In 2006, Nancy started Design From Within Coaching, LLC to help people design and achieve their dreams and goals. Nancy applies her 19 years of teaching, athletic coaching and mentoring experience to her life coaching practice to support people to make the changes they want to in order to thrive.
She is passionate about supporting others to see the possibilities in their lives. Nancy believes that people have all the answers within them, yet fear, often in the form of expectations, excuses, complaints, and beating themselves up, holds them back from living their best life possible. She believes that her job as a coach is to listen actively, support the coachee to gain greater awareness, make better choices, set goals, ask clarifying and powerful questions, offer suggestions and support, and to hold clients accountable in the creative process of making their own dreams a reality. Nancy is a certified life coach and a member of the Minnesota Coaches Association.
She has been teaching, coaching, and mentoring for the past 20 years at Concordia Language Villages, Elk River Area High School, Hopkins High School, Minneapolis Public Schools and most recently Life's Headwaters, a private foundation in Minneapolis. Nancy currently teaches a course at Hamline University entitled "Leadership Coaching Skills for Educators." Nancy also coaches students at Cooper High School in Robbindale, MN one day a week.
Nancy grew up in West Central Minnesota, and is the youngest of eight children. She graduated with honors from St. Cloud State University in 1990 with degrees in Health, French, and licenses in Secondary Education and Coaching. Nancy also studied in Toulouse, France and Alnwick Castle, Northumberland, England. She received her Masters degree in Education from Hamline University in 2000. Nancy was a semi-finalist recognized for her outstanding teaching in the 2004 Minnesota State Teacher of the Year Program. She has taken a large number of additional graduate courses in brain based learning, the 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, Emotional Intelligence, conflict resolution, learning styles, diversity training, Cognitive Coach Training and many more. She is committed to life-long learning and growth. She is a certified life coach through the Fearless Living Institute which teaches not only coaching skills but also content based on renowned life coach Rhonda Britten's work on overcoming fear.
Nancy enjoys working with mothers of preschoolers through her leadership in a MOPS group in Golden Valley, Minnesota. She also enjoys spending time with her family and friends, running, in-line skating, biking, playing golf, traveling, reading and gardening. She is married and lives in Robbinsdale, Minnesota with her husband and daughter.
