For years, I thought strength meant getting back up. Keep going. Keep showing up. Handle what needs handled and move onto the next thing.

And I got pretty dang good at it.

I survived an abusive marriage and years of court battles trying to keep my children safe. I rebuilt my life as a single mom and eventually turned some of my hardest experiences into advocacy and a career speaking on stages across the country.

But my story didn’t stop at survival.

In 2019, I founded an organization supporting survivors and families in crisis, which I led for five years. Since then, my work has taken me from nonprofit boardrooms and legislative advocacy to national media, corporate and community stages, and most recently, the TEDx stage. I’ve delivered more than 200 presentations, reached millions online, and worked alongside advocates and lawmakers to help strengthen protections for survivors in Ohio.

From the outside, I looked strong. Successful. And in many ways I was.

I had put my life back together with tape and glue. I was happily married, raising four incredible children, continuing to build a career I was proud of, and doing work that genuinely fulfilled me. Life was good. I was good.

What I didn’t understand was that you can be happy, successful, and grateful for the life you’ve built while your body is still operating as if it needs to survive. After years of chronic stress and living in survival mode, my body began telling a much different story. I was diagnosed with lupus, and in 2024, I suffered a stroke that left me re-learning how to walk.

That experience challenged everything I thought I knew about strength, success, and what it means to truly move forward.

It didn’t just change my life. It changed the way I understood every single part of my work.

The throughline in everything I do, on stage and off, is simple: how we survive shapes us, but how we move forward shapes the way we work, lead, connect, and live.