Meet Natasha Stern | Operations & Community at Dance Alive & Dynamic Life Coach

We had the good fortune of connecting with Natasha Stern and we’ve shared our conversation below.

Hi Natasha, other than deciding to work for yourself, what was the single most important decision you made that contributed to your success?
So I work for myself, but I also work for my mentor, teacher, and boss, Mariane Karou, and help her run her business called Dance Alive. I would say the single most important decision that I have made and continue to make that contribute to my success is finding mentorship, and surrounding myself with people that I am inspired by and can learn from.
I have been a life coach going on 6 years, but I have been in training and finding teachers, etc for 19 years. I invest in nearly 70 hours a month of personal development, relationship, business, money, coaching ALL OF IT. And I will never stop going to my nexl level of learning. It makes my life more fun, because when I hit challenges, I know it’s just an opportunity to become more skilled in a new area, and while the challenge may not feel good – gaining a new skill, and new found freedom is awesome.
I think it what ultimately makes me a great coach, with clients who have stayed with me for years.

Alright, so let’s move onto what keeps you busy professionally?
Well my first real job was in the Israeli Defense Force, I was a commander and a sergeant for basic training for immigrants in the education unit. That job really taught me how to work. I worked on my feet 19 hours a day, 6 days a week for 2 years. I built stamina, but my mental health was not in a good place, and I know HOW I was working and showing up was not sustainable. A few years later I moved back to the Canada, and had lots of odd jobs, and in the background was doing somatic therapy, and for the 1st time learning how to feel in my body. I always had a dream of going to acting school, so in 2013 I moved to NYC and went to the Neighborhood Playhouse. I remember my acting teacher said to me, if you can do anything else besides acting and be happy…go do that. That really stuck with me. The day after I graduated I went on a 5 day vacation to Los Angeles to “take a meeting.” Turns out that meeting became something, and I ending up getting hired as director’s assistant on a major Hollywood Feature Film. That was just like the army. 80-100 hour weeks, tight knit group of people working as a team. What happened next was interesting, I sort of became the director’s coach. I was his cheerleader. When the studio was giving him crap, I’d be walking him to the car at 2am, reminding him just how incredible he was, and that he had to dig inside and make the fim that he set out to make, not the studio! I believed in him. And I started to notice, I believed in every body. It is this thing innate to me that I can really see someone’s potential and what they really want, and I can GIVE THEM THAT BELIEF! I realized that the energy of coaching was fulfilling for me, and that acting wasn’t what I wanted After the movie was done, I noticed I kept having longer and longer phone conversations with friends where I seemed to give them an infusion of something. At 29 people told me I should start charging for sessions, and then I enrolled in a coaching course. It took me until I was 31 to charge my first client (who is still with me today,) A few months after I started the coaching course, I was at Esalen in Big Sur, and I remember seeing a beautiful couple having an intimate moment. I realized right there, that I actually didn’t know how to foster that level of intimacy with a man, and that I wanted to learn. I prayed right there for a teacher who could teach me how to be in relationships, and 3 month later, I found Mariane and Dance Alive. She offered me a job a month later working in her office and training me, and the rest is history. (In between, I got fired, moved back to Israel again, left Israel, and moved back to LA in November 2019 – but that’s for a different article.) Now, I am Mariane’s right hand, I run Dance Alive in Los Angeles, host our weekly in person dynamic movement class RIDE THE WAVE on Wednesday nights, and our weekly online deep body meditation class, INNER RHYTHMS on Monday nights. I am a Dance Alive Coach and I currently have 25 clients. I love where I am in my career. How I got here was commitment, failing, falling down, getting up, committing again, follow through, and rinsing and repeating until I could honestly say that I did it. I am 36 (turning 37 and getting married at the end of March,) and I have started new lives from scratch in different cities, countries, & continents multiple times. It took me awhile to build before I found my footing in LA,. For years I only had 3-5 clients, no relationship, and not a lot of money, but I never gave up on building my life, becoming a better coach, dating, working on myself, and learning the skill I needed to learn so that I could receive what I wanted.

Let’s say your best friend was visiting the area and you wanted to show them the best time ever. Where would you take them? Give us a little itinerary – say it was a week long trip, where would you eat, drink, visit, hang out, etc.
My favorite place in LA, Topanga Canyon. Start with a sunrise hike on the Fire Trail in the Topanga State Park. Then Breakfast and butter coffee at Topanga Living Cafe.
Then Beach day at Topanga beach, and then drive back up the canyon to finish with a sunset hike in Tuna Canyon.

Next day we’d do Malibu. Coffee & breakfast at Luxxe, Zuma beach day, shopping at Malibu creek and dinner at Tony Tavernas.

Another day I’d take them to Erewhon for coffee and goodies and do a whole downtown adventure, exploring art district, tacos, restaurants, and then finish the night at a fabulous dinner and live music.

Then at some point I would take them to a RIDE THE WAVE Wednesday night class with Dance Alive, where we would connect to ourselves, move our energy, be with community, find our own internal movement, and then have a wild dance party!!

I’d take her to Laguna Beach and go to Fisherman’s Cove, hiking in the hills and finish with South of Nicks.

Who else deserves some credit and recognition?
My Family – an open, growth oriented, reslient bunch who love me endlessly Tal – my loving, playful, loyal & encouraging fiance who believes in my daily
Kristi – my coach of 8 years who helped raise me into the adult and coach I am today
Mariane, the Visionary Founder of Dance Alive- my mentor, boss, teacher & friend, who I have received so much wisdom, support and care from over the last 8 years. Through the Dance Alive trainings and programs, I have learned how to take off in my personal life, my relationships, and my work. I have learned emotional management, nervous system regulation, basic and high level life-functioning, and most importantly how to be on a team, and how to lead myself in my life.

I have my dream life RIGHT because of how all of these incredible people have contributed to me.

Website: www.dancealive.com

Instagram: natashastern_