From $2K Side Hustle to $137K Somatic Sex Coach: Laura Jurgens on Healing Desire, Intimacy, and the Business That Followed

Laura Jurgens had a biology PhD and a tenure track professorship. The kind of job most academics spend their entire careers chasing. On paper, she had made it. But she was living from the neck up. Completely dissociated. Running on achievement in a system that rewarded overwork and punished boundaries. And quietly burning out behind a title that looked like success.So she found coaching. And it changed everything. She shifted her niche, healed her own trauma around attachment and sexuality, walked away from the tenure track, and built a somatic sex and intimacy practice from the ground up. Starting at $2,000 in 2020. Crossing $137K in 2025. And holding client sessions by candlelight during Hurricane Helene because she was just that all in.In this episode, Laura shares:→ How she went from $2,000 coaching on the side in 2020 to crossing $137K in 2025, and what she believes made the difference between those two realities→ The moment she realized academia was breaking her, not building her, and why walking away from tenure track felt less like a risk and more like a return to herself→ Why her niche has a 6 to 9 month client runway and how she trained herself to trust that the work she was doing in 2024 was landing in her future clients' bodies and minds, even when she couldn't see it→ How she built to six figures without social media, going to networking events, hub trivia nights, and podcast guest spots instead, and why showing up in real rooms with real people was the whole strategy→ The counterintuitive belief she lives by: your business grows at exactly the pace you are willing to listen to yourself, and every time she ignored that inner compass and followed someone else's advice, it cost her→ What it actually felt like to hold sessions by candlelight under blankets during Hurricane Helene, and why her clients showed up anyway because people need coaching even when the power is out→ Why she refuses to scale to group programs in her niche and what she says to coaches who think one to one isn't a viable path to six figures→ The shift that finally got her out of her own way around visibility: stop focusing on your confidence and start focusing on the people who desperately need what you haveAbout Laura Jurgens:Laura Jurgens is a multi-certified somatic sex and intimacy coach who left a tenure track biology professorship to build a practice helping individuals and couples reclaim desire, pleasure, and genuine connection in their relationships. She is the creator of the Pleasure Path Method and the host of Pleasure Uprising, a podcast about desire, attachment, and the intimacy you actually want. Her approach is rooted in somatic work, nervous system healing, and the belief that your intimate challenges live in your body and your history, not in a book or a course. Laura works exclusively one to one because she knows that is where the real transformation happens.Connect with Laura:→ Website: https://laurajurgens.com→ Free Guide: Get Out of Your Head, a Starter Guide to Releasing Pressure, Shame, and Shoulds Around Intimacy at https://laurajurgens.com→ Podcast: Pleasure Uprising, available wherever you listen to podcastsReady to become the coach who signs clients every day?Grab Rebecca's free training at https://embodiedsociety.com/clients