The Short Story:
Michelle Ward, aka The When I Grow Up Coach, helps creative people devise the career they think they can't have - or discover it to begin with! A certified life coach by the International Coach Academy & a musical theater actress with her BFA from NYU/Tisch, Michelle uses a dose of empathy, a shot of butt-kickin', a wagon full of enthusiasm, & a crapload of inspiration to help solve the puzzle & turn her client's grown-up skills & values into a passionate (& possibly out-of-the-box) career. She's been featured in Newsweek and Metro News & could be found coachin', bloggin' & givin' away free stuff at whenigrowupcoach.com.

The Fun Story:
Michelle Ward, aka The When I Grow Up Coach, has a BFA in musical theater from New York University/Tisch School of the Arts as well as her life coaching certificate from the International Coach Academy. As a creative career coach, she specializes in getting fellow creatives out of soul-sucking jobs & into passionate careers. Michelle lives in New Yawk City with her hubby Luke & their Roomba, Jeeves. She starts every morning with a dose of Judge Judy justice.

The Long-ish (but Worthwhile to Read!) Story (it's even in the first person!):
Since I was a little girl of 6 years old, I always wanted to be an actress. Being on stage is where I belonged, and it took me places. It took me to New York City, where I majored in musical theater at NYU, Tisch School of the Arts. It took me on a cruise ship around North America where I sang my heart out for a year. It took me to Studio 8A in Rockefeller Plaza, where I got to be on "Saturday Night Live". It even took me to The-Closest-Movie- Theater-Is-An-Hour-Away, PA and The-Town-With-A-Gas-Station,-a- Consignment-Shop,-a-Pizzeria,-and-a-Gun-Store, New Hampshire.

And all of a sudden, the life I was pursuing for 20 years wasn't what I wanted anymore. I didn't want to leave my home in New York City, where I built an incredible life for myself. I didn't want to spend my "days off" sitting at auditions to sing 8 bars of a song and wonder where the day went. I didn't want to get a job and have to pick up my life with one day's (or one week's) notice. I didn't want to be a 35 year old waitress/ hostess/ temp/office manager. I wanted my days to mean something, to be valuable, to matter.

So I got a real job. And another one. And another. I went through seven jobs in four years, constantly trying to find "the perfect fit". I'd get restless easily and fairly despondent, thinking that there was nothing else out there for me that I could devote myself to passionately and enthusiastically. One day I declared, "Enough! I refuse to accept that there is nothing else out there that I'm going to love doing!" I decided to put some chutzpah into my search. I was going to find My Perfect Career.

I enrolled in a Career Change Workshop at NYU, and through a series of personality tests, exercises, and conversations with my classmates, I realized that I wanted to help others find their own path, especially "creative types" that thought they wanted one thing their whole life and now have to rewrite their plans. I wanted to help them figure out what they wanted to be When They Grow Up.

But I didn't want to limit myself to Career Coaching. I wanted to help people along with all their life challenges, but not in a Hippy-Dippy or a Tell-Me-What-Your-Parents-Did-When-You-Were-Five way. I wanted to be their springboard, their partner, their confidante, their cheerleader.

I wanted to be their Life Coach!
I went full throttle into taking classes at the International Coach Academy, where I got certified as a professional life coach. It took almost two years - with getting engaged, getting married, & having a full-time day job in between -but I graduated in June of 2009 with high marks for my 60 coaching hours, 120 classroom hours, & term paper!

I've been training my whole life to be a coach. My communication skills, my enthusiasm and sense of humor, my desire to help people find their passion, and my people-loving-personality makes this the role that I was born to play.