Andrea Willets: Living Life On The Edge

Stonington based Life Coach, Andrea Willets has a long history in the area, with deeply tapped roots touching the lives of hundreds of local residence in one way or another. Owner of Voice of My Life, Coaching and Leadership Development, Andrea has a private practice, performs a travelling one-woman show and is a co-creator of Global Leadership Programs For Youth. 

A daring and vibrant woman, Andrea first came to the area working in the maritime industry. After studying theater and music at Bard College, the West Hartford native raised in a family of nine kids, combined her love of travel with her maritime skills. 

Proficient in boat varnishing, Willets took her skills on the high seas and traveled from the Eastern coastline to Mexico. Eventually, she opened Willets Yacht Refinishing in the Beebe Cove Marina Boatyard. Her last contract was ’s 65-foot schooner Brilliant and after being in the trade for 14 years closed shop in 1992. 

“I was really fortunate,” Willets said.  “I got my hands on some special gems—beautiful antique boats.”  Willets described her decision to shift gears: ”I needed a challenge and I knew there was more to wake up in myself.” 

Willets traveled to Africa and upon return, began a typical and orderly procession of events: met boy, got married, purchased a farm in North Stonington, had a family and raised horses.

As a non-traditional woman with a wild spirit, following a traditional path, she had set up a life destined for inevitable change. With the dissolution of her marriage, Willets’s life began to unravel followed by a vast and deep personal transformation.

Dislocated and ripe for awakening,  Andrea was approached by her best friend six years ago who suggested the prospect of life coaching as a perfect vocation for Willets. 

Fascinated since youth by interpersonal connection to people and their stories, Willets said, “I had journaled about helping people and living my truth and she brought this career to my attention. It was uncanny, I had no idea this career existed.” 

Willets found Coaches Training Institute located on the West Coast and after two years of training, became A Certified Professional Co-active Coach. 

She teaches clients to live a life of full permission, full expression while daring to want it all. As a coach her life is virtually inseparable from her vocation or as Willets said “Being a coach—it’s the water that I’m swimming in all the time.”  When she’s not coaching clients, she lives by the rules she prescribes. 

Differentiating between therapy and coaching she said, “With therapy, which I am a big supporter of, therapy takes us into our past to understand how we become who we are today and to heal. Coaching is about taking our present life and how do we move towards more with all that we are.” 

In addition to her practice, Willets takes her coaching on the road, combined with her theater background, she’s scored a one-woman show titled Sorry No More. The show was created as an empowerment to help women stop apologizing for living their lives. After packing the house in Providence, Calgary and Florida, Willets plans to bring her energetic, humorous and tearful show home to Stonington in the near future. 

“By the end of my life I want to say I have lived a wild ride, not an easy one but a enriched one,” Willets said “It’s an honor for me to witness my clients do the same—to claim and design the life that they are wanting.“