If you follow me on Instagram or Facebook, you’ve seen the teaser for my brand-new podcast that I’m co-hosting: Coachtaku.

This podcast is all about making anime (Japanese animation) your life coach. It’s been a project that my good friend Mery J Trochez Alberto and I have been talking about since February. We have a couple weeks’ worth of episodes lined that we’ll be releasing every Friday at 9:00 a.m. EST.

So today, I wanted to share a little bit about what the heck Coachtaku is, why I created it, what I learned from creating it, and where you can find it.

What is Coachtaku?

Let’s start with the title. Coachtaku: Making Anime Your New Life Coach.

Mery and I have two great passions in this world. Those passions are coaching and anime. We realized that the beautiful, diverse world of Japanese animation offers a lot of the same insights and opportunities for transformation that coaching offers. But no one has ever examined all the opportunities for coaching within anime’s beloved characters and series.

We created this podcast to dive into some of our favorite series, including O.G. classics like Sailor Moon and Rurouni Kenshin as well as new and upcoming series, such as My Hero Academia or the rebooted Fruits Basket. We point to different coaching themes – such as relationships, authentic power, and owning your voice – and talk about them in the context of our most beloved characters. We talk about how we may coach these characters as clients and how, in some ways, they serve as coaches to the other characters of their world.

Why I Co-Created Coachtaku & What I’ve Learned

I believe that as a coach, it's my job to walk my talk. In other words, if I'm supporting my clients in having life go a certain way, it's actually on me to go and create a life that's going that way as well.

One of the most fundamental, core beliefs of my coaching practice is owning your contribution and being true to who you are. So, for many years, I've put off creating a podcast because I just didn't find a topic that resonated with me.

There’s a bit of a stigma of what coaches should do as far as podcasting material. It has to be “professional”… it has to be focused on “personal development”… it has to ensure that your business is going to grow.

It’s not that those things don't matter to me, but trying to create a concept that stuck from a place of “what will make me money” just wasn't true to me. I’m so proud of this podcast because I can't think of a topic that's more fun and more authentic to who I am. It will also help my listeners, people who support Hear Her Roar, and people who me hear another side of me. I'd like to think that my playfulness and my goofiness come off everywhere, but there's definitely a little extra spiciness in the podcast. I have more room to be playful and weird on purpose – and proudly.

I also hope that those feel “Because I'm an introvert, I could never work with people” or “Because I have nerdy or geeky tendencies, I can never be a coach” will tune in. I want you to listen and realize that those “weird” parts of you are actually some of the best parts of you and are exactly what could make you successful.

Where You Can Find Coachtaku

We’re live anywhere you find podcasts, including Google Play, Spotify, and iTunes.

I also have a request. Whether you’re interested in anime or have no idea what it is, but have been generous enough to support me along my journey, I would be very grateful if you could do a couple of things.

• Follow us on Instagram at @coachtakupod. The account is fun and colorful and includes a lot of great characters and quotes from the series.

• If you listen to us on iTunes, please leave us a review so we can be recommended to other listeners that we aren’t reaching on social media.

• Listen to our episodes and let us know what you think. You can reach us at coachtakupod@gmail.com with your suggestions, your feedback, and your ideas.

I can't believe it's here. I'm so pumped. I think you’re going to love it. If you love me, you're going to love it. My chemistry with Mery is really fun and honest. It's just two girlfriends chatting about two things they love, and I'm really excited for you to be a part of it.