By the end of a coffee with life coach Molly Eglin, you’ll want a cup of whatever she’s drinking. She speaks passionately, oozing with joie de vivre for her family, her profession and most things in general. As an ontological coaching specialist, her ultimate goal for every client is to “be who you are and give your greatest gift.”
Eglin’s clientele stems mostly from people in transition, primarily families, professionals and individuals who want to “do life differently.” She offers one-on-one personal sessions, workshops and small group breakouts. She fashioned her office as her own personal “mini-house,” vibrant and colorful with no detail spared to protect privacy, including the compartmentalized waiting room with sound muffling to prevent conversation eavesdropping.
After residing more than 40 years in Tucson, Eglin counts herself among the lucky near-native few who have watched the city grow and change. She relocated from Philadelphia to elope with her husband, Evan, and never looked back. She gets misty- eyed speaking of Evan, a man she met on a blind date, moved to Arizona for and eloped with. They have two daughters, Stephanie and Jennifer.
Although Eglin presents her past as a series of coincidences and happenstance events, her ambition and creativity clearly guided her pursuits. Her journey to become a life coach includes positions as a flower shop manager and owner, a modeling agency receptionist and agent, and concierge of Canyon Ranch. On a whim, she applied for and was surprised to land a position in the ranch’s hiking department, a move that changed her life dramatically.
“All of a sudden I became emotionally, mentally, physically strong,” she says. “It created spirituality.”
This spirituality propelled her confidence with the outdoors, and led to the purchase of a remote seven-acre plot of land southeast of Tucson in Rincon Valley. Their homestead inspired her to found Rincon Valley Farmers Market, a nonprofit farmers market collaborative still operational today. It remains one of the area’s first.
All these entrepreneurial stints culminated in her realization of her true passion: life coaching. She attended the Newfield Network Coach Training Program in Boulder, CO, and gained two professional certifications. She belongs to the International Coach Federation and the Tucson Coaches Alliance. Her return to formal education was a personal triumph; having had undiagnosed attention deficit disorder as a child and being constantly labeled as a bad student, she never attended college. She describes her discovery of ontological coaching as “visceral. Something I knew deeply but couldn’t verbalize.”
Eglin will tell you her Jewish roots run deep. Her involvements include the Jewish Federation of Southern Arizona and the Jewish Community Center. She and her husband belong to Tucson’s Congregation Or Chadash. She laughs when asked if Judaism plays a role in her profession: “Is it a G-d thing? A fate thing? It’s something!”
Looking to the future, Eglin expects to continue to fill her schedule with personal coaching sessions. One quarter of her individual sessions are pro bono, a self-imposed rule she calls “deeply fulfilling.” She also expects to continue her relationship with the Tucson nonprofit, Integrative Touch for Kids, where she facilitates group sessions for families with children with chronic, acute and life-limiting illnesses. Although she has owned her personal practice for only five years, her schedule is constantly full.
Eglin says that public awareness of life coaching has increased in recent years. “Still,” she explains, “I am not a therapist.” Anything deeply physically, emotionally or sexually traumatizing, she readily refers to other appropriate professionals. “I look at where we are today and focus on moving forward,” she says.
Most of Eglin’s clients complete six months to one year of coaching, depending on the need. Her most successful clients come for coaching with an open mind, and, after completing coaching, move on in life with a distinct, palpable change in behavior.
“Self-care used to be viewed as selfish,” she claims, “yet it is so important.”
One gets the sense that Eglin perceives the best in each person she meets and strives to show the world her secrets of living a happier, easier life. “I have to be careful not to coach the world,” she confesses, giggling. “It is so, so powerful, this work.”
mollyeglincoaching.com
