From Shanghai to Self-Leadership: Christine Liu-Snell’s Coaching Journey

 In this episode of Career Coaching Secrets, host Rexhen welcomes Christine Liu-Snell, a self-leadership and alignment coach and founder of Eileen’s Path. Christine helps leaders navigate life and career transitions with clarity, courage, and authentic self-leadership. Drawing from her background as a special educator and international education leader, Christine shares how her own journey—from teaching in Shanghai to launching her coaching business in the U.S.—inspired her mission. She discusses her signature Lead with Self program, the evolving profile of her ideal clients, key investments she’s made in her first year of business, and the importance of aligning values with transitions. Christine also reflects on balancing entrepreneurship with major life changes and gives practical advice for coaches looking to scale while staying true to themselves.





Connect with

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/christine-eileen-liu-snell-b59089163/
Website: https://www.eileenspath.com/

Transcript

Christine Liu-Snell: 0:00

Yeah, my ideal client profile has been evolving through these this month, like this year that I've been been doing the business, which has been really interesting to see. So where it's at now is they're leaders. But where we've shifted into is the leader may not be of like a team, it could just be a leader within their home, or within starting their own business, but they're in a transition, they know that there's a transition coming, they understand that there's something in their career that's going to change and they want to prepare for it.

Davis Nguyen : 0:35

Welcome to Career Coaching Secrets, the podcast where we talk with successful career coaches on how they built their success and the hard lessons they learned along the way. My name is Davis Nguyen, and I'm the founder of Purple Circle, where we help career coaches scale their business to $100,000 years, $100,000 months, and even $100,000 weeks. Before Purple Circle, I've grown several seven and eight figure career coaching business myself, and I've been a consultant at two career coaching businesses that are doing over $100 million each. Whether you're an established coach or building your practice for the first time, you'll discover the secrets to elevating your coaching business.

Rexhen Doda: 1:06

Hey everyone, welcome to another episode of Career Coaching Secrets Podcast. I'm your host, Rejan, and today's guest is Christine Eileen Lusnell, a self-leadership and alignment coach who helps leaders grow through life and career transitions, moving from uncertainty to rooted clarity, courageous action, and authentic self-leadership. As the founder of Eileen's Path, Christine draws on her background as a special educator and international education leader to guide professionals through moments of change with self-trust and sustainability. Her signature Lead with Self program is built on self-framework, helping leaders see through themselves clearly, engage with purpose, lead through connection and flow with courage. And it's a pleasure for me to have her on the podcast today. Well, Welcome to the show, Christine.

Christine Liu-Snell: 2:01

Hey, thank you so much for having me. It's a pleasure to be here.

Rexhen Doda: 2:03

Thank you for coming, Christine. It's a pleasure for us to have you on. I wanted to ask you about your coaching business and at the beginning of it. First of all, what inspired you to become a coach and then start Eileen's Path, which is something you started for more than 11 months ago,

Christine Liu-Snell: 2:25

right? Yeah, yeah. I got started in November, so coming up on a year. Yeah, so I would say my coaching journey started when I transitioned into a leadership role at an international school when I was in Shanghai, China. I chose to learn about what coaching looks like for a leader as part of their leadership style. And then through the training, I fell in love with and was completely wowed by the transformations that can happen throughout coaching. I got a lot of like benefit from just being in it and learning myself. So I actually ended up moving out of China. Obviously, now I'm in the US, back in my home country. And I had the opportunity to decide, okay, what do I want to do next? You know, do I want to get back into a school and get back into being a teacher or maybe a leader in some capacity? Or, you know, I had the coaching in my background or in the back of my head saying, you were super impacted by this. Help others with And I was even using what I learned through coaching in that transition because I had spent like six years in China. So coming back to the U.S. was a big change for me. And so I was using the coaching on myself at the time. And yeah, through that, I was just I was inspired to take the leap and try something new. You know, I felt like being in the school setting was it was great for me. I was great at it. But then I really felt pulled to help others. in the way that coaching helped me and the team that I had when I was a leader. So Eileen's path came through just an epiphany, I guess. There was a short period of time in April of last year that I was thinking a lot about my grandmothers for whatever reason. I was in the muddy water of being back in the U.S. for the first time, full time, and I was reflecting on how both of my grandmothers had a lot of hard times as well in their life and how they stay connected to the things that they loved and they persevered. They really were a model of perseverance for me and I was reflecting on that. And then one thing led to another and I learned for the first time in my life that Eileen, which is my middle name, was also the middle name of my grandmother on my father's side. And then on my mother's side, her name is Helen, but It turns out that the two names, Helen and Eileen, are related to each other. They're like, I don't know how it works, but that's what I found out. And I was just like, wow, this is Eileen's path, you know, the perseverance through transition, through difficult times, you know, through muddy waters and uncertainty. So yeah, I would say that's like the basis of where my coaching came in was within my own leadership, firstly, and then through just a a series of epiphanies through my own transition, life transition inspired by my grandmothers.

