Life Shaped My Purpose. Resilience Keeps It Moving.
My life’s work, my entire 34-year career to date, has been shaped by my own health story and the experiences of the people I love.
My struggles began as a young girl. They taught me how much it matters to feel seen, heard, believed and supported, and how difficult it can be to find care that brings those things together.
I opened Wallis for Wellness because I desperately needed a clinic I couldn’t find.
So I decided to create it.
I didn’t know exactly how. But I knew why.
Over the next 30 years, it grew into an award-winning integrative health clinic, shaped by the professionals who worked alongside me, the patients who trusted us and everything we learned together.
Looking back, I can see that same thread throughout my life: an experience reveals a need, and that need becomes a reason to learn, build and contribute.
Motherhood opened the door to becoming an internationally certified infant massage instructor and supporting families.
Menopause at 39 brought another deeply personal chapter. Experiencing that transition so early sharpened my understanding of how much women need timely education, meaningful conversations and support in advocating for their health. It helped shape my commitment to prevention and, eventually, my work in bone health.
Then came my father’s final chapter.
Dad wanted to die at home.
As his daughter, I wanted to help honour that wish and support both of my parents through what was an incredibly difficult time.
I had healthcare knowledge. I had professional experience. I had connections.
And it was still hard.
Being a healthcare professional did not remove the fear, grief or difficulty of navigating care for someone I loved. I was trying to understand what was needed, find support and help my parents while also being a daughter facing the loss of her father.
That experience left me thinking about families trying to navigate similar circumstances without the knowledge or connections I had.
If it was this hard for me, how hard must it be for them?
After Dad passed away, I pursued my Certified Professional Consultant on Aging designation to honour him and add to my professional toolbox.
I wanted to better understand aging, support families and help others feel more equipped when life asked difficult things of them.
His life, and the experience of helping my parents through his dying, continue to shape how I serve.
These chapters taught me that lived experience can reveal what is missing. Doing the work to deepen our knowledge helps us respond.
Learning, sharing and turning that understanding into practical support can extend its impact far beyond us.
Recently, a colleague and friend helped me recognize something else connecting those chapters.
They told me I was incredibly resilient.
That comment stopped me in my tracks.
Life has required a lot lately, personally and professionally. There have been hard decisions, unexpected obstacles and days when building something I believe is needed has felt exhausting. Moments when I’ve wanted to give up.
Then someone reflected back something I hadn’t paused long enough to acknowledge in myself.
Resilience.
It made me feel proud. It also challenged me to look beyond what was still unfinished and recognize what it had taken to get here.
My friend Kim Fitzpatrick, PCC, an executive leadership and business coach, reminds me to keep one foot in celebration and the other looking forward.
I needed that reminder.
We can become so focused on what we haven’t done that we forget what we have accomplished, and the perseverance, vulnerability and grit behind it.
Even as I write this, a familiar voice asks: What will people think? Will sharing what I’m proud of sound like bragging?
That hesitation can make us shrink our stories before anyone has heard them.
But sharing accomplishments alongside our struggles and fears gives an honest picture of what growth requires. It offers proof that we can do hard things, seek support and make a difference while we’re still figuring things out.
That impact might begin with one person, one family or one conversation. It reaches our circle, then someone carries it into theirs.
We may never know how far it travels.
I want to share the whole story because someone else might recognize themselves in it and think, Perhaps I can take my next step, too.
I’m learning to let that possibility matter more than the fear of what people might think.
Recently, I wondered aloud whether I was a little crazy to be taking on something new in what I had started calling the “sunset chapter” of my career.
Almost immediately, I felt how much possibility was still ahead.
I can be satisfied with what I’ve built and still be curious about what comes next. There is more I want to learn, contribute and create.
This chapter feels hopeful, even with its challenges.
For months, I’ve been working toward a new chapter for my podcast and television show, PHAMCAST, which is becoming Become the CEO of Your Health.
The new name and studio are exciting. Behind them are years of work, uncertainty and choosing to show up before the impact was visible.
A big vision can look like a “cute idea” in its early days.
You wonder whether others can see what you see. Sometimes you question it yourself.
Who am I to believe I can help change something this big?
What brings me back is remembering why I began.
Nearly five years ago, as we emerged from some of the hardest days of the pandemic, I felt an urgent need for community. For people to come together around what we could do to support our health, and one another, before a crisis demanded our attention.
