I started where most people do. I was let go at forty, and to get back into work I took a forty percent pay cut. In February of 2026 I was fired again, without cause, their words, not mine. I have also had setbacks that were personal, in my own life and my own relationships. Everything I teach about getting back up, I learned in my own comebacks, the hard way, long before I had a name for any of it.

Then I led people, and I got stuck there too. The charge nurse quit during my first week in a new leadership job, and the next day more resignations landed on my desk. I brushed the concerns aside, and I was wrong. So I stopped defending and started listening. Everything that team told me fell into five categories, and those five became a framework. More than 100 leaders have reported through me, and I was responsible for their development. I taught them that five-part framework, which helped make their own breakthroughs easier.

I have owned businesses. I bought a defunct screen printing company and grew it into one of the largest in its region. I also had a furniture business that failed. And I helped over a half dozen other businesses in my community with their marketing and strategic plans.

For the last decade, I have been chief nursing officer through three consecutive hospital turnarounds, in systems from $200 million to $750 million in revenue. I am the author of Lead Your People and Stabilize. Optimize. Anchor.