Rexhen Doda: 5:35

I'm glad you took that step and started your coaching business and Eileen's Path. So right now, working on it for like 11 months with your clients and going through the coaching journey with them, what about it would you say you find most rewarding?

Christine Liu-Snell: 5:50

That's such an easy question for me. When I saw it, I was excited to... It's... The light bulb moments are just incredible. I love to see... And I can... And you can see them in each session. And then when they come back as well, there's more light bulb moments. And for me, it's all around awareness of self and what someone is capable of or how they can maneuver what's going on in their life to make what they need, what they're working towards happen. And so when a client gains an awareness around themselves or their situation, and maybe to others, and sometimes it's obvious to me, but you You know, it takes some work for the person to get there and that's okay. But once they do, they're like, wow, now I can leave with more peace and more clarity, more steadiness. And then as well as when they come back and they say, oh, you know, what we talked about last time, this is how it impacted, you know, my week or my month or however often we're meeting. And yeah, it's just, it's incredible. I think it's an incredible reward to be a part of the process of getting someone to bring something into their awareness and put it forth and then have them feel proud or whatever it is of themselves.

Rexhen Doda: 7:07

Absolutely. And so just for like, as I mentioned, we have these two audiences, we might be reaching out to the audience you could be serving. How would you describe your ideal client profile at this point? Is there a certain industry or a certain demographic or psychographic or do they have some common goals or other commonalities? How would you describe your ideal client profile?

Christine Liu-Snell: 7:30

Yeah, my ideal client profile has been evolving through these this month, like this year that I've been been doing the business, which has been really interesting to see. So where it's at now is they're leaders. But where we've shifted into is the leader may not be of like a team, it could just be a leader within their home, or within starting their own business, but they're in a transition, they know that there's a transition coming They understand that there's something in their career that's going to change and they want to prepare for it. Or maybe there's a life transition and they know it's coming and they want to prepare for what's coming. And it'll get maybe a little bit more clear as I talk about answers from your other questions that you'll have. But yeah, right now it's leaders in whatever capacity that's going through a transition that just, you know, they're looking for to lead through themselves and and they know they can they just need that you know oomph to get there wherever that is through that transition

Rexhen Doda: 8:38

and for them to get there is there a certain with with the company right now with island's path is there a certain program of a certain length that they typically go through how is the engagement they have with you is it one-on-one coaching is there also group coaching

Christine Liu-Snell: 8:55

yeah so the lead with self program is a 12-week one-on one coaching and we will flow through values. We'll start basic foundational about the person's values and we'll move on to more actionable steps and consistency and so on. There's that. I also have a self-paced, right now it's just a newsletter, but it's actually in development to become a journal and then a self-paced program where people can take, again, 12 weeks. 12 weeks is the sweet spot to move from the seed of the idea to actually blooming into whatever it is that you are working towards.

Rexhen Doda: 9:37

Foreseeing meaningful change for absolutely 12 weeks makes a lot of sense and so right now and this is a question that coaches who are listening are going to find interesting when it comes to marketing have you seen any certain marketing channel work very well for you compared to others or how do you where do clients find you or where do you find them?

