A little bit about your instructor

I always find it helpful to have personal context in these settings. You guys are going to be sharing a lot about you and your business in going through this, so it makes sense for you to know about my story as well!

The early years: To keep it short, I grew up in competitive dance which means I learned how to be really effective with my free time because I had none. I was also the third born with two other sisters, so it's safe to say I had to do everything they were doing...and then some.

University: I went to Carleton for Journalism and worked in marketing from the beginning. I picked up a minor in business and fell in love with entrepreneurship through my classes. I’d been working in high-tech B2B marketing at some big corporations and decided to try my hand at the startup world. I left a stable job to intern at a new company and help grow its entire marketing team and jointly run HR at the same time.

From there, I got recruited to a few different companies and eventually left a billion dollar defence company to go all in on the business I had started in university: LVD Fitness.

My first business:LVD was a powerlifting apparel brand designed to help athletes give back. For every item sold, we provided one month of clean water to someone in a developing country. We bootstrapped this company entirely - starting on a budget of approximately $0 as two university students. It was something my training, business and life partner and I started as students and grew to a global multi-six figure business in less than 4 years.

Since then we’ve shifted out of apparel to encourage more sustainable shopping habits, but still operate as a powerlifting media company.

My burnout: A big part of transitioning out of apparel also came when I hit a major health hiccup: I was burnt out beyond what I knew was possible. The travel got to me and my body was finally saying ENOUGH. I had rashes, hair loss, lots of stuff going on - it got so bad I didn’t even realize when I caught pneumonia. My body was essentially in permanent fight or flight.

While still growing the business, I had to start taking time to prioritize my health between travel and really backtrack to get stable again. I was fortunate to be able to step back a bit, work on recovering, and decide what i wanted to do next. The hustle culture was really blowing up, and while I still believe in working hard for what you want, I decided to refine all of our processes to do better with less - and it was working.

Life now: Now, i work way less than I used to, but I'm making more money. I don't say that to brag, i say that because i want that for you too. (And because this is a safe space to be transparent about these kind of things - whether your reality or your goals!)

Hustling for future us is great, but we really aren’t promised a future us, so we have to make sure we’re remembering to live now while we can.

Today, I've been fortunate to have been on podcasts like Shopify's own Shopify Masters and Forbes Top 40 Bucci Radio. I have been named a 'Person to Know' by the United Way, an Entrepreneur of the Year nominee by Faces Magazine, and am currently a lululemon ambassador.

I’m sure throughout this course and if you’ve connected with me on social, you’ll get to know a whole lot more about me!