An interview of 5 Latina Life Coaches
By Christine Vega-Perez
I had the honor of speaking with five amazing Latina Life Coaches. Until this year, I was not very familiar with the possibility of a Life Coach and how impactful one could be. As I started my journey of serving and helping others, I quickly realized this was a field I wanted to work in. So as I learn, you know I also have to share with you! This article will provide insight right from a Life Coach’s perspective- what exactly is Life Coaching and the effects it can have on people’s lives.
(*Scroll down for Coach Bios & Contact info*)
Q: Tell me about your journey to Life Coaching?
Karina: I have a background in social work, so I have been coaching for communities for a long time. I recently felt the pull to work specifically with women in helping them get their lives back. This was something that I personally struggled with when I became a mom and was ill for a short period of time.
Audrey: If you would have told me in college that I was a life coach, I wouldn’t believe it. I wanted to work for Diddy! I went to Parsons School of Design. I had an Internship with a company that merged the latino market with anglo market. I worked for the guy that helped Ricky Martin do Livin la Vida loca. I just wanted to communicate the message and bring something to the masses.
I was working 10-6 but they expected more and I was looking to start a family. I asked my mentor at the time, how do I balance family and career? He responded, ‘ you don’t’. So I left my job and started working for my parents who own supermarkets, but I felt like I wasn’t challenged and part of me started to die. Then I had my boys back to back, and I got lost in motherhood.
As latinas we think we need to set goals to get married, have kids, and work until 65, but no one ever tells you that you can lose yourself doing that. I started to lose the baby weight using BeachBody and became a coach. For the first time in years I started to feel alive again. I grew and started earning 6 figures, but realized the meal plan and program won’t work if they don’t believe in themselves, so I started teaching women about their mindset. John C Maxwell said, “If you don’t have a personal plan of growth for your life, you’re not growing”. It made me think ‘where do I really want to go’ and the decision was in my hands for the first time. That’s where the passion for personal development and believing in yourself created The Dream Lab.
Crystal: I got a big girl job, was in a long distance marriage, pregnant, going for my MBA online, but knew I was meant for something more. In my 4th year of med school I knew I wanted to help people, but didnt think medicine was the way. I was good at it but it wasn’t fulfilling. God put a message in my heart that this was the route, but not the destination. I was introduced to the podcast Life Coach School, attended the school and got certified. I felt like I found the missing piece that I had been looking for. We are all one thought away from completing the puzzle. The time we spent building the container that we are in doesn’t mean that we have to stay in that prison.
Tamara: It was Divine purpose. My entire life I have been able to help keep people grounded, I’m calming, and give people a different perspective. Even out with friends, people would overhear our conversations and just want to talk with me. I’m a deeply empathetic person, but I never considered it could be a profession. I was working for the city in a role that checked off all of the boxes my parents would have wanted, but I was miserable.
One day I was visiting my cousin in the Diamond district and stopped at a store. The owner started a conversation with me and ended up offering me a Full Time position to help him to grow his business through content writing and operations support. After that I started coaching. Within a matter of months I had 12-13 clients. I just felt called to it. I can serve people in any space, but how can I also serve myself, while serving people. I realized that was coaching and writing. I teach people that life can be very simple. You can achieve success with just a simple shift of how we think about life.
Patricia: The pandemic and quarantine created a change and pause of life that propelled me toward this and to reflect inward. I wasn’t happy with corporate America, and was trying to figure out what I could do that I enjoyed. Stumbled across Jannese Torres Rodriguez from Yo Quiero Dinero Podcast, and she made me feel like if she can do it I can do it too. Realized that my experience as a diabetes health coach I worked with people one on one, including check ins, affirmations with and goal setting. I felt the need to connect more with women that look like me. Everyone successful has a mentor. Why not us? We too can have someone that holds us accountable, understands us and helps us succeed. Success is not on your own, you need a team.
Q: What would you consider your coaching style?
Karina: Raw, authentic, to the point, disruptive.
Crystal: I utilize the tools from Life Coach school as well as my critical care background to utilize curiosity and directness. The level of directness used is according to the space. I focus on the ‘soft stuff’, like processing feelings and mindset as well as some strategy. I fully believe in guiding because I don’t know what’s best for them. I focus on WOC, so we review processing racism and suppression as well.
