What is Transformation Academy
Transformation Academy empowers INDIEpreneurs (aka self-employed freedom junkies) to create a purpose-driven business and live life on their terms. This is done through teaching entrepreneurship and coaching skills, delivered through online courses and certifications.
The current landscape
The life coaching industry is thriving and growing worldwide. Having guidance, support, and accountability from a coach has become more and more popular for people seeking change and growth in a variety of areas, including their careers, relationships, and personal development. With rapid and dramatic economical and cultural change disrupting people’s lives, hiring a coach is becoming a solution that is more widely appealing. At the same time, the number of coaches and companies not only offering coaching but helping guide would-be coaches along their careers has dramatically increased. Transformation Academy's role within the industry is to help democratize education, meaning to make life coach skill training accessible (by making it 100% virtual and self-paced) and affordable.
The birth of Transformation Academy
Joeel and Natalie Rivera were both natural coaches long before learning life coaching was a thing. They were drawn to personal development for themselves and to helping empower others in their lives to pursue their purpose and potential. Joeel was inspired to study psychology after failing his first year of college and losing his brother in a car accident. It inspired him to want to make a difference in people’s lives. He returned to school with the vision of one day earning a Ph.D. (in the process now) and open a youth center to help teens who struggled like he and his brother did.
After overcoming chronic fatigue syndrome, Natalie returned to school to pursue a degree in sociology. She created a vision board of her dream career and the day before graduation she responded to a Craigslist ad seeking a co-founder for a teen center, which was exactly what she had on her vision board.
Long story short, it turned out to be an ad placed by Joeel. He had created that youth center he dreamed of and had to leave due to medical reasons shortly after. He placed an ad on Craigslist and the rest is history.
The growth of Transformation Academy
Since sharing all of their passions for entrepreneurship, empowering people, teaching, and coaching, they became life partners and business partners. What started out as a life coaching business evolved into an event and conference business, a magazine, a book publishing company, a coach training company, and a holistic virtual office center.
Then in 2014 a chronic illness stopped them in their tracks. During their unintended sabbatical, they couldn’t run the very in-person businesses but were determined to continue to reach their people. They studied the newly thriving online course industry and began converting the workshop and training programs into online courses.
Today they have over 500,000 students from 200+ countries and territories. Joeel and Natalie live and teach that there is always a way to turn your pain into purpose, which they have done over and over again. They love that they are able to use their skills at both coaching and teaching to provide all of our their tried-and-true processes and tools to others who seek to make a difference as a coach. They feel blessed to have been given all of the experiences that led them to share this transformational tool (coaching) with people all over the world.
Over time, the business evolved from them being INDIEpreneurs—just two coaches and speakers doing their thing—to being business owners and full-fledged entrepreneurs. The best part about their growth has been the ability to bring together wonderful team members who share their passion for awesomeness. Transformation Academy has a small team from across the globe, all of which work from home. The team members are not staff, they are family. The team love setting personal goals and brainstorming together. They celebrate birthdays and milestones together (via Skype). They've gone through the pandemic together and supported each other through a variety of life challenges. Joeel and Natalie appreciate them and genuinely want them to love what they do and create the life they dream of. They look forward to the day they have outgrown them, spread their wings, and launch into their greater purpose."
Check them out: https://transformationacademy.com/