Lia Daniels

My path here was not linear. I studied comparative religion in college, spent three years teaching English in Japan, came back and got a master's in social work, and eventually found my way to somatic coaching through a training program that combined trauma-informed therapy with executive coaching. I've been practicing for nine years and I've come to believe that most career dissatisfaction is actually spiritual dissatisfaction wearing a professional costume. My clients tend to be thoughtful, often idealistic people who've absorbed a lot of conflicting messages about success and are trying to figure out what they actually think. I'm warm, I ask uncomfortable questions, and I'm comfortable with ambiguity in a way that sometimes unsettles people who want quick answers. I live in Asheville, North Carolina, where the mountains make the existential questions feel more reasonable. I'm a certified professional coach (CPC) through the International Coaching Academy and I integrate somatic awareness work, values clarification, and practical career strategy depending on what each client needs. Show less

Our work together tends to go deeper than most career coaching. We'll examine your relationship with work, money, and rest—often the three things people have the most complicated beliefs about. I help you articulate what you actually value, identify where your current path diverges from those values, and develop concrete strategies for closing the gap. You'll learn to make career decisions from a grounded sense of self rather than from fear, obligation, or the algorithm of what you should want. One client, a nonprofit director, realized she was financially sabotaging herself because deep down she didn't believe she deserved to earn well. Another, a software engineer, quit his job to start a worker-owned cooperative after we spent months clarifying that his values weren't just words on a wall. Concrete outcomes include career pivots that feel authentic, salary negotiations grounded in self-worth, and the ability to define success on your own terms without constantly comparing yourself to everyone else's version. Show less