40 Years of Figuring it Out
and I am only Halfway There
I've spent forty years learning two things from the inside: how people work and how things work.
I've raised five children, studied psychology, natural medicine and healing arts, managed teams, helped turn around a business, built digital ecosystems and spent more than a decade working directly beside founders.
None of it happened in a straight line. Most of it happened at the same time.
I can sit with a person and see the patterns underneath what they're living.
I can walk into a business and see the systems underneath what's happening.
It took me a long time to realize those are not entirely different skills.
1980’s
Before I knew any of this was a skill
My business education started in high school.
My first job promoted me into management within six months.
I juggled full-time school with full-time work and continued doing well academically, including through finals.
I learned very young that responsibility didn't particularly scare me. Give me a lot to hold and my brain starts organizing.
There were no productivity apps. No business books. No personal brand.
I discovered that I could handle things.
If I’m honest, I always could.
1990’s
Building a life. Losing parts of it. Finding my way out.
I become a mother before I became an adult.
Life got considerably bigger.
Marriage. Children. Work. Responsibility. And eventually the realization that parts of the life I had built could no longer continue.
I needed to leave. And to leave, I needed to be able to support myself and my children.
I approached businesses I regularly visited and offered to work for free for one week.
The photo lab hired me.
Then I became the office manager and “go-between” for the owner and customers of a local lube shop.
By New Year's 1999, I was leaving that life and beginning what I would eventually understand as a path toward personal sovereignty.
2000’s
In January 2000, I met a healer/therapist who later became my mentor and changed the direction of my life.
When I left, I wanting to know…
Why I chose it.
Why I stayed as long as I did.
What it would take to never choose that again.
In the middle of my own process, I enrolled in college for the first time. I studied psychology in the classroom. I managed an office of providers during the day. I apprenticed under my mentor and co-facilitated deep intensive groups in the evenings and on weekends. I provided for my children on my own while continuing my healing, mentally and physically.
2002, I met my second husband.
We had two more children. Life got full again. I worked, went to school and continued the work I had started on myself.
2004–2008, I worked in a high-end restaurant where I became Front of House Manager at a moment when the restaurant needed to grow 5% or close the doors. My team and I hit the goal.
My study of people continued to widen.
2004–2011, I studied with a shaman mentor.
2007–2009, I studied natural medicine while working for and studying alongside naturopathic doctors. It took my understanding of the body further and pulled me closer to earth medicine.
2009-2010, I took a role as office director for the local Waldorf school so my kids could attend.
I studied hands-on healing arts, herbalism, aromatherapy, hypnotherapy and somatic practices.
Integrating all along the way.
Psychology met the body. The body met lived experience. Traditional learning met ancient practices. Theory met actual people.
Business and leadership were developing alongside all of it.
And I kept asking questions.
I went looking for answers
2010’s
2010, I moved to a small town in Colorado and co-created a Waldorf homeschool co-op for my kids alongside my private holistic practice.
2012, I divorced my second husband and started working with a clothing designer. For the next couple of years, I traveled, setting up booths and selling clothing at events around the country. At one of those events, I met a woman who introduced me to a large community of women entrepreneurs.
2013, I was attending a business mastermind when the founder asked if anyone could cut video clips, turn them into MP3s, add graphics and get three examples back to her quickly.
I had absolutely no idea how to do any of that. I raised my hand anyway. She said, “Show me what you got.” I got off the call, figured out how to cut the clips, opened photoshop, made the graphics and delivered all three within the hour.
I worked alongside her for several years, eventually finding a new platform called Kajabi and moving her business into it. Kajabi was growing and I learned it from the ground up as it grew.
That experience showed me that I naturally understand the underbelly of systems.
2016, I became a grandma.
2017, I became a Licensed Massage Therapist.
A few weeks before graduating massage school, I attended a four-day workshop with Dr. Lisa. Looking around at the operation, her team and everything happening behind the work, I walked up to her and said: “I think your business needs somebody like me.” Her response: “Be careful what you wish for.”
2017–2022, I worked beside Lisa as her business grew, pivoted and changed. Within a short time, she released the large marketing company she'd been working with and I moved into the founder-side role.
Her business was global and multi-layered: 1:1 and group work, books, translators, international workshop host teams, live events, courses, online programs and three professional certification pathways.
I worked across the business: launches, programs, teams, technology, systems, customer experience and day-to-day operations. That included coordinating the moving parts across different offers, delivery formats, countries and languages while the business continued to grow and change.
Lisa's work was to teach, facilitate and hold the people in front of her.
I worked across the business around her, connecting the people, programs, technology, customer experience and operations that made that possible.
I learned how things work underneath
It was one of the greatest lessons of my career in both how much I am capable of holding and why one person shouldn't have to hold it all.
2020’s
2022, Dr. Lisa changed course and we went our separate ways.
That same year, Joy Taylor, a founder I'd previously done project work with, reached out. Together, we reignited her business after her sabbatical.
2023, I took a sabbatical of my own.
I traveled 10,000 miles around the U.S. in my CR-V with my dog, G, then took a ferry to Alaska for a season before coming full circle back to Washington State.
That same year, my mentor, colleague and dearest friend, Dr. Denny, and I started My FIP Path, bringing together years of our work understanding people, patterns, the body and healing.
The process that changed my life from the foundation up.
2024, I returned to work alongside Joy and her new husband, Gavin.
My work crossed the business: offers, programs, launches, websites, technology, systems, team coordination, customer experience and the day-to-day work of turning ideas into something that can actually be delivered.
By this point, founder-side work had been part of my life for more than a decade.
Between 2012–2026, I've worked with multiple founders through different seasons of their businesses. Sometimes for a project. Sometimes to untangle something. Sometimes for years.
I step in and look at the whole thing.
Programs. People. Offers. Technology. Websites. Customer journeys. Content. Launches. Systems. Communication.
And now, AI.
The technology changed. The questions didn't.
What are we trying to accomplish?
How does this work underneath?
What should technology carry?
What needs a human?
And why are we doing this manually in the first place?
Coming back differently
2025, I started Halfway There.
After decades of self-mastery, studying people, building businesses and helping other people bring their work into the world, I started making more room for my own.
The things that once looked unrelated started looking considerably less unrelated.
Turns out observation wasn't only about viewing, it was a way to get inside and underneath.
People. Patterns. Relationships. Bodies. Businesses. Systems. Technology.
