Certified professional coach

My name is Yury Li-Toroptsov. Most people know me as a visual artist. I’ve exhibited my art in museums and galleries internationally and in Paris where I’ve lived and worked for the past 23 years. I am also a certified professional coach helping individual and institutional clients to create change.

I operate on a cusp of applied arts and professional coaching combining the creative expression and the systemic strategic Palo Alto approach to deliver results.

I place a premium on imagination. From my early age I knew that imagination is a powerful transformational force. Coming from a very humble background, I had a dream to do things nobody else in my family had ever done. Things like entering a prestigious language school despite being told that it was completely out of my league.

My unique gifts that made my dream come true are imagination and commitment. The imagination allowed me to visualize in the smallest details my future student life. In my mind I was already a student at that elite language school well before it actually happened. And when I am committed, I go all in. That is how against all odds I became the first person in my family to get a University degree.

My thirst for knowledge took me to New York City. I won a prestigious all paid international scholarship to go to a grad school there. From a family farm to New York City, the growth is exponential. My adaptation skills were seriously put to test. New York where my difference and ambition were celebrated opened my eyes to the world. At the NGO I was working I met incredible people who made impact. I was so inspired.

My life trajectory has never been linear. I knew I was doing things differently than most people. For example, when I moved from New York to Paris and decided to change careers to become a full-time visual artist, that change was not an option but an necessity for me.

There’s a dark side to being different. You are an outsider who doesn’t fit any existing category. Some people don’t get what you are or what you do. There are moments of self-doubt when you begin to believe that your life is just a collection of random gigs.

All along my journey I have met people whose wisdom helped me to grow and see my unique path more clearly. They believed in my difference. Because I was given the chance to continue my journey I began to realize that there was a common thread in all what I’ve done. That it was meaningful. I just couldn’t see it then.

As a professional coach I work with clients who actively search for their place in life, to create an impact. Clients who navigate in two or more different worlds at once. They are multicultural, creative, ambitious, expat, fearless, unapologetically different who at times might feel they lost connection to their authentic self.

If you recognize yourself in parts of my story, if you’re searching for your own place in this life, and the meaning then we should have a conversation. Face-to-face if you’re like me live in Paris or online if you are based elsewhere in the world.