What It’s Really Like to Build a Dream Only You Can See

I still have the email tucked away in a starred folder: Congratulations! You have officially enrolled in IIN’s Health Coach Training Program™. I opened it while sitting on the couch, the house silent. I remember smiling, softly, almost unsure if I was allowed to. It was the kind of moment that doesn’t ask to be shared. There was no confetti, no announcement, no jubilant FaceTime call to my family. In fact, I didn’t tell a soul.

For the first time in my life, I let a decision belong entirely to me.

It came at a moment when everything else felt out of my hands. I was deep in the midst of a health crisis, a season that quietly divided my life into before and after. I was spending more time in doctors’ offices than I ever had before, trying to make sense of a body that no longer responded the way it once did. There was fatigue I couldn’t explain, symptoms that didn’t fit neatly into lab results.

Conventional treatment had its place, of course it did, but somewhere deep in my body, I understood that it wouldn’t be enough. Recovery, at least the kind I was after, would require more than prescriptions. It would require me. My attention, my participation, my willingness to make choices that didn’t always come with proof or certainty.

Enrolling in health coach training was the first of those choices. A quiet act of self-direction. A decision to meet medicine halfway, and to begin learning the language of my own body again.

The most personal experiments become the most public work

Fast-forward to now: I’m building a company that doesn’t slot neatly into cocktail-party small talk. Coaching is everywhere and nowhere—highly Instagram-able, yet still misunderstood. Health coaching in particular can be dismissed as a “nice-to-have,” a soft accessory to “real” healthcare. But when you’ve lived inside a body that suddenly refuses to read its old instruction manual, guidance is anything but optional.

What surprised me wasn’t the coursework . It wasn’t the lectures on nutrition or the science of habit change. I expected that. I came prepared to learn.

What I didn’t expect was the mirror the process held up.

Somewhere between the modules and the journaling prompts, the business I thought I was building started turning its focus on me. I began tracking my energy instead of my hours. I started noticing when I felt most grounded and when I didn’t. I paid attention to what restored me, what drained me, and—most importantly—what I had been tolerating for far too long.

I swapped self-critique for curiosity.
I stopped asking, “Why can’t I keep up?” and started asking, “What would change if I stopped trying to...?”

And slowly, I started celebrating things I never would’ve counted before—microscopic progress, quiet boundaries, the choice to rest before I burned out. These weren’t just habits. They were shifts in how I saw myself. What started as healing became a blueprint.

That framework—those seemingly subtle changes—became the architecture for Coacha Vida Wellness.

This isn’t a brand built around ten-step plans or overnight reinventions. It’s built on the premise that saved me: that sustainable self-leadership will always beat quick fixes. That real transformation doesn’t scream for attention—it builds steadily, with intention, from the inside out.

And that’s the part no one tells you when you start a journey like this: Sometimes, the most powerful thing you can do is learn how to lead yourself.

That’s the work. That’s the whole thing.

Slow builds, strong foundations

There’s cultural pressure to “scale” before we can spell it, yet the icons we admire—whether it be Melissa Wood Health or Spanx—spent years building from spare bedrooms and living rooms when no one was looking. Growth that respects both the founder and the future client looks less like a hockey stick and more like tree rings: deliberate, seasonal, resilient.

Some evenings, my progress is writing a new blog post to the 5 loyal readers that I have; other nights, it’s simply reading books on gut health, mindset and the science of change until my eyes blur. It’s showing up when no one is looking. Measured against startup folklore, that pace might read as slow. In reality, it is radical. It refuses the hustle culture in favor of longevity—for the business and the human steering it.

Why I won’t build a brand for “everyone”

The broader you broadcast, the fuzzier your signal.

That lesson came quickly. I never set out to build something universal. I’m not here to sell a feel-good version of wellness to the masses. I'm building something precise, intentional and deeply resonant for the women who see themselves in my story before I even say a word.

My work resonates most with high-achieving women who have mastered deadlines, led teams, built impressive careers—yet still feel oddly untethered from their own vitality. Women who are praised for their stamina but are quietly exhausted. Women who, beneath all that output, are wondering when their own needs will finally make the calendar.

These women need a witness. A partner.
Someone who can translate ambition into wellbeing—without asking them to lose their edge.

That specificity is my north star, even if it shrinks the potential audience on paper. Because I’m not here to be a mass market. I’m here to be unmistakable.

I think of it the way a sommelier thinks of terroir: the narrower the origin, the richer the flavor. Distinction comes from place, pressure and patience. It’s the same with business. The more clearly defined the roots, the more memorable the experience.

Serving “everyone” dilutes the notes that make the offering unforgettable.
And I’d rather be deeply relevant to a few than vaguely familiar to many.

Because if I do my job right, the right woman will find herself in my work—and know immediately that it was made with her in mind.

What this means for you

Maybe you’re reading because you, too, have an idea that refuses to quiet down—an unconventional service, a niche product, a project your friends politely smile at before changing the subject. Let my story be proof that not every seed germinates in public. Private commitment can be its own greenhouse.

Here’s a gentle invitation: name one decisive action that would move your vision from daydream to draft. It might be enrolling in that course, sketching a first logo, or simply blocking two hours next weekend for focused thinking. Write it down, set a reminder and honor it.

Ready to take the next step together?

If you’d like a companion on the road from hidden ambition to tangible change, I invite you to follow along on Instagram @coachavida, where I’m sharing the process in real time—building a business, a body of work and a community of thoughtful, driven women who are ready to take their wellness seriously. Not as an aesthetic. Not as a side project. But as a core part of how they lead, live and move through the world. It will be slow, and thoughtful. But deeply authentic.

Because building the dream only you can see is easier, and lighter, when someone else is witnessing it come alive and cheering you along as you grow!

Let’s make the quiet work louder—one deliberate choice at a time.