Why I Became a Life Coach

Special Offer at the End of the Essay!

This is another, I wanted to wait until I was ready, kind of post.

One of my friends referenced the opening line of my very first essay over here at substack during class last week. The sentiment resonated with her, and many of our peers. 

I decided to become a life coach shortly after starting this blog. I hit publish on my very post over here in May, and started class at the end of June.

It isn’t something I’ve been building up to for a while. It isn’t something I even fully had a grasp on before I started researching it. There are definitely times in my life that I’ve thought of coaching as a little out there and made up. I couldn’t have been farther from the truth.

For the last few months as I’ve gone on these two journeys, I’ve wondered “okay, how am I going to write about life coaching? How should I talk about it? Will people think it’s bad that I only started a few months ago? Does that discredit me somehow? Should I hide the fact that I just got certified?”

No, I shouldn’t. Because that wouldn’t be authentic in the slightest. It wouldn’t be very wild cozy free. My cocktail party self doesn’t get to tell the story of why I became a life coach, and when I became a life coach. 

PS I’ve been showing up as my wild cozy free self at cocktail parties lately and it’s a lot more fun - more on that later!

“How am I going to prove myself?”

I’m not here to prove myself. I’m just here to tell the truth.

---

The truth is, if you had told me that I was going to be a life coach at any point before mid-June of this year, I would not have believed you.

Somewhere around this time, my mother announced that she and my dad had decided that I should go to grad school. Not those exact words, but that was the gist. I’m sure she remembers the conversation differently, and has a much different take, and will text me to say so the minute she reads this.

Me: “I don’t think I want to.”

Her: “Maybe just go anyway.”

For many reasons, I decided that it would be easier to entertain this idea than to shut it down. I’m a recovering people pleaser. It’s what we do best. 

And yet, the idea of giving away my freedom (dramatic, I know.) and going back to school willingly for grad school was absolutely a non-starter unless I LOVED what I was studying and could really see a career advantage. 

Essentially, I needed a compelling reason to invest the time and money. And my parents thinking that I should go was certainly not a compelling enough reason.

Right around the time that my mom eventually independently realized that “maybe I shouldn’t go to grad school if I wasn’t 100% committed”, I ironically took a trip to surprise one of my friends at her graduate school graduation ceremony. 

It was an incredibly emotional, beautiful, fun weekend. And also incredibly exhausting. I felt like a CIA agent trying to pull off the surprise and coordinate things in the exact right way. Later on in the weekend once we were reflecting on the surprise and all the logistics that went into things, my friend's fiancé (another close friend - we all went to college together!) jokingly admitted that he decided to stop responding to my texts at some point, while we were planning. Honestly, I support that decision. I was trying to plan things on a granular level down to the exact minute we would surprise my friend, and the exact words we would say.

After the graduation festivities were over, I decided to stay in Chicago for a few extra days. The timing of the trip worked out really perfectly, because another friend of mine was actually starring in a production of Pippin at the time! I asked if I could stay with her, and she recommended that I stay with her parents who live in the neighborhood and have more space as empty nesters. I didn’t want to impose, but I gratefully obliged.

You’re wondering what all of this has to do with life coaching? We’re getting close - don’t worry.

I fell asleep on top of the covers in a dress at 9pm the night I arrived at my friend’s parents house.  I literally don’t even remember sitting down. That’s how tired I was from the graduation festivities.

The next morning, my friend’s parents made me a delicious breakfast and excitedly offered to take me on a walk in the neighborhood, or go for a nice bike ride. All I had the energy to do was chat over coffee, and lay in the sun on the back porch of their gorgeous garden. I was seriously wiped, and was so looking forward to some chill time before heading to see more friends in the area. 

Around midday, my friend’s mom came outside to have lunch with me. I was writing my weekly essay (I wrote Runaway that day) and put down my computer to chat with her and catch up more.

Linda ended up telling me about her unexpected journey into fitness coaching. (She’s a lawyer as well!) She vulnerably shared about insecurities she felt at the beginning of her coursework, and how fulfilling her journey has been. She talked about her mentor, and all of the friends she made along the way. How much this new career has added to her life.

And then out of nowhere, I heard myself say,

I’m thinking about looking into life coaching.

It was truly that out of the blue. It wasn’t something that I had been consciously thinking about. The seed must have been planted somewhere along the course of my personal graduate school exploration, along with my friend’s recent graduation. I hadn’t even typed the words “life coach ” into google yet. I did so that day on my friends’ parents porch. 

“You would be so great at that.” Linda replied, smiling as she said it.

She sat there and encouraged me as the words started pouring out. I told her how I’d also been naturally curious, and love listening to others. How genuinely passionate I am about helping people. How I love writing, but I miss the intimacy of acting and having that 1:1 connection with others. How I love diving into people’s emotional states, and being the friend that jumps into deep questions at dinner parties. How I didn’t know a lot about this field, but I was just feeling a nudge towards it.  

