My Journey to Creating an Intuitive Business I Didn’t Need a Vacation From

Nudges, layoffs, and signier-signs.

If there was a prize for climbing corporate ladders, I could have earned a gold medal. 

I grew up thinking I should get a job at a good company, wear Spanx, work hard, and climb the ladder. I thought having an “office job” was the gold standard. I learned that following the rules and doing what people expected of me was the path to getting ahead. I was really good at this. 

As a management consultant before having kids, I worked hard, got promotions, and doubled my salary in just a few years. I also was doing work-life balance before it was a thing. I arrived and left the office at reasonable hours, lifted weights at lunchtime, ducked out early on Fridays, and ignored emails after hours.

3 layoffs in 5 years showed me that job security was a myth

After returning to work after my first (brief) maternity leave, I sat in a boardroom, having yet another pointless meeting, and all I could think was, “What the hell am I doing here?” I knew this wasn’t where I wanted to be, but I didn’t know what to do next. 

Fast forward to 3 layoffs in 5 years — 2 from the same company. If I needed a signier-sign that I was meant for something different, this was it.

My first step was to follow my passions and start a food and lifestyle blog about plant-based eating. 

It was my job to create security. I found more aligned work that I enjoyed as a communications and change management consultant. And at that time, I had a growing side business teaching plant-based cooking to clients one-on-one and in group workshops. I wanted to take this side hustle full-time, but the timing wasn’t quite right.

After the third layoff, I didn’t want just to get “another job.” I was so over corporate America. But we had just bought a house — did I mention we were closing just 5 days after I was laid off for the 3rd time? 

Discovering my true strengths

When I lost the fire for the food blog, I realized it was the writing I loved. I loved writing and editing, and colleagues constantly asked for my help with LinkedIn profiles, resumes, and multi-million dollar proposals — and I loved doing it.

Fast forward to another corporate performance review when I told my manager I wanted to double down on my communication skills. He told me I should focus on being more “well-rounded” — meaning I should learn some uninteresting software I had no desire to understand. 

I was bored out of my mind and going through the motions of life. Work, commute, hockey practice, horseback riding, dinner, rinse, and repeat — oops, forgot deodorant again! I was too stressed and scattered to spend more than a minute saying goodnight to my kids. 

Something was broken. I was doing life wrong.

I got lost somewhere along the way. I felt like I was having an emergency. I needed a change — and I needed it so urgently that I dove in face first.

IT WAS TIME TO CO-CREATE A LIFE AND BUSINESS I DIDN’T NEED A VACATION FROM

I went all-in on copywriting and coaching in 2015.

Having been a few years into blogging and copywriting — for myself and corporate clients — I realized what lit me up. It was writing! I wanted to do it all the time. I offered to edit all our company’s internal communications. They let me, and I loved it. 

I wanted to help more people with their writing, so I contacted some of my friends and former colleagues, offering them a few hours to write or edit anything they needed in return for candid feedback and a testimonial.

A few people took a chance on me — and I was able to give them things they could share with the world that they’d been procrastinating on.

I was onto something. I updated my website, deleted the recipes, told a few more friends, added a price list, and kept moving forward. Before I knew it, I had so much extra work in addition to my day job I started a waiting list.

I dove face-first into writing.

After 13 years as a management consultant, managing multi-million dollar projects, I read so much corporate business jargon. Worse — I had to write a lot of it. I’d push my corporate clients to write more like humans, and bit by bit; they’d notice a difference. They actually wanted to read what they wrote. 

I couldn’t write one more word of corporate-speak. It started to hurt physically. The year I finally quit my day job in 2017, I was always sick.

I closed a chapter that was so familiar to me and officially resigned from my corporate job and dove into being my own boss full-time. With the support of my husband, kids, and former colleagues, I get to work wherever I have an internet connection. 

Writing is my meditation.

Today, I bounce out of bed every morning. Sunday blues are a thing of the past. The clients I work with are inspiring and shining their lights.

They want to do something different. They want to write without feeling fake and salesy and share from the heart.

Honing my intuition in my writing. 

Growing up, I had a few brush encounters with synchronicities — that I’d later look back on and describe as my intuition or the Divine leading the way.

The word “intuitive” didn’t mean much to me until several years ago. 

One copywriting client after another would show up doing work in the intuitive world. Why were all these lightworkers coming my way? 

“Intuition” was a word I rarely even used when going about my day, and it certainly wasn’t how I’d describe my sense of logic. I can probably attribute this to spending most of my life achieving with masculine energy — climbing shiny ladders, chasing promotions, and working like a MOFO.

It took me hearing it, then reconfirming it from many, many others before I could feel even remotely comfortable attaching it to my name. 

SO WHAT DOES IT MEAN TO BE AN INTUITIVE COPYWRITER & WRITING COACH?

Intuition shows up differently for everyone. For me, it feels like an obvious knowing, also called claircognizant. I had previously thought that clairvoyant (clear seeing) was the only form of intuition. 

One experience after another (that’ll be the topic for another book) showed me my inner sense of knowing. I experience a clear knowing. You might call it a download or insight. 

Finding the words to describe the feeling is challenging — even though that’s my job. My knowing isn’t meant to be understood by my brain. It’s meant to be understood in my heart. 

I surrender and trust I’m being led where I need to go.

It took me a long time to learn the language of my intuition. I’m still figuring it all out, but one thing’s for sure — it’s getting sharper the more I clear the blocks, heal, and kick ego to the curb.

WANT TO WORK (CO-CREATE) TOGETHER TO BECOME A BETTER WRITER?

I help you break through whatever’s blocking you from connecting with your heart, whether it be fears, an inner critic voice, or a full schedule. We transition from the schedule of the mind to the flow of the heart.

Get rid of everything you’ve ever thought about being a writer. Those ideas don’t mean anything.  

You don’t have to be a writer to write your story. Your true story. The one that resides in your heart.