Audrey: The framework that I teach my clients is to spend time with our creator everyday; every day do 30 min personal development; and every day move your body. I focus on the Mind, Body and Soul. I compare it to the fitness journey- you need to increase your stamina. Starting your own business is not for the weak, doing anything against the grain is not for the weak. So are you taking care of yourself and your body to build that foundation. Pour into yourself and go about your day intentionally. Just like a muscle you strengthened, you’re able to do more than you could before.
Tamara: I am a very empathetic person, which allows me to move free of expectation, free of judgement and very logically. I also work in youth development, and often receive this as feedback. I’m able to achieve success because I genuinely engage with my clients to be able to deliver. I lead with kindness because I want to. In turn, I’m able to help people be more gentle with themselves. When someone wants a life coach, they are driven and seek tools in hopes to achieve success right away. But you need to be gentle with yourself. I help you love yourself so much that there is nothing you’re going to do but honor yourself. Love and empathy make the world go around. Be present in happiness, understand happiness, live in happiness.
Patricia: Laid back, listening, rephrasing to encourage self reflection so you can ‘get there’ on your own. I guide you but I’m not giving you the answers. You’re in the driver seat and I’m in the passenger seat.
Q: Tell us why someone should get a life coach?
Karina: Life coaching is for someone who feels like they need guidance, or feel like they are currently off track and don’t know where to start. Therapy and coaching differ- therapy is more for the individual who finds themselves struggling with basic everyday practices like getting out of bed, eating, etc. Therapy may be better suited for processing past traumas and issues and a focus on the past, whereas therapy is more forward thinking and helping clients create plans to get them their desired results. The hope is that your client will be able to take control of their lives and self-coach themselves.
Crystal: Someone should get a life coach if they’re ready to focus on the future. If you feel you are ready for something more. If they’re trying to heal from the past, consider therapy first. I found therapy before I did life coaching so I could heal a pain factor before becoming a mom. Get clear on why you want to choose life coaching and take advantage of the consultation to see if they can help you with the problem that they want to solve.
It’s something you have to think about to know you are in the place of commitment to yourself and the results that you want – getting to that place takes thought work. Specifically for WOC – unpacking the direct and indirect internal suppression. How has it impacted me and how can it release the mental change in my mind that isn’t loud enough because we haven’t asked the right question.
Audrey: I think everybody needs a life coach. It’s easy to stay stagnant. I think of our minds as a dirty glass of water, and the life coach opens the faucet for fresh water and gets all the gunk out. Another angle to look at it is ‘ahogarse en un vaso de agua’ or in English, drowning in a glass of water. Your own thoughts can throw you off and not help you to get the results you are looking for in life. Are you happy? Is your relationship how you want it to be? We all need someone to challenge our thinking and take you to the next level.
Tamara: Different from a therapist, a life coach meets you in the present and teaches you tools to deal with present life. This can also lead to you being able to deal with past trauma. Every individual (from children to adults) should have a life coach. They are different than your mama, nana, papa. Every person needs validation, to help you with realignment. Same way a teacher teaches academics and a pastor manages spirit, a coach will help you to manage yourself. The tools we often use are focused on the exterior. You need a person to teach you how to manage the interior. Someone to help you separate what’s logical and what you’re feeling. Both a therapist and life coach can be helpful. The dialogue is more why doesn’t everyone have one.
Patricia: If you notice you’re in a rut, not motivated, looking for someone to hold you accountable besides friends and family because their way to support is going to be very different. If you need some tough love, or that extra push. If you are fully aware of where you are in life and where you want to be and know you need help to get there. We all need someone in our corner.
Q: What’s your favorite affirmation?
Karina: Right now -”Rest is required.”
Crystal: “I have everything within me to succeed. I am divinely guided. I am enough.” Marketing often tells us that we are incomplete without the thing they are selling, but if you believe you are enough and you don’t need to prove anything – that’s the key to happiness. We seek outside ourselves but if we seek within we will find the answer.
