Today we’d like to introduce you to Lauren Schutz

Hi Lauren, so excited to have you with us today. What can you tell us about your story?

Hi everyone! My name is Lauren and I’m 28 year old software engineer, “therapist-friend”, and Certified Life Coach who focuses on building authenticity and fulfillment in your relationships, career, and life. After a life-changing quarter-life crisis and receiving an ICF-accredited certification from the Coach Training Alliance, I began my own coaching practice to help other young adults become active participants in their own lives and answer big questions like “What do I want out of life?” or “How can I start monetizing my passion project(s)?”

It’s my personal belief that unfortunately, our society was not built to encourage passion, authenticity, or independent creativity. It’s no surprise that after 18+ years of schooling, choosing your career path as a teenager, and getting a couple years of experience in the real world, many people in their mid-to-late 20’s often look around and realize that the life they were told to pursue isn’t actually the life they want for themselves. It’s a beautiful and life-changing realization, but it’s also a daunting one that can bring everything you thought you knew into question — and that’s where I aim to help.

Life is too short to waste time living the wrong life, and I want to help others assess what they truly want out of life and prioritize how to make that happen. Through my remote coaching sessions, my hope is that my clients will: gain the confidence and insight to discover what they truly want, develop the self-awareness and bravery to step out of their own way, and experience the resilience and authenticity needed to start living their life on purpose and with intention. We owe it to ourselves to see what’s possible for our life and to enjoy the life that we know (deep down) we truly want; sometimes all we need is a helping hand, a different perspective, and an encouraging listener.

Alright, so let’s dig a little deeper into the story – has it been an easy path overall and if not, what were the challenges you’ve had to overcome?

Being a life coach hasn’t been a *perfectly* smooth road so far, but I’ve learned that when you care deeply about what you’re doing, the little bumps in the road don’t seem to matter as much; you’re more driven by your passion, intention, and core values rather than the prospect of recognition, financial gain, or other things like that, which (for me) aren’t sustainable sources of motivation and inspiration in the long-run.

For example, when I first started my coaching business on top of my career as a software engineer, I was expecting most of my business to be driven by private and group coaching sessions, but after starting my coaching business’s Instagram and really developing a community there through my content, I’ve seen the value and the meaning of what I do for people who may have never been exposed to my services otherwise. At first, I didn’t LOVE the prospect of needing to carve out more time each week to create meaningful content (after all, each piece of content can require HOURS of work and preparation), but I realized that if this was how I was going to reach and help people right now, then I wanted to jump in with both feet.

The interesting thing is, my Instagram still generates a lot of business in terms of bringing in prospective private coaching clients, but it’s also opened up new avenues for helping people, like sharing wellness product discounts and collaborations. What I thought was originally going to be a ton of “unnecessary” work just turned out to be a new set of services that I could bring to people!

As you know, we’re big fans of you and your work. For our readers who might not be as familiar what can you tell them about what you do?

I’m a life coach specializing in major life changes for adults in their 20’s and 30’s, such as: shifting your career into something that feeds your purpose and passion, finding and aligning yourself with the right friends and partners (and becoming a better friend and partner yourself), and growing into who you are with confidence, resilience, and vulnerability. I feel like that age group is long forgotten-about once they graduate college (or even once they leave high school), and after going through a quarter-life crisis myself, I wanted to personally help guide those who may feel just as lost as I once did.

While I’m known for motivational, educational, and comforting content, I’m also known for my sense of humor! I didn’t even realize how powerful a sense of humor could be in terms of my online presence until I recently went viral for joking about my frustrations with dating apps like Hinge and tripled my followers in a week, all because those people were experiencing the same dating frustrations as I was. When I started my business and Instagram, I wanted to be a reputable and trusted source that people could see themselves working with, but I also want them to remember that I’m 28 and still figuring life out, too. I always want to share what has helped myself or my clients change our lives for the better, but I also want to share my anxieties, dating woes, and my other struggles as I learn to work through them all in a healthy way. That’s why I wanted to call my business Life With Coach Lauren – I wanted people to experience what life could be like with my coaching services, but I also wanted them to experience living their own lives alongside my own. Sometimes it’s difficult finding that balance, but if I can make someone laugh and also feel understood, that’s what I’m most proud of.

Risk taking is a topic that people have widely differing views on – we’d love to hear your thoughts.

In general, I am not a risk taker, but that is actually what led to my quarter-life crisis! Risk is (duh) risky, but the absence of any risk can lead to living a life of absent-minded passivity — a kind of comfortability that actually stems from a fear of change, vulnerability, or failure. And I was someone who was definitely living with those fears.

As someone who experiences anxiety, I am already risk-averse, but I finally asked myself, “What would I do if I wasn’t afraid to do it?” Most people would say “start a business,” “go sky diving,” or some other life-changing idea, but mine was simple: “I want to go on vacation by myself.” It seems like something so small, yet not only was I terrified of the prospect of traveling alone (as a woman but also as a person who experiences anxiety), but I was also terrified of being left alone with my thoughts for 5 days. Imagine how afraid of vulnerability you have to be to view “alone time” as a complete impossibility! Long story short, I did end up going on vacation by myself; specifically, to California for 5 days. It was so eye-opening to realize just how much I’d been letting fear drive my life, and I vowed to change that in all aspects of my life once I got home… and I did! I quit my job, found a different one I loved, and started doing a deep-dive into what I really wanted out of life, which eventually led to me becoming a certified life coach.

Life without risk is no way to live, because how can you see what you’re capable of unless you take a leap of faith? It doesn’t have to be huge risk, but just because something is uncomfortable or scary, it doesn’t mean it’s impossible for you, and it doesn’t mean it’s not worth the risk.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://ctacoaches.com/lifewithcoachlauren
• Instagram: https://instagram.com/lifewithcoachlauren