Alex Weber is a trained journalist who switched gears in her late twenties to become a life coach.

On Saturday, she will facilitate The Desire Map workshop, the brainchild of Windsor-born Danielle LaPorte. LaPorte is a bestselling author, motivational speaker, entrepreneur and blogger with a huge online following.

The Desire Map workshop focuses on finding one’s “Core Desire Feelings.” It focuses on planning life based on inner desires rather than on outside results.

After journalism, Weber worked in marketing for a London-based company. “I realized that marketing was not for me and that it was not making me happy,” she says.

It was then that she read The Desire Map, a book about getting in touch with one’s inner feelings. The opportunity to facilitate came to her “because Danielle LaPorte was licensing to share the workshops for their communities,” she says. “It was the catalyst that pushed me into coaching.”

“Danielle LaPorte talks about how we often search goals outside of yourself, while you should find goals inside of yourself,” she says.

Weber explains that LaPorte focuses on what people want to feel rather than what they want to accomplish. The work starts by analyzing parts of one’s life and identifying three to five “Core Desire Feelings.”

Weber read the book at a time in her life where she felt directionless and devalued, and The Desire Map helped her to find her motivation again.

“It totally changed my life,” she says. “Before, I was constantly looking outward for validation, like how is the economy? Where should I get a job? It wasn’t making me happy.”

That deep feeling of unsatisfaction is why Weber decided to become a life coach. “Our thinking is shifting. People have to be self-starters now,” she says.

Weber realizes that many people want something else out of their careers but are unsure about how to make big changes.

That is where The Desire Map comes in: by identifying core desired feelings, participants get closer to the life experience they really want to have, the book teaches.

Danielle LaPorte’s Desire Map trailer shows her talking directly to “you,” her audience, over the sound of cymbals. She talks about how people try to achieve their goals through a variety of tools such as daily planners, milestones, bucket lists and time management.

“You’re not chasing the goal, you’re chasing the feeling,” she says. “Knowing how you really want to feel is the most potent form of clarity in your own life.” She pushes her clients to go “beyond finished lines and a job well done” because therein lies “a different call.”

LaPorte explains that feeling good is the whole point, and that “if how you are pursuing your goals is a drag, stop.”

The Desire Map workshop is “holistic life-planning,” according to its description on LaPorte’s website.

LaPorte’s teachings are supported by many wellness professionals. On her website, movie star Shailene Woodley is quoted as saying that “The Desire Map is basically charting the things that you want in life, and not just sitting back and saying,”I’m going to manifest this . . . here’s how,” but actively doing something to manifest your dream.”

Weber is one of dozens of workshop facilitators around the world. These people are often wellness professionals, although organizing The Desire Map workshop is open to anyone who is aligned with LaPorte’s ideas.

On the website are a few videos of the facilitators’ experiences. Those include the experience of Alex Mazerolle, a Bowen Island, B.C., yoga teacher. She says that this work supports and lends itself to her yoga teaching. “Specifically why the Desire Map is important for yoga teachers is because we’re living in modern times as modern women,” she says. “We’re lying to ourselves as yoga teachers if we don’t understand that we’re a business and a brand.”

What Mazerolle is talking about is how to find your core desire feelings and how to make those happen in the world we live in. This is where LaPorte’s own brand of entrepreneurship, motivation and spirituality meets to benefit modern-day people.

Mazerolle says that The Desire Map workshops give attendees a space to have scary conversations and to get real.

In London this weekend, things will get real at Weber’s Wortley Village home, where the workshop will take place starting at 9 a.m. Saturday and running through 5 p.m.

For those who are interested in The Desire Map but who can’t make it to the workshop, Danielle LaPorte sells many Desire Map products on her website, such as CDs and The Desire Map book. For the curious, free audio tracks and the first chapter of the book are available on the website.

For those interested in life coaching with Weber, her website True North Life Design gives more details into what she does and how to contact her.