We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Paula Branez a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.
Paula, looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. Can you talk to us about a risk you’ve taken – walk us through the story?
In 2020 I was still working as a full time teacher and part time Kids Life Coach. When the pandemic started I was trying to figure out how to finish the school year and at the same time virtually coaching kids and teens around the world, I was working with my sisters and we were coaching kids for free at the time, it was like every kid needed a fresh breath of air, you know, hope and just a new and more positive focus when the world was crazy.
It was time to start another school year and I told my husband, “I don’t want to go back, I am ready to coach full time”. At the moment I didn’t have any paying clients, just hope and faith. Long story short I quit my job in the middle of a pandemic, kept on coaching virtually for free and then I started receiving calls, emails from people interested on my services. One client referred me to another and now I am full time coaching. Soon I will start coaching students who want to become Kids Life coaches at the Kids Life Studio. I am creating toolkits to expand my coaching services and the best part of all, being the mom that I always wanted to be, taking my girls to school, picking them up, eating lunch with them and just being present!! It took a huge amount of faith to take that risk, but it was totally worth it!!
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.
I am Paula Branez, I was born in Germany, raised in Bolivia and have been living in Texas for the past 14 years. I jumped from career to career, and finally graduated as a Commercial Engineer. After my graduation I move to the USA and became a teacher, I worked as a teacher for 11 years and there was a point in my life when I didn’t know what I wanted to do, I just knew I didn’t want to settle in a job that wasn’t fulfilling and that I didn’t want to spend the rest of my life just surviving without enjoying my life. So I started a personal journey and with the help of a life coach I was able to discover myself, my strengths, my traits, my weakness, and my dreams. After that journey I had this AHA moment and I realized I wanted to be THAT for kids and teens, because just getting to know myself, my strengths, helped me find my purpose in life, it helped me increase my confidence and I was able to see that life doesn’t happen to you, but happens for you. I wanted to be person that could give the kids and teens all of that knowledge and all of those tools, that could help them navigate life more confidently, more positive and more prepared to learn form every situation. I found the Kids Life Studio, a program with amazing people, values and a dream that aligned with mine. I trained with them and became a Kids Life Coach in 2018, since then I have been successfully coaching kids and haven been receiving ongoing support and soon will be coaching new coaches who want to start the Kids Life Coaching journey.
Parents who seek my services are parents who want to give their kids the tools and knowledge to become more confident, or want them to learn who to deal with uncertainty or just change their life perspective.
My services are totally preventive and it is a safe space where kids can learn and understand about their inside world, how to strengthen it and also about their outside world and how to let go the things that they can’t control.
Most of the parents learn this concept through their children, and as a family they start developing a healthier mindset.
It is such a rewarding job, you know when you receive a call or a text message from a parent, telling me that their kids are different in a positive way, or when the kids tell you that they were able to detect and stop those ANTS ( automatic negative thoughts) at crucial moments, or when one of your clients says he wants to run for president for his school, when months ago was dealing with low self stem!! It’s just that helping a child strengthen their inside world is the dream job!!
When a child tells you that every child should have a life coach its because they feel it really helps!!
Learning and unlearning are both critical parts of growth – can you share a story of a time when you had to unlearn a lesson?
In my home country, being an entrepreneur is hard, people with a lot of money can have the luxury to “not work for somebody” People used to tell me that to be able to succeed in my own business I had to have a lot of capital and have tons of connections. I started at a foreign country and moved to another city where I didn’t have any connections. So I had to unlearn that lesson to put myself out there and make connections, and once I coached some kids, their parents where referring me to other parents.
Has your business ever had a near-death moment? Would you mind sharing the story?
I chose to coach full time during the lockdown and I was doing it for free and at the same time I was receiving my teaching salary for a couple of months. Before I’ve decided to resign my teaching job and coach full time, I had several meetings offering group coaching an even had a contract with a community facility. I quit my teaching job and a few weeks after I had another meeting with the community center and they told me now one had enrolled for the coaching sessions. I was very stressed because I was counting with enrollment for my payroll. Long story short, I only had 2 kids enrolled through the community center, but the marketing campaign they run helped me find individual clients and people started calling me asking me for my services.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.kidslifestudio.com/team/paula-branez/
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/alluneedisu_kls/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/alluneedisu/
- Other: https://all-u-need-is-u-kids-life-studio.business.site/
Image Credits
Kids Life Studio