Hello

My Story

As I entered into my young adult years (that was a while ago) I developed a passion for self-development. The questions – the deep thoughtful questions – inspired impassioned exploration and examination.

• What does happiness look like and feel like to me? 

• How much influence do I have over my own happiness?

• Is it more a matter of chance, or a function of choice?

• Is intentional, sustainable change really achievable?

• If so, how is it done? And why can it seem so challenging?

• Can human thriving, flourishing and effectiveness be synthesized into models or formulas, ancient, or modern?

Over the years, my quest for self improvement and wholeness took on a more meaningful role in my professional life. My professional landscape included:

• Nearly 34 years working in higher education.

• A masters degree with an emphasis in human resource and organizational development.

• Nearly 25 years as a certified facilitator of Franklin Covey curricular and workshops.

• Certification as a 7 Habits of Highly Effective People coach.

• Certification as an Arbinger facilitator.

• Certification as a neurolinguistic programming coach.

• Leadership coach to college executives and people leaders.

• Life coach certification in the rigorous Mind Firm Method through The Coach Firm.

• Health and well-being coach certification.

Like most of us who have lived a while, I have experienced the heights and depths of an abundant and blessed life. And yet, somewhere along the way, I increasingly became a casualty of the weight of it all. The demands of career and family and church, and so much of life began to take its toll…physically, mentally and emotionally. Years of unabating fatigue, an array of inexplicable symptoms, debilitating brain fog, and the like left me worn and frayed. And yet, I kept all the balls in the air: I rarely missed a workout (no matter how exhausted I felt), raised amazing children, excelled in my career, labored for the many and the few in weighty church assignments, and just kept pushing that rock up the hill.

Until one day, I just couldn’t. I was like the farmer in Aesop‘s fabled story of the goose and the golden eggs. I was so pressed by the need to produce golden eggs (i.e., managing my roles and responsibilities as a high functioning adult) that I neglected (despite efforts to the contrary), the fundamental health of the goose. A sick and diminished goose produces few golden eggs.

An unexpected visit to a local emergency department, intensified work with more medical practitioners, and an extended medical leave from work started me on a well-worn road of diagnosis, treatment and eventual improvement.

Among a few other things, I was diagnosed with Systemic Lupus Erythematosus (SLE or Lupus for short). The literature would suggest Lupus is an autoimmune inflammatory disease that can be treated, but not cured (I am working to cure mine). On average, it takes 4.5 years to receive a definitive autoimmune diagnosis. For some, it takes much longer.

There is a worn aphorism in the realm of coaching: “Your mess becomes your message.” I think this suggests that coaches often develop their coaching emphasis based on their lived experience, e.g., ADHD, divorce, weight loss, finance, etc. My coaching emphasis, methods, concentration, and philosophies have not emerged from a certain, narrow dimension of lived experience, but of an amalgamation of decades of learning: academic, reflective, observational and experiential.

My health challenges, response interventions and lifestyle modifications have served to both broaden and catalyze my coaching. We are physical, mental, emotional, social, and spiritual beings. All dimensions are critical to human thriving and ultimate well-being. I believe that life coaching in order to have real efficacy and transformative power must seek balance and integration within these core human dimensions, and provide a framework robust enough to move the needle on each of them.

To my very core I believe that life is precious. It is the province of each one of God‘s children to live a full, rich, self-determined life. Purpose, self-fulfillment, and true flourishing are not the purview of a lucky few, but the prerogative of all who are willing to do the work. Can there be a greater work? It is my consuming passion to continue that work in my own life, and to accompany others as they do it in theirs. 

To the journey!