Audrey: “I’m a child of God” Identity and your place in life can change. We base our identity on our bank account or a title, but if we lose that job then we no longer know who we are. When a relationship ends, you may not know who you are without that person. We then lose confidence in these things, so you need to base your identity on something that doesn’t change.
Tamara: Right now, what is most present with my clients- “I trust the process, I embrace my journey, I rest easy in the confidence of knowing that everything that I am working for is already making its way to me”
Patricia: First I want to start with saying that affirmations are only working for you if you truly believe it. “I am spiritually awake, because I am conscious of everything.” Everything is ever changing and evolving, like the changing of the fall. It’s important to remember to be present and be here in the moment.
Q: What’s one thing you do to maintain balance?
Karina: I don’t believe in balance, I believe in harmony. Trying to find balance creates the idea that things need to be perfectly scaled, but as humans we weren’t created this way. Instead find harmony between things that aren’t equally split. I find harmony by letting go of expectations and being ok with making mistakes.
Crystal: I have Intentional imbalance. We can’t honestly have everything that we want at the same time. When we try to do everything it creates this toxic independence and dependence on resiliency (my take on resilience is that it’s trauma related more than power). Balance is focusing on what we want for that season. Ex: If we want to lose weight, there will be a focus on eating habits, working out, and less stress. I am intentionally spending more time on business for this season, which could be weeks or months, whatever feels right to me.
Audrey: Play more. Tony Robbins says “In life you have to play as hard as you work”. I’ve been putting too much worth in accomplishments. I’m trying to soften up, ease up and enjoy life more. Started salsa dancing, getting massages monthly, mani/pedis. I’m doing the things that make me happy.
Tamara: Unplug. I wake up and immediately move into a place of service. When I decide that day is over it’s over. I meditate everyday, do yoga and have beautiful friends that make my spirit so full. I am mindful not to impose expectations on myself and take it one day at a time. I set hard boundaries for my peace of mind.
Patricia: I cry. I’m brutally honest, so I just F$#@in cry. I cry, feel what I need to feel and move on. I let myself Bitch and moan about it to get it out of my system. It can be an hour or a day, but no more than that. If it’s not to that level, then I’ll ride my peloton or do their meditation.
Q: Tell us about a client success that touched you?
Karina: There are so many. One that comes to mind is a recent client, where we worked on her thoughts to think -‘I still got it’. It seems so simple, but something positive occurred. She would have a thought that would allow her to spin out without telling her brain the thought she wanted to have that would uplift her. We decided on the thought that best served her which was “I still got it”. It was so amazing to hear her talk about it through the week in Voxer with me as she described the freedom this thought brought her.
Crystal: I had a client who said she felt messy, didn’t know who she was, was following a path as a people pleaser, and following her husband and family but not focusing on what she wanted. She was able to process feeling messy and decided to begin her journey instead of staying the same because it felt safe. She learned how to speak up for herself and create boundaries. I saw session after session that she was feeling lighter.
Tamara: This story drove me to tears and I needed time off to recover from so much joy. A client of mine was an athletic coach, but wasn’t committing to the work. She confided in me and told me she was homeless which was impacting her ability to use the tools she was learning. This was a challenge for me as a life coach, because of her life story and journey. I assessed that she wasn’t doing for herself and she was dismissing opportunities that arose.
After months of work with her, hours of session each day, she was awarded coach of the year for the organization she was working for and a fellowship with the MLB. She signed a lease on an apartment and offered a new assistant director role in less than a year. She’s now going back to school. Prior to us working together she wasn’t willing or capable of doing this. It took work and relaying a foundation. My only hope was for her to be happy with herself. She told me she experienced happiness for the first time in her life as a 20 some year old woman. And she is never letting it go. Seeing one of your clients find and honor their happiness is the greatest success a coach can hope for and this was an experience that solidified that example for me.
Audrey: I had a client who went to therapy for anxiety for years. After working with me and using the framework I described she had a mindset shift. Her therapist saw such an improvement that she may no longer need therapy. She created her own capacity to be happy.
