A journey from Little Coal
River Road to Los Angeles
A corporate job transfer led me to the “City of Angels” 37 years ago. Although I’ve lived in Los Angeles longer than where I grew up in West Virginia, what people appreciate about me most came from my roots not from the glitzy lights of Los Angeles. I’ve learned a lot living in a city of millions but the deepest, most life-changing lessons about “being a good human” came from a house on a river next to railroad tracks.
Trading 9-5
...For 8 to Faint
I started my first business at age 28 because I had a $500 problem. At the time, I had a roommate who paid me $500 a month to rent the loft of my apartment and I wanted that apartment all to myself. While still working for someone else, an invoice came across my desk one day that shouldn’t have (I was marketing, not accounts payable) and a light-bulb went on. First lesson in business, always be curious. I made a few phone calls and my suspicions were confirmed. There was a lot of profit in the medical equipment business! That's when I decided to start my own business.
It was a long journey and most every bank said no to a loan as I was a huge credit risk (I didn’t own a home and I was leasing my car) but I finally got a (female) banker to say yes to a loan of $10K and I was off and running. I worked all day at my corporate job and came home at night and worked on my new medical equipment business by converting my bedroom into an office. I (politely) asked my roommate to move out five months later and 18 months following, I quit my full-time job.
Someone once said (maybe it was Churchill): “Change doesn’t always mean success, but success will always mean change.” When you’re up to something new, launching new ideas, making bold statements, you need to show others how you’ve changed in the process. The best way to do that is through photos.
I read it in TIME Magazine so it MUST be true.
I married my husband Greg when I was 37 and had our son at age 40 and our daughter at age 42. Getting pregnant didn’t come easy. I was traveling all the time for work (you realize that you may travel too much when you know the Flight Numbers of American Airlines by heart and the flight attendants begin calling you by your first name). The medical equipment company had grown beyond my wildest dreams. We added a nutritional line of wellness supplements to the business and it was exploding. It was all very exciting and at the same time I was tired.
I began to feel a new “call…” something was emerging. Imagine sitting at a traffic light waiting for red to turn to green. A whisper that says, “something is over.” I grew restless. I began to question my own purpose, my own reason for being. Change was on the horizon. I happened to spy a copy of TIME Magazine at the grocery store one day in 2004 and the cover had three very distinct, diverse looking women on the cover. Something drew me in to that cover – it literally felt like a magnet. I bought a copy and here’s what I learned: the article stated that women were destined to rule the world one day but there was a problem; it appeared that women entrepreneurs were struggling with building and running successful companies.
I had just built a highly successful (wildly profitable) business and yet this article was sharing that women were struggling. My mind would not let go of this information. It was all I thought about (besides raising two toddlers). Finally, I knew what I had to do and I’ve been doing it for the last 18 years: Serving and Supporting Women Entrepreneurs to ALIGN their business and their lives so they can Find Joy Every Day.
How it all started…
How it's going…
If you’re ready to get the support you need, to help you ALIGN with what matters most in your business and your life, go here to discover how Joy is serving women entrepreneurs.
Every single meeting with Joy I take away an incredible gem or two which improves my leadership skills and not only helps my team but also grows my business. Her amazing insight and vast experience have made such a difference - I'm accountable, organized, and focused on what really matters to move my business forward.
Gail Schenbaum
Joy has a talent for helping people achieve their goals. She heard me out on my idea and helped me find a way to make it happen. She has a talent for creating a plan for making any goal seem achievable. She helped me establish a process and a timeline. She has also been an incredible partner along the way. She brings me back to center when I steer off course and has helped me realize a dream.
Darya Allen-Attar
I spent a half day with Joy in a VIP Intensive and came out with a new outlook, total clarity and a plan. I had been holding on to something that wasn’t working and with one question from Joy, she opened my eyes and allowed me to let go and embrace new ideas for my business. We laid out the Big Vision for the year and the many smaller steps to get me there.
Cathy Alessandra
Joy gives me so much more than business coaching. I have countless examples over the past 15 years where I have literally been in my own way, paralyzed by fear of failure, focused on the wrong things with my business. There’s something so special about the way that Joy can take any situation and get me focused and calm first, then really dig in to dissect it so each piece is clear and more importantly feels do-able.
Bibi Goldstein Founder of Buying Time LLC