From Behavioral Health Specialist to AI Consultant
How a Behavioral Health Career Becomes the Foundation for AI Consulting and Personal Transformation
From Behavioral Health to AI: I Am Not Starting Over, I Am Building Forward
Being recognized as an Influential Woman is an honor, but it also caused me to think about what influence really means.
For me, influence has never been about having the biggest title, the largest following, or being the loudest person in the room. It is about connection. It is about what happens when your experience, your voice, and your willingness to keep growing create space for someone else to see what is possible.
For more than a decade, much of my professional life has been rooted in behavioral health, peer support, wellness, coaching, advocacy, and helping people navigate change. I have spent years listening to people, supporting them through difficult seasons, helping them recognize their strengths, and reminding them that transformation is rarely a straight road.
And now, I find myself transforming, too.
I am stepping into the world of artificial intelligence as an AI consultant and AI agent builder.
A few years ago, I certainly would not have predicted that sentence.
But that is the thing about purpose. Sometimes the way we live it changes.
I am learning that moving into something new does not always mean leaving everything behind. Sometimes, we are being asked to bring everything we have learned with us.
I Am Not Leaving the Human Work Behind
When I first began exploring AI, like many people, I saw it mostly as a tool.
Write this.
Create that.
Help me organize something.
Make the work faster.
But the deeper I went, the more I realized there was much more under the hood.
AI can help businesses create systems. It can organize information, support communication, automate repetitive tasks, assist with learning, and help individuals turn ideas into action.
Then another question came to me:
Where does the human being fit into all of this?
That question has become one of the most important parts of the work I am building.
Technology may be able to generate an answer, but humans still bring context.
We bring discernment.
We bring empathy.
We bring lived experience.
We understand what it means to read a room, recognize what is not being said, change direction when something does not feel right, and make decisions based on more than efficiency.
That is why my background in behavioral health does not feel separate from my work in AI.
It feels like preparation for it.
Building CLC Creative Ventures
This next chapter is also giving me an opportunity to bring several areas of my work together under CLC Creative Ventures.
For years, I have created, coached, spoken, advocated, facilitated conversations, and developed ideas around transformation and personal growth.
Now, I am looking at the larger picture.
What can happen when behavioral insight, creativity, coaching, communication, technology, and entrepreneurship come together?
CLC Creative Ventures is becoming the space where I can explore that question.
It also allows me to continue developing G.G.R.O.W., Girlfriend’s Guide to Recovery, Outreach, and Wellness, where the focus is on helping women navigate change, recognize their strengths, and move toward what comes next with greater intention.
My podcast, Cruzin’ on the Edge, is another part of that ecosystem. It gives me a place to have conversations about transformation, purpose, leadership, wellness, and what happens when life brings us to an edge and asks us to decide who we are becoming.
I am beginning to see that none of these pieces were random.
They were building blocks.
Experience Does Not Become Obsolete
One of the conversations I believe we need to have as AI continues to evolve is about the value of human experience.
People are understandably asking questions.
Will AI replace my job?
Am I too old to learn this?
Where do I even begin?
Do the skills I have spent years developing still matter?
I believe they matter more than ever.
Our experience does not become irrelevant because technology changes.
The challenge is learning how to translate what we know into this new environment.
Someone who has spent twenty years leading people understands something about leadership that a prompt cannot manufacture.
A counselor understands human behavior.
A teacher understands how people learn.
A small-business owner understands relationships, trust, customer service, and problem-solving.
A caregiver understands patience and adaptation.
AI can enhance those abilities, but it does not erase their value.
That is part of the work I want to bring into this space.
I want to help people understand that learning AI does not mean becoming someone completely different.
Sometimes, it means discovering another way to use who you already are.
Influence Is Also About Becoming
Being featured as an Influential Woman arrives at an interesting time in my life because I am still becoming.
I do not have every piece figured out.
I am learning.
I am building.
I am asking questions.
I am taking some risks.
And I am allowing myself to imagine possibilities that I might not have considered before.
There was a time when I thought credibility meant having all the answers before stepping forward.
Today, I see it differently.
Sometimes, leadership means being willing to walk into unfamiliar territory, learn what you need to learn, and bring others with you as you grow.
That is the kind of influence I want to have.
Not influence built only on what I have accomplished.
Influence built on what I am willing to continue becoming.
Because transformation does not ask us to erase our past.
It asks us to take what we have learned, decide what still belongs, and have the courage to build from there.
And right now, that is exactly what I am doing.
I am not starting over.
I am building forward.
