I was the first in my family to go to college. Nobody had done it before me.
So I built the process I needed at seventeen, and again at forty-two.
I did not learn this from a textbook.
No roadmap, nobody who had done it before me. So I did what you are supposed to do. I chased the credentials and I got them. A PhD in Social Work from Washington University in St. Louis. Fifteen years researching why people get stuck, most recently as a research scientist at NORC at the University of Chicago.
In March 2025 my position was cut in a round of federal budget cuts. Six figures, gone overnight. On paper I had done everything right, and I was starting over at forty-two.
So I hired a coach. She asked me a question nobody had ever asked: what do you actually want? That question cracked me open.
Two tools came out of that work. Building out a future self, and naming the limiting beliefs that were quietly running the show. Those are the same two tools at the center of what I do with teens and young adults now. I needed them first.
I am also a parent, which is the part that is not research. I know what it is like to want to help without pushing.
WHAT I BRING THAT MOST COACHES DO NOT
PhDSocial Work, Washington University in St. Louis. My dissertation was on how people actually change, not how we wish they would.
15 yearsPeer-reviewed research on why people get stuck and what moves them. Published work you can go read, not a weekend certificate.
BirkmanA research-backed behavioral assessment used by real organizations. Not a free internet quiz that hands back a label.
This isn’t about pushing college, trades, or any single right answer.
Every path stays on the table.
College, trade school, apprenticeship, gap year, entrepreneurship, the workforce. Trade school has been stigmatized and I push back on that. The question is never which path is best. It is which one fits this person.
Not therapy. Not tutoring.
Therapy looks backward to heal what hurts. Tutoring fixes a grade. This is forward-focused coaching. If a family needs mental health support, that matters and it is separate, and I will say so.
The work is theirs, not mine.
I do not hand anyone a career. I ask the questions nobody else in their life can ask, because I am the one adult with no stake in who they become.
Who I work best with.
Teens and young adults 15 to 25 who are willing to show up and try. They do not need anything figured out. They just have to be open to answering some honest questions about themselves.
Want to know if I’m the right fit for your family?
A free 45-minute Clarity Call is a real conversation, not a sales call. If it is not a fit, I will tell you.