My Story
I have traveled a long way, from small town Alberta to the heights of the Andes - motherhood and marriage to entrepreneurship and advocacy. If there is anything I have learned along my journey, it’s that anything is possible. There are no limits to our own ability to recreate ourselves, to take advantage of opportunity and turn our world around.
My name is Shawna Quinn. I am a mother of two beautiful girls, wife to an amazing man, and owner of a fulfilling business. I am a writer, a marketer, a coach and a career strategist. Mostly, I am a seeker. I have spent a lifetime exploring this life, out in the landscape and within my own imagination. I am constantly looking for new information in order to understand life on a deeper level.
Coconut grove, Gili Trawangan - Indonesia
Travel and Adventure
“Small town, big dreams.” My story is not unique, per se. Maybe even cliche. I grew up in a small Alberta community where everyone knows everyone, and most people stay for the long haul. Work in the oil patch. Marry their high school sweetheart. Part of me wanted this kind of comfort - knowing what was expected of you, having a clear identity and path to follow. No big surprises. But there was a part of me that needed a broader view. My parents supported my desire to “escape”, encouraging me to explore my options. At 13 I joined a drum corps that traveled through the US for an entire summer, taking me away from family and friends and opening my eyes to different landscapes. In university, I joined International Student Volunteers and spent a month in the Dominican Republic. After graduation, and before launching a career in education, I left with a friend to teach English in South Korea. It was meant as an experiment. A “gap year abroad”, and also an opportunity to experience firsthand what teaching might be like. This experiment turned into an entirely different path, one motivated by a heightened desire to get to know myself and my world more holistically. I was no longer the somewhat timid, inexperienced girl from the prairies. I had proven to myself I could break the mold, branch out into new worlds and find a new version of myself that felt authentic and unique. During this time, I traveled throughout Southeast Asia, South America, Australia. I studied Ecotourism in the Galapagos Islands, climbed volcanoes and explored the Amazon. I got my Rescue Diver certification, despite a profound fear of the ocean. And I visited music festivals throughout North America. I tasted life, sampled its flavours and textures, and felt my way into my own knowing of what was possible.
Family
When I returned to Canada after years abroad, I had no set plan. I came back for the Olympics with the intention of reinventing life “at home'“ with a new landscape, without and within. I settled in Vancouver, spending a month sleeping on my brother’s floor and riding my bike around the city, openly seeking an invitation to take the next step. It was then I met my now husband - a DJ and tourism guy himself - who represented both a vibrantly contrasting view on life as well as something that felt deeply and innately familiar. In a year we were married, and another after that we had our first daughter. Realizing that downtown Vancouver life aligned more with the younger versions of ourselves, we took an opportunity to move to the Okanagan where we had our second daughter. To say that parenthood is life’s greatest adventure is an understatement. Diverging from the freedom of single life overseas, this new form of excitement and risk took some adjusting to, but always presenting me with profound ways to love selflessly, cherish deeply, and learn more and more about myself.
Entrepreneurship
I did not grow up in an entrepreneurial household. My intention was to pursue a traditional career path, because anything unprecedented would be scary. I was someone whose identity was firmly knit into my ability to meet expectations. But I resisted office hours. I hated the idea that I could (and always did) work extremely hard and didn’t always get acknowledged or rewarded for it. Even though I had entered into the world of Education by teaching ESL and developing curriculum, when I left the work world to give brith to my daughter I didn’t have any career, per se, to return to. I knew in my heart I had to feel it out, to carve out something unique, but I had no idea what that would look like. I loved to coach, to lead, to write, to create. I loved people and stories and connections. I loved to serve. And I had business sense. So when I was offered the opportunity to write resumes for an HR firm and make money without having to leave my new baby with someone else, I jumped at the chance. Little did I know I would fall in love with this work, and that it would be the entry point into a passion I have now turned into a thriving business. Having carved out my own path, taken risks and done the hard work, I now have the privilege of helping others find their own paths. I can show them how to trust their heart and have faith that the right doors will open that will lead them to meaningful work that allows them to contribute their own uniqueness to the marketplace.
Illness
On June 2, 2021, my life forever changed. My eight year old daughter was diagnosed with stage four high risk neuroblastoma. It is the kind of moment that not everyone will experience in life, where your reality is literally flipped upside down and your entire understanding of the world is altered forever. For me, it was a point of no return, transitioning me from one identity to another. Suddenly I was a mother with a critically ill child, transformed into a role I had no idea how to handle, and a reality I had little confidence I could survive in. The sudden understanding that everything I had previously held with such significance no longer had any weight - my career, my lifestyle, my short term goals, my daily strategies - put me into an emotional and psychological free fall. Nothing can prepare you for a scenario like this. And yet, it has acted as a catalyst for a deep dive into the true value of the human experience, and an exploration into the ways in which we can move through change with openness, grace and faith.