Core Values
Positivity
Integrity
Service
Fun
Relationships
From Unsatisfied With My Health & My Business…
…To Loving Both, and Teaching Others How To Build Sustainable Success
— In Health AND In Business!
My Long & Winding Road To A Healthy, Happy Life & Business
Meat and potatoes. Bagels and challah. Keep it kosher, and finish what's on your plate. Growing up in a Jewish home in Queens, NY, these were the lessons my family taught me about food — but nobody ever talked about what it meant to actually eat healthy. When good things happened, we celebrated with pizza and ice cream. When bad things happened, we mourned with our favorite comfort foods. It worked fine as a kid — but in college, it caught up with me, and I packed on far more than the "Freshman 15."
What followed was two decades of yo-yo dieting: fad diets, trying to outrun my fork, a knee injury that derailed everything, Weight Watchers, you name it. I'd internalized the idea that "thinner was better," but nothing I tried felt sustainable, reasonable, or fun.
Meanwhile, I was building an entirely different kind of expertise.
During my years in the corporate world, I worked with companies of every size — setting strategy for small start-ups, running sales and marketing, and bringing new products to market through domestic and international launches. I was learning, without realizing it yet, exactly what it takes to build something sustainable.
Just before my son Spencer was born, I was doing product marketing at a large international firm. I knew I didn't want to be traveling the world with a newborn, so I got my personal training certification instead. When I was nine months pregnant, I got laid off from my corporate gig, and a new business was born.
But motherhood didn't magically fix my relationship with food. I struggled to lose the baby weight, ran on empty, and spent years taking care of everyone but myself — until a friend gave me the brutal honesty I needed:
“Dawn, your baby is six! It's not baby weight anymore.”
That was the wake-up call I needed. I dove into real, science-backed nutrition — not dieting — and completely transformed my health, my energy, and my mindset. I pivoted to focus on nutrition coaching and found a new industry to call home. As my own business grew, I also returned to the corporate world, working in both worlds, side by side, for years.
And that's when I noticed a pattern.
As I got to know other wellness professionals — talented coaches, trainers, and practitioners — I realized most of them had incredible skills in their craft, but had never been taught how to actually run a business.
They were pouring everything into their clients and running on fumes themselves.
So I blended my 35+ years of business experience with my 20+ years in nutrition and wellness, and the Sustainable Success Framework was born — built to help wellness pros grow a business that's as healthy as the clients they serve.
My story has a happy ending – but my path was anything but easy or linear…
If you've found yourself nodding along — whether it's your own health story, or the exhausting cycle of serving clients while your business stalls — please know - you're not alone, and it's not your fault. Most of us were never taught how to build sustainable habits, in our bodies or our businesses.
We smile and cheer on everyone else, but inside, we find ourselves asking: Is this all there is, for the rest of my life??
Maybe that shows up as watching your own health take a back seat while you care for everyone around you. Or maybe it shows up as pouring your heart into your clients, day after day, while your own business quietly runs you into the ground. Either way, it's the same exhausting pattern: giving everything to everyone else and wondering when it'll be your turn.
Here's the truth: it doesn't have to be this way, and you don't have to figure it out alone.
You CAN learn to love your business again.
You CAN regain your health.
You CAN build a practice that fuels your life instead of draining it.
You CAN show up fully for the people who matter to you — without disappearing in the process.
Abundant energy, a thriving business, and a full, meaningful life are within reach — no burnout required, no more sitting on the sidelines of your own story. Let's do this together!