Who I am,
where I came from,
and what I can do
for you
I’m a writer, a life coach, a Reiki practitioner, and, occasionally, something of a smartass.
Started at the University of Illinois, followed up at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor. Majored in journalism. Launched my own radio ad agency, did a little sidestep into radio comedy programming and production, put in a couple of decades as a professional voiceover talent (highlight of career: cast as talking tomato). Okay, maybe that last part isn’t incredibly relevant.
How to spin your stories without letting them spin you
But it was the years after that, when I returned to journalism as a business columnist, that got me interested in coaching. Because being a reporter meant listening to a lot of people’s stories, and then retelling them. Facts are facts, to be sure, but the stories we weave about them are pure spin. A story could be a tearjerker about a helpless victim of bad luck and malignant forces. Or it could be an inspiring tale of triumph against tremendous odds. And both those stories could be about the same person, in the same basic set of circumstances.
Those years taught me, long before I ever thought about coaching, that we tell stories—to ourselves, to each other—all the time. Stories that may start out based in fact but end up spun by both conscious and unconscious thoughts and feelings into our own tales of victory or woe. I learned to ask myself if I really knew the truth about my circumstances, or if I was telling myself a story based on questionable thoughts or assumptions. I learned, in short, not to believe everything I think.
Change your thoughts, change your life
And that’s at the heart of my coaching practice: my belief that choosing our thoughts—our stories—drives our actions and shapes our lives. My practice incorporates the work of O Magazine columnist and Oprah life coach Martha Beck, with whom I trained, as well as the teachings of visionaries as disparate as Byron Katie, Eckhart Tolle, Elizabeth Lesser, Mr. Rogers, and the Dalai Lama.
My intention as your coach is not just to get you moving forward toward your goals, but also to teach you the tools to coach yourself. Every client and every session is different, but I come to each of them with an open mind and an eagerness to see what happens next.
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