About
Mattia Montuoro
Founder and Coach
Why I Started The Work+Life Studio
For most of my life, I knew how to keep moving.
I built a career in the creative industry, became a husband and father, navigated change, started over more than once, and experienced both the satisfaction of success and the uncertainty that comes when the life you know begins to shift.
For nearly 30 years, creativity wasn’t simply what I did for work. It shaped how I saw myself. Like so many creative professionals, there was often very little distance between the work I created and the person creating it. That brought meaning and fulfillment, but also pressure, uncertainty, rejection, and the constant challenge of evolving while staying connected to who I was.
Then I lost my job.
At first, I did what I thought I was supposed to do. I updated my résumé, looked for the next opportunity, and tried to figure out where my experience might take me. But somewhere along the way, the question changed. It was no longer simply, What should I do next?
It became, What do I actually want my life to look like now?
That question led me somewhere unexpected.
I began to recognize something that had been present throughout my life, long before I ever called myself a coach. People had always trusted me with their stories. I was often the person they came to when something wasn’t working, when they were questioning a decision, or when they simply needed someone who would listen without telling them who they should be.
Coaching gave a name and a practice to something I had been doing instinctively for years. But becoming a coach wasn’t about leaving my creative life behind. It helped me understand how much of what came before still belonged.
The Work+Life Studio grew from that realization.
It’s a place for people who may be standing in their own version of that question. People who know something needs to change, even if they can’t quite see what comes next. People who want more clarity, more intention, or simply the space to hear themselves again.
My own journey gives me a particular connection to creative professionals navigating those moments, especially when work, identity, and life have become difficult to separate. But the work itself begins somewhere more fundamental.
I don’t believe the answer is becoming someone new.I believe it begins with understanding who you already are, what matters to you, and what you want to do with what you discover.
A creative life. A coaching life. One life.
CREATIVITY
For nearly 30 years, creativity taught me to look beyond the obvious, make connections between things that may not seem connected, and stay curious when the answer isn’t immediately clear.
I bring that same way of seeing into coaching. Not to find the answer for you, but to help create the space where something new might become visible.
CURIOSITY
Creative work taught me that the first idea isn’t always the most interesting one.
Coaching asks for that same willingness to stay with a question a little longer, challenge assumptions, and explore what sits underneath the first answer. Sometimes what changes the conversation is simply getting curious one more time.
LIVED EXPERIENCE
I’ve experienced success, rejection, leadership, uncertainty, career change, starting over, and the complicated relationship that can exist between who we are and what we do.
Those experiences don’t give me your answers. They help me understand what it can feel like when work, identity, and life become difficult to separate, particularly for people who have spent years building a creative life.
What I Bring Into the Room
PRESENCE
You don’t need to perform, impress, or arrive with the right words. I want our conversations to be a place where you can slow down, hear yourself more clearly, and say what may be harder to say elsewhere.
A DIFFERENT PERSPECTIVE
Sometimes we’re too close to our own lives to see what we’ve stopped noticing. I listen for patterns, contradictions, possibilities, and the things underneath the words, then offer them back for you to explore.
CURIOSITY, NOT ASSUMPTION
I won’t assume I know what something means for you, even when your experience feels familiar to me. Your answers belong to you. My role is to stay curious enough to help you discover them.
SPACE TO BE YOURSELF
You don’t have to have it all figured out here. There is room for uncertainty, frustration, humor, emotion, silence, and whatever else shows up. Change doesn’t require you to become someone else before you begin.
WORK. IDENTITY. LIFE.
The Work+Life Studio is especially for creative professionals navigating the places where work, identity, and life intersect.
Maybe the work that once energized you no longer feels the same. Maybe you’re stepping into leadership, questioning what comes next, recovering from burnout, facing an unexpected transition, or wondering who you are when the work you’ve spent years doing begins to change.
I know how deeply creative work can become connected to identity. When you spend years putting something of yourself into what you create, changes in your career can feel like more than career changes.
This is a space to explore those questions without assuming that the answer is to walk away from everything you’ve built. Sometimes the next chapter isn’t about starting over. It’s about understanding what still belongs, what no longer does, and what you want to carry forward.
Co-Active Practitioner Credential (CAP)
I hold the Co-Active Practitioner Credential from the Co-Active Training Institute, earned through completing the Co-Active coach training pathway from Fundamentals through Synergy. The training focuses on building transformational relationships, navigating complex dynamics, and helping people discover what they truly want and move toward it.
Start a conversation.
Book a free 30-minute discovery call. No pressure, no pitch, just an honest talk about where you are and where you want to go.