Double Black Diamonds, Broken Code, and The Box.
I have this sign on my desk:
I didn’t learn to ski until I was 38.
If you’ve ever learned a physical sport as an adult, you know the specific humiliation involved. You are surrounded by 6-year-olds who are better than you. You fall down. You freeze. You hurt. You tear your ACL.
But I loved it. I loved the progression. By age 48, I wasn’t on the bunny hill anymore. I was skiing the Double Blacks. I learned that you can start late and still master the expert terrain—if you’re willing to endure the bruising.
I didn’t know it then, but that was just training for 2024 and 2025.
The Crash
In January 2024, I got one of those calls that stops your heart. My mother, 87 years old, had broken her leg. It was a bad break.
The next five months were a blur of planes, airports, hospitals, rehab, and caretaking. I watched her fight back from something that would have broken most people. She was miraculous. She was back in her home mid-May.
But during those long, sleepless months, something shifted for me.
It was about 10 months post-acquisition of my former agency, and I was in the “corporate” job evolution of a role I had held for nearly 7 years. I realized that while I was pouring my energy into my family and my clients, I felt completely unsupported by my “work family.” No one asked how she was. No one asked how I was.
It clarifies things, doesn’t it? When the chips are down, you realize where your values align—and where they don’t.
The Box
As a Partner in a small agency, I loved the client impact. I loved building a business. But after we were acquired, I watched my role shrink. I went from “Business Owner” to “Glorified Project Manager.”
I was in a box.
The box was safe. It had benefits. It had a title.
But after watching my mom fight for her life, “safe” didn’t look so appealing anymore. “Safe” looked like stagnation.
I spent the rest of 2024 figuring out what was next. And, in 2025, I decided to ski the Double Black again, starting my solo consulting business.
The Glitch
I had started using AI in 2023, mainly to accelerate content development. In 2024, I tried new things and started building basic tools. Then, in 2025 (and 55 years old), I decided to build AI-powered marketing tools that could do the heavy lifting for marketers and strategists.
There was just one problem: I’m a marketer, not a coder.
If you could see the outtakes of the last six months, you wouldn’t see a “Girlboss” highlight reel.
You would see me at 3:00 AM, staring at my screen, trying to figure out why the AI kept adding random ‘’‘ wrappers to my code, breaking the entire parser.
You would see me throwing away version after version.
You would see me arguing with my husband—a software architect with 30 years of experience—because I wanted him to fix it, and he wanted me to “understand the logic.” (I admit it: I wasn’t the easiest “client” he’s ever worked with).
It was hard. It was frustrating. It was lonely.
The View
But then, it worked.
The code parsed. The output was brilliant. The tool did in a few minutes what used to take weeks or months.
I realized that Risk isn’t about being reckless. It’s about alignment.
I took the risk to leave the box because I needed to build something that matched my values. I took the risk to learn AI because I needed to prove—to myself—that I could still conquer the expert terrain.
Whether you are building a strategy for 2026, or just trying to figure out your next move: Take the risk.
The Green Circles are crowded. The view is better from up here.
If you want to see what I built during those sleepless nights, you can check out the Ignite Engine here, or book me for a Strategy Chat.