Liana Robson was drowning in the good life.

Twenty hours a week as an Appraisal Coordinator. Homeschooling two daughters. The endless rotation of cooking, cleaning, coordinating. She was doing it all – and slowly disappearing behind a screen when she wanted to be with the people she loved.

“I felt like the Lord was calling me into this desire I’ve always had to sit with people in their stories,” Liana remembers. God had wired her with curiosity, with a gift for asking deep questions. But precious hours were slipping away in front of a computer instead of using those gifts.

The word that wouldn’t let go: Freedom.

Freedom for herself. Freedom to help others experience it too.

Ironically, it happened in a therapy session.

“I realized I wanted to be on the other side of the screen asking the questions,” Liana says. After years of trying to do it all, she’d finally hit burnout – and in that exhausted place, she could see clearly: there was a different path.

But clarity doesn’t erase fear. The cost felt significant. Clients don’t materialize out of thin air. This could take years to build.

Still, something kept pulling her forward. Whenever she thought about coaching, researched programs, she felt “immense peace and joy.” Not her typical response to major life changes.

“It felt like ignoring my calling if I didn’t say yes,” she admits. “Like I would miss out on something really beautiful if I didn’t try.”

Her in-laws, both life coaches, recommended PCCI – a rare program that was ICF-certified and filled with good people. That combination mattered.

So Liana said yes.

The training surprised her immediately. Coaching wasn’t just effective – it was transformative. The way a coach truly listens, asks evolving questions, provokes deep awareness in the client… “it seems so natural,” Liana discovered.

But the breakthrough came closer to home than she expected.

Her husband struggles with OCD. For years, Liana had tried to help him navigate anxiety loops – offering advice, asking what she thought were helpful questions, trying to direct him toward solutions.

The training changed everything.

“I realized I wasn’t truly listening,” Liana says. “I was constantly directing and asking unhelpful questions.”

She learned to listen differently. To ask open-ended questions from a place of love and curiosity rather than correction. To create space instead of filling it.

One coaching session in their kitchen – her truly listening, him finally having room to think – unlocked change she’d been trying to see for years.

“My husband told me I am more compassionate and kind when he’s going through an anxiety loop,” Liana shares. “That is honestly my best success. We were able to think through ways for him to remember his values amidst frustration.”

The course was worth it just for that.

Today, Liana runs her own coaching business in San Diego, meeting mothers by the water or in coffee shops – bringing coaching into the midst of their everyday lives.

But the transformation goes deeper than her business.

“It changed how I see every conversation with every person I have,” she says. Her children are young, and she can see the difference when she asks them questions in a curious and open way. “My internal mind is quieter when listening,” allowing others true space to hear themselves rather than her directing her own agenda.

She asks better questions. She’s truly curious. She realizes how often we don’t actually listen to each other.

“It will change how you listen,” Liana reflects. “It will change how you love. As Christians, I think that is such a rare gift – to have such awareness occur in one course.”

Liana sees something the Church is missing.

“We listen to sermons weekly, we have small groups, we go to camps and retreats,” she observes. “How often do we remember or do what we write in our journals or is preached from the pulpit?”

Coaching creates accountability that isn’t teaching or mentoring – it’s something different. Sacred space where both coach and client listen to the Holy Spirit together, hearing what the Lord is saying.

“Coaching is needed in our churches,” Liana believes.

If you’re sensing God might be calling you to coaching, Liana’s advice is simple: Ask God to speak to you and make it clear.

But also? Do it.

“If you believe the Lord has called you to this adventure, trust that He is the God who provides all of our needs,” she says. “He delights to give us good gifts.”

Her message to her past self – the one drowning behind a screen, longing for freedom, afraid to make the jump?

“You won’t regret it.”