How an Organizing Expert Became a Dating + Marriage Coach
For more than 25 years, I've coached women through change. That work began in homes and closets, but I learned very early that organizing was rarely about the stuff. It was about decisions, transitions, identity, relationships, and what came next.
Over time, my own life and coaching work led me much more deeply into relationships.
Today, I help women over 40 navigate two very different chapters: starting over in modern dating and making a good marriage better.
But the part of the work I loved most was never the container, the calendar, or the closet. It was helping a woman see her situation clearly, make a decision, and move forward.
I Started With Clutter. I Stayed for the People.
I started my organizing business in the fall of 2000, and it didn't take long to realize that nobody was really hiring me because they needed prettier closets.
They called because something in their life was changing.
A divorce. A new baby. A move. A new job. An empty nest. A loss. A fresh start.
Organizing required hundreds of decisions, and those decisions were rarely just about objects. What stays? What goes? What still fits my life? What am I ready to let go of? What do I want next?
So I trained as a coach and spent the next two decades helping women answer questions exactly like those.
That first career grew into an international business. I became a Wall Street Journal bestselling author, a contributing editor for Woman's Day, a national media spokesperson for 12+ major household brands, a course creator, and the founder of an online program that served thousands of people in 18 countries.
But the part of the work I loved most was never the container, the calendar, or the closet. It was helping a woman see her situation clearly, make a decision, and move forward.
Past Spokesperson Relationships Include
At 46, I Had to Learn Dating From Scratch.
After a 23-year marriage, I found myself single in a dating world I barely recognized.
The last time I had dated, I was in college. Nobody I knew had a mobile phone. There were no dating apps, no texting, no sexting, no catfishing. Nobody was Googling a date before meeting him for coffee.
I was a capable grown woman who suddenly felt like a complete beginner. A “babe in the woods.”
So I did what I tend to do when I don't know how to do something: I studied the problem.
I took courses. Read the books. Learned about relationships and men. Thought hard about what I wanted and what I had learned from my first marriage. Then I applied what I already knew about communication, marketing, presentation, decision-making, and human behavior.
I treated dating less like waiting for lightning to strike and more like an executive search. I got clear about what I wanted. I created an intentional profile. I used current, strategic photos that still looked like me. I met enough men to learn by contrast instead of attaching too quickly to the first promising possibility.
Within six months of seriously putting that process into practice, I met Don. We've now been happily married for 10 years, and I still feel more completely myself with him than I ever have with another person.
Today I help women re-enter modern dating with clarity, confidence, standards, safety, and a plan.
Today I help women re-enter modern dating with clarity, confidence, standards, safety, and a plan.
A marriage does not have to be in crisis to deserve intentional care.
I've Heard What Women Rarely Say Out Loud.
In another chapter of my coaching work, I had more than 6,000 private, one-on-one conversations with women about their marriages.
Those conversations got very real, very fast.
Women trusted me with the things they weren't saying at dinner parties. The resentment. The loneliness. The sex problems. The tears. The betrayals. The money fights. The emotional distance. The things they were ashamed to admit. The things they didn't know how to say to their husbands. Sometimes the things they had never said to anyone.
Over thousands of conversations, I listened for what was underneath the story, asked hard questions, recognized patterns, and told the truth with compassion when I saw something a woman couldn't yet see for herself.
Certain patterns became impossible to miss.
I heard what happens when small problems go unattended for years. I heard women taking responsibility for things that weren't theirs, and resisting responsibility for things that were. I heard marriages that were genuinely in crisis.
But I also talked with many women whose marriages weren't entirely broken… yet.
They loved their husbands. Their lives worked. There was no major betrayal, addiction, abuse, or catastrophe.
They could simply feel the distance growing.
And they wanted to do something about it BEFORE it became a crisis.
A marriage does not have to be in crisis to deserve intentional care.
through change
women about their marriages
starting over at 46
I Don't Believe in Vague Relationship Advice.
Pattern Recognition, Organized
After more than 6,000 conversations about real marriages, I began seeing the same preventable patterns again and again.
I've since organized those patterns into The 24 Marriage Drifts, my framework for understanding how basically good marriages gradually lose warmth, partnership, affection, and connection long before anyone would call the marriage “in crisis.”
The point is to recognize the drift early enough to change direction.
Communication & Relationships
I've invested extensively in coaching, relationship education, communication, voice, etiquette, and understanding how people hear each other, especially when emotions are involved.
I'm interested in what actually changes an interaction: the words you choose, when you say them, how you say them, what you leave unsaid, and the patterns both people keep reinforcing without realizing it.
I Hired the Experts So You Don't Have To
Long before I had to package myself for modern dating, I had hired three different image consultants, plus media trainers, voice coaches, etiquette specialists, marketing advisors, branding experts, and presentation professionals.
Dating is, in part, a marketing and packaging project. Your photos, clothes, profile, body language, voice, and stories all communicate who you are before someone knows you well.
The goal isn't to manufacture a more appealing woman. It's to communicate the real one clearly enough that the right man can recognize her.
As Seen In
A Few Things Worth Knowing.
I live in Central Texas with my husband, Don. Between us we have six children, which has given me plenty of firsthand experience with remarriage, blended families, adult children, ex-spouses, holidays, and all the other very real logistics that come with building a life after the first chapter.
My Christian faith is foundational to my life and my values. My coaching is practical rather than religious instruction, and women do not need to share my faith to feel welcome or benefit from my programs.
I'm also a graduate of Southwestern University in Georgetown, Texas, an entrepreneur by nature, and a person who will probably always make a system out of anything complicated enough to deserve one.
And while I spent many years traveling to speak and appear on camera, these days I'd much rather meet you through a podcast, webinar, virtual summit, online class, or interview than live out of a suitcase.
Start Where You Are.
Whether you're getting back out there or wanting more from the marriage you already have, choose the free guide that fits your life right now.
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Small habits can create distance long before a marriage is in crisis. Learn what to notice now, plus simple ways to respond differently.
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