Relationship book a natural step for life coach Christal Fuentes

Vegas Voices is a weekly question-and-answer series featuring notable Las Vegans.

When Christal Fuentes stumbled across a documentary on life coaching at the age of 12, she never imagined it as a future career path.

“I thought, oh my God, these people get paid to tell people how to live their lives?” she recalled.

Now 30, Fuentes is the creator of a popular online relationship coaching platform, The Ladies Coach, or TLC. Her first book, “How to Be H.O.T.: Your Guide to Becoming Happy, Open and Trusting in Your Relationships” was published last month. And she’s been in a relationship with a man she refers to as her “life partner,” high-stakes poker player Andrew Robl, for six years.

Fuentes grew up in Las Vegas, struggling with her parents’ divorce and her relationship with her mother. As a violin player, she attended the Las Vegas Academy of the Arts. She began working in the hospitality industry toward the end of high school, and served stints as a VIP service manager in the casinos at the Wynn and The Mirage through her early 20s. Here, she discusses how she made the jump into life-coaching, her life partner and her passion for relationships.

Review-Journal: How did you start The Ladies Coach?

Fuentes: When I was working at the Wynn, I loved servicing people, but I didn’t really feel fulfilled helping them spend millions of dollars in the casino. I have a mentor, somebody I actually met in the casino world when I worked at The Mirage. It was a couple that would always come in (Joe and Maureen Mckenna). They give back so much, and he was coaching people. I’ve always had it in me to want to help people, but this one day I was at work, I was so frustrated. I felt stuck, and I thought, “I don’t want to go any further in the hospitality industry. I’ve maxed out my interest in this field.” I went in the back office, and I remember texting him (Mckenna), and I said, “Joe, you coach a lot of people. Would it be OK if I did that with you?” And he said, “Absolutely.” So every Sunday since 2010, I am on his couch at his house.

When I started coaching people, I did it for free, to make sure I didn’t mess up their lives! Every single girl that came to see me, we ended up talking about the same things. No matter what they came to me about, everything that we talked about stemmed from the relationship they had with themselves. I thought, “This is something that I want to talk about.” And I felt like I could reach more women by bringing this online.

R-J: How does the platform work?

Fuentes: The clients that I have are kind of well-known women within the industry, who are online also helping women with different things. Our largest group is women between the ages of 25-34. My main focus is to build a personal relationship through online and through social media, using video and my content to relate to people. Snapchat, which I declined to use for so long, has been the No. 1 tool for me. I’ll do full-on rants about topics. I get hundreds of women every week asking life questions, and I’ll use those for content. A lot of therapists nowadays are actually transitioning into the coaching world.

R-J: How did you come up with the idea to write a book?

Fuentes: Through partnering and collaborating with other women, someone happened to interview me on a huge blog (The Skinny Confidential). That’s when I got my book deal, because my book publisher followed that blog. They reached out to me after that specific interview, and they said, “Hey, I don’t know if you’re interested, but we’d like to talk to you about a potential for a book.” I’ve always had this idea to write a book, but I never would have done it.

R-J: What was your inspiration for writing this book? What made you feel like the topics inside needed to be talked about?

Fuentes: My inspiration for this book was my past self. Looking at growing up and the hardships I had to go through, I would have appreciated an easy-to-read book to help me. I was inspired by starting The Ladies Coach, and by helping women who don’t really know about this self-help world. I wanted to reach them in a language they understood, and let them know they’re not alone. My whole intention is to put things in perspective. They can take the book as a guide and expand from there.

R-J: What makes you the best person to talk about relationships and give advice on them?

Fuentes: People you’re helping don’t really care about your certificates; they care if you have a sense of understanding about their situation. I do have a lot of therapists and people on my site with credentials, though. The whole reason I wanted to go into this industry was because I had a lot of issues with my mom and saw her struggle. I had to sort of step in and be the mother for my sister, and I started victimizing myself. But there are ways you can help yourself. You don’t have to go to therapy for 10 years. You can shine a light and do something on your own and it doesn’t have to be complicated.

R-J: In your book, you talk about feminine versus masculine energies, and how they need to be balanced in a good relationship. Can you tell me a little more about that?

Fuentes: It’s taboo to talk about. Energies are just a way of being, an energy field. We have both energies, and they are equal; no one is more powerful than another. A lot of people may have beliefs that the feminine is weaker, and that’s not true. You need to operate at the core level that is natural to you. There are women who are feminine to the core who operate their masculine energy in their business, and it’s just not natural to them. When, as a woman, you’re operating too much of that and you come home, there’s going to be a conflict because things have changed. The passion is leaving them because they’re bringing the masculine home to their masculine man. A good man who loves his woman will turn more feminine, and that is just not attractive to the woman. It’s about finding that way of being that amplifies your purpose and your passion.

R-J: You refer to Andrew Robl, your longtime boyfriend, as your “life partner.” So are you not married?

Fuentes: No. We won’t get married. We’re in a committed relationship, with or without marriage. I’m not religious. There are a lot of people who are, that’s a part of their belief that matters to them, and that’s beautiful. But that’s not a part of my belief. So us getting married would just be a legal contract for the government, and that doesn’t serve us. The belief is that marriage equals security. And that’s just not true. Because how many marriages end in divorce?

R-J: How do you introduce him?

Fuentes: I struggle with that! Because I say “life partner,” and people are like, “Your wife? Or girlfriend?” So I do say husband, and he calls me his wife.

R-J: What are you hoping to accomplish with TLC now that you’ve just published a book?

Fuentes: It is a little early, but we do have a plan. There are a lot of people in the industry who have podcasts and the market and following that is relatable and don’t specifically talk about what I talk about. Even celebrities who have blogs but maybe want somebody to help add more content. Those are people that I’m in the middle of reaching out to. I go through blogs and read comments, see what comments are not being answered, maybe because that’s not their world, but they want answered. Then I’ll go and reach out to them and offer the resources I have.

Read more from Brooke Wanser at reviewjournal.com. Contact her at bwanser@reviewjournal.com and follow @Bwanser_LVRJ on Twitter.