal patterns within them.

The practice offers individual coaching, ongoing coaching programs, self-guided workbooks and digital resources, and corporate burnout-prevention training. Its work is coaching, not therapy, and it is designed for people and organizations seeking practical, experiential support. For an individual, that may mean learning to make decisions based on values rather than fear of disappointing others. For an organization, it may mean stronger conversations around workload, boundaries, leadership expectations, accountability, and team ownership.

Published client testimonials reflect that joint approach. One client said, "The techniques and tools they shared are things I use every single day," while describing greater confidence, healthier boundaries, and more independent decision-making. Another credited Samka and Tyler with career growth and stronger personal and professional boundaries, writing, "Their guidance has helped me advance in my career." The common thread is practical change clients can carry into their lives after the session ends.

In 2026, Desert Roots Wellness was named Best Burnout Prevention Coaching Service in Arizona of 2026 by Best of Best Review. The recognition belongs to the company Tyler and Samka built together and aligns with the practice’s focus on burnout prevention as both a personal and organizational concern.

Tyler’s story remains one of the clearest examples of the philosophy behind Desert Roots Wellness. He knows what it means to grow through responsibility and to care deeply about people and outcomes. He also knows leadership does not have to mean becoming the permanent answer to every problem. A healthier model is possible - one where leaders develop capable teams, communicate expectations, share responsibility, and create room for the life they are working so hard to build.

For business owners, executives, emerging leaders, and high-achieving professionals, Desert Roots Wellness offers a place to examine the weight of success before it becomes unsustainable. Those interested can explore Tyler’s coaching profile, review the practice’s resources, or book a free Clarity Call.