My Story

4:05 AM. The screen read as I slapped the Snooze button on my alarm clock. Twenty-five minutes later I was out of the door, dragging my weekly belongs in a black carry-on behind me. It was quiet and dark like midnight. My footsteps echoed down the stairs. The familiar yellow light of the taxi glowed in the dark, ready to take me to the airport and start another week of work travel. 

At my college commencement years ago, someone told me that after college graduation, life usually slid downslope. Well mine didn’t. Mine fell down a cliff.

My twenty-something years was quite a ride. The early twenties marked a ton of confusion and anxious exploration. I survived a bad breakup, a close family member's fatal illness, a move across half of the country and a demanding job I disliked but could not leave. Who am I? What do I really want? I remember myself wondering on many of those depressing traveling mornings. It was clearly a lifestyle I was miserable at. But what then, if not this?

Reaping the fruit of the exploration, my late twenties featured making tough choices, putting my foot down and going through a series of great transitions in life and career. I transitioned into a new culture, a different faith and a much more fulfilling career. I also transitioned into married life in a new city and the beautiful journey that is parenthood.

I figured out many things along the way. Now I am here to help, so that your 20s could be a little easier than mine, with a bit more clarity, strategy and a lot less anxiety. I get transitions. I get new in town. I get being confused, uncertain and alone. I get nobody gets you. I get impossible to make a good decision. And I get how hard it is to live up to who you are at the core, while still operating at full speed checking off challenging goals. 

I specialize in adult development through managing life and career transitions and achieving desired change. My method focuses on discovering and developing your core identity first and foremost, and do everything else according to it. I believe in creating a safe space with support and challenge to help uncover your untapped potential and bring it to the full.

Chao You is an IT-consultant-turned developmental coach, certified by the International Coach Federation. She graduated from Amherst College with a degree in Economics, and is in the process of completing a Master’s Degree in Learning and Change Management with Northwestern University. As a consultant, she has helped Fortune 500 retail companies design and implement system changes.  In the years as a coach, she has helped career shifters, entrepreneurs, emerging artists, corporate leaders and engineers from Asia to navigate life, career and cultural transitions.

Chao You is a certified coach by the International Coach Federation. Coaching is her way of fulfilling what her core identity desires: to be the support behind the heroes on their journey to achieve great things for the world.