At the age of 60, Joann Filomena’s husband died suddenly and unexpectedly, and she was laid off from a job she loved. As she grieved, she took a new job, but found herself unhappy. She soon realized that she wanted to leverage her own life experiences to coach other widows through the trauma and pain of profound loss. Now, at Widow Coaching Center, Joann helps widows cope with their own grief. She empowers them to…
Brenda Ster spent the first 20 years of her working career in training and financial technology, and climbed the corporate ladder. But by her forties, she was stressed out, burned out, overworked, travelled too much, and barely made time for her family. That all changed when she joined a direct marketing company that sold jewelry. She threw out the direct sales playbook, built a team of 1,000, and generated upwards of $1 million per year…
Debbie Viola was always interested in art, but her guidance counselor didn’t allow her to take art classes in high school. Immediately after graduation, she became a legal secretary, and spent 23 years working for a fast-growing, high-paced law firm. Though she was great at the work, she hated how it made her feel like a robot. Everything changed on 9/11, when she was in Manhattan as the World Trade Center fell. Immediately after the…
Teaching classes for a paper crafting company that constantly pushed her to take her business to the next level gave Christie Daugherty more anxiety, pressure, and stress than she ever wanted in her life. She started giving online sewing lessons, but soon discovered a surprisingly underserved niche that made even better use of one of her greatest talents. Now, at Be The Light Lettering Tribe, Christie teaches women hand lettering techniques. She helps her…
Cynthia Maugard grew up loving horses, but was always told not to turn her passion for animals into her life’s work. After graduating with a masters in Business & Logistics, she decided to travel the world, working many horse-related jobs along the way. Her experience eventually led to meeting her husband Pierre — a horse trainer and teacher who was trying to build his business, but struggled to do it alone. Before long, Cynthia and…
Kate Olson started training dogs in the 8th grade. By high school, she was teaching others how to train agility dogs in competition, and became a certified dog trainer by the time she finished college. Soon after, she decided to focus her work on teaching owners how to train their service dogs. Through her membership business, My Service Dog and Me, not only can Kate reach more people than ever, but she’s also been able…
As a child, Jessica Peresta fell in love with music as an escape from her tumultuous home life. Though she initially planned to travel the world as a concert pianist, she instead decided to give the gift of music to kids struggling at home or in school. So, she got her teaching degree and became an inner city school music teacher. With no provided materials or past instructors to guide her, she created a curriculum…
Danielle Binns’ first child was born extremely underweight and quickly became a picky eater as she got older. Because she rarely touched her food at the dinner table, Danielle went back to school to understand why. She created what she now calls her Picky Eating Protocol, and after having major success with her daughter, other parents wanted to know how she did it. Now, at Danielle Binns Nutrition, she helps families thrive through holistic health…
Growing up, Lisa K always wanted to know how the world worked. She studied psychobiology and electrical engineering, but when she became a stay at home mom, she wanted to learn about what science didn’t teach. She wanted to know how people like Steve Jobs and Sir Richard Branson used their intuition to make big decisions, and discovered that with the right training, anyone could do it. Now, through the Intuition Development Circle, Lisa teaches…
Melissa Pruitt spent years going to school to become a psychologist before discovering it wasn’t for her. Her husband Paul, built a multi-million dollar real estate business, then lost everything in 2008. While she was discovering that helping others in business and social media marketing utilized her education in a whole new way, Paul reinvented himself as a photographer. Together, they created their membership site The Dream 100 – a private, personalized coaching and accountability…
