School wasn’t easy for me. Reading took longer than it seemed to take everyone else, and I often had to work twice as hard to keep up. I was fortunate to be placed in a small reading group where I was taught strategies that helped, but no one ever explained why I needed them or helped me understand how my brain learned.

For years, I assumed the things I found difficult simply weren’t for me. I told myself I wasn’t a “math person,” for example, until I was introduced to ways of visualizing numbers that finally made sense to my brain. That experience taught me something I now want every student to know: struggling with something doesn’t mean you aren’t capable of learning it. Sometimes you simply haven’t been shown a way that works for you yet.

By the time I reached university, I had built my own collection of strategies for managing heavy reading loads, processing information and remembering what I learned. I discovered that my brain wasn’t broken and that understanding how I learned could change both what I was able to do and what I believed was possible for me.

That personal journey, combined with 25 years of teaching at every level from preschool through college, is what eventually brought me to executive function coaching. I’ve seen what students need from many different angles, and I’ve also lived the experience of having to figure it out for myself.

I became a coach because I don’t want students to have to do that alone. My role is to help them understand what is getting in the way, find strategies that fit their brain and build the skills and confidence to show themselves what they can do.

I train educators, lead workshops in schools and co-authored Flexible Mindsets in Schools. But the work closest to my heart is still the one-to-one: sitting beside a student, figuring things out together and watching them begin to see themselves differently.