Donnovan Somera Yisrael ('89), MA
About
A little about me
I am a member of Stanford’s great class of 1989. I got my degree in Psychology and stayed for a Coterm in Sociology. I lugged crates of vinyl around campus in my VW van as a DJ in the late 1900’s. I joined Vaden Health Services (formerly known as Cowell) in 1998 and in that time have reached students with messages of health and wellness through “dorm talks”, presentation, facilitation and lecturing in courses. I live in Mountain View with my wife (who is a therapist on campus in the same building, Kingscote Gardens) and 2 cats. I have a daughter in college and one who is post-college. I identify as Filipino-American and Jewish.
What coaching with me could look like
I have been blessed with a 30+ year career as a health educator and so I lead with the desire first learn for myself and then help students to download content and practices from ancient wisdom through to the latest modern science from fields such as positive psychology, neuroscience, sociology, anthropology, behavioral economics, etc. As a coach I am all about coming up with actionable next steps in the areas of your life in which you want to grow. Meanwhile I am intently listening for your existing mindsets which may be holding you back from living a version of your best life. After facilitating mindset shifts towards more adaptive beliefs, the next step is mining for values and infusing those values into your calendar to begin turning your values into practices. Repetition turns those practices into habit and you are on your way to a life filled with health, nourishing relationships, meaningful work and overall fulfillment.
What I’m up to outside of coaching
For the past few years my values-infused compulsion has been to salvage and repair some of the innumerable abandoned bikes on campus and give them free of charge to students in need. I have been called the “bike fairy” and my superhero name is “The skAvenger” as I spend a lot of my time redirecting usable items from the trash stream towards people who can use/enjoy them. If you are on a tight budget and need a bike, get in touch. Having said that, my preferred form of transportation (or as I call it, “danceportation”) is inline and ice skating. I am a hockey player (ice and roller) and used to frequent the SF Night Skate and love skating downhill from Kingscote to the Cal Ave Caltrain Station.