Life coach uses experience to help others

Adam Lidgett

Dorina Kalaty said she was not content to use the lessons she learned in combatting her anxiety and low self-esteem to help people as a life coach.

Now, the Kings Point resident said, she would like to take those lessons to help fellow Persian Jews who own businesses realize their full potential.

“I want to teach businesses how to commit to their strengths, find their purpose and come together with a game plan for their business,” she said.

Kalaty said she is she is well prepared to help businesses stand out in a crowd as a marketing communications coach.

“I can zero in on someone’s strength and figure out what job or task fits that strength,” she said. “What I want for people is the opposite of getting them to fit in – I want them to stand out.”

Kalaty said she moved to Great Neck from Iran with her parents when she was very young partly because of the large population of Persian Jews in Great Neck and partly to be a part of the Great Neck School District.

Living in the tight-knit Persian community, she said, immediately presented challenges to her.

“The hardest thing about being in a culture like this is fitting in while still remaining individual,” she said. “That’s why your part of community, if you want to belong you have to do things a certain way.”

Kalaty said she also suffered from chronic health issues since high school, including early colitis and rheumatoid arthritis.

Her health issues grew worse, she said, following the birth of her first two children.

Kalaty, who now has three children, said she found she was only treating the symptoms, not the source — the anxiety and low self-esteem she had felt since she was a child.

She said she used to call herself the “Queen of Anxiety.”

She went to life coaches herself, she said, to find her purpose, and after deep introspection she became physically healthier.

“The underlying thing was always insecurity and fear, a fear of not being good enough,” Kalaty said. “I became aware of it and accepted it for what it is, which is a big part of figuring out what you can contribute.”

Kalaty, who had worked in direct marketing for a jewelry manufacturer in Great Neck, said this process eventually drove her to try to find her purpose in life — getting other people to feel good about themselves and find their own purposes.

After receiving her life coaching certification from CoachVille, a coach training school, about a year and a half ago, she began working with people to help them communicate better and improve their relationships.  

Her tagline was “Live your Best Life.”

Kalaty said businesses often overlook the need to develop emotional  bonds with customers.

The consumer must feel a sense of belonging with a product to want to buy it, she said.

That isn’t possible, she said,  if everyone working at a businesses doesn’t understand the business’ “shared purpose” — the feeling that everyone in a business, from top to bottom, understand’s the strength that makes them stand out in a crowd.

“Businesses need to try to find their soul,” Kalaty said. “It shouldn’t be a bunch of people just crunching numbers all day.”

Kalaty, whose husband Ariel is co-owner of Kalaty rugs in Hicksville, said if everyone in a business understands their purpose, it will not only create a happier work environment, but also increase the business’ sales.

“When I want to buy a product, I make the decision with my heart,” Kalaty said.

She said that so often, businesses will try to find how they can fit in, but that the key to success — in both business and in life — is finding a way to differentiate yourself from everything else in the crowd.

“I got amazing results with people one-on-one and I want to translate that to business,” Kalaty said. “I go deep into the layers of people, and I want to do the same with businesses.”

She said in the Persian Jewish community, like many other communities, people don’t always say what they are feeling directly.

“I’m a sort of a master of communications,” Kalaty said. “That his is my strength, and it makes me stand out and have confidence, and that confidence makes me fit in.”

But, she said, reconciling her life goals and staying close to her community is still something she grapples with — as is dealing with her health problems.

“When I started having more flare ups and going to doctors more that’s when I became much deeper,” Kalaty said.

Her health, she said, has improved as a result of this and her need for medication to combat her illnesses has been reduced dramatically, lessons she also uses in raising her children.

“When kids have anxiety they’re told its this big thing but anxiety is a normal, human reaction to life,” Kalaty said. “It’s just how you look at it — if you look at it as this horrible thing and try to push it away, like most people do, that’s when it increases.”

Kalaty advocates turning anxiety into something positive — using it to express yourself and help empathize with others.

She said her dream is to be a marketing communication coach for large businesses, but that she will most likely start with small businesses in Great Neck.

“I have big dreams. I always want to be moving up,” Kalaty said.

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