Business Coach, Writer, Workshop Leader

About Me: The Longer Version                Email to connect…

What language do they speak, outside the box?

German was my first language. I learned English second. 

My first degree was in music, another language. My last degree was in business. Yet another language. Oh, and there was some French, Latin, and Greek in there.

I trained in improvisational theatre for 2 years with the Vancouver Theatre Sports League. I did two years of performing arts at Simon Fraser University, working collaboratively with artists, dancers and musicians. More languages.

I worked for five years in a letterpress shop as a typesetter and printer. That’s a language where you learn to read and design upside down and backwards and really know how to mind your p’s and q’s!

Then I moved away from the big city.

On the Queen Charlotte Islands (Haida Gwaii) for 15 years I taught and did community development work, directed a music festival, and produced a CD, raising two kids and managing a staff. I traveled every year for more training and to lead workshops in improvisation, team building, and leadership around British Columbia. I focused on the language of Positive Behaviour Support (George Sugai, University of Connecticut). As a high school principal I worked with the Haida First Nation to develop a multi-agency intervention team for aboriginal youth.

Then I got a business degree, an MBA in executive management from Royal Roads. I spent three years marketing educational programs in Japan, China, Hong Kong, Taiwan, South Korea, Germany, Spain, and Brazil. I continued to facilitate management and leadership workshops.

My strength lies in my layers of experience and education. I make connections others don’t make. I see patterns and trends and possibilities. I don’t believe in rigid plans but believe passionately in having a focused, crystal clear vision of the future. After years as a business owner, a manager, and a team leader, I know that leadership and management are a craft and an art more than a science. And I understand what that actually means. Where other people talkabout creativity, and thinking outside the box, I have lived outside the box my whole life.

A million languages are spoken outside the box, but the key to making a difference is learning how to listen. Most of my clients’ major breakthroughs were not the result of anything I said, in any language; they were the result of what they said in a place where they actually got to hear themselves think… and I just listened.

 

"Your coaching made a significant difference in giving us courage and support to take action where we might have hesitated. Specific outcomes got set in motion not only in our lives, but in those around us who were relying on us."

~ Echo Valley Vineyards

Where I am now:

6283 Selkirk Terrace – Duncan BC – V9L 0A6 – P: 250-710-7588