I know what it feels like to wonder "Is this all there is?"

If you want to understand why I do this work, you have to understand where I came from.

I spent over 20 years in quantitative research and strategy consulting, first at a market research consultancy, then running my own consulting business serving Fortune 500 companies. The promotions came. The repeat clients came. There was a career high project where we brought together leaders from around the world to build a global brand strategy. By every external measure, I was doing it right.

And yet, something was missing. Not in a dramatic, everything-is-falling-apart way. More like a quiet, persistent hum underneath all of it. A feeling I couldn't quite name, and didn't quite give myself permission to examine.

Sound familiar?

I know now that what I was feeling had a name: the gap between success and fulfillment. I was on what psychologists call the hedonic treadmill, achieving things, feeling the rush, adapting, and then chasing the next thing. I was good at my work. But good at something and lit up by something are two very different things.

I had spent decades becoming who everyone else needed me to be. It took me a while to realize that the next chapter could finally be about me.

For years I had sensed that my career lacked deep meaning and purpose, but my most important role kept me anchored. When my two kids left for college, that anchor lifted. The question I'd been quietly carrying for years suddenly had nowhere to hide. Who was I now? Not just professionally. As a woman. As a person. Outside of the role that had brought me more meaning and purpose than anything else in my life.

The empty nest didn't just change my schedule. It cracked something open that had been quietly waiting for years. I thought I was prepared. I had watched it coming for months. And then it happened, and it hit me like a brick. The "who am I now?" question I had been quietly carrying suddenly became impossible to ignore. I had no idea how big it would be. How much space it would take up. How many parts of me it would touch. Not just my schedule or my sense of purpose. My identity. My relationships. My sense of direction. All of it suddenly up for renegotiation at once.

The Turning Point

In January 2024, I did something I'd never really done before: I put myself first.

I went during one of the hardest seasons of my life. I was two months out from surgery following a significant accident, physically not yet whole, with a long recovery still ahead of me. And I was carrying something as a mother that had shaken me to my core. The kind of experience that leaves you numb for months and changes you in ways you're still discovering.

I won't share the details here, because they aren't only mine to share. But if you've ever been shaken to your core as a mother, you'll know the kind of weight I mean.

I went anyway. Not just to get away. But to begin something. Because something in me knew that I couldn't keep pouring from an empty cup, and that if I didn't choose myself in that moment, I might not again.

Something shifted there. Not in a sudden, lightning-bolt way. More like a door opened that I'd been standing in front of for a long time.

But the most pivotal thing that happened in that rainforest wasn't about getting away or finding peace. It was about courage.

Since I was 17 years old, I had known what I wanted to study. What I was drawn to. What felt aligned with who I actually was at my core. And for over two decades, I had chosen something else instead. I chose something practical. Something that made sense on paper. Something that looked right from the outside. If I'm honest, it was a path shaped more by someone else's vision for my future than my own.

In Costa Rica, I finally gave myself permission to choose what I had always known.

I came home and I enrolled. I studied what my 17 year old self had always wanted to study. And I understood for the first time what it truly felt like to be both good at something AND lit up by it.

That is what I want for every woman I work with. Not just a life that looks right from the outside. A life that finally feels like hers.

The Sparking Positivity Story

The name itself has a story, and I think it says something about where this work comes from.

About seven years before the Costa Rica retreat, I had closed my consultancy and was working in our family business. It was a hard season. I'd picked my daughter up from school and we were talking on the drive home, the way we always did, openly, about the good and the hard parts of the day.

I told her I was struggling. That I was no longer finding joy in the work. We were launching a new product line and were stuck using the business initials, and I could not find a way to feel good about something so tied to what I was feeling.

My wise 14-year-old looked at me and said: think of something positive that starts with S and P. Something that shifts how you think about it.

Just like that, SP became Sparking Positivity.

At the time, it was just a reframe, an Instagram name and a place to post positive affirmations. A way to keep going. Little did I know it was the beginning of the chapter I was always meant to write.

