Out of Hiding.
Until August 2025, I didn’t exist online. I emerged because hiding became more exhausting than telling the truth. I speak on self-leadership, organizational health and resilience.
Virginia, USA.
I turned out my pockets.
Until August 2025, I didn’t exist online. I had scrubbed myself from the internet years earlier and lived in protection. I was invisible on purpose. I left an abusive marriage and chose hiding for a season.
That’s not the headline. But it is foundational to everything I do now.
I emerged publicly because hiding became more exhausting than telling the truth. And because I couldn’t separate the work from the story anymore. You can’t teach self-leadership while pretending you don’t have one.
The Long Version
The survival came first. Then the rebuild.
It’s 2009 and I’m killing it at this tradwife thing. Six kids in eight years. I tried to be perfect. Never cussed. Never complained. Kept everything beautiful on the surface. Then the police showed up and the surface shattered.
I left. I scraped every trace of myself off the internet and started over.
Ted found me. We built a life. At his urging, I went back to college, walked into a career I never planned and discovered I was good at making organizations run. I became COO of BMC Accounting. Ted and I co-founded GYST Business Health. I completed lay counseling certification, 500 Rising’s trauma-informed self-defense training and a six-month leadership intensive that reshaped how I understand my own story.
Along the way I realized something. The skills you develop surviving a dangerous home are the same skills you need to diagnose a dysfunctional organization. Pattern recognition. Boundary enforcement. Reading a room before the room reads you. Knowing when to hold steady and when to move.
I didn’t plan this convergence. But I stopped pretending the personal and the professional were separate things.
What I Keep Coming Back To
You can’t lead anything until you’ve looked in the mirror. I spent years getting deeply serious about my own boundaries, my inability to say no and my habit of mistaking martyrdom for leadership. Every talk I give and every page I write grew out of that work.
Not where everyone else wants your energy to sit. Where it actually belongs.
Perfectionism kills momentum. I know this because I’m a recovering perfectionist who had to learn to release the work when it serves the mission, not when it’s flawless. Craig Groeschel calls this GETMO, Good Enough to Move On. I’ve adopted it as a daily rebellion against my own brain.
Because you own 100% of your time, and you are spending it exactly as you choose. That’s the book I’m writing, and it’s the conviction underneath everything I teach.
Where I Am Now
I speak on self-leadership, organizational health and resilience at events including Thomson Reuters SYNERGY, She is Me Global Women’s Event and HEROIC CORE. Ted and I run GYST together. I’m writing The Myth of Busyness. I tell stories on LinkedIn and Instagram that land because they’re real, not because they’re polished.
I’m a mother of nine. A writer. A woman of faith. It took a long time to get here.
I keep the sacred spaces deliberate. Not everything needs to become content and not every pocket needs turning out.
But the ones that matter? Wide open.
Your organization can’t outgrow the health of its leader.
That’s not theory. That’s math.
I tell stories that land in your gut before they reach your brain.
The kind you chew on for days, swallow slowly and carry with you long after the room empties. I pair them with practical strategies your team can use Monday morning. A good story without a tool is just entertainment.
I bring two threads to the stage and they converge more often than not.
The Myth of Busyness
For leaders who confuse activity with progress.You own 100% of your time. You’re spending it exactly as you choose. This talk dismantles the lie that busy equals valuable and replaces it with something harder and better. Clarity about what actually deserves your energy.
Lead Yourself First
For founders, COOs and leadership teams.I spent years getting deeply honest about my own boundaries, my inability to say no and my habit of confusing martyrdom with leadership. What I found on the other side changed how I lead and how I build teams. Your organization can’t outgrow the health of its leader. That’s not theory. That’s math.
From Survivor to Thriver
For audiences building advocacy, fundraising and recovery initiatives.I don’t tell my story so you’ll feel sorry for me. I tell it because somewhere in the room, someone is just surviving right now and they think that’s all there is. It’s not. There is a version of you that’s on the other side of the hardest decision you haven’t made yet. I’m here to hand you the tools, not the tissues.
What I’m writing about.
Dragged.
A short piece on the difference between being pulled forward and being dragged along.
ReadThe Field.
I do my best thinking when I’m walking my back acreage. Not at my desk. Not in meetings. Out here.
ReadThe Gasket.
Waste is the enemy. So if I have fuel in the tank, I burn it. Until you blow a gasket.
ReadWhat people are saying.
Girl, you just raise the truth bar every single time. So much light to give. So much wisdom to share.
I tell everyone about how someone changed my life forever and that was you. You were the one that was able to reach me and show me that there was another side. You propelled me into peace.
You have no idea how much strength and courage was transmitted to me through this. You are a rock.
I’m getting so much aspiration, validation and confirmation from you.
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