Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to Carlos DelaPlaya. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.

Carlos, we appreciate you joining us today. Let’s start with the story of your mission. What should we know?

Growing up, I was taught that my very normal way of being and desires were something wrong and meant to be fixed.

My natural state is a gay man who is incredibly artistic, latino, ADHD/neurodivergent, emotionally sensitive/intuitive, and extremely spiritually minded. Many of these aspects are deemed less than or a problem that needs “fixing.”

I was born and raised a Catholic who was told that being spiritual was demonic, being artistic/creative was not useful to society, and being gay was sinful.

My story is one where I overcame the oppression that was programmed into my oppression which caused addiction and a poor relationship to myself and where I transmuted it into a thriving spiritual self-expression coaching business where I help my clients let go of shame around their nature, help them reclaim those qualities as gifts, and help people-pleasers take up space and share their art with the world.

As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your background and context?

+ Growing up I was always very deeply creative, spiritual, thoughtful, and expressive. I was often the kid who hungout with aunts and uncles instead of my cousins of equal age because I was always asking “why.”

+ Because I am a gay. ADHD/neurodivergent, artistic, intuitive, emotional, latino man .. I grew up believing that I was less than people around me. I developed a deep fascination for personal psychology in grade school as a way to understand myself and others better.

+ In college I graduated with a BA in Psychology and a minor in Spirituality.

+ In my fraternity, I was the brotherhood development director (AKA life coach of the fraternity) in charge of creating bonding/self-development retreats, new member education, and more.

+ My fraternity brothers used to always say “you should be a life coach.” I didn’t know what that was and eventually went to life coaching school instead of grad school and found my calling.

+ I offer one-on-one coaching for people looking to take up space. I help people-pleasers who are looking to heal the pattern of self-sacrifice. I help those who always felt like “they were born on the wrong planet” to create a life by their design that feels like home. I help my clients breakdown patterns of shame that manifest as addiction, self-sacrifice, and numbing themselves and replace it with practices that cultivate deep-self intimacy. My clients who finish working with me eventually get to a point where they can look in the mirror and say “I love myself and who I am becoming” and for it to feel REAL in their bones instead of like a fake affirmation. My people are the weirdos, the mystics, the artists, the queers/allies, etc.

+ What sets me apart from others doing similar work is that I am heavily trauma informed and know how to hold space for truama in a coaching container that helps release it permanently. My offer is also case-by-case. It isn’t a copy and paste step by step that I give everyone. It honors the unique nervous systems of different clients and is designed uniquely for each person meeting them where they are at.

How did you build your audience on social media?

I built my audience through mostly tik tok and Instagram. With Tik tok being an audience of a little over 52,000 and IG being somewhere above 3,000.

My biggest advice for people is to do something called the “Garbage Post Challenge” (this challenge was made by my business coach Simone Seoul)

This challenge is to post 100 garbage posts in 30 days. The idea is, if it has words, it counts even if it’s not “niched.”

This challenge helped me realize that it won’t kill me if I post something that isn’t perfect where I don’t like the way my body looks/etc. And that oftentimes, what I think is trash can actually change someone’s life.

When I was garbage posting on tik tok for example, I was posting like 6-15 videos a DAY (granted I do not believe this is sustainable and this did lead to burnout) Doing this though, taught me that even my most mundane thoughts are like GOLD to my audience and killed the inner voice of perfection.

Any advice for growing your clientele? What’s been most effective for you?

The number ONE strategy is to actually be real. Most modern marketing strategies teach people to manipulate their clients by coming off as perfect (ie: unrelatable as FUNk), to trick your clients into thinking there are “limited spots” when there actually are a surplus of spots open, or to use any form of bending the truth to manipulate people into feeling pressure to buy.

I am sooooooo real with my people. I show my dark moments and my light moments.

The only questions I ask myself to determine if a post is worthy of posting are:

“Was it fun for me to create?”
“Is this video helpful or entertaining?”

If yes to both, I post it.

I don’t just post the curated, perfectly branded, highlight reel of my life. I have a thought or idea about a “garbage post,” I record the video or write the post, and I post it.

Saying “yes” to my creativity even if it’s at like 2 AM has been my number one strategy.

I don’t wait for the best post times either or even pay attention to hashtags and I still am constantly growing my audience.

All the time others spend on manipulating the algorithm or coming off as perfect, I am asking myself “how could I be 1-2% more useful to my audience today?” and trusting that answer.

I also have intenseeeeeee ADHD.

If I’m tired I rest. If I’m energized I create. I honor my energy. I don’t have a consistent schedule. The only thing I calendar are my client sessions. I only say yes to things that are a full-body-fuck-yes and say no to anything else my mind tells me I “should” do.

My business strategy is to have fun. And it works because I keep coming back.

Contact Info:

• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/carlosdelaplaya/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/delaplayacarlos
• Twitter: https://twitter.com/DelaplayaCarlos
• Other: (Please note, I have two tik tok accounts. My old one with over 50k I mentioned previously and my new one I started a month ago with I think alomost 600 followers. My old account had accidental guideline violations that censored my content.) New tik tok = https://www.tiktok.com/@carlitosdelaplaya?is_from_webapp=1&sender_device=pc

Image Credits
Lily Fonte Lito Vidaurre