Who Am I?

That’s me… hamming it up on stage!  But that’s just a wee bit of who I am.

I am a wife, mother of two, daughter, sister, lover of Christ Jesus and all that He is, President of Shine516 Enterprises where I specialize in helping people shine their light and live the life of their dreams, Owner/Director of Singshine Vocal & Performance Studio, Singshine Productions and L.&L.O.L. Sketch Comedy Troupe.

I knew from the time I was 15 years old that I wanted to work for myself as a private voice and performance coach. My personal teacher at the time impacted my life so greatly that I wanted to follow in her foot steps. I love teaching and more importantly guiding my students through their learning process to realize their potential. I work with students of all ages, backgrounds, talent, etc…(you can read more about my voice and performance background at www.sinsghinestudio.net) and am so excited to use my passions of teaching and singing/performing to get to volunteer with under privileged youth!

This has been a dream of mine for a very long time.

I am a stay-at-home mom and it has always been important to me and my husband for me to be home with our children.  My husband had lost his job, so I took to teaching again from an in-home studio.  I had taken a break from teaching to have and raise my now older daughter, to recover and heal from cancer treatments (yes, at the ripe ol’ age of 28) and move across country for this job my husband had now lost.  Talk about a punch to the gut…

Because my vocal and performance studio is in my home, my family and I sometimes face the challenge of my working into the evening while they are “living” in the next room.  This isn’t ideal, but they know how much I love what I do and it just seems to work out.  The only unfortunate element to this line of work is the “hours-for-dollars” business model and the fact that voice lessons is very much a luxury to many households.  So, you can guess, the ups and downs in the economy affect us.

This can sometimes be frustrating, and it’s this frustration that led me to be VERY open to a friend of mine from church when he and his wife shared with me what I thought was the perfect solution to my need to supplement my income.  This opportunity didn’t have the same “hours-for-dollars” model as my studio which was GREAT news…. because I had run out of hours!  I mean when was I going to do the shopping, cooking, cleaning and all of the other oh so glamourous jobs that fill a stay-at-home, voice and performance teaching, show producing mom’s day?

I believed this was the perfect part-time opportunity where I could work to create residual income while really helping and incentivizing people to become healthier… ahhhhh enter in… network marketing.

This was several years ago and honestly, it was one of the most challenging things I had ever done.  It was wonderful and quite frankly, horrible all at once.

Road to self-awareness and growth

It was horrible, because I really struggled…  and really, the word “struggled” doesn’t even measure up to what I went through.  Every day, it seemed I came face to face with yet another weakness or what seemed like a deficiency in my character and being. It was utterly EXHAUSTING and not pleasant.  Looking back, though, this was THE wonderful thing about it.  I am thankful for this time because I learned so much from it and am a changed person.

Here’s an exercise for you… look up Malachi 3 about God’s refining fire… that was and if I’m being honest, still is me… and YOU!  Again, I am so grateful.

It has taken me a while to find the right “fit” for me in this world of home-based business, for many reasons… from loving the products of one company but not their plan for distribution to discovering I only loved SOME of the products from another company.  All this to say, it is critical to believe in your products and to truly feel aligned with the company’s mission and the leadership’s values.

So now…

I have received such an incredible gift through this journey.  It has been the gift of discovery – learning more and more about myself and the power I have to do absolutely anything my heart desires… and more (Ephesians 3:20) infinitely more.  I say this at the risk of coming off “name it and claim it!” but I believe with every fiber of my being that God has created each and every one of this beautifully and has instilled us with certain skills and DREAMS to ultimately bring glory to Himself!

For example, I love to perform in musical theater… however, I had come to a place or season in my life where I had to put it on the back burner.  It was through this really trying time that I reconnecting with that part of me.  I actually did what’s called a “vision board” and found a picture of Carol Burnett and another of a young woman singing.  I snipped these out of the magazines I found them in, and pasted them on a page.  I felt great emotion when I looked at these… Carol Burnett, because what a career she’s had and the young singer?  I just love to sing.  I paid attention to how these made me feel and made a commitment to begin the arduous process of auditioning again.  And, fortunately for me, performing again.

Anyway, I am committed to continue this journey, this life, and to do what I can to help as many people as I can in theirs

In His Grip and Grateful For It,