Like any other industry, the emergence of social media has made a significant impact on the coaching industry. Digital platforms have provided new avenues for life and business coaches to promote themselves to a broader range of audiences. Since social media breaks into geographic boundaries literally, life and business coaches nowadays have the capacity to reach audiences anywhere around the globe.
As a result, the coaching industry is thriving with the help of new technologies. It provided coaches an inexpensive way of marketing themselves. Leading Life and Business Coach Lucia Onieva is very familiar with the current situation of the coaching industry. “In the last several years, we have witnessed an upsurge of coaches. It has created confusion on the definition of a coach. From my experience, people are starting to wonder what that means,” Onieva shared.
Defining The Term Coaching
The term coach and coaching are among the most common buzzwords today, particularly in business. Although it is a well-known word, it is not clearly defined. According to highly-acclaimed life coach Tony Robbins, “a results life coach is someone who helps you identify your goals and develop an actionable plan to achieve them. A life coach is someone professionally trained to help you maximize your full potential and reach your desired results.”
Working with individuals and companies, supporting them in their path to finding purpose, meaning, and empowering them to reach their maximum potential, coaching, is Onieva’s true-life mission, and purpose.
“As a coach, I guide my clients into creating a relationship with their true emotions and bring awareness to what their feelings around any area of their life are so they can let go of the emotions that are holding them back and focus on developing those that are in support of reaching their desired goals by coming to alignment with their true potential and maximising their performance,” states Onieva.
Onieva’s Beginnings
Onieva grew up in Madrid, Spain, and is the eldest among the three siblings. She admitted that she had difficulty fitting in with people her age and conforming to their way of thinking. “I struggled to grasp the concept of success and what being a woman meant to the culture I grew up in. I was told I was a bit rebellious and very independent when I was young.
Although I am a strong supporter of our core family values which revolves around respect, discipline, creativity, play, and family connection, I didn’t really connect with the other female members of my family because I wasn’t aligned with their way of understanding who a woman is supposed to be and what her role in this world is. I felt like this way of thinking was obsolete and felt I never belong to the boxes constructed by society so I struggled to find my place,” she elaborated.
She has the gift to connect with people, she started working with children as a counselor at camp during her free time. When she turned 18 years old, and while still studying in college, she did volunteer work for SAUCE NGO. Onieva went back and forth to the Southeast Asian country of Cambodia to work with children who were victims of landmines, stricken by poliomyelitis and homeless. “My experience in Cambodia served as an eye-opener for me. I saw children who were abandoned, mutilated, and amputated and still find ways to be resourceful on their own. I learned to be grateful for having a home, a family, an education, and for the opportunity to travel and explore the world. Every day, I woke up filled with gratitude that I have the power to choose how I want to live my life,” she continued.
Finding Her Calling
Onieva moved to New York City to make use of her college degrees. She spent seven years working her way through the corporate ladder in the fashion industry. Although she was grateful for the learning experience, she realised that it was not fulfilling.
“I felt that something was missing. I noticed that pursuing a career in the corporate world is just conforming with the traditional norm of the path to success. I was not following what I truly desired: to be of service to others. That’s where my heart lies,” she said.
Onieva decided to quit her job and left her corporate life in the Big Apple. She moved to the Mexican-Caribbean jungle and spent two years studying, training and coaching. She built her life and business around by supporting others and their business in an aligned and elevated way.
“There is no separation from self and business. It is all one. It is all connected and it is all about bringing clarity and balance. I also understood that beauty lies in the uniqueness of it all, and what I thought about myself is the only thing that matters. I felt so free. That time I dedicated to self-growth allowed me to embrace and commit to my true passion: supporting and guiding people and their businesses,” she said.
Bottomline
Onieva’s story was a story of lost and found. She found her passion for elevating others early in her life. But trying to conform with the “traditional” concept of how to show up as a woman and what the road to success is supposed to look like made her lose sight of her calling.
Her advice to you is this: “Embrace who you truly are, stop hiding from yourself and from the world, take full ownership of your life by taking over the driver’s seat and be relentless in the pursuit of your true passion NOW.”
