“Jan Carley is the Sweet Adeline Whisperer.”

Lisa Greenough, Master Director, Gateway Chorus

Jan’s coaching programs create joyous, high-functioning group culture and positive performance impact. Exploring the benefits of mental mastery while working toward musical and visual mastery creates a true “triple threat” performance experience for barbershoppers.

Dear Sweet Adeline Friends,

Since 2007, in my role as Inner Coach of Barbershop, I have been instrumental in inspiring thousands of barbershoppers worldwide to access and value their power within. That has made life-changing positive impact for dozens of directors, leadership teams, and choruses from as small as 12 members to as large as 130 inspiring them to create more joyous chorus cultures and personal experiences of excellence and possibility. Adding the powerful component of Mindset Mastery to chorus life, performance and competition preparations has proven to be a true generative “difference maker” for directors, choruses and quartets. 

I am a long time barbershopper, singing Lead with the 2024 International Chorus Champions Lions Gate Chorus in Vancouver, BC Canada since 1994, and with my award-winning Holiday Performance Quartet, Fandango since 1999. I am also artistic director of Lions Gate Chorus’ acclaimed entertainment packages: The Urban Jungle, The Grinch who Stole Contest, The Impossible Dream and most recently, their record-breaking gold medal package, The Nightmare Before Contest.  

My two popular books, Harmony from the Inside Out, and The Overtone Effect, use musical metaphors and my vast coaching and performance experience to help individuals, leaders and choruses work from the inside out to access and maximize their potential. 

Jan is Available in-person or by Zoom for Chorus Coaching, Regional Event Keynotes, Educational Workshops, and Director Coaching

Contact Jan for more information on all of her Inner Coach of Barbershop Programs for choruses, quartets, leadership teams, directors and Regions.

“Lots of coaches work with groups and individuals, but the extra gift that Jan brings to the table is that she is a barbershopper. She internally KNOWS the art form, its needs and its challenges, and then intuitively reaches into her amazing toolbox for just the right thing to say and do at just the right time. She’s amazing.”
— Carol Swanson, Pride of Portland Chorus

Jan’s Services

  • Jan’s “Coach on Call” program provides one-on-one coaching support and inspiration for directors and is the transformational foundation of the inner coaching process. The purpose behind the individual coaching is to provide the support to help place the chorus director, as the primary person inspiring the chorus’ success, in a personal position of strength, balance and positive leadership. Individual telephone coaching sessions over a 3-6 month period help the director clarify and focus their work, leverage their strengths, identify barriers to success and provide the support needed for them to embrace and implement positive new possibilities. One-on-one coaching will significantly impact the director’s approach and effectiveness as a leader and also create powerful personal change in their life outside rehearsal.  

  • The Music and Management Leadership Teams are critical to the inner coaching process as they are the ones who are supporting and implementing the chorus vision and the work of the director. Not only are the leadership teams responsible for modeling the behaviors that the chorus will follow, they are also responsible for ensuring that the best possible atmosphere exists for the director and the musical product to go forward unimpeded. The leadership has a huge potential impact and it is essential that everyone in a leadership role has the knowledge and skills and feels confidently empowered to inspire a consistent and positive chorus culture of excellence.

    Leadership Team sessions work from the inside out to address the core values that make the team function. Team sessions are customized depending on the needs of each individual chorus with goals of unifying approach, establishing high-functioning team cultures, cohering teams around a common vision, clarifying communication styles, reframing limiting beliefs, eliminating barriers to success and creating conditions for a chorus culture of joy and excellence. Support or companion workshop activities can involve visioning, goal setting, or leadership development.

    Transformational work with the Leadership Teams can be done through evening workshops, comprehensive weekend retreats, group conference calls or ZOOM sessions

  • Inner Coaching programs for choruses are customized to meet the unique needs of each chorus. Chorus sessions focus on the themes and principles that will create a chorus culture based on the generative Appreciative Approach, which helps create the best environment for learning, growth, joy and possibility, and leverages peak performance potential.

    Chorus sessions are customized and take chorus members through a series of experiential exercises that move them through many of the inner coaching concepts such as the power of intention, focus, eliminating limiting beliefs, connecting energy, elimination of the interferences that act as a barrier to peak performance, chorus unity and core beliefs, silencing of the inner critic, the power of acknowledgment and more. More comprehensive weekend retreats can include deeper visioning, team-building and possibility-creation activities.

  • Jan’s Inner Coaching work with quartets is fully customized based on the needs of each quartet which are established in a preliminary meeting or conference call. Jan works from the inside out to help create and support an enhanced mental and emotional quartet unit with a shared goal of achieving their highest level of excellence while being present in a joyful shared experience.

“The best expense our Management Team ever approved!”
— Kathy Earley, coastline show chorus

Praise for Jan

  • "We have music and sound and visual coaches come to our choruses but most of us have not – until now – considered what impact inner coaching might have on the membership and, more specifically, the leadership. I am so grateful that we found Jan and for the help she has provided us. It is our plan to continue this approach to fully rounded coaching."

    Kim Vaughn - Master 700 Director, 
San Diego Chorus (retired)

  • "Jan is a brilliant coach. Her inner mastery coaching work with Lions Gate Chorus was the missing ingredient we needed. These inner mastery coaching principles will change you and your chorus culture (or any team you might work with) forever."

    Sandy Marron - Master 700 director, Lions Gate Chorus, 2024 International Gold Medalist Chorus

  • "Jan has been enlightening, thought-provoking and encouraging to me, personally. As a director, she has had an incredible positive effect on my ability to be truly authentic and in the moment."

    Vicki Maybury - Master 700 Director, Skyline Chorus

  • "By following Jan's principles, we forged a solid foundation that helped our new chorus connect, create a common positive culture, and achieve peak performance that led to the reward of Small Chorus Champions less than two years after our first rehearsal."

    Melissa Bomben - Founding Director, Philadelphia Freedom Chorus (Retired)

  • “Jan was our preferred choice as keynote speaker for our UK and Netherlands Virtual Convention. Her inspirational and encouraging words were warmly received and her enthusiastic and thought-provoking presentation helped to instill a sense of positivity.” 

    Alyson Chaney, Education Coordinator, Region 31 UK and Netherlands

  • "I highly recommend Jan to anyone (director, chorus, or quartet) that not only wants to perform/rehearse at higher levels, but also wants to unlock greater possibilities in themselves and others."

    Ryan Heller, Master 700 Director, Alamo Metro Chorus