I started my career in the wilderness. I learned to tell time by tracking sun shadows and discovered whole worlds under dead tree stumps. I learned the value of experience over rhetoric and I learned to rescue people. I was a Wilderness First Responder and Experiential Educator for the Wilderness Education Association. I climbed mountains, and rafted rivers and even then, the greatest adventure to me, was learning what made teams and people tick. I became one of the youngest master facilitators because I could get people to talk at the deeper level of the soul and solve problems together.

 

When I was recruited by Nationwide Financial to be the Director of Executive and Organizational Development, I hung up my hiking boots for high heels for my next great adventure. I was certified as a culture and leadership coach through Lominger, Ltd. (Now Korn Ferry, Inc.), and led leadership programs across the United States. I had the privilege of coaching amazing leaders, but one leader changed my life.

 

I was coaching a young executive who had everything he was “supposed to have” and was miserable. I couldn’t help him because I was in the same boat. I had it all, and yet I felt this yearning for more that I couldn’t quite explain. I didn’t have the words for it.

 

I knew I needed to learn something radically new, and much deeper than competency profiles, to make a difference. I dove into the deep end of yoga and shamanism and discovered techniques and practices that helped me understand what I was missing. I was missing me, and the soul work helped me heal the roots of my anxiety and depression, and chart a more aligned path forward.

 

I knew I had to develop a program that would help other people get out of their existential funk!