Before becoming a coach, Julie graduated from the University of Illinois in Rhetoric. After working in various jobs, she returned to school to pursue a teaching degree in English. To pay for night school, she substitute taught grades K-12 in nine districts, all levels including special education and behavior disorder. Shortly before completing her master’s and certification, Julie realized that although she was passionate about learning processes, public education wasn’t where she belonged. While searching for what “it” was, she worked in retail wireless sales just as wireless solutions became more available to everyone (rather than just doctors, bookies, and drug dealers). She was promoted to sales supervisor and oversaw the addition of two stores. She hired and trained a sales team of seven, dramatically improving the training program and materials in the process.
After two and a half years in sales, Julie went to Arthur Andersen’s Professional Education Division in St. Charles, IL where she trained trainers, organized and facilitated training sessions, and amused her co-workers with her “effervescence.” She was there for 6 years, during which time, using her wild passion for coaching, she convinced the company to monetarily support her coaching training in its entirety and then grant her a “coaching for retention” pilot program of twenty clients firm-wide. The pilot was a smashing success, but unfortunately, the pilot ended just as the Enron verdict came in and the company disbanded.
What may have seemed a tragic job loss to most Julie took as a mixed blessing. She was 9 months pregnant with her first child at the time of the mass layoffs. The lack of an option to work at Andersen helped make Julie’s decision to stay home to mother and coach an easy one. Everything for a reason…
Since then, Julie has coached and taught hundreds of clients on various topics including career transition, entrepreneurship, managing chaos while parenting, building a home and business when they share a space, parenting, and now tutoring and coaching in everything related to communications.
Julie is a talented resume wordsmith, having tuned up over 400 resumes. In this economy, it’s best to possess a top-notch resume and to be confidently prepared for interviews. Her keen ability to glean shimmering nuggets of gold from a client’s story makes her clients’ resumes, cover letters, and interviewing presence shine!
In 2011, with unwavering support from her family, Julie returned to finish that MA started 17 years prior. She finished in December 2012 with an MA in Composition and Rhetoric. Her thesis, titled “An Exploration of the Life Coaching Genre System”, explores the importance of writing involved within a coaching relationship. While studying, contracting with a professional services firm, and momming simultaneously, she truly learned the value of having a stellar parenting partner and tag-teaming the job of raising the next generation. Her daughters’ dad is amazing.
In 2016, in an answer to parents’ desires to enjoy every stage a bit more, Julie published Creating Time & Energy: A Valuable Workbook for Scattered Parents. It’s small enough to fit on top of a toilet tank (she suggests in a zipper bag…) so that parents can take a moment to answer some of life’s important questions while they are undisturbed for 2-5 minutes in the john. That work inspired Julie to create a YouTube series called Tools of Life highlighting life skills taught by her daughters and other young people.
In 2019, after a rough couple of years in what she dispassionately referred to as “the swamp,” she started the Tools of Life podcast with the encouragement of Kent Jones and Internet radio 21.6 The Net (“Daily Dose of Encouragement”). It debuted with her sharing “7 Lessons Since Choosing JOY.” Much of the content was inspired by a spiritual journey she took while studying with Gabrielle Bernstein, author of “The Universe Has Your Back.”
As 2020 threw many of our plans sailing through the air like un-celebratory confetti, Julie blended her creative teaching style with her coaching and writing skills to begin online tutoring where she served students from ages 10 to 70 all over the US and Europe. Her students have appreciated her candor, style, and unique methods for increasing their comfort in writing and speaking. Given her coaching background, “adulting readiness” comes into play for many of her students. She helps them prep their application essays, have adult conversations in networking (and other) situations, shine up their interviewing skills, and take job exploration to the next level beyond “the job.”
Communication clients from all walks of life seek Julie’s assistance with their unique challenges.
- Students who are paralyzed with the anxiety of a blank page when they believe their lives “haven’t been hard enough” to have any content for a college entrance essay.
- A Turkish furniture store owner who needed help conversing and writing emails/texts so he didn’t “sound like Tarzan.”
- A television producer who had lost the “me” in “Mommy” and needed help regaining her confidence with conversations as she pursued her passions.
- College students with ADHD or those on the spectrum who needed daily accountability and focusing systems to finish their coursework successfully.
- A prominent YouTube personality/influencer who made amazing videos but was terrified to speak to live audiences.
- A panel discussion moderator who was petrified of facilitation in front of a live audience.
- A real estate professional who wanted accent reduction while making videos for her clients.
- A Chinese tech CEO with impeccable English whose emails are too formal to be relatable to those he’s trying to influence.
- An assistant professor whose first language isn’t English who knows her creative content but is not skilled in the technical writing needed to write syllabi.
Her clients have diverse goals that require coaching to overcome fears that keep them from confidently connecting with their audiences and tutoring to hone the skills needed to execute their messages.
Julie enjoys working from her home in Southern WI where she coaches and tutors teens and adults who desire to communicate with more joy and less frustration in every stage of their lives. She loves her life on a tree farm with her husband Richard (Rico) her daughters, Jasmine and Vivian, and their Dutch Shepherd, Norman.