For more than two decades, I have worked with women at the moments that matter most: reinvention, visibility, creative expansion, and the threshold they cannot seem to cross alone.
Over the years, my work has taken many forms: librarian, educator, technical writer, publisher, ghostwriter, and mentor. Each one taught me something different about what women are capable of, and what quietly gets in the way.
I ghostwrote 65 books for wealthy business leaders and helped hundreds more writers, entrepreneurs, and thought leaders bring their work into the world. I was very good at holding other people's possibilities.
For a long time, I had trouble seeing my own.
During 25 years of working with women in retreats, courses, and individual mentoring, I kept seeing the same thing.
Brilliant, capable women would arrive at the threshold of something larger: more visibility, more authority, more creative expression, more of what they had worked toward for years. They were ready. Their work was ready. Then they would stop.
Not because they lacked talent. Not because they needed a better plan. They stopped because something inside them had quietly decided it was not safe to move forward. It showed up as perfectionism, procrastination, endless preparation, or the decision to stay small when something larger was calling.
I know this because I lived it myself.
I struggled to raise my rates, got stuck in people-pleasing and overwork because I was intimidated by wealthy clients, and, ironically, could not market my own books, even though I was great at marketing books for other people.
Alongside my professional life, I have been a caregiver for dying parents, for two children with special needs, and for a husband through serious illness. I know what it's like to hold everyone else's crisis together while your own hopes quietly get shelved for later. Later never arrives on its own.
I lost track of how much money I spent on courses, masterminds, and coaching programs to fix myself. They all offered useful information, but the problem wasn't a lack of ideas. It was that I kept repeating the same behaviors every time I tried to grow.
Finally, it reached a crisis point: I was so burned out from struggling with life and work that my hair started to fall out.
In desperation, I began to study the patterns running underneath it all: old fears passed down through families that tell women it is dangerous to be seen, and a wide range of practices for working through what was stuck.
In time, I got better. Life was brighter. I felt hope again, and that hope opened up all sorts of possibilities.
I started to cautiously share some of these tools with women who were suffering from writer's block, procrastination, and what I call "pre-shrinking." That's when we are so afraid of rejection that we don't even try to get in the game. If you've ever procrastinated on a great opportunity, struggled to promote yourself, or froze during negotiations, you know how pre-shrinking feels. Yuck!
The longer I shared this odd blend of business strategy and inner work with women, the more I realized the combination worked.
It felt weird and hard to explain. But things started to happen. Women got braver. They asked for more money, respect, and support. One left a soul-crushing marriage. Another finished her book after five years of frustration. Others had difficult conversations in which they were finally able to say what they wanted. One redesigned the work that was sucking her dry. Another started a business and found she could support herself. Another woman cleared a lifelong fear of being seen, caused by an overheard conversation in her early teens.
However, this work isn't for everyone. One woman was not ready to look at her hardest memories. Another felt uncomfortable with practical details and wanted to focus only on the inner side of success. I discovered that I can't help everyone, but I can help some women profoundly when we blend inner work with aligned actions in the outer world.
In 2012, I moved to the Andes Mountains of Ecuador with two suitcases and more hope than certainty. I live there now with two rescue dogs, Chester and Ellie Mae, overlooking a sacred valley where eagles fly. The air smells like lavender and eucalyptus.
I grew up on a Minnesota farm, the oldest of five, with four younger brothers. I learned steadiness, fairness, and the incredible value of faith. Those lessons are still in daily use.
I am a lifelong reader and incurably curious. I married the love of my life the day after my 60th birthday. I'm also a mother and a grandmother. My family holds my heart.
I'm good at school and have spent a lot of time learning. I was nearly finished with a PhD until I realized that I didn't want to be a professor. If you feel comforted by education, I have a Bachelor's in Education, a Master's in Occupational Therapy, and more certifications than I can track.
I studied coaching with Thomas Leonard, the founder of the coaching industry, and with a host of top leaders in online business. I also had a long career in the corporate world, where I learned about metrics, politics, and leading teams. I can write and measure KPIs with the best of them, and know they often lead to despair.
I am also fascinated by personal development and by specific practices for working through what gets in a person's way. I've studied with several teachers who helped me move through some genuinely hard life experiences. One works with compassion as a way to stop repeating the same mistakes. One helps a person see herself clearly, without the constant self-judgment running in the background. One works with the patterns a family passes down without ever meaning to. Those three threads still show up in how I work with women today.
The bottom line: I've had a long career and learned from dazzling success, crushing failure, and some very challenging moments. I know in my core that hope makes everything better.
My gifts are deep listening, seeing possibility, and making terrible puns at exactly the right moment.
If we work together, we will laugh a lot, cry a little, and find the path forward that is right for you.
If you have read all this information and are still curious, that is a sign.
Something in your awareness is nudging you to explore if we might be able to work together on your goals.
We won't know the answer until we have a chat. Not a sales call, because they feel icky, but a heart-to-heart conversation about where you are and what you want.
Once you complete your Take Your Place Playbook, you'll be invited to set up a call with me to discuss your results. I hope you take me up on that offer so we can connect.
Begin with your free Take Your Place Playbook