Gaining Financial Control in Our Lives

While pursuing our respective careers, we both launched our first businesses independently of one another in the network marketing industry to diversify our income and give us more financial control. We found that having a sense of security and safety in our careers gave us the freedom to build multiple companies without the stress of “all or nothing” mentality associated with most traditional business paths.

Each person’s journey will come with its own unique set of challenges and opportunities.

We began taking advice from people well-established in the business sector and learned online business created a low-risk opportunity with the upside of true scalability and automation. Working in the eCommerce industry has now enabled us to grow a company across the United States and in several international markets. We’ve been honored to receive speaking invitations throughout the country and internationally in Canada, Jamaica, England and Australia. 

Since finding ways to automate our methods and teach others we realized we could take this systematic approach to impacting more people and we formed Kornerstone in 2017.  

I grew up in a family of engineers and became the odd one out as I pursued my English degree. With a nudge from my older brother, I dipped my toes into my first business as a very part time venture, without much confidence or belief. I took this step because I had a career in the administrative world that left a lot to be desired in terms of promotions, salary increases, and professional growth.

I had almost a decade of trial and error, failures and eventually successes to test my aptitude and endurance for the work required in the entrepreneurial space. Running my own business gave me the creative challenge that I craved.

Getting out of my job to have control over the things I valued eventually became my number one mission. What I wanted desperately was to be my own boss and to write a final resignation letter. In 2017 that dream became my reality. My first business had grown to over 1 Million in online revenue and I no longer needed my corporate salary to support my lifestyle.

Today I am most passionate about developing relationships with people that share an interest in personal development and understand that being out of our comfort zone is where we foster real change. Ultimately an ideal partnership is someone that craves that same autonomy and financial control in their lifestyle.

As a mother of a young daughter I feel grateful for the work I did in my twenties and thirties that has allowed me to be a full-time parent with a large amount of flexibility to run my businesses. I also feel responsible to teach other women how to gain financial control and grow their confidence in the business world.

I knew receiving a degree in engineering from UW Madison would yield stable employment and a comfortable salary. However, after several internships and shadowing professionals in my field, I knew I would need to do more than become an engineer to create the lifestyle I was looking for. This led me to starting my first company in college as a side gig. It paid off. Literally. My first venture gave me the means to clear both my consumer debt and my student loan debt by the age of 25.

Having business experience alongside my engineering career gave me an unfair advantage of personal development, confidence, and real-world business mindset that companies valued. It catapulted my career into management and consulting and making a six-figure salary in my mid-twenties. But like many professionals in high paid consulting roles, the work weeks were grueling, and it was not the daily life I was looking for long term.

More than anything I craved the flexibility and control of dictating my schedule on a day-to-day basis without the constraints of the corporate grind. Since forming Kornerstone with my wife, I’m most proud of helping many individuals clear their debt and effectively scale a business so that they have the financial means to create real autonomy in their lifestyle.

The reality is that a lot of things revolve around money. But when we can help a household alleviate financial stress, they have freedom to make more choices own their own terms, like going part-time or leaving their career altogether.