From surviving to thriving

My life started out idyllic. Until I got married. Young. At 19. I moved around a lot as a child but grew up through my teenage years in Texas, and at 19, I met and married a man who was from a German-speaking, Mennonite community in northern Mexico. It was a life unlike anything I knew. I had never questioned that I could become whatever I wanted to be growing up. Suddenly I was transported to the 1950s, where women had their place. At home, in the kitchen, raising babies. It was not something I'd ever dreamt of. I wanted to conquer that corner office. I was incredibly isolated, living in a country where I did not speak the national language, nor did I speak the language of the community I lived in. It was something that my partner took advantage of to control and abuse me. At 22, with a 4-month-old baby on my hip, I launched a photography business. No experience, no business plan, nothing but grit and determination to make my life at least bearable. It grew and expanded into a beautiful business, all the while my life at home was falling further and further apart. I thrived in my business, loving the challenge of growth and expansion. But life at home became unbearable. Finally, after almost 10 years with my partner, I had been able to garner enough support that I could safely leave the relationship. The years that followed were challenging years. My entire identity was challenged. Who I was as a woman, a mother, a partner, a business owner, a friend, a community leader. I had to find myself again amid a lot of healing. One of the hardest things I had to ever admit to was acknowledging I was a victim of domestic abuse. I always got stuck on the word victim. It got stuck in the back of my throat. It made me feel like I had no control over my life, that someone else was in the driver’s seat, but I couldn’t identify yet quite why. Several years later, I moved countries again, to Canada this time. Shut down my business that had tripled in growth and had become a core part of my identity. Married a wonderful man that took on not just my baggage, but my children as well with nothing but love and acceptance. And once again I sat in an uncomfortable position. Who was I now? I wasn’t the business owner I had been so proud of being. I didn’t have any community ties. I didn’t have my friends or any type of support network. I didn’t relaunch my business in Canada, rather choosing to take a corporate job in marketing. It provided me with a stable income while I navigated another new period of identity shift. Something began to click into place though. I had opportunities to meet many other women who had similar stories as mine, ones of abuse and victimization. And I began to see this golden thread weave through these stories and I realized why I always resented the term ‘victim’. It meant that no matter what I did, things only happened ‘to’ me, rather than recognizing the power I had to write the rest of the story. I stopped viewing myself through the lens of what I had survived and stepped fully into who I was ready to be. That past was an experience, not an identity. With that clarity came an unstoppable hunger to create again, which sparked the vision for my next venture. I’ve always been someone who needs to be in the driver’s seat. While corporate roles got me close—stepping in as Show Director for a major tradeshow showed me the power of the industry—I needed to chart my own course. With the incredible backing of my employer, who became my very first client by hiring me to continue running their shows, I launched Creme De La Show to deliver high-level event strategy and management. The business scaled fast, expanding into tradeshow ownership. But being in the events industry gave me an even bigger opportunity: creating my signature women’s leadership event, The Power of Presence. That stage has become my true platform and mission to champion women in business and leadership—creating a space where they can realize that our past never defines who we are, it simply fuels who we become. And the best part? We are nowhere near done growing. It is such an exciting time for expansion, and we’re just getting started.