When my friend’s mom, Linda, mentioned her career shift into fitness - everything unspoken inside of me rose to the surface. And she created a safe space for me to lay it out and untangle my deepest desires right there on her back porch, on a sunny Monday afternoon. 

I got back to New York, and started seriously researching programs a week later. And a week after that, I took my first class online at The Life Purpose Institute. 

I don’t think I’ve ever made a decision this quickly in my life. And no decision has ever felt as right as this one either.

I’m writing all of this about an hour after our last class. For the last 20 minutes of class as we shared what we learned and how much we’d all grown, many of us wrote “we have to stay in touch!!!” over and over again in the group chat. The bond I have formed with these people who were strangers just four months ago, is unlike anything I’ve ever known. 

I don’t fully have the words to describe how much I love coaching. How transformational and magical it is. 

I’m still processing the personal growth I experienced throughout this course, and I think I’ll be processing it for quite a while. Definitely more on that later.

But here’s what I know for now.

I didn’t think I’d ever find anything else in life that feels as natural to me as writing does. I was wrong about that. 

I write on my website that I used to think a great coach would have all the answers. I was wrong about that too.

A great coach empowers you to realize that YOU have all of the answers. And I really do believe that’s true.

In the beginning of this post, I talked about the fact that I’ve been going on these two journeys of launching Wild Cozy Free, and launching my coaching journey (and now my business!) This is where the roads converge.

I’ve been brainstorming how to incorporate paid content into Wild Cozy Free since its inception in May. Should I add more essays? Put some or all of it behind a paywall? What feels natural, what feels right?

What feels right is to keep my weekly Wednesday essays free.

What also feels right, is to offer my paid subscribers something different than additional writing — coaching. 

To celebrate the end of my certification program, I am officially launching paid subscriptions and offering all of my paid subscribers two 1 hour coaching sessions, now - January 31st. You can use the session yourself or gift it to someone else, or do some kind of combo.

You’ll also have access to future paid content (which could include anything from more coaching offers, to long form writing, to a sneak peek at some of the creative writing projects I’m working on - both playwriting and my very first novel - which is in progress!)

Here’s a testimonial from one of my recent clients:

My first life coaching session with Alexa was a month before my 30th birthday. I had just graduated from my master's program and needed to make some important decisions about my future, quickly. Here's the problem -- I was working so hard to fulfill all of my responsibilities that I felt completely out of touch with myself. I had no sense of what I wanted, or what decisions to make. Bad timing for someone on the cusp of a new decade and a new chapter.

During our time together Alexa helped me think through a question I had forgotten the answer to: What do I want? She listened actively while I talked about the areas of my life where I felt satisfied and dissatisfied. When I got stuck or frustrated, she met me with patience and offered useful visualization exercises. She prompted me -- gently but persistently -- to explore what I already knew about myself, which ended up being more than I expected. She moved nimbly to accommodate new realizations and emerging trains of thought, and followed my lead whenever I wanted to change the focus of our conversations.

I had a major breakthrough a couple of hours after our fourth session. I realized that what I really want for my 30s is to have a lot of fun. That might sound silly to you, but for someone who spent his 20s worrying and working for his future and the issues he cares about, it's kind of a life-changing discovery. Alexa picked up on this realization and helped me think through how fun can become a part of every aspect of my life, from my style to my job to my relationships.

I hope that anyone who has a big decision to make, or a big question to answer, or even a feeling of "something is off but I don't know exactly what it is" thinks about working with Alexa as a life coach. She's a natural talent, and totally expanded my understanding of what life coaching can look and feel like. I'm so grateful I had the chance to work with her, and would do it again without hesitation. - Johnny

You can also listen to my conversation with fellow coach, Beatriz Rivera, on her podcast below. (available online and on other platforms here.)

(Also, I’m really proud of how my sound quality came out - if you watch any of the clips on Bea’s instagram, you’ll see that I literally did this interview from my closet!)

Have a big decision to make, or a big question to answer, or even a feeling of "something is off but I don't know exactly what it is" ?

Ready to dig deep and address the important questions in your life?

Want to make some forward movement in your career or another area, and feeling stuck?

I’d love, love, love to work with you - and see what we can uncover and accomplish together. You can learn more about my coaching philosophy and background at my website.

And reach out at alexajordancoaching@gmail.com if you have any questions whatsoever. I’m always happy to chat.

A HUGE thank you to my friend’s mom, Linda, for giving me the literal and metaphorical space to have that pivotal backyard realization.

A huge thank you to my instructor and classmates turned friends from the Life Purpose Institue, along with my personal coach.

A huge thank you to my parents, for trying to get me to go to grad school.

And one last huge thank you to you, reading this, for being part of the Wild Cozy Free community. Excited for the next chapter ahead.