How do you live your dash?

Meet Jennifer – as a teenager she vividly recalled attending a funeral with her parents for a dear family friend. The pastor spoke about how we live our dash. The dash is that period between our birth and our death illustrated on our tombstone and our obituary. (January 5, 1965 – December 12, 1988 for example) He spoke of how so little attention is given to the most important and impactful moments in our lives. He went on to describe the remarkable things our friend did for others in her dash. He said that while the birth date and death date are clearly something we can easily see, the dash is something we remember and has the power to change lives way beyond our death date. That struck a cord with her and from that day forward, and even today she carries a card in her wallet that simply reads “How are you living your dash today”.

Jennifer decided that day, with great big eyes, that she wanted to change the world. It didn’t have to be in a big bold way, but she wanted her dash to be what others remembered most. She wanted to leave a mark on a million, or a hundred or just one person. She wondered though how could someone who felt small and unseen do anything big enough to accomplish this? While she was always laser focused on living her dash she was plagued with insecurities, anxiety and lacked confidence. She WANTED to be remarkable but felt anything but.

Jennifer started talking with other peers at school and quickly learned that most of the kids her age and even and especially the ones… you know the ones, the ones you think have it all together and were larger than life, struggled with similar feelings in much the same ways. That gave her comfort and made her feel normal. The peer-to-peer conversations felt less judged than those she had with adults. Teenage relationship issues and conflicts, parental pressures, meeting or not meeting expectations, comparisons with others… talking to peers at that age just made sense to her and helped restore a feeling of normalcy in so many ways. Jennifer used her position in student council (a very small D-4 school in a suburb of Cinti) to create a peer counseling program with the help of her advisor/teacher and called it Project Charlie. You see, Charlie was a local boy who struggled with many of the same feelings (collectively referring to other HS teenagers) who took his own life. Charlie left a note and it talked of his feelings of not having anyone to talk with that he could relate to. Project Charlie (Peer Counseling) was a success in her little HS and rapidly spread to other schools in the area. The program won an White House Award in 1989 and while the name didn’t continue the program lives on in various forms and shapes in almost every US HS today.

Since her HS days, she accomplished many things that may someday define her dash. She started two successful businesses, the first only a few years out of HS that was in business for 30 years, started a successful community initiative and non-profit aimed at suicide prevention for school aged children, organized campaigns for students graduating in the covid class of 2020 which resulted in counseling teens to this day. She organized successful fundraisers for various worthy causes, vigils for students in tragic accidents, volunteered thousands of hours supporting children’s passions and especially projects aimed at student voices being heard on a number of platforms close to her heart. She raised three beautiful and well-adjusted children to adulthood (one almost adulthood – he is 17), been married for over 22 years and has been a beacon of strength and resilience in her community and among her friends and family.

It wasn’t always rainbows and butterflies, however. She overcame a rape while on a business trip in 1995, marital difficulties and feelings of inadequacy, a child born prematurely who was intubated and in the NICU for many months, a child who suffered a traumatic brain injury, thyroid cancer in 2021, devastating news of her twin sister’s terminal cancer diagnosis, and among other adversities and most recently she has battled breast cancer diagnosed in August 2023 that resulted in a mastectomy and chemo through March of 2024. She earned exceedingly more than a median income and lost almost everything due to a closure related to covid. She’s battled anxiety and insomnia and a bout of severe depression so extreme that she spent a whole day driving around town trying to buy a gun to take her own life. She has had the highest highs and lowest lows and all the places in between over the years.

If you have ever felt lost, overwhelmed, defeated, stuck, unseen or unloved… she gets it. She has been there.

Jennifer discovered life coaching at a low point in her life in which her reality and self-worth were shattered, when a dear and inspirational friend invited her to an all-day motivational summit and introduced her to one of many books including her favorite, Life’s Golden Ticket by Brandon Bruchard. She realized that she could again triumph over roadblocks that were preventing her from living her best life. She realized that again she could be a shining example of love and grace in overcoming adversities and feel worthy enough to live her best dash and change the world.
She used proven strategies, tools and education that helped her rebuild, reconnect and restore her faith, strength and self-worth and redeemed her dash and she uses that great gift to help others find purpose, be intentional, create awareness, find vision and create a new transformational mindset aimed at living their best dash. She is passionate about helping, especially middle, high school and college young adults find purpose, peace, hope and discovery of the life they are intended to live.