We recently connected with Kristyn Cobstill and have shared our conversation below.

Kristyn, looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. Let’s kick things off with your mission – what is it and what’s the story behind why it’s your mission?

In 2019, I let my corporate job consume me. I let go of all of my healthy habits….exercise, nutrition, sleep, just to name a few. My mental health was wavering as I spent countless hours putting the customer’s needs over my own. I would cry, I would be quick to get frustrated and left no time for enjoyment of life. I had reached the highest weight of my life and looking back now, I can’t remember much else about that year except for the project I was working on at that time. I had let my boundaries slide in all areas and this was no one’s fault but my own. I was broken, and I didn’t realize how broken I was because my head was down in my job.

In 2020, when the project finished, I vowed never again to let anything else but my own choosing decide the quality of my life. I set out on a mission to reprioritize myself because if I am not at my best then I’m also failing my team, my family and friends. I started exercising regularly, I started eating consistently vs skipping meals, and I set hard boundaries. Each time I said no to choose myself, I felt more empowered and I showed up differently in life. I lost weight, gathered knowledge, which gave me more confidence to make better decisions. I pursued each new goal with dedication and determination because the only person that can change your life is you.

I soon realized that I was meant to harness my project management skills and my life experiences to empower other people to change their lives too. I pursued additional training by completing the Health and Life coaching certificate from Health Coach Institute and launched my business KCob Coaching with the mission to empower individuals to take ownership of their life journey by breaking down goals into achievable steps, and building confidence by making informed, intentional choices that lead to meaningful change.

Great, appreciate you sharing that with us. Before we ask you to share more of your insights, can you take a moment to introduce yourself and how you got to where you are today to our readers.

For folks who may not have read about you before, can you please tell our readers about yourself, how you got into your industry / business / discipline / craft etc:

I’ve had quite the unique career path. I studied psychology and sociology at Southern Methodist University (SMU). I love learning about human behavior and feel that both of those elements make up the human experience. I spent some time working in Human Resources before pursuing my master’s degree in Conflict Resolution and Mediation certificate at SMU. I had planned to use this degree to begin a career in government starting with police and hopefully moving to the FBI, however my path was quickly diverted after a horrific family event. This sent me back into the corporate world where I found myself as a project coordinator at Fossil in technology. I did well taking project goals and creating an action plan to reach that goal. So much so that it led to my PMP certification and a continual career in global technology. I certainly didn’t have a normal career path, but it has all led to the culmination of experience and skills to build my business KCob Coaching.

What type of products/services/creative works you provide, what problems you solve for your clients and/or what you think sets you apart from others:

KCob Coaching provides personalized life coaching with a focus on 3 critical areas that I’ve had my own my struggles within:

Health: Holistic approach to weight management, fitness,and nutrition through health advocacy.
I have spent countless years learning to navigate my own health issues, having 3 autoimmune diseases and a blood disorder all through which were discovered being my own advocate. This is an area I continue to pursue understanding of my own body as it changes through its seasons of life and I hope to provide information, tools and advocacy to others that I did not have during my own journey.

Career: Helping individuals separate their career from their identity, set actionable career goals, and manage workplace challenges.
As I mentioned, my career was not a standard career path and for a while my identity was my career. It wasn’t until I learned to separate my career from who I am that I finally obtained the clarity I needed to pursue what I wanted and to let go of what was not within my control.

Finances: Empowering clients to build a healthier relationship with money and manage financial goals.
Whether we like it or not, finances are a continued connected stressor for all areas of your life. I unfortunately left school with a lot of debt and then with my medical advocacy I obtained even more debt. I had to learn the skills to climb out of debt to a place where I can evaluate my relationship with money and begin to work a plan to build wealth versus simply paying the bills.

Real change comes from a place of vulnerability. KCob provides a safe space to discuss your situation and provides sincere feedback.

What are you most proud of and what are the main things you want potential clients/followers/fans to know about you/your brand/your work/ etc:

When I was 12, I visited Austin, TX for Christmas, which was 1000 miles away from my home town in Illinois. During that trip, I decided that I was going to move to Texas. I set this goal and spent the rest of my middle school and high school working to achieve this goal. I relentlessly pursued various school academics and athletics, anything that would help me get to this goal. In 2003, after high school, I moved to Dallas, TX to attend university at Southern Methodist University. I didn’t know it then, but this early learned behavior of setting a goal and working a plan is how I have achieved every single thing I ever wanted in my life. I am proud of the degrees and education I’ve earned, the career I’ve built, the financial strategies I’m continuing to work to instill, but I’m most proud of my ability to set goals and to work tenaciously through research, tools, consistency and dedication toward each goal to achieve it.

Taking this goal setting tenacity with my business, I’ve built my business upon 4 main guiding principles:

Empowering: You have the power to shape your future. We’re here to guide you along the way.

Authenticity: Real change starts with real conversations. We meet you where you are and help you move forward with authenticity.

Compassionate: You’re not alone in this. We see you, we hear you, and we’re here to support you every step of the way.

Practical: Success comes from small, intentional steps. We help you break down your goals into manageable actions.

We’d love to hear a story of resilience from your journey.

One area of my life that I continue to illustrate resilience through is my health. From a very early age, I had health problems. I had a tonsilectomy and adenoidectomy at 5. Then at the age of 13 a sonogram determined that I have a goiter on my thyroid. At the age of 17, I was told I had skin cancer on my ear and had to have surgery and a lymph node removed from my neck to ensure it had not spread, thankfully, it had not.

When you are young, your parents are you health advocate, when you get older this has to be a learned skill. Doctors want to see you and treat the symptom you arrived for and move on without taking the rest of the body into consideration. When I was 25, I started to have a wide range of symptoms come to fruition at different times and all of which seemed completely unrelated. For 3 years, I underwent a wide range of tests to try to determine the cause. I had many doctors tell me it was stress or I was depressed and offer my depression meds. I refused this as an answer. I know my body better than anyone and I knew that my body was screaming for attention because something was not right. After 3 years, I met with my endocrinologist, who told me for the first time that I have Hashimotos, which is an autoimmune disease. What’s important about this, is that autoimmune diseases are known for coming in multiples and you can collect them over your lifespan. This new information was a beacon to determine an additional diagnosis of sero-negative rheumatoid arthritis.

After taking the agreed upon medications, within a couple of months, I was back to exercising normal and feeling like my body was beginning to win the internal fight it was having because of the reinforcements sent in to assist.

As our bodies are ever evolving so too should our advocacy to listen to our bodies. If I had not pursued the root cause of my problem, I could have been walking down the wrong path for years on medicine my body did not actually need!!

This resiliency for years to work to find a root cause is another reason I built my business. If we don’t know the right questions to ask or how to listen to our bodies we could end up feeling miserable for longer than we need to be and what kind of quality of life are we living? Through education, and advocacy we can all learn the skills to be resilient when it comes to listening to our ever changing bodies.

What’s been the best source of new clients for you?

I’ve been fortunate to build my client base through strong referrals, as well as connections made via the corporate office and the gym. Referrals, in particular, have proven to be a high-quality source, indicating a strong level of client satisfaction.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.kcobcoaching.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/kcobcoaching/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=61571441270628&sk=about
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/company/kcob-coaching