Patricia: Recently I had a client that wanted to push out a blog, but had a lot of self-doubt of the content. She lit up when she spoke about it, but second guessed if people would be interested. She lit up about the content itself, but when speaking about the blog her words and body language was as if it was something weird. I brought that to her attention and by the end of the sessions she was confident in her blog. She started speaking to herself positively regarding her blog and used affirmations. It’s important to be very aware of how you talk to yourself. We can be our biggest critics.
Meet the Coaches
Karina F. Daves is a Life Coach who helps women get their freaking lives back! She has been mentoring and leading community based practices for close to a decade. As a Life Coach, she provides several platforms for her audience to dig in and receive respite. Karina’s Podcast titled “One Day At A Time” is the nexus for tips on how to have relationships, set boundaries and live your best life. Her focus is on boundaries, toxic friendships and putting yourself first. Her growing community allows women to see that they are not alone in this thing called life. She guides women towards a fulfilled life of making sure that they are the main character of their lives!
Crystal Agyei (pronounced Uh-Jay) is the CEO and head coach of The Missing Piece Coach, LLC. TMPC helps WOC learn more about themselves, be at peace and live fuller lives.
The Missing Piece Coach, LLC was created as Crystal felt like she meant for something more beyond medicine. A year before medical school graduation she reconsidered her path because she knew she was supposed to help people but wasn’t sure medicine was the way to go. She ultimately discovered life coaching and found the missing piece she was always looking for. She knows the value of representation and is dedicated to increasing representation for WOC until it’s the standard and not a unicorn occurrence.
She grew up in Worcester, MA and was raised by a single mother and entrepreneur alongside her 2 older brothers. She now resides in Allentown, PA with her husband, daughter & two cats.
On a personal note, she hopes to become a published poet & go on a RV vacation one day (husband needs convincing). On her spare time she loves to spend time with family, read personal development books, watch movies, go on nature walks, & work out with Peloton.
https://msha.ke/audrey.robles/
Audrey Diaz Robles was born and raised in New York by parents who had immigrated from The Dominican Republic, making her well aware of the legacy she was meant to carry out. Her parents are entrepreneurs, who with hard work and sacrifice were able to raise their family and continue to have a thriving business that provides opportunities for many.
Not surprisingly, Audrey has also become an entrepreneur. Today, Audrey is a mom of 3, who is known as a Confidence Booster, helping women around the country regain their confidence through fitness, business, mindset and faith. Together with her partner, Sabrina Castillo, she has co-founded The Dream Lab, a personal development incubator for Latinas by Latinas. Their goal is to build a community for women to feel empowered and create vision for their lives through 1:1 coaching, group coaching, live sold-out events, as well as through their podcast, The Dream Lab Series Podcast.
I am Tamara Monique , your friend and soul growth pusher!
I am a professional life , career and performance coach who has spent the last 7+ years helping both children and adults to create success that’s balanced and rooted in happiness . I started my career as a city employee and content writer for a bullion company but found I craved more personal fulfillment . So, I got trained and certified as a personal life and career coach and opened up my business in 2014. I feel blessed and grateful to have found my calling as a coach and am passionate about helping navigate people toward rich experiences that allow them to delete old habits and thoughts to make room for soul growth!
The part of my work I most enjoy is giving back to the coaching profession by regularly mentoring new coaches.
Today I offer a wide range of coaching programs and services – from individual training , to seminars and keynote speeches.
Hola! I’m Rosaura Patricia-but you can call me Patricia & I’m the force behind Latina in Action! I’m a first-gen immigrant born in the Dominican Republic & raised in Uptown Manhattan, NY. I’m a wife, mom of 2 boys, Peloton cult member & public health program manager. I’m the type of woman who knows what she wants & goes after it, the type that when I walk into a room you feed off my energy! I’m a go-getter, I love to get shit done & cross it off my to-do list! I’m known for being funny, real & unapologetically myself at all times in all rooms!
I created Latina In Action in order to provide women like myself a community of support, motivation & empowerment regardless of what stage of their life they’re in . I deeply believe in the power of coaching & believe that we all need someone outside of family/friends to support us, hold us accountable & cheer us on along the way! I work with my clients on their mindset, getting out of their own heads & aligning their actions to their goals to get shit done!