Christina Sestan is a Certified Professional Co-active Coach with The Coaches Training Institute of San Rafael, California—one of the largest and most established coaching training organizations worldwide.
To say Christina is excited about coaching is pure understatement. Enthusiasm bubbles out of her when she talks about coaching and the work she is doing with her clients. She believes that every experience in her life has played a key role in preparing her for coaching. This is the place where her experience, skills and talents, hopes and passions come together. In her words, “The line between who I am and what I do is disappearing!” Recently, Christina was quoted in Business in Vancouver at an entrepreneurial award show, “I get to mingle with people who are making their dreams a reality. What a kick for a coach!”
“Making dreams a reality is my business!”
Christina discovered coaching quite by accident shortly after the shutdown of the corporate aviation base where she had worked as the sales and marketing manager for 4 years. During the rather disheartened “soul-searching” that followed, Christina stumbled across a relatively new profession called life coaching.
“I couldn't believe such a thing existed. Everything that coaching involves—time management, balance, goal setting—was everything I'd oriented my life around. I couldn't believe I'd found an opportunity to apply what came very naturally to me.”
Christina jumped into coach training almost immediately.
In her coaching practice, Christina works with a variety of clients, helping them to become conscious of their unique abilities and values, and of the choices available to them to realize their greater potential in life. She encourages them to risk and move towards their best life possible while helping them to identify obstacles in the way of their success. Christina is insightful and direct and her clients appreciate that she doesn't step around things. Christina knows people value honesty. As one client remarked,
“coaching is the rare combination of a friend who will tell you the way it is.”
Christina spends her time between Vancouver, BC and San Francisco, California—two of the most beautiful cities in the world. Her love of aviation often lures her out to the end of 26Right (the northern runway at Vancouver International), where she parks directly in the path of inbound air traffic.
“You haven't lived until you've laid on the grass 300 feet below an approaching 747. Pure adrenaline!”
As a flight attendant during the early '90s, Christina realized her love of travel and visited much of the world. Rounding out her aviation interests, she is an active member of Women in Aviation, the fastest growing aviation organization dedicated to encouraging young people to consider aviation careers and providing networking opportunities for women and men throughout the aviation industry. In support of this organization, Christina has led workshops on topics such as motivation, balance, goal setting and time management.
On a more physical side, Christina overcame her teenage aversion to team sports and is now an active member of a women's ball hockey league aptly named “Chicks with Sticks.”
Balance is extremely important to Christina—in addition to traveling and recreation, she is very intentional about volunteering. She is a member of the Young Life West Side Committee, a mentor to a UBC commerce student through the UBC Executive Mentoring Program and a member of the YMCA New Ventures Peer Mentoring program.
Christina coaches clients in Canada, the U.S., Europe and Asia. She works onsite with corporate clients in Vancouver and San Francisco. She is the founder of Citrus Coaching Solutions in Vancouver, Canada and San Francisco, California.