Jul Marie Hermosisima is a Certified Mentor Coach and Professional Certified Coach based in Torrance who has taken her expertise in team building and coaching from a successful 30+ year career in the corporate world to launch her solo coaching practice in 2012. Not only has Jul Marie worked with teams in the business environment but has also mentored high school students in goal setting, teamwork, financial planning, interviewing and etiquette. Her desire to help people became clear at a young age when school friends would come to her for help. Back in the eighth grade, she even signed her name in her classmates’ yearbooks as “your friendly advisor.” In this interview, Jul Marie shares more about her background and diverse array of talents in mentoring, coaching and training.

LOCALISTA MAGAZINE: Tell us about yourself. What is your history? Where did you go to school and work in the past?
JUL MARIE: I was born and raised in Hawthorne and went to Lawndale High School for a year before my father retired from his job and took the family to Oregon. I went to a brand new high school in a slow-moving small town but I wanted to come back home to California. When I finally got back to Torrance, a friend got me a job as a temp at Toyota and I put myself through college while I worked there. I’m the only one in my family that went to college. I worked for Toyota for 31 years. I held several positions in the company from being a secretary to working in warranty and customer service, marketing, information technology, training, and HR.

LM: How did you get into coaching?
JM: My favorite role at Toyota was when I developed a management program to get employees more engaged which ended up saving the company $2.5 million. I was a safe person there to help the employees deal with issues that were affecting them and their performance. I would work with them to help them better communicate with their managers. I missed helping people so I started my own coaching business.

We’re our own worst critics. I help clients put their inner critic into
a ‘deep freeze’… I get teams to let go, trust and communicate.

LM: What makes your business unique or different from other coaches?
JM: Many other coaches have a therapeutic background. It serves them well, but I tend to be more forward-focused in my coaching practice rather than getting stuck in the past. I’ve also worked in the corporate world whereas a therapist may not have. Since I’ve worked with non-profits, unions, non-unions and big organizations, I realize that there are still politics and a pecking order no matter what company or business you’re in. I get this pretty quickly when working with company teams.

LM: What is the inspiration behind your business?
JM: When I was in 8th grade, I used to sign my friends’ yearbooks as “your friendly advisor.” People would come to me and ask if I could help them with assignments. Even back then, I wanted to help people.

LM: What should your clients know about your style of coaching and working with you?
JM: Coaching is not therapy. I help clients discover what they already have within. I don’t have all the answers but I do make suggestions to help them set intentions and get them to be more actionable. I help individual clients get their intuition going by asking them: “What does your goal our outcome look like? How will you measure this? Or what would it not look like?” We’re our own worst critics and I help clients put their inner critic into a ‘deep freeze’. With teams, I get them to look beyond the end of their nose. That is to say that they don’t have to be the expert or have all of the answers. Instead, they can leverage others’ strengths to develop better processes and products. I get the teams to let go, trust and communicate.

LM: Who are your ideal clients?
JM: I work privately with individuals or with teams in an organization. My individual client is someone who is looking for a career change or is having a hard time accepting change and how to gracefully handle it or may be having difficulty managing relationships around them. With teams, I focus on how to manage people with so many different life experiences. My training is not touchy-feely but I help to re-energize the team by breaking down barriers to communicate with each other and leveraging what each person brings to the table.

LM: People may be surprised to know what about you or your business?
JM: I love singing, which is why I’m also a singing coach. I say that getting people together is like an orchestra and we make beautiful music together.

LM: What is the best compliment you’ve ever received regarding your business?
JM: A person that I worked with in the past posted to Yelp that my coaching program is the only one he’s gone through and has found that he’s still using for his business years later.

LM: When do you feel most inspired by your work?
JM: When a client comes back to me and says it worked. When they tell me: “Thank you so much for pushing me. I found that I really wanted to do something else with my life.” I can’t take the credit for my clients becoming self-aware but I can say that I’m making a difference.

LM: Is there anything else you’d like people to know about you or your business?
JM: JulTones is about making a positive difference — one person at a time — by creating awareness, building up confidence and listening to that voice in our head.