Raised in Istanbul, Turkey and currently based in New York, self-image coach Ela Topcuoglu is on a mission to empower and inspire womxn of all backgrounds to achieve their goals. Prior to becoming a coach, Ela was living a seemingly perfect life in Hollywood, working on successful TV shows such as House of Cards. However, after finding herself in a plastic surgeon's office in her mid-twenties, Ela realised she had to make changes and truly work on loving herself. Through her own journey of self-discovery, facing issues of self-esteem and body image, Ela found her calling and began to train as a development coach to help clients battling similar demons to herself.

During 2020, Ela started to co-run a female-empowerment social community called The Wopo. Originally based solely in Turkey, The Wopo tells real stories from real womxn about their own self-love journeys. Since then, The Wopo has grown from a few hundred followers to over 23,000 and spawned an English-language sister community called We Are Wopo. Aimed at empowering womxn with real, raw, relatable and inspiring stories from womxn of all backgrounds, the community shares affirmations, life lessons, cautionary tales, with the hope that it will encourage other womxn to take the leap into the journey of self-love.

Ela and I chat about her journey of self-love, and how that's shaped the way in which she works with her clients. She opens up about the challenges she's faced around expectations and achieving perfectionism, as well as the incredible life lessons she gets from coaching her clients. We laugh about the consistent number of similarities that come up as we chat, from our education and cultural experiences to pressures of achievement and even lipstick colours. We also dive deep into some of her favourite affirmations that she practices daily with her clients to keep focused and present.

You can learn more about Ela's coaching services on @elavatecoaching. And please do go check out @wearewopo on Instagram for incredible and inspiring real-life stories from real women around the world.

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