My Story

In 2008 I left my corporate consulting job to pursue a career as an entrepreneur in the fitness and health and wellness industry. It was my goal to own my own gym and build a global brand.

As a high performer I was driven and focused on my goals. I hustled, working 7-days/week for a commercial gym and running my own private personal training and workshop business on the side.

Within 3 years, in 2011, I left the commercial gym to open my own brick and mortar gym. While operating my gym, in 2012, I also started building an online presence by writing a blog and sharing on social media.

In 2013, as a result of writing my blog and sharing on social media, this led to launching my online fitness coaching business before anyone knew what an “online business” was, creating and producing my international women’s strength workshop I Am Not Afraid to Lift®, plus 3 other signature workshops, and becoming a sought after speaker in the fitness industry.

Work was my life and life was my work. I was also pushing myself to complete the StrongFirst Iron Maiden Challenge and after that challenge, compete in powerlifting competitions.

I was driven to achieve my goals at the sacrifice of my health.

Over these years, multiple times I found myself exhausted, stressed, cranky, and suffering from symptoms of burnout because I wasn’t taking time for myself to rest and recover.

After I closed my brick and mortar gym, my husband, Eric, and I moved from Boston to Las Vegas so that he could accept a Head Therapist position with Cirque du Soleil, and I was diagnosed with Hashimoto’s auto-immune thyroid disease.

I was burned out from running the gym for 5 years and my body and health reflected this burnout. I struggled for years to regulate my thyroid until I had my cortisol checked, and was diagnosed with Stage 2 Adrenal Dysfunction.

With this diagnosis, I healed my body and implemented strict boundaries to protect my energy and personal routine, allow myself to rest and recover, and ensure that my work aligned with my personal life. By implementing these practices, I have thrived and achieved my highest badassery ever since.

Learn About Aligned to Thrive

When I was coaching digital entrepreneurs how to start, grow, and scale their online businesses not only did I help them learn business skills and strategy to grow their businesses, but I also helped them to align their businesses with their personal lives, core values, and goals, and prioritize their health, self-care, and personal development.

After working in the 24/7 “Hustle Culture” of the fitness industry, I wanted to help digital entrepreneurs have more freedom, work less, make more money, and have fun along the way.

When I went back to work in the corporate world in the 24/7 Casino and Hospitality Industry, I went from living, breathing, and teaching an “Anti-Hustle Culture”, and being surrounded by entrepreneurs who aligned with the notion that “Hustle Culture is Canceled”, to learning that “Hustle Culture” was still alive and well, and in fact expected and celebrated in some circles.

Even though the Casino and Hospitality industry was 24/7, I was surprised that this old school mentality of “No Days Off”, especially post pandemic, still existed. It did not align with my core values, current research, or with the more progressive models of work I learned while studying Organizational Leadership at Villanova University.

As someone who has been an athlete all of her life, I know that you cannot go hard all the time. Whether you are an athlete training to compete or a high performing Entrepreneur or Corporate Leader building her business or working towards a quarterly goal, the human body and mind is not built to deliver high performance without periods of rest or a balance of daily recovery practices to support productivity.

This is why athletes have off seasons and in fitness, training programs have regular rest days and a deload week after weeks of training hard and building up to high volume and heavy weights, or following a "peaking" program.

This same principle applies to work. Rest and recovery supports high performance.

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While working at Caesars, I upheld strict boundaries to protect my time and energy, and remained steadfast with my personal routine of walks, daily workouts, weekly food prep for healthy meals, and reading or listening to audiobooks or podcasts when I wasn’t studying for school to get my certificate in Organizational Leadership.

Honoring myself in this way helped me to thrive and supported my high performance at work. I was able to show up at work and give 110% when I was there, because when I was not there, I took care of myself to replenish my mental and physical energy.

While working back in the corporate world, I learned that other corporate leaders and professionals were not as disciplined. They did not implement healthy boundaries to protect their time and energy or prioritize a self-care routine. Also, after living and breathing health and fitness since I started studying classical ballet as a toddler, and being surrounded by colleagues in the fitness industry, and others who cared about how they fueled their bodies, I could not believe the amount of soda and processed foods that people in my office consumed.

I would watch my co-workers arrive at work and sit down at their desks at 8 AM and then get up for the first time that day at 2 PM, only to go to the breakroom to get a soda and some Cheez-Its®.

As an athlete, you cannot deliver high performance without regular exercise and movement and by eating a diet of Pepsi, Cheez-Its®, and Famous Amos cookies. So, if you are a high performing Corporate Leader or Entrepreneur, how do you expect to deliver high performance and results eating a diet like this?

Daily exercise and nourishing your body with foods that support physical performance, also support mental performance. As when you physically feel good, you sleep better, you’re more alert, you're happier, your mood is positive, creativity peaks, and you are motivated to be productive.

Based upon my experience coaching digital entrepreneurs who struggled to implement boundaries and a self-care routine to fuel performance, and my experience working in the corporate world and watching corporate leaders and professionals fail to implement boundaries to protect their energy, or fuel themselves like a “Corporate Athlete” to deliver high performance, I created my signature Aligned to Thrive method to help you achieve balance to realize your highest potential, and thrive!

Learn About Aligned to Thrive

My Story

Man sacrifices his health in order to make money. Then he sacrifices money to recuperate his health. Then he is so anxious about the future that he does not enjoy the present... he lives as if he is never going to die, and then dies having never really lived.

A master in the art of living draws no sharp distinction between his work and his play; his labor and his leisure; his mind and his body; his education and his recreation. He hardly knows which is which.

The real enemy of high performance is not stress, which, paradoxical as it may seem, is actually the stimulus for growth. Rather, the problem is the absence of disciplined, intermittent recovery.

Executives can perform successfully even if they smoke, drink and weigh too much, or lack emotional skills or a higher purpose for working. But they cannot perform to their full potential or without a cost over time - to themselves, to their families, and to the corporations for which they work.

My Story

Man sacrifices his health in order to make money. Then he sacrifices money to recuperate his health. Then he is so anxious about the future that he does not enjoy the present... he lives as if he is never going to die, and then dies having never really lived.

A master in the art of living draws no sharp distinction between his work and his play; his labor and his leisure; his mind and his body; his education and his recreation. He hardly knows which is which.

The real enemy of high performance is not stress, which, paradoxical as it may seem, is actually the stimulus for growth. Rather, the problem is the absence of disciplined, intermittent recovery.

Executives can perform successfully even if they smoke, drink and weigh too much, or lack emotional skills or a higher purpose for working. But they cannot perform to their full potential or without a cost over time - to themselves, to their families, and to the corporations for which they work.

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