Culinary students gather around their teacher, knowing she is recovering from a serious illness and inquiring gently as to how her health has made such a comeback. It was in this moment that the career of Modern Life Center's founder, Eva Clay, took a sharp turn. The former cooking teacher had refused steroid therapy, believing that it would only treat the symptoms of her illness, and not the root causes of her poor health. So Eva researched what she calls "old-fashioned" methods of detoxification as well as holistic therapies, and slowly worked to heal herself. When her culinary students began seeking advice for themselves and their loved ones, she heard it as a call to become a health and lifestyle coach, which she answered readily.

Though counseling can focus on how past experiences shape the present, Eva believes that life coaching examines how positive traits and experiences in the present can give clients practical tools to help them step into their future. The Modern Life Center's life coaches aid clients in taking control of their professional and personal struggles, and dating and health coaches guide patients in navigating treacherous love lives and lifestyle changes. A crew of massage therapists, a face-refreshing aesthetician, and a chiropractor bustle past potted orchids and high-backed armchairs, working to erase the tensions that accumulate during ordinary life and to leave each patron with the relaxed countenance of a model in a hammock catalog.