When faced with a challenge, Freedom Practice Coaching’s Angel Santiago, doesn’t tell his clients or his coworkers what to do.
He guides them so they can figure it out on their own.
By empowering those he encounters to overcome personal and professional obstacles, Angel is a vital piece of the FPC team. From building stronger relationships between FPC team members to helping clients break through mindset challenges, Angel coaches everyone he encounters to achieve a greater level of greatness.
Angel shares how he landed at FPC and a little bit about his personal and professional background.
Q: What is your educational/job history background?
A: I started at Texas A&M University where I did general studies. Due to the Bonfire Tragedy in 1999, I came home to San Antonio, joined the Army and finished my undergraduate work 2006 at the University of Texas at San Antonio with a Liberal Arts Degree in Communications.
In 2012, once I realized and identified my purpose, I completed my first life coaching certification in the Art of Motivational Interviewing.
I knew and felt I wanted to go deeper into my work, so in 2014 I applied and got accepted into The Synthesis Center in Massachusetts to complete a 2-year certification program on Transpersonal Psychology.
Q: What inspired you to join FPC?
A: I was already working as a life coach at a typical medical office, and I felt that for my growth, things needed to shift.
So I resigned, and that same day I was offered an opportunity to work at an immigration office coaching their clients. Well, it ended up not being that – at all – and I ended up doing paralegal work for about 3 months.
Eventually they let me go because I wasn’t any good – well, duh – and that I needed to focus on my coaching career.
Two months later, I saw the FPC ad for a mindset specialist position. It was perfect – everything I was already doing or wanted to do on my own, FPC was hiring someone to do. It was like a tailor-made suit, and it was for me.
Q: How will your role impact clients’ success?
A: By focusing on the idea that in order to lead others successfully, you first have to successfully lead yourself.
My role recognizes that everything you need to succeed is already within; you just have to become aware of it and bring it out into the world.
The mindset work I do with our clients establishes that, even though they may wear many hats, e.g., owner, provider, spouse, parent, etc., it is the client, as an individual, that steps into each and every one of them.
How successful you’ll be at any of them depends entirely on how successful you’ve been at being yourself. If there are any unaddressed personal conflicts, challenges or limitations, you’ll surely carry those over to any role you step into.
Some of the ways we can help, but not limited to, is by:
- Becoming aware of and identifying any limitations
- Exploring and understanding the root
- Determining a path to transcend limitations
- Establishing healthier ways of being
- Reintegrating back into your day to day
- And much more
FPC focuses on the idea that in order to master your business, you first have to master yourself.
In life, there are those that get upset and angry at what life throws at them. As a result, they try to change the people and circumstances around them to make life easier.
Then there are those that take on whatever life throws at them and use it to change themselves, making themselves stronger and more resilient so life becomes easier and easier.
If you’ve been wasting energy reacting to the circumstances of your life, trying to change them and the people around you, it is time to change tactics.
You can take that same energy and apply it to mastering yourself, thereby changing your experience, of other people and of challenging circumstances. Same amount of energy, better results.
In life, there is: 1) what you know, that you know, 2) what you know, that you don’t know, and 3) what you don’t know, that you don’t know.
If you don’t know what’s holding you back, you can’t name it. If you can’t name it, you can’t understand it. If you can’t understand it, you can’t overcome it. And if you can’t overcome it, you can’t change it.
Q: How will your role impact our mission to Revolutionize Healthcare in America?
A: The better we serve our clients, by focusing on the root cause of their limitations and challenges, and helping them find a way to transcend them, the better they can serve their clients and thus moving our vision and mission further along.
Q: Who is your role model?
A: They say when the student is ready, the teacher appears.
For me, a role model, is the person or person(s) that are placed along your path because of who they are and where they are in life, they have something you need to learn from them.
They, if you allow them, can equip you and add so much value into you so that you can grow in the direction of your goals. Currently, for me, those people are every single person in the FPC team and our clients.
Each person has a skill, a quality, a lesson that adds to the person I’m becoming. But particularly, Charlie, John and Mary have been – and are – key people that, whether they know it or not, I’m absorbing so much from and are helping me become the leader I’m meant to be.
Q: What are you watching on Netflix – or another streaming service – and why?
A: I believe we can learn from anything. Just like people can be teachers, books, movies, shows, and documentaries can be excellent sources of learning; if you choose to see it that way.
At home, we love Spanish series, and currently we’re watching “45 RPM.” It’s about a record label that is currently trying to grow into a new market – rock. It shows the vision, drive, dedication and persistence of the person who is getting the parent company to create a new division to represent your artist that play rock. It shows everything it takes to go against the status quo, face adversity and succeed. So inspiring!
Q: What is your favorite book and why?
A: “Letting Go of the Person You Used to Be: Lessons on Change, Loss, and Spiritual Transformation” by Lama Surya Das.
It shares an enlightened approach to change and loss, dealing with difficult emotions such as fear, grief, and anger, and the role of crisis in uncovering our authentic selves.
For many people, recent years have been characterized by profound change, whether it relates to financial upheaval, political shifts or even massive losses of life due to disease and violence.
Even on the personal level, each person must confront the curves life throws his or her way. This book got me through the toughest time in my life.
Buddhism has a great deal to say about change and impermanence and how to meaningfully deal with it.
Change–whether on a large or small scale–provides our most important opportunity for learning about ourselves and the nature of reality.
From this essential insight, Lama Surya Das has crafted a fulfilling and important path to understanding and healing ourselves and finding peace.
Q: What is your favorite sports team, and why?
A: San Antonio Spurs.
1) Because of their leadership, 2) because they are consistent, 3) because of their team mentality, they’re really a family. Everyone is connected to the mission and vision and have a drive to succeed, together, in an unselfish way. And 4) because they are passionate and determined to play the game the right way.
To learn more about Angel, find him on Facebook or LinkedIN.