That reframe, choosing to look for the positive even in the hardest seasons, is at the heart of everything I bring to the women I work with today.

Why This Work Matters to Me

I've sat with my own version of the gap.

I know what it's like to finally look. To get honest. To realize that the version of success you've been chasing was built on someone else's definition, and that there's something far richer waiting on the other side of that realization.

Something shifts as we move through midlife. We start caring less about what others think. We become more unapologetic about who we actually are. The things we've been quietly tolerating, the roles that no longer fit, the dreams we filed away as impractical, they start asking for our attention in ways that are harder and harder to ignore. I think that's one of the most underrated gifts of this stage of life. Not a crisis. A clarification.

I do this work because I lived it. And because I've seen what happens when a woman finally gives herself permission to ask what she actually wants. It doesn't just change her days. It changes her relationship with herself. And that changes everything.

The Foundation I Bring

I didn't come to this work lightly.

I hold a BS in Business Administration and a certification in Market Research Methodologies and Analysis through The Burke Institute. My research work was comprehensive by design, beginning with qualitative exploration, diving deep into quantitative findings, and then returning to qualitative research to understand what the numbers were really telling us. At the core of all of it was listening, asking the right questions, and finding the threads that tied everything together. That is exactly what coaching requires. I didn't leave those skills behind when I changed directions. I brought them with me.

Combined with over 20 years in quantitative research and strategy consulting, first at a market research consultancy and then running my own consulting business serving Fortune 500 companies, I bring a depth of listening that shapes every conversation. No two sessions are alike. Through listening and reflecting, I find the questions that open doors my clients didn't know were there, leading to the ahas and forward movement that create real, lasting change.

My coaching foundation is rooted in Applied Positive Psychology, the evidence based science of wellbeing pioneered by Martin Seligman at the University of Pennsylvania. I completed a nearly two year intensive certification program through The Flourishing Center, one of the most respected training organizations in the field, and hold a certification in Positive Psychology Coaching. I am currently working toward my ACC credential with the International Coaching Federation, the gold standard in professional coaching.

The research background and the coaching work turned out to be more connected than I ever expected. Both are built on the same foundation: asking the right questions, listening for what's being said and what isn't, and finding the threads that live just beneath the surface. What ties them together isn't just a skill set. It's who I am, a genuine curiosity about people and a deep care for what they're carrying.

I also bring something that can't be taught or certified. As an empath, I have a deep natural intuition that allows me to hear not just what you are saying, but what you are not quite saying yet. And that, ultimately, is what matters most: that you finally feel seen clearly, understood deeply, and supported with both expertise and genuine care, wherever this journey takes you.

How I Work

There is a metaphor I love for what coaching actually does.

When you're stuck inside a bottle, you can't read the label. You're too close. You can feel that something is off, but you can't see it clearly enough to name it, let alone change it. That's what I help women do. Read their own label. See what's actually there beneath the surface.

But here's what might surprise you about what that actually feels like.

It doesn't feel heavy. It doesn't feel like homework. Women tell me they feel genuinely safe in our conversations, safe enough to say the things they haven't said out loud yet. And that within that safety there is also lightness. Women have laughed in our sessions. They have cried. Sometimes both in the same conversation. All of it is welcome. Because the heavy stuff doesn't always need to be approached heavily, and the most profound shifts happen in the most unexpected moments.

And then, quietly, something clicks. An aha that wasn't forced or pushed. Just uncovered. That's the moment everything starts to move.

I work through curious, layered questions that build on each other, each one opening a door the last one unlocked, each one inviting you deeper into your own awareness. I listen with my whole self, not just to your words but to what's underneath them. The hesitation. The energy shift. The thing you almost said. I notice what you haven't quite voiced yet and reflect back what I hear, because often you don't hear yourself the way I do.

My approach is grounded in Positive Psychology, the evidence based field focused on building what's working, not just diagnosing what isn't. We're not here to excavate the past. We're here to build forward, from who you already are, toward who you want to become.

This is not therapy. It is forward focused, evidence based coaching for the woman who is ready to stop waiting and start becoming.