Anna De Salvo
We sat down with Women to Women Network member Anna De Salvo and here's what she had to say…
Who are your clients/customers?
I tend to work with women who are high achievers. They've accomplished a lot in their lives through their careers and families, but they still feel an inner desire for purpose. They hope to lie down at night with a feeling of fulfillment and satisfaction. I work with women to help them understand where they want to spend their time and give them the tools to create space for it.
How do you help your clients/customers?
I work with people for four to six weeks. It's a relatively short process on purpose because I believe in giving my clients strategies that they can take with them. Our lives change, and our priorities change, so the best thing I can do is provide the skills necessary for growth.
I view my coaching practice a lot like I view my parenting job—I teach people not to need me, and I hope to work myself out of the job. I encourage my clients to listen to their inner wisdom and inner knowing so that they can make adjustments as needed along the way.
What brought you to this line of work?
I am a parent and a wife, and I used to work as a full-time teacher. I found myself becoming exhausted and overwhelmed as if I was being pulled in a million directions. There was one particularly hectic night when the laundry was piled up. My daughter came to me to say, "What's for dinner?" and I lost it.
After I got over my "mom guilt," I realized I needed to figure out what it would take to manage all the different roles in my life and be present in each of them. I set out to understand productivity and what it meant to life-manage. I took a lot of courses about this. Adding this new training and skills to my degree in teaching and my undergraduate degree in business management has been a great combination.
I’ve been able to put together a practice that allows women to feel the same feeling I did when I built my own toolkit. This practice answers the question, "How do we manage all the pieces and roles of our lives while still showing up to be fully present?"
What brings you joy?
I love giving women tools to exercise choice in their lives because choice and freedom are huge facets of my inner desire, compass, and purpose. It's widespread for women to feel stuck in their responsibilities. I want to provide permission to think about what's important. It brings me joy to hear a woman say, "I finally feel like I can focus on building the life that I want to live."
What defines you and your business?
I view my work as mentorship. I like to be a guide, working in tandem with a person to help them build the confidence and skills to feel comfortable with their decisions. When people learn something new, it's common to feel timid or afraid of mistakes—especially high achievers. As a mentor, I can hold that burden a little bit and remind my clients that it's ok to fail on their way to learning.
What's the most important thing you want people to know about you and your business?
Often, high-achievers have difficulty understanding why they aren't where they want to be yet, but big goals take time. I help my clients to let go, live more and flow, while they're on their way. Sometimes when we're checking off the boxes, we forget to listen to our inner signals. What are we really feeling? What's not working for us? It's important to have tools to navigate that process over time, and I'm here to help.
Anna L De Salvo