About Nina!

Well behaved women rarely make history.

Writing these “About” sections are always a bit challenging. What would people want to know? How much do I tell them? Do I make it professional or personal? How could I possibly fit everything into one little section of the website? Where to begin?!

So what I’ll do is tell you a little about how I got into web design and blogging, since that’s what brought you to this site, and then include a little more about me and my principles for life, and that will give you a sense of who I am and maybe peak your curiosity a little – either about me or about yourself. That way you can decide for yourself how much you want to know.

I’ve been working with my own websites since around 2001, but was doing it the old fashioned and cumbersome way – using Microsoft FrontPage (gasp!) and occasionally Dreamweaver. I always found it a tad frustrating – hard to really get things to look the way I wanted, and never did understand how cascading stylesheets worked in them.

Then, in 2009, I learned about WordPress, and as usual, my over-achieving tendencies got involved and I had to learn more. I took a Blogging course and found myself fascinated with the technology and all the possibilities.

To be honest, I was more intrigued with all the behind the scenes stuff and what it could do for a site, search engine optimization, etc. than I was with the actual writing of blog posts.

Throughout that 12 week course, I watched other people struggle with even getting their sites set up, much less adding content. They kept falling farther and farther behind, and getting more and more frustrated. I hated watching that happen, and since it had come rather naturally for me, I offered to help people.

Quickly this morphed into a whole sideline business. (My main business was, and still is, PersonalGrowthPrincess.com – self-help book summaries for smart, sassy women.)

Helping people set up their sites was fun and creative for me, and it created such a relief for my clients that I got hooked. Plus I got to keep learning all kinds of new tricks and tips. Conveniently, my being an overachiever meant that

I spent thousands of hours (literally) learning how to work with WordPress and the hundreds of tools to make it even more powerful. After all that self-teaching – practicing everything on my own sites first – I came across some great web design instructors, men and women of refreshing integrity and commitment to building a community of equally committed web designers.

Since first starting with WordPress, I have set up over 100 sites using WordPress as the framework, as well as provided training and advanced customization. You can check out a handful of the sites in the portfolio.

Now, if you want to know about my life and career prior to web design, feel free to keep reading. Otherwise, hop over to the setup packages page to determine which set up suits you best, or take a look at some of the articles (blog posts) for information and assistance.

I started my professional career in the field of higher education. I held several college faculty appointments and student affairs jobs. I loved this work because I got to be creative, be my typical, outrageous self, and got to spend a lot of time coaching people. I also learned quite a bit about politics and the way decisions get made – or not made – in large organizations, and what it takes to motivate people in ways that really serve them as well as the organization. Most of all, I learned a lot about integrity and follow-through.

In the spring of 2000 I made the decision that it was time to go out on my own – take what I knew, my spirit, my strength – and build my own coaching and consulting business. I knew that the guiding pillars of my business would be:

• INTEGRITY
• Positive ATTITUDE Creates Positive ACTION
• SERVING Others
• OUTRAGEOUS Belief in Making the Impossible POSSIBLE

That’s just who I am.

When I retired from university work, at the retirement party one of the students I had worked with closely said, “We just don’t have women like you where I come from!” I realized that this had become my calling card. While I tend to play by most rules, I just don’t do it on the beaten path. I like being outrageous, shaking up people’s paradigms (as well as my own), and bringing love into everything I do.

My purpose in life is to SPARKLE, to expand happiness, and to help people become completely FULL of THEMSELVES!

You know how adults often try to quiet children down by telling them to stop being so full of themselves? My immediate response to that is, “Who else would I WANT to be full of?!” Too often we shut ourselves down, put away a part of ourselves that we think others just won’t understand. And in doing so, we adopt other people’s strategies for working, living, even loving.

I know from my research, and from the tens of thousands of dollars I’ve invested in personal development, that it is when we are being fully ourselves that we are at our best. We are our strongest physically, emotionally, and spiritually. And it is from this place that we make the best leaders, follow-through easily, and achieve peak performance effortlessly.

That, and my own love of personal growth, led me to create PersonalGrowthPrincess.com, a site providing summaries of self-help books. It is geared toward women – you probably guessed that from the name. With this business I have had the remarkable experience of being forced to grow as a part of the business itself. While that might sound icky to some, for me it is heaven on earth!

In my personal life I am the grateful aunt of two amazing young spirits that I helped bring into the world. I am blessed every day to have them in my life, and whenever I have a difficult day, all I have to do is think about them and everything changes. And, of course, the great thing about helping raise your sister’s children is that you get to give them back at the end of the day.

While I don’t have children of my own, I do have a very smart, precocious dog (Scout, but she’s a girl), and have raised three very special cats. The baby kitty (Little Moon) is still with me – he turned 19 years old in April of 2010. (His mom and dad lived to be 17 and 15, so apparently I have raised some healthy cats.) All my animals are sweet and cuddly, as well as demanding and particular. They typically are most adamant about wanting attention when I am working at the computer (as is true at this very moment).

I am also very lucky to have one of the most amazing families in the world. (Have you ever noticed how your parents get smarter as you get older?) My entire family has supported me through all my various moods and personal explorations. And even when they didn’t have a clue where I was coming from (like when I started skydiving), they always showed me that they had faith in me and would love me no matter what. They didn’t just say the words; they literally demonstrated this to me. Every day when I write in my journal about what I am grateful for, my family is always on the list.

Much of my life I felt like I had books inside me just waiting to come out. But like most people, I wondered if what I had to say was really that significant. Fortunately I had people around me who read some of what I wrote and told me I HAD to continue.

Because of that, I am now a published author! In 2001 I published 99 Tips for Managing Diversity to Drive Business Success, with Kinneil Coltman. And in March of 2002, my groundbreaking book Rapid Relationship Recovery was published. You can go to RapidRelationshipRecovery.com if you want to check it out. Since then I have co-authored and ghostwritten another handful of books.

As you can imagine, my personal style comes out in all the work that I do. Who I am and what I do is a perfect match, and I am exited everyday to get out of bed and begin helping others and creating the life of my dreams in the process.

This is surely far more than you wanted to know, but if you’re still reading, perhaps there’s something here that resonates with you or sparks a reminder about who you are.

Know yourself. Love yourself. That’s all it takes.