I've always wandered into unknown territory. My life really began as a six-year-old traveling on a steamer to Europe. I lived for a year with my family in Copenhagen near a park with deer and old-growth trees. For me, it was a magical forest, through which I wandered and played and lost myself many times. And each time, by my own resources and the help of others, I found my way home.
Going off the beaten path is something I naturally do. It fulfills my sense of adventure, love of discovery, and need to move freely, and it greatly heightens my potential for connecting with new ideas, places and people. Often, I will choose an alternate route when returning to wherever I came from — I rarely double back over my own steps when new frontiers beckon.
After college, I ran off to California with a new love who has been my life partner ever since. We've been blessed with two children, and throughout their very young lives, I worked both full — and part-time — as a search consultant, and also in roles like household COO, school volunteer, and family calendar agent that keep life going. I was productive, but feeling like I was living part-way in many worlds.
After seven years as a manager consultant for a healthcare executive search firm, I resigned to build my own practice. For the first time, I was able to define when, how, and with whom I worked. I learned much about running my own business, I was much valued by my clients, and my income more than doubled in two years. Strengthened by that success, I sought deeper ways of connecting and contributing to others.
In 1999, I took a three-month learning sabbatical and discovered coaching as an emerging profession. In 2001, I became a certified coach, and then founded LE Coaching Life Essentials, a business dedicated to personal transformation.
Coaching is frontier territory for me and my clients — a place of boldness, curiosity, endless discovery, creativity, and great heart. Coaching — and witnessing — clients make their own path through the forest is magical. I believe success and fulfillment in life come from daring to be completely ourselves and to reach for our deepest longings and potential.