Her Story
About Linda
My professional journey has been unconventional but deeply purposeful. I started in business development, doing turnkey operations and helping people with everything from conception to design, implementation, and training. Seventeen years ago, my life changed completely when I had to testify as a witness to something I witnessed, which put me in witness relocation. I gave up my horse farm, my life, my business, and moved to Washington. As an autistic person, this transition was very different and challenging. I went from making so much money to not making any money, and I became a humanitarian. I started working as an advocate for disabled, disadvantaged, and misunderstood people across many races, economic brackets, and different neurological and medical conditions. During COVID, I started Love Talking Baby and provided direct services from 7 PM to 7 AM into the city, becoming one of the major first responders dealing with the homeless crisis when the whole world was shut down. I took cotton candy, canvases of art, and a mobile recording site out to the streets. Every day was literally like a wedding feast. I didn't bring any healthy people - all the people that served were drug addicts, criminals, the ones that couldn't go into shelters because their behavior was too dysfunctional. I got them to be the heroes of the whole city, and I've got it all on video. I'm working on a documentary and screenplay about this because I think there's so much we can learn from their story. I believe in operating out of wisdom first, and after wisdom comes applying your talents or gifts. Wisdom is the physics of life, talent is the engineering of life, and then financing and community comes as a result of that. I write music, I'm an author with a couple of trilogies I'm about to release, and I'm a photographer. I started a wellness center but closed it because I'm not a one-location gal and I'm more of a hands-on person. I feel like I'm a teacher of teachers. I traded my bag of cash and stopped building buildings and started building people, and I've never regretted it. After COVID, I faced a terminal illness and the doctors said I was gonna die. My husband left, saying he needed another girlfriend and was moving to Japan, taking all the marital assets. I was all alone and isolated, having served the world and served people. I had to learn about the systems and how they operate and where they need to grow. I walked out of the terminal illness by learning Chinese traditional medicine and alternative medicine. Now I have certification and training in advanced biofeedback technology, so I get to take my knowledge and gift in music, my knowledge and gift in science and alternative remedies, and combine them. I'm at this place in life where I'm looking for new opportunities and partnerships. I'm working on a documentary about my COVID work in Portland. My biggest thing now is about alignment - I don't have to be just an entrepreneur or just an artist or musician or humanitarian. I can be a full, balanced person.
Her Interview
Ten minutes with Linda
01What do you attribute your success to?
First, I would say God. My life and my work are rooted in that relationship. Second, I would say the people and circumstances that crushed me at times. Those moments pushed me farther than I ever imagined I could go. Pressure often became the place where strength and clarity were formed. And finally, vision - the ability to keep seeing something beautiful and meaningful and hopeful ahead, even when the path to it was far from clear. I've always believed that when strength, love, and vision stay aligned, something deeper begins to unfold.
02What’s the best career advice you’ve ever received?
When I was working with Eiler at Walt Disney, he said everything he learned about managing and running a corporation, he learned from being a father of his children. That taught me that my life qualified me - I didn't have to become something else to be who I was born to be.
03What advice would you give to young women entering your industry?
I would say the world often teaches women to survive by becoming harder. I believe the deeper path is to becoming clearer - clarity of purpose, clarity of truth, clarity of love. When those things are aligned, your presence begins to change the room before you even speak.
04What are the biggest challenges or opportunities in your field right now?
One of the biggest challenges in my industry right now is the tension between mission and systems. Many organizations begin with a genuine desire to help people, but over time, bureaucracy, funding pressures, and public narratives can start shaping decisions more than the original mission. Another challenge is that complex human issues - poverty, trauma, housing instability - often get simplified into statistics and programs, but every number is a real person with a story, dignity, and potential. I believe the path forward is bringing systems back into alignment with truth, accountability, and compassion. When those things stay connected, the work becomes more effective and more human.
05What values are most important to you in your work and personal life?
I believe truth and love are not opposing forces. When they meet, they reveal reality so clearly that people wake up to who they were created to be. That's my life work. My life work is helping people move from reaction to revelation, because when people truly see, they begin to live differently.
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