Christine Liu-Snell: 9:56

I've been using LinkedIn mostly I'm on Instagram as well but LinkedIn for me because I have that leadership aspect and that is someone who you know has the qualities and the characteristics of what a leader is it's easier to find and connect on LinkedIn right now than Instagram but yeah so I would say LinkedIn is where it's at right now for me at least

Rexhen Doda: 10:23

yeah and it's not just for you so many coaches actually do find LinkedIn at At least career coaches, leadership coaches, executive coaches have found LinkedIn to be kind of like the primary. And then there's also their network, their referral network as well. Mm-hmm, mm-hmm. So it is definitely a good channel to get started and can be scaled as well. Looking into the future for Eileen's path for the next one to three years, do you have any specific business goals that you're working towards?

Christine Liu-Snell: 10:54

Yes, I definitely do. So I already mentioned the self-paced program that is also going to be in conjunction with the journal, which is in conjunction with a newsletter that I put out on LinkedIn just recently. There's the 12-week week growing your inner garden. The journal will be a weekly reflection to reignite your goals. So it's just helping you to be able to stay on path towards whatever goal it is whenever you're going through the transition you're going through. And there'll be four opportunities because sometimes 12 weeks isn't enough. So you get a whole year of opportunity to continue to grow and nurture whatever goal it is that you're working towards as you move through the transition that you're going through. So then there's the self-paced program that I will have associated with the journal. There will be this, the self-paced programs, I have some ideas within probably the three years around, but I haven't gotten started with it yet, but ideas around like how to do self-discovery of your own management through natural, your own natural energy. Because I find a lot of us are moving faster than we should, or not moving faster, enough or not able to harness what is truly going on for your physical body to be able to work towards the goals that you are setting. People get sick or unmotivated or whatever it is. So there'll be a self-paced program around that, as well as just like getting really clear, the clarity aspect of your values and how to align what you're going through in your life, that transition to the values that you have. you know, just holding onto your integrity through, through that transition. And then lastly, I have these three that I'm, that I'm working on right now is a, is a book. And the book is actually where it started all for me. And it's where Eileen's path kind of came to fruitation and everything. It's the garden of grandmother's wisdom. So it's fully about what I experienced with my grandmother as she, the gardener and how she used gardening and how that taught me to persevere through life circumstances and everything. So it's a great metaphor that is in current development. The self-paced programs, as you may have recognized already, I haven't mentioned anything about like group coaching yet. And that I know is such a big push to scale coaching businesses. For me, I really, really highly value the one-on-one. So the self-paced programs will be having a coaching enhancement might, depending on the program, might look like a group program and might look like a one-on-one. So that's all. in the works.

Rexhen Doda: 13:50

Interesting. It's exciting, right? There's a lot of things that are in progress and are going to be launched soon. For anyone who's listening, they might listen to this like a year after or a couple of years after. So some of these might have been completed by then. And right now, throughout these 11 months of running the coaching business, what would you say have been some investments that you've made that you feel good about? Either you learned a lot or got a good return from and what would you say have been some investments that you would have preferred to have avoided if there's any bad investments as well.

Christine Liu-Snell: 14:23

Okay. Yeah. So I have made a lot of investments in this year. I have dove into getting the support that I felt that I needed to start up the business and scale and organize myself. And so, yeah, there is a few programs that I can definitely highlight. The first one was the original investment that kind of kicked off after the book, I kind of moved into this program that I took called Signature Program Lab. It's by Shawn Miner, I think is how you say her name. And so that is actually all about making those self-paced programs. And so I haven't yet gotten much out of it because I've tabled the self-paced programs, but I will be going back to it. And I know people in the program who have been using it and it's been working for them. So that's definitely one I can highlight. Another one, when I first got, when I decided to really just go for the business in November, I met a coach or a consultant, I guess you can call her Jean Omlar. She's got a team of other coaches and consultants that work with you around different like sales and content and mindset and productivity and things like that. And so that's like the business success accelerator, which got me started, really got me on my feet and really provided the support that I needed to actually get things moving.

