Meet The Coach
My Story
As is a serial entrepreneur, coach and mentor, I have had quite a journey already. I began my career at 18, working full time in commercial print and advertising while also going to school full time. I excelled at business and felt at home in the professional world and made the decision to leave the academia to focus on business. Over the years I acquired skills in events planning and promotion, commercial printing & specialty paper, shipping and logistics, marketing and advertising. I picked up several yoga and meditation certificates, learned health and wellness and would eventually get into health & wellness product development, contract manufacturing, FDA compliance and international imports.
I started my first business at 23 with friends. It was a disaster and I learned a very valuable lesson about business and friendship. After seeing its untimely demise I decided to go solo and started a booking and event promotion business while also working full time as a bartender to support myself. A year later I sold that business to a local events production company and shifted into digital advertising. Over the next decade I started several businesses, experiencing both great successes and challenging failures. I learned valuable lessons and gained perspective on business and life along the way.
Why Coaching?
Over the years I have had the privilege of working with several wonderful coaches and mentors, the first of which when I was about 21 years old. Before this experience I had never heard the term “Life Coach” and initially responded to it with cynicism and skepticism. To me, it sounded like fluff, but the more I got to know this coach the more intrigued I became. I remember the day I changed my tune; he had come into the bar I worked at (he was a regular) and when I made a somewhat snide comment about how silly life coaching sounded he said to me, “The best professional athletes in the world have coaches to keep them on track and help them focus and excel. What’s so silly about normal people doing the same?”
I called him the next day to sign up. I realized that “life coaching” was just another way to be intentional and efficient with my time and energy. I luckily recognized that it was a tool I could leverage to build the life I wanted. It was like taking a shortcut by learning from someone else’s life experience.
I learned a lot about business, decision making, and how to tune out the rest of the world and focus on what worked for me. I learned who I was deep down and what I wanted out of life. Working with that coach gave me the courage to embrace my true self and realize that the path that worked for most of the people I knew would never satisfy me or bring me fulfillment or joy. I realized I wasn’t the “black sheep” of my family, I wasn’t a sheep at all. I wasn’t able to follow the path that had been laid out for me because it didn’t fit me. He helped me to figure out how to forge my own path.
Since that first experience I knew that I wanted to pay it forward and help others learn from my life experiences. For years I mentored and did pro bono coaching on the side as I built my other businesses, until I felt I had enough under my belt to be helpful to someone else.
Now I’m so excited to be able to lend my experience to others as their leg up to living the life they truly want.
Things you should know about me…
I am NOT for everyone. This is why I offer free discovery calls. So each of us can feel out the situation and see if it's a good fit. If I have concerns I’ll let you know.
I am not for those easily offended or with delicate sensibilities. I swear like a sailor and frequently use profanity in sessions and communications with clients. If this is an issue for you, I’m not the right coach for you.
I can be blunt. While I try to always engage with warmth and compassion in all my interactions I will absolutely NOT sugarcoat things for you. I don’t think it’s helpful to sweeten reality and I have enough respect for my clients to always be straightforward with them.
I am not your fixer. While I may be here to guide you and offer my experience you are responsible for yourself and your progress. You will be held accountable for yourself. Coaching is a huge amount of time, energy and work for both the coach and the client. Don't waste my time. Please only engage in this if you are truly ready to make progress in your life and prepared to work at it, I can't do the work for you.
I will not tolerate archaic, degrading or disrespectful conduct, speech or belief systems. If you embrace ideologies of discrimination in any way or against any group I am NOT the right coach for you. This is including but not limited to issues around sex, race, country of origin, gender expression, sexual orientation, ethnicity, religion, age, disability or any other protected class or hot-button issue.