That purpose became PHAM, the Preventative Health Awareness Movement.
I wanted to create space for conventional and complementary healthcare professionals, everyday people, businesses and all levels of government to learn from one another.
A table where professional expertise and lived experience could both contribute. Where people could feel seen, heard, believed and supported.
Once again, I didn’t know exactly how. But I knew why.
The path has taken turns I didn’t expect. I’ve had to seek guidance, change plans, pause and begin again.
Passion gives me energy. Discipline helps me do the work. Perseverance brings me back after disappointment. Community reminds me that I have people beside me.
Sometimes my next step begins with a simple reminder:
Breathe. Remember why. Stay open to another way forward.
That lesson is especially present in Wallis for Wellness Beyond Your Scan.
I’m proud to have played a role in bringing Echolight REMS bone health technology to Canadians. The intention has always included what surrounds the scan: education, empowerment, support and action.
Helping people understand their results. Encouraging informed questions. Connecting them with resources and professionals as they take a more active role in their health.
My own experience with early menopause is part of why that matters so much to me. My experience supporting my parents is part of why I care about what happens when people need to navigate their next steps.
People need information they can understand and support they can turn to.
That purpose connects Beyond Your Scan, PHAM, our developing collaborative book and the podcast and television show.
Each offers another way to bring people together and put prevention into practice.
I often try to be a belief breather for others, offering encouragement when they struggle to see their own potential.
What has humbled me is how many people are breathing belief back into me.
Our PHAMbassadors, contributing professionals, community partners and book co-authors bring their expertise, experiences, needs and hopes. They help this movement grow in directions I could never have imagined alone.
To each of you, a huge, heartfelt thank you for breathing belief into this movement and for believing in my leadership. I couldn’t do this without you, and I’m so excited about what’s to come.
The vision began with me, but it was always intended to become a collective effort. My responsibility is to listen as carefully as I lead and allow it to evolve to meet the needs people bring forward.
As PHAM approaches its fifth anniversary, I see that shared belief taking shape. Our collaborative book with 14 healthcare professionals and me is bringing prevention in action to the page.
And thanks to YourTV Cogeco, whose team has believed in this vision from the beginning, our conversations reach people through both podcast and television. Their willingness to work alongside me is collaboration in action, and I’m deeply grateful.
Now, Become the CEO of Your Health creates more room to elevate voices, ask better questions and challenge our assumptions, including my own.
I’ve invited passionate experts and insightful changemakers to pull up a chair. I cannot wait to listen, learn from their experiences and grow alongside them.
Health touches our physical, mental, emotional, spiritual and financial lives. No single perspective captures all of it.
Different lenses can reveal needs we’ve overlooked and possibilities we haven’t considered. That requires curiosity, respect and a willingness to be changed by what we hear.
It also requires community.
For all the ways technology connects us, we still need to feel welcomed, listened to and part of something meaningful.
We want more years lived with health, connection and purpose. More healthspan alongside lifespan. And when life becomes difficult, we need compassionate support for ourselves and the people we love.
That is the spirit I want to bring into our new studio: soulful conversations with practical purpose, open hearts and curious minds.
As we move toward 2027, I’m keeping one foot in celebration and the other looking forward.
I’m proud of what has grown. I’m grateful for the people helping it grow. And I’m learning to honour the resilience it has taken to get here.
Perhaps you need that permission, too.
To recognize what you’ve carried. To celebrate how you’ve adapted. To share an accomplishment without editing out the struggle or diminishing the achievement.
You can feel proud of how you’re walking through a difficult chapter, even while you’re still in it.
Thirty-four years ago, I began building the kind of care I needed.
Every chapter since has deepened my understanding of what that care can mean: for a young woman searching for answers, a mother supporting her family, a woman navigating early menopause or a daughter trying to honour her father’s final wishes.
Today, I’m helping create spaces where more people can contribute to the care and community we all need.
My life shaped my purpose. Resilience keeps it moving. And the people beside me keep expanding what is possible.
The PHAMily table is open. Pull up a chair.
Bring your experience, your questions and your willingness to grow.
Are you ready to become the CEO of your health?
You don’t have to do it alone. 💜
Keep the conversation going. Subscribe to our BLOG Follow Become the CEO of Your Health on Instagram, Facebook and YouTube, and listen on Spotify.
