Hey!
I’m Kelly.
If you’ve found your way here, chances are pretty good something happened in your business or life - or both - that’s left you feeling stuck, burnt out, scared, or ashamed.
Let me be the first to tell you - You CAN figure it out.
I truly, absolutely believe you are already your own best expert, and anything is learnable as long as you stay teachable. I know this, because once upon a time, I felt everything you’re feeling right now, and doubted myself constantly.
Once upon a time….I was a whole ass mess.
But, that wasn’t always the case. I grew up being fairly comfortable with taking risks, faced a fair amount of adversity between having life-threatening scoliosis and needing major spine surgery to correct it when I was 13, along with a decade of service as an EMT. I was confident in myself, in what I knew, and in my ability and willingness to face challenges head-on, until 2014 hit.
In 2014, I was a new mother to a preemie baby, practically drowning in postpartum depression, struggling with figuring out what it meant to love my career but hate my job, and trying to figure out how to deal with domestic violence.
OOF.
Let’s unpack that a bit, shall we?
<pulls up a chair…>
It started in 2013, when I delivered my daughter five weeks early. I ended up developing pretty severe postpartum depression and anxiety, which was only made worse by other issues I had already been dealing with.
My marriage had not been in great shape for some time, and I had been struggling with the ever-growing and evolving demands of working for a public community mental health agency. My supervisor and I were not… besties… and while I loved the team I worked with, I knew I wanted something different.
I brought up the idea a couple of years prior to my family and husband about starting a private practice, and when the response was essentially laughter, I kept my idea to myself out of sheer embarrassment. Finally in 2014 after I had my daughter, I was told I wasn’t going to be considered for a supervisor position I applied for. I had enough of the political bs happening under my program director, and decided if I was going to chase my dream, it was now or never.
I launched my private practice in July 2014, but could not have predicted what would come next.
I said a moment ago that my marriage hadn’t been great - well, it went from not great to pretty scary in the space of just a few months. I had been dealing with financial and mental abuse for almost the entirety of the relationship, and it suddenly evolved to threats of physical violence.
I left in the middle of the night with my 1.5 year old daughter in October 2014.
I never would have been able to predict or imagine what it was going to be like to attempt to build a business under trial by fire, while also going through a literal trial that would end with the dissolution of my marriage.
From start to finish, my divorce took a total of six months, including the trial. It was silly fast, considering the length of time it typically takes for a contentious divorce to be processed and finalized.
The entire time, while my personal life was falling apart around me and I was trying desperately to not completely fail my daughter, I found a constant solace in the business I was growing. It was the one place in my life, during a very dark time, where I felt completely competent and fully trusted myself to be able to figure things out.
I did the research on how to start, made choices that turned out to be mistakes <that I still cringe about today, like paper charts…>, and started learning about things like niching, ideal clients, marketing, and networking. Working on that process before, during, and after my divorce gave me something concrete I could focus on and pour energy into, where I felt productive and could see the positive net result of my actions.
It didn’t matter to me that people kept saying to me things like:
‘You’ll fail.’
‘You didn’t go to school for business, you don’t know what you’re doing.’
‘You’re putting too much on your plate; you won’t be able to handle it.’
I’m a pretty stubborn person, so if you tell me I can’t do something, I’ll usually be the one to do it twice and take pictures, just to prove you wrong.
I wasn’t deterred. I was determined.
In my business, I found myself again.
Sitting in session with my clients, doing my books for my accountant, scheduling new clients and networking with colleagues - in running my business, I was able to reconnect to my confidence, my willingness to take calculated risks, feeling my way through the process of developing my expertise and authority, and understanding what it physically and emotionally felt like to shift from scarcity into abundance.
I went from being a whole ass mess to being a confident authority of a businesswoman and entrepreneur, who wasn’t afraid to set boundaries and who leaned fully into freedom and authenticity. This translated into my personal life, in feeling confident about the choices I was making, the relationships I chose to nurture and the ones I chose to let go of, and leaning into taking care of myself on my terms, for the first time in a very long time. I was aligned, finally.
Let me tell you - Alignment is fucking delicious.
I’m here to tell you - You absolutely CAN have the life and business you’ve dreamt of.
I created the pillars of GRIIT and POWER to walk you through the process of building a life and business in alignment with your values and true identity. GRIIT and POWER are the systems I’ve always lived my life according to, and they are the systems that not only helped me build multiple successful businesses, but also helped me recover from one of the darkest times in my life.
You’ve always been your own best expert, and it’s time for you to finally step into actually living that way.
Your dreams, hopes, and desires are all so incredibly valid.
You absolutely can have the life and business you’ve been dreaming of.
You just have to start, one step at a time.
Let’s do it together, shall we?
I’d love to help you find your new path. Let’s see how we can work together, to get you moving in a direction you’re confident and happy about.