I know who you are because I was you.
Not a version of you. Not someone adjacent to you. You.
The one who does everything right and still feels like something's missing. The one who's been so busy being good that she forgot to ask what she actually wants. The one who looks at her life — the one she built exactly the way she was supposed to — and wonders why it feels like it belongs to someone else.
I see her. I was her. And I spent a long time pretending I wasn't.
Her story is familiar. That’s the whole problem.
Photo by my youngest daughter. She said “Stand here, Mom. You look really cute.”
She was a daughter. A sister. A wife. A mother. She took every role to heart - and played her part a little too well.
Because in being that daughter, there were expectations. Her wild spirit was unacceptable, so it was crushed. Her risks were punished, her joy extinguished, her wanderer told her
“You can’t do that, why would you even try?”
And so she believed the voices. She bent to accommodate. And a thread appeared.
In being that sister, there were comparisons. She felt unlovable. Less than. She bent again. More threads gathered.
In being that wife, her fairytale dreams were shattered. For years she held it together - stepping into the role of protector, carrying what needed carrying. The threads wound tighter. The fabric grew heavier.
In being that mother - now THIS was a role she loved. She promised herself that her children would never be hindered, that their spirits would reign free. Her wildflowers. An in the struggle to protect their freedom, she continued to ignore her own.
Until one day, a voice whispered that there was a different way. That she could shed the heavy fabric - the threads woven over years of neglect, of bending, of performing. And become herself again.
She didn’t believe it at first. “I can’t shed this fabric. It’s been covering me so long, it’s a part of me.
And the voice whispered, “Yes, you can.”
So she shrugged it off. And beneath it? Wings. A little creaky, but brighter than the sun and as glittery as the ocean.
She uses her eyes to see the goodness in others. Her voice to champion herself and those who struggle. Her hands write stories that intrigue and inspire. Her feet to go wherever the hell she wants.
She is passion. She is power. She is mischief. She is magnificent.
She is the authority. And she honors herself by simply being who she was born to be.
That woman is me. And she's in you too — waiting.
Original work by Kim Black during the big, messy middle of my own Good Girl Exit.
The credentials, since you asked.
I spent over two decades in corporate leadership — including significant time at PwC — coaching executives, leading high-performing teams, and watching the same thing happen over and over: brilliant women losing themselves to the pressure to comply. Their identity, their voice, their sense of self — quietly traded for approval they never needed to earn in the first place.
I know because I did it too. For years.
That experience became the foundation for The HERS Experience™ — a methodology built on both evidence-based coaching strategy and the deeply human work of returning to yourself. It's not theoretical. It's personal. And that's exactly why it works.
I'm a Professional Certified Coach (PCC), a Board-Certified Health & Wellness Coach, and a Certified Lifestyle Medicine Practitioner. I'm also the founder of Sage Leadership & Wellness, where I work with organizations, executives, and teams. And I've written two books: Raising Wildflowers: The Misadventures of a Working Mom Raising Awesome Kids and the international bestseller She Builds: Power, Purpose and the Women Who Rise.
My third book — The Good Girl Exit — is on its way.
I'm also a keynote speaker, a wife, a mother of three adults, a grandmother, and the proud human of a Shiba Inu named Luna Lovegood who has absolutely zero good girl conditioning and I respect her enormously for it.
A few things worth knowing before you work with me.
This work goes deep. We're not skimming the surface or rebranding your burnout. We're getting into the real stuff — the stories you've been telling yourself, the roles you've been playing, the version of you that got buried somewhere along the way.
It's also genuinely fun. I know that sounds suspicious for work this real. But there's something that happens in a session — or a room full of women — when the mask finally drops. It gets a little loud. A little irreverent. Sometimes it gets hilarious. You have been so serious for so long. You deserve a laugh while you do the work.
I will not let you stay comfortable. Comfortable is where the good girl lives. I know when to hold space and when to push — and I will push. Kindly. Relentlessly. Because I know what's waiting on the other side of the thing you're avoiding.
You don't have to be ready.
You just have to be done pretending you're fine.
"Kim is a great coach who creates an open environment to be truly yourself and say the hard things out loud... I would recommend Kim to anyone who wants to get real in a completely non-judgmental and fun environment."
"She meets me exactly where I am. She knows when to push and when to hold space. Kim helped me figure out what in my life actually needed to change."
That woman in the story? She’s tired of waiting.
Whether you're barely starting to feel the cracks or you're ready to shrug off the whole darn fabric — there's a place for you here. And a version of you on the other side that you're going to like a lot.