Carissa

I started my career at large tech companies — Google, Facebook, and then joined the San Francisco startup world as the first employee at a series of companies. Throughout my career, at every stage of an organization, I came to understand the impact a positive culture has on individuals and companies as a whole. Yet, at startups, I had a hard time finding founders who really believed culture was a priority.

Pair this with what I personally experienced as a woman in tech, and I knew things had to change. I spent a decade trying to emulate my male coworkers in order to “get ahead”. So much so, to the point that I was told my voice was too low in meetings.

I began mentoring and coaching women who were struggling with the same issues. My dream is to allow women to just show up as themselves to work and to not only survive, but to really flourish. We need to rethink what it looks like to be a woman in today’s world — in tech, in any industry, in life.

My journey to become a Coach

I found myself running into roadblock after roadblock. From the outside I seemed fine: I was running marathons, managing a large team at my tech job, and living in a beautiful house in San Francisco, one block away from my family. Yet, I woke up in the middle of the night with multiple panic attacks, crying every day on my way to work, and generally just feeling stuck and confused.

Each day I woke up, put on a suit of armor, to simply fit in with the male leaders at my job, and wasn’t sure how to release this each night when I got home. This armor built up day after day to the point where I nearly lost my lighthearted, humorous, joyful voice. Once I gave myself permission to just be me, to release the assumed expectations I put upon myself, I also gave permission to everyone around me to just be themselves.

After this, I connected with and coached so many people running into similar barriers. I decided to level up my coaching professionally to continue to grow for my clients, by going through The Coaches Training Institute (CTI) program and become a certified coach. What I didn’t expect going through this training was that I would craft my ideal life and make it a reality.

Fast forward to today — I live in a bungalow in beautiful Venice Beach, where I start each morning in the ocean surfing.

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