I hail from Michigan but now I’m blessed to call a small island in the Caribbean my home. I help educators from all over the world transition to entrepreneurship and make money doing what they love. All while I enjoy the family life I always dreamed of. We travel, we trek and we trailblaze.
In my life now, no two days are the same, and I love that. It’s how I designed it, my past and present pursuits are structured to give me The 5 Freedoms.
Students learn what they care about, from people they care about, and who…
care about them!
It took me a long time to like school. In fact, it wasn’t until I went to Eastern Michigan University that I finally hit my stride, finding my creative outlet of writing curriculum, and teaching it.
I knew then that I wanted to become the teacher I never had, the one that loved it all, the students, the subjects and the supervisors.
The first year of teaching is like building a plane and...
flying it at the same time!
I enjoyed teaching and was moved around, trying all grade levels. Several years later, I received my Master’s in Education, and started to become very fond of teaching writing to my second graders. When I left my district in 2003, it wasn’t due to being burned out.
If you’re crispy around the edges, you’re likely on your way…
to being burnt out!
Presenting at a large Michigan literacy conference, marked a turning point for me as I left the classroom to become a national presenter for a leading professional development company in North America- Bureau for Education & Research (BER). Although I still enjoyed most parts of teaching, it was an easy decision to leave...
- I didn’t like going to the same place, at the same time, day after day.
- I wasn’t fond of the people politics.
- The 60+ hours a week I worked in the classroom, after school, and weekends.
- Within myself, I knew I was made for something more.
Let's be real, teaching is not rainbows and unicorns…
all of the time.
In 2003, after saying my goodbyes and having a colossal teacher garage sale, I debuted in BER’s catalog. I was traveling all over the nation going to large cities presenting my lessons that were a combination of 6 Traits and Writer’s Workshop, intertwining the best of both pedagogies. However, after a year on the road I realized business travel isn’t glamorous or scalable (a fancy business term basically meaning it's going to take too much effort to make any real money).
Making a life change is scary. But know what’s even scarier?
Regret!
What happened next was one of the most humbling experiences I’ve ever had. I went from a sought after, parent requested teacher,and a national presenter on the circuit with some very famous education presenters, to being a substitute teacher pounding the pavement selling my services as a writing consultant modeling writing lessons in K-12 classrooms.
It turned out to be the best experience: I got to test out my curriculum and classroom management techniques.
In 2005, not knowing what I was getting myself into, I signed a full time job contract as a teacher coach in one of the toughest districts in Michigan. I was assigned to observe and provide feedback to all 56 stressed, disgruntled and under appreciated K-8 teachers.
First order of business…
build trust, provide value, & instill hope.
In fact, this district had been so consistently unsuccessful and losing enrollment faster than you can say, “mass exodus”, that the State of Michigan did a drastic move—-the state’s Education Department took over the whole district in 2004.
If every day you’re saying the serenity prayer while driving to work...
it is a good sign you need to rethink what you’re doing.
If every day you’re saying the serenity prayer while driving to work...
it is a good sign you need to rethink what you’re doing.
Of the different positions I had, there was one consistent theme throughout all four years after leaving the classroom. I kept hearing the same thing from the 250 classrooms I modeled writing lessons in.
When enough people say, “You should package this before someone steals it.”...
you should listen.
Finally, it dawned on me that the solution to achieving The 5 Freedoms had been right in front of me since leaving the classroom.
To move from dreaming to doing, you have to stop playing it safe & small...
jump as if the net will appear!
In 2007, I took the leap and launched WriteSteps.
WriteSteps was a complete K-5 writing and grammar curriculum. In 2010, it was revised to fully meet Common Core standards and revamped as a digital software for teachers and their students.
I’m proud to say in the ten years I owned the company:
Countries Used WriteSteps
Teachers Were
Served
Students Became
Better Writers
Awards Were
Granted
National Television Feature
(Lifetime’s The
Balancing Act)
Products & Services
Sold
In October 2017, WriteSteps was bought by Vkidz, now owned by Cambium Learning and renamed Writing City.
The acquisition by a much larger company is a dream of most, if not all entrepreneurs,
and I was no exception.
Essentially, VKidz wanted a writing curriculum to add to their many products, and I wanted more of The 5 Freedoms. It was the perfect win-win.
This leads me to where I am today.
After almost two decades of being a successful educator turned entrepreneur and having started several companies, I questioned, “What’s next?”. The answer came quite easily; I thought about how my path to success has been paved by years of training and my own entrepreneurial professional development.
- Attending at least 200 business and marketing conferences in the past two decades,
- the countless hours of business books read and listened to,
- winning Michigan’s Spark Business Bootcamp “Best Business in 2010”,
- winning out of over thousands of applicants and securing a spot in the 2016 LearnLaunch’s Breakthrough Program,
- counseled by 2 business coaches,
- and, encouraged by countless entrepreneur mentors way more successful than I was!
Why let all of this training and knowledge go to waste, why not share it with other educators who want to...
- take a successful classroom created product and bring it to market,
- go from burnt out to lit up by figuring out your sellable passion,
- create, test and launch a business while still in the classroom,
- get unstuck & shift from surviving to thriving by doing what you love,
- step out of overwhelm and into inspired action to rewrite your future!
We want the same things...
a Life with Purpose & Freedom.
✨FREE Access to "The 5 Freedoms Life" ➣
