When I was in my early twenties, I had already spent a decade in the work force. I had been a sales rep, a manager for a luxury beauty salon, an executive recruiter and a corporate training manager. During my time as a training manager, the company hired an executive coaching team to come in an deliver an amazing management training program. During that training, I had one of those ‘When Harry Met Sally” moments where I thought, “I want what she’s having!”

I just knew that I wanted to become a coach. I wasn’t even sure what that meant yet. What I did know was that  I wanted to be up on that stage in front of the group teaching them. And so I approached Rachael from Trilogy Coaching and said, I want to do what you’re doing. It was that simple. Every job I had up until that point was leading me to that moment. And I had the courage and the balls {read: ovaries} to just go for it. I love who I was in that moment. I didn’t stay quiet, I didn’t brush off my intuition as silly.

I continued on from there to get my training from Coach University and to join coaching support organizations. I hired Rachael as my coach and began to fill my roster with clients.
The fact that I was only 23 and did not have the stripes of an experienced coach did not stop me.
I just heard the calling, trusted it and moved to get what I knew was mine.

Fast forward a decade later. A husband, pregnancy, a kiddo, moving to a new state. These are all amazing things that I am grateful for. But as a woman in the world, I felt like one of those snow globes.
I felt as if I had been shaken up and all the snowy bits had landed but in all different places.
I could barely recognize the person in the mirror.

I’ve heard from and interviewed countless women who have identified deeply with this exact place I found myself in. Most of us just don’t talk about it because we think we are being ungrateful. It’s not that I wanted to go back to being 23, but I somehow wanted to take that ballsy courage of my 23 year old self and infuse it into myself now. I soon realized that it wasn’t going to be easy. Turns out I had a journey to go on and an evolution to move through that would teach me all the lessons I was meant to learn.

This evolution would take me over a decade and honestly, I know that I will always be on some version of the journey. But in some ways, I really have come full circle. Only now I know what I need to do in order to have the daily courage and confidence to take chances, to bring my dreams into reality.

I wanted to share this with you because sometimes when we look around at those amazing women starting six-figure businesses and launching amazing programs, you may think that there’s something  they have that you could never have. But I want to remind you that as my coach said to me today, “We all start at zero”. We all have a journey to travel. You have lessons to learn and experiences to go through just like I had and just like every human being has.

So if you have a seed of a dream or vision that is stirring in your heart, don’t discount it as crazy or foolish. Just begin to do the work of planting the seed by taking care of yourself in all the ways you know how. I could not take my journey alone. I had and still have mentors along the way. None of us needs to walk the journey alone.

Now I can say I’ve found my cajones, my balls, my courage. It’s taken years of exploration. I’ve learned to take care of myself as if my life depends on it. Because it does. I’ve learned to ask for what I need and to teach those around me and the Universe how to treat me.

I’ve learned to get crystal clear and listen to my intuition above all. And I’m getting ready to share that with the world.

Because if we don’t take care of ourselves, what’s the money worth after all?

Reach out for help, guidance, mentoring. Invest in yourself and in your dreams. We are each creative and unique in our own way.

September 2013 Issue