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White Flag Coaching

About

A safe space for the work that matters.

White Flag Coaching was founded by husband-and-wife team Samuel and Mary Lee Gunnell. Raising a white flag, in their words, isn't defeat — it's the release of ego, resistance, and the weight of trying to do it all alone. What you stop carrying makes room for what's next.

Sam and Mary Lee have been practising as qualified NLP and conscious coaches since November 2017, and registered White Flag Coaching as a South African non-profit in April 2019. The practice now holds more than 12,000 hours of personal coaching, couples work, team facilitation and workplace EAP support — online via Google Meet, Microsoft Teams or WhatsApp video, or in person from Cape Town when it makes sense.

The founders

Meet Sam and Mary Lee

They met in 2009 at a crossroads neither of them chose — he was fighting cancer, she was fighting depression. The coaching practice grew out of what they learned holding each other through it: that healing happens in connection, in safe spaces, and in being truly seen.

Samuel Wesley Gunnell

Co-founder & Director

Sam knows what it is to be brought to his knees. In 2009 he was deep in treatment for multiple myeloma and lymphoma — and that confrontation with mortality is where the white flag philosophy began. Surrender, for him, was never defeat. It was the moment the ego let go and growth became possible.

Today he holds space for clients walking through identity, purpose, grief, addiction, men's work and relationship breakdowns — drawing on certified NLP and conscious coaching, and on lived experience that means very little can faze him in the room.

Mary Lee Gunnell

Co-founder & Director

Mary Lee met Sam in 2009 in the middle of her own collapse — a long stretch of deep depression where she felt lost and unseen. Their healing happened side by side, and the conviction that no one should have to do the hard work alone became the foundation of the practice.

She leads relationship and couples coaching, group facilitation, and workplace wellbeing programmes rooted in NLP and emotional-intelligence work. Clients describe her as the person who finally made them feel heard.

What we hold

What you can expect

Held without judgment

No matter your beliefs, sexuality, gender, race, age or location — you're welcome. Coaching here is built on radical acceptance.

Confidentiality first

Everything shared in session stays in session, with the standard ethical exceptions around safety.

No rigid scripts

Some clients come for one session and find what they were looking for. Others stay for years. The shape is yours.

Anyone, any age

We've coached clients as young as 8 and as senior as you can imagine. The majority sit between 16 and 55, but no one is turned away.

How to start

Every coaching journey starts with a free 15-minute intro call. We use it to check consent, build rapport, and set the date for your first session.