Rexhen Doda: 15:54

And

Christine Liu-Snell: 15:56

then I would say the final thing that I invested in that I'm happy with is through Shannon Smith. Her Butterhood community has been really helpful, especially if you're trying to be on LinkedIn. She specializes in the LinkedIn and how to market yourself and do sales on LinkedIn. And... Yeah. So those three have been my investments. I mean, I've invested in more. I have had like trying to think of ones that maybe weren't the best investments. Um, actually I just thought of one other one that I did and I'm happy with is I did icon marketing. She helped me with my branding and everything when I was, and she was very in depth and very, a lot of metaphors, a symbolism in the branding and how to present, you know, what I do. So that was helpful. But, um, As far as not helpful, I did. So for me, like I've invested a little bit in like the Instagram and like I haven't I haven't really seen much with like what I'm learning about with Instagram and the return on that. So but to really name, I don't remember because these were earlier on and they were smaller investments.

Rexhen Doda: 17:13

It's not a bad thing, by the way, not to have bad investments.

Christine Liu-Snell: 17:17

Yeah, yeah.

Rexhen Doda: 17:17

It's like early on. so it's like the first year it's it's good that you haven't had any of those and it's good to be cautious as well but the good thing is we've had great investments as well which you mentioned thanks so much for sharing all of them

Christine Liu-Snell: 17:31

yeah yeah no worries

Rexhen Doda: 17:32

and so right now what would you say is the main challenge in your business that you're trying to solve for next where would you say is the bottleneck for you right now

Christine Liu-Snell: 17:42

yeah I mean this is a little bit maybe not typical but it's my own life circumstances, my own life transition. I've, you know, I started this when I was transitioning back into the US. And then I got really knee deep and my hands dirty for many, many months. And then I got married in March, and I got pregnant in April. And so I am experiencing... through these transitions. But it's the balance that I'm really like, I am, it's honestly, it's a huge challenge to be balancing my energy around being a pregnant person in a first time marriage and living together. And we've moved to, you know, not only are we in the US, but we've moved again within the US. And so it's just like a lot of new things where I'm like, yeah, it's the the time management and the where do I prioritize my time and my energy. And that's been the biggest challenge right now.

Rexhen Doda: 18:57

I appreciate you also making the time for the podcast within all of that.

Christine Liu-Snell: 19:01

It's a good challenge because it's practicing what I'm preaching, right? Great.

Rexhen Doda: 19:06

My final question is, as you're looking to grow and also later on launch the self-paced program in the world and through your coaching,

Christine Liu-Snell: 19:19

would highly suggest being okay with taking the time to do the research on what you want to scale. There's so many options. There's so many people who can tell you that they can get you from one place to another. So I wouldn't settle on whatever comes up first. I would do the research. What do you truly want to do in order to do the scaling? Ask the questions. Have multiple meetings with people before making a decision on investing in that scale. And then, of course, checking in with yourself. And from a self-leadership coach, I'm going to say that, right? But yeah, check in with yourself and make sure that when you are making these commitments that they are feeling like they are right for you. Because if they don't, that's okay. Like maybe it's like I said, I've tabled things because I thought it was right for me. And then I realized, you know what, this isn't great for me right now. I'm I'm going to put this table, this for the future. And that's okay. And so like, that's the other thing is it's okay to pivot when you're scaling and you're still learning about what you are capable of, what your audience wants, you know, so on. And then, but lastly, just get started, you know, just do it. You know, there's no reason to slow down if it's starting with research and that's okay, but get started on, on, on make, taking the steps in some way, whatever. whatever way that is for you.

Rexhen Doda: 20:51

Thank you. Thank you so much, Christine. Thank you so much for coming to our show today. They can also go into aileenspath.com, which I believe is the website, right?

Christine Liu-Snell: 21:00

Yes, that is it.

Rexhen Doda: 21:01

Is there any other way they could connect with you if they wanted to?

Christine Liu-Snell: 21:05

I also have aileenspath on Instagram. So it's aileen.path underscore.

Rexhen Doda: 21:12

Thank you for sharing that. Well, I appreciate our time today. Thank you so much, Aileen. That's it

Davis Nguyen : 21:17

for this episode of Career Coaching Secrets. If you enjoyed this conversation, you can subscribe on YouTube, Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you're listening to this episode to catch future episodes. This podcast was brought to you by Purple Circle, where we help career coaches scale their business to $100,000 years, $100,000 months, or even $100,000 weeks, all without burning out and making sure that you're making the impact and having the life that you want. To learn more about our community and how we can help you, visit joinpurplecircle.com.