Certified Coach

My Grandma Babe used to watch me make mud pies, laugh at whatever ridiculous thing I was doing, and say, "They broke the mold when they made you" before pulling me into a hug that made the whole world feel okay. I grew up in a tiny coal-mining town in southern Illinois where creativity meant finding whatever was available and making something out of it. That permission to just be myself became something I spent the next several decades learning to hold onto.

Life had its own ideas first.

At 17, I moved four hours from home, finished high school, and gave birth to my son five days after graduation. I figured out how to be a grown-up while I was still becoming one, and I never really stopped figuring things out. Over the years I raised six kids, built a career in corporate payroll and personnel management, left that world to build a dance studio from scratch, grew it to over 900 students with a team of 20, ran a photography business across two states, trained as a yoga teacher, and finished my college degree in my 50s.

None of that felt like starting over. Every chapter came with me into the next one. The corporate years taught me how real businesses run. The dance studio taught me how to lead a team and serve a community. The photography business taught me how to rebuild from scratch in a brand new market. I didn't leave any of that behind. I just kept adding to it.

The harder chapters shaped me too. A 25-year marriage that ended badly. Years of caring for and losing both parents. Eventually, a one-way ticket to Ecuador because I needed to find out who I was when nothing external was defining me anymore. That trip led me, completely unexpectedly, to the man I would marry. I moved to Michigan, and three years later we got married in New Zealand. I still pinch myself.

I tell you all of this because I want you to know who is actually on your team. Not someone who studied business from the outside, but someone who has lived it, messed it up, rebuilt it, and learned something real every single time.

I work with studio owners across all kinds of studios, dance, yoga, pilates, martial arts, photography, and creative businesses, who are exceptional at what they teach and ready to build something solid underneath it. I also coach midlife women who are standing at a turning point and need someone in their corner who has genuinely, specifically been there.

I come with a real plan and real questions, the kind that get past the surface and into what's actually going on. Nothing cookie-cutter. Just your business, your vision, and a foundation strong enough to hold the weight of where you want to go.

You're in good hands. You're not as far from where you want to be as you think. And you don't have to figure it out alone