Christina Oberon

I attribute my success first to my faith, because I give credit to God for everything that takes place. I also think that resilience and grit play a part, because I moved here with $35 in my pocket from Hawaii, and that was probably the riskiest thing I've ever done. But I also realized that took a lot of resilience and courage.

I think the best career advice was to determine what your calling is. I remember hearing - I think Steve Harvey said this - your gift is the thing you do best with the least effort. That one made me think so deep that for years I had just been working in a corporate setting, thinking I was doing all the things I'm supposed to do, but my heart wasn't there, my creativity wasn't there, my passion wasn't there. I was starting to listen to what other people were saying I'm good at, and that was pretty helpful for me. But when I heard that statement, your gift is the thing you do best with the least effort, that's when I really started paying attention to what I should be doing with my life as a career. So it's basically pursuing your calling based on your gift.

I would say the advice is to believe that you're capable and try to shut out any doubts. I'm speaking to myself too, because I doubted myself for a long time. I had planned to do the coaching thing for the last several years, and I kept finding reasons why I wasn't qualified or wasn't capable. My dad passing, in some ways, was almost like a lot of clarity for me, and I was like, you know what, there's never gonna be a perfect time, I'm just gonna do it. So just really believing that you're qualified and you're capable - those are the main points I'd want to convey. And someone out there needs what you have to offer, for sure, even when you think there's a million other people offering the same thing.

The challenges for being an author is AI, because now AI can just write a book for anyone, so it kind of takes away from people's creativity and their skill. But the opportunities are still that being a published author allows you to have more impact and influence. For coaching, the opportunity side is that a lot of companies now are hiring coaches instead of managers, and I feel like more than ever, we have a society where people need help and motivation and guidance to reach their goals. With being board certified, it opens up quite a bit of opportunity because I'm able to work in a clinical setting and also accept insurance, which is important to me because not a lot of people can afford coaching. The downside is that with social media, a lot of people are calling themselves coaches without credentials. It's a little bit of a polluted industry, but I feel like if you go the right route, you get your credentials, and you make a name for yourself, at least you can be set apart.

My values are connection, empathy, and integrity. Connecting with others is so important to me, and I mean really connecting deeply. I think that ties into empathy, because I feel like in order to connect with people properly, there has to be a level of empathy where you can really hear them and understand them. And then integrity - I always try to do the right thing, I always try to be honest and take responsibility.