Andrea Hunt is an online transformational life coach & EFT Practitioner for expats and digital nomads. A US expat who's lived in 7 different countries, Andrea helps those who boldly took the road less traveled to thrive abroad with confidence. She understands the challenges of planning a move abroad, integrating into a new culture, finding new friends and social circles, rebuilding life after a job loss or breakup while living in another country. She helps you empower your mindset and erase your limiting beliefs to thrive.
Andrea Hunt, Transformational Life Coach & EFT Practitioner
Introduce yourself! Please tell us about you and your life, so we can get to know you better.
Ever since we visited my grandmother’s family in her native Mexico in the 1980s, I’ve loved exploring, meeting new people, and learning other languages. That’s pretty much been a metaphor for how the rest of my life went. At 20, I moved to Mexico alone to learn Spanish, and I never realized it was going to be such a pivotal point in my life. It’s been 7 countries now that I have found a way to study or work in including México, Argentina, the UK, Italy, China, my native USA, and now, very gratefully, Munich, Germany. For me, happiness is traveling, making new connections, staying active and enjoying good food while having a purpose and passion. I’ve always loved people and communication, so I guess that’s why becoming a transformational coach seemed like a next logical step for me. I later became certified in EFT tapping, a fabulous mind-body tool I had been using for almost a decade to manage my own emotional health. That is how my career as an online transformational coach was born and has brought me to where I am today. These days, I love hiking in the Bavarian Alps on the weekends, biking around Munich’s incredible paths to have picnics and BBQs by the river, and traveling when I get chance, especially during the winter months!
What is your business name and how do you help your clients?
The name of my business is ‘living deliberately – empowerment for a better life’ and it was inspired by a poem by Henry David Thoreau. It’s a poem you might recognize from the Dead Poets Society film with Robin Williams, one of my favorites. It talks about making sure that you’re living deliberately so that ‘when you come to die,’ you don’t discover that you have not lived. I took it to mean I must live life to the fullest, instead of merely existing. It’s essential to me to pursue meaningful connections, happiness, and fulfillment. Now, that doesn’t mean that we all need to live by the same rules to have that, even though I think sometimes it’s presented that way. Not everyone needs a yacht, to go skydiving every day, or to travel the world, to be fulfilled. As I see it, you must do this in a way that makes sense to you. And for many of us, it’s not so clear what we really want or how to achieve that. Having said that, for many people living abroad is filled with absolutely life-changing experiences. And yet, the truth is that no lifestyle comes without day-to-day challenges, especially when you're living in another country. Creating a life for yourself in a place far away from home without your family and friends can be lonely, frustrating, and extremely difficult. What’s more, as life would have it, things don’t always go as planned! You might get laid off from a job you moved across the planet for, or lose a relationship that you changed your entire life for. Having to re-create yourself in a foreign country, while trying to deal with job and apartment hunting, or the fallout from a breakup take on a new meaning far from home. Being a parent abroad can be additionally stressful as you must help others adjust to the new space, language, and culture as well.
Many of my clients have dealt with so much in the last few years as they (and have had to) started over from scratch all while experiencing the COVID-19 pandemic in a foreign country. I help them find ways to identify and repurpose their strengths in order to move forward. I also help them to clear many limiting beliefs they might have created that actually sabotage and keep them from moving forward. Our mindset can be our most powerful tool in life that pushes us forward to success and fulfillment if we just know how to use it. That’s why I offer workshops and masterclasses on limiting beliefs and emotional blocks and clearing them using coaching & EFT tapping. You can check my social media for more information.
What kind of audience do you target your business towards?
My target audience is made up primarily of expats and digital nomads who are generally 25-45 years old. They come from all over the world and live in Europe, the UK, the US, and Canada mostly. I have helped people of many ages, but that’s the demographic that mostly reaches out to me.
Many times personal growth comes after we’ve dealt with hardships. We’re not always aware of our own power when we are in the midst of turmoil. The people I help are strong people who are able to make big decisions for themselves, as long as they believe in themselves. I’m really honored to have that role where I can help motivate people and help them stay accountable to their dreams because they’re managing their emotional blocks. After difficult things that we endure, we can subconsciously create limiting beliefs that keep us stuck, playing it safe, and accidentally sabotaging ourselves. I help people get out of that vicious cycle.
What would you like to achieve for yourself and your business in the future?
I want to help people of all income levels to get what they want in life. This is why I have different price offerings, from student EFT tapping discounts to bigger packages for people willing to commit to a few months to shift their mindset to create the life they want. For most people, this shift starts internally before they can take the strategic steps that best align with their identified goals, purpose, and desires. My goal is to host workshops and retreats in person instead of just online due to COVID-19. I’d like to be a coach who holds these at beautiful places in Europe and gathers amazing people, who with my guidance, will support each other and really grow together in the process.
Tell us about a pivotal moment in your life that brought you to where you are today.
When I was 28 years old and a new college graduate in journalism, I moved to China by myself to teach elementary school children English for a year in a ‘small’ town of a million people in Zhejiang province. I had decided to do a bit of traveling before settling down back in Atlanta. Yes, I had already moved to Mexico by myself at 20 years old, so this was definitely not the first time I had done this. But this was way bigger than anything I had imagined in terms of the trajectory of my life. To put it bluntly, China was very far away and like nothing I had ever experienced. I questioned my decision the moment I arrived from the airport late at night and got back to my new ‘home’ at a school in the middle of what looked like nowhere. I didn’t know anyone there, couldn’t understand the local dialect, and had never taught children before. Another factor was that the Chinese I had studied and used over seven summers at Concordia language Chinese camps during high school was very rusty. This was one of the times when I really asked myself: am I being brave or really stupid for doing this? It was one of the biggest leaps of faith I’ve ever taken, and I learned so much about myself. Facing independence miles from home, learning to be adaptable and flexible in a non-western culture, and needing to create a life out of nearly nothing were huge challenges for me. That was a turning point in my life for me when I realized that if I could accomplish that I could do anything. I learned I could try, and even though I might fail, I could always adapt and just keep going.
Instead of going home after a year of teaching, I moved to Beijing, where everything was happening. Those years in China taught me so much about myself and gave me skills and strengths I will always value and be grateful for my whole life. Externally, I learned more about people and the world than I have at any other point. Beijing was the center of so many things, and it brought together some of the most incredible people I have ever met. They were from all different fields, countries, languages, religions, and socio-economic levels. Soon after moving to China, I got to fulfill one of my career dreams as a journalist and radio reporter for China Radio International in Beijing. After a few years, I was ready for yet another challenge, so I moved to Munich, Germany to get my master’s degree in communications, which I used in healthcare, tech, and life sciences. These experiences were all incredibly enriching, but I wanted to do something personally meaningful, by starting my own business as an expat digital nomad coach.
A part of me really wanted and wanted to help others face travel and life challenges like those I have learned from. I feel I have a natural ability to motivate people, and identify and bring out their strengths. By providing coaching and helping my clients using EFT tapping, I now have the power to help them change their mindsets, personal and professional lives for the better. That is the best reward anyone could ask for.
For more information about Andrea Hunt, check out www.dreahunt.com
