We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Jessie Schoen a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Jessie, looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. We’d love to hear the backstory behind a risk you’ve taken – whether big or small, walk us through what it was like and how it ultimately turned out.

For me, risk hasn’t shown up as one big moment, it’s come as a series of leaps into the unknown. The first was moving to Los Angeles from where I grew up in Chicago at 24 years old. The second came at 30, when I quit drinking alcohol and let go of everything I thought I wanted to create in Los Angeles, eventually moving to Northern California nine years later. And in the last five years, I took another leap, leaving a stable job and a rent-controlled apartment to become a life coach, living nomadically as a pet sitter for the past two years. None of it has been linear, comfortable, or predictable, but it’s been an adventure, to say the least.

Jessie, before we move on to more of these sorts of questions, can you take some time to bring our readers up to speed on you and what you do?

Before I became a coach, I was someone who looked “high-functioning” on the outside but internally wrestled with self-doubt, overthinking, and the feeling that I was meant for more than the life I was living. I had been through trauma and devoted a lot of energy to healing, but after a while it felt like I was on a hamster wheel and no matter what I did, I didn’t ever feel healed enough. I had gained a lot of insight into myself about why I was the way that I was, but I was still having a really hard time putting any of my wisdom into action. I felt stuck a lot of the time.

Like many of the people I work with now, I was deeply self-aware, sensitive, and driven and yet often stuck in my own head, I was very self critical and full of self doubt and worry- trying to figure everything out alone.

My path to coaching began when I was invited to a leadership program that had coaching incorporated into the program. I graduated that program and it awakened in me a curiosity about becoming a coach myself. I then was led to a very rigorous two year ICF accredited professional coach training program which I completed, and the rest they say is herstory:)

If I had to categorize myself, I’d say I’m a self-love, compassion, and mindset coach dedicated to helping people step out of self-criticism, move beyond fear, and live from a place of clarity, confidence, and personal alignment. My work with clients isn’t about quick fixes (there’s nothing to fix) or surface-level motivation – it’s about supporting people to understand who they really are, what they are here to contribute and identify what’s been holding them back, so that they can intentionally create a life that feels authentic, expansive and meaningful.

I offer one-on-one coaching programs that are deeply personalized and typically span 4 to 6 months. Sometimes I work with clients for years, it all depends. Each client’s coaching journey is unique to their needs, allowing for meaningful and sustainable change. In our work together, clients bring everything from questions about purpose, identity and relationships – to career transitions, creative blocks, and the inner dialogue that shapes how they show up in the world. Coaching is a brave, reflective, and empowering process where awareness turns into action and insight becomes lived experience.

What sets my approach apart is the way I blend compassion, non judgment, silence, deep listening and neuroscience-informed coaching practices and tools. I’m trained through The Academy for Coaching Excellence, an ICF-accredited program, and my work honors the full complexity of being human, not just goals and outcomes, but the beliefs, nervous system patterns, and internal stories that drive behavior.

I don’t see clients as broken or in need of fixing; I see them as the experts of their lives, as whole, capable people learning how to access their own wisdom and put it into action more consistently.

Alongside my coaching practice, I write The Weekly Reframe, a blog series exploring themes like fear, mindset, self-trust, purpose, and how real growth often feels uncomfortable before it feels empowering. My writing reflects a core belief in my work: that changing how we relate to our thoughts and inner experience creates space for entirely new choices.

I’m most proud of watching my clients step into their own voice and authority, trusting themselves, making courageous life changes, and realizing they don’t need to strive or perform to be worthy. The work we do together doesn’t just change what people do; it changes how they relate to themselves, others and the world around them.

If you could go back, would you choose the same profession, specialty, etc.?

I would. Although If you had told me 15 or 20 years ago that I would become a life coach, I would have smiled politely… and judged it.

When I first heard about coaching, I didn’t fully understand it. I had my walls up. I was independent, self-reliant, and convinced I didn’t “need help.” Meanwhile, internally, I was often at the mercy of a loud, negative, fearful inner dialogue. I looked capable on the outside, but I was overthinking, exhausted from continuously thinking I needed to prove my worth to get love and belonging, and, trying to be a super women who didn’t have any needs.

I’ve absolutely had moments of wishing I had found coaching sooner, but I don’t regret a single part of my path. Every twist, every struggle, every identity I tried on has led me here. And one of the biggest lessons along the way? Be careful what you judge. Sometimes what we dismiss is exactly what we’ll one day need or become.

It was a winding road into this profession. I am an artist and creative at heart, and for years I explored different expressions of that creativity. What I’ve come to realize is that coaching allows me to bring my whole self, my depth, intuition, curiosity, love for humanity and artist’s heart into my work. Coaching, to me, is creative. It’s relational. It’s about learning to see possibilities instead of limitation. We are all powerful creators and to me creation is the purest art form.

Have you ever had to pivot?

One of the unexpected blessings to come out of the pandemic, despite how excruciatingly hard that time was, is that it forced people to slow down and really take stock of where they were in their lives and what they truly wanted. I witnessed so many people, myself included, pivot their careers, start new businesses, or choose paths that looked completely different from what they had planned.

It was an incredibly powerful and clarifying time. During that period, I made a profound shift in my own life, I chose to leave the stability of the job I had known and fully commit to becoming a coach and working for myself. That decision wasn’t made lightly, but it felt true and aligned. The pause the pandemic created, although initially disorienting, created the space to listen more closely to what I knew, deep down, was calling me forward.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.jessieschoencoaching.com

Image Credits

All images are mine