3 Key Realizations That Led to Holistic Branding

I was raised in an environment impacted by mental health challenges. My mother lives with schizophrenia, and I grew up watching her fight battles with demons I couldn’t see. The doctors, the medications, the well-meaning advice – all felt like band-aids on bullet wounds.

When my own mind turned against me, I did what many struggling with mental health do—I learned to wear a mask. On the surface, I functioned. Beneath it, I was drowning.

Unveiling The Mask

College was just another stage for this performance. I barely scraped by in design school while battling mood swings, insomnia, social anxiety, addiction, and a crushing sense of being broken.

Then came the wake-up call. A motorcycle accident at 120 km/h shattered my face, knocking out seven teeth and breaking my bones. But the physical pain was nothing compared to the mental torment I had lived with for years.

One night, standing on a bridge, I gave myself two choices: end it all or go to war.

I chose war. I went back home and locked myself in a dark room for over a year—this time not to hide, but to train. I transformed that room into a laboratory and became my own guinea pig. I studied my mind obsessively, documenting every mood swing, every dream, every shift in consciousness.

The Five Mountains

This journey lead to a realization that life is made up of five interconnected mountains—soul, heart, mind, health, and wealth and true healing and transformation require us to climb them all. This understanding became the foundation of the Ascend Philosophy: a holistic approach to growth that acknowledges the balance and interplay between these five areas.

As I climbed my own mountains, I began to see a bigger vision—a world where people don’t just survive but thrive. That vision led me to start the Ascend Academy Podcast, not because I had all the answers, but because I was obsessed with the right questions. I interviewed healers, coaches, conscious entrepreneurs and wisdom-keepers, piecing together a new way of understanding growth and transformation.

The Missing Link

Then something unexpected happened—the coaches and healers I interviewed started asking me for branding advice. They weren’t struggling with coaching or healing but with turning their calling into a business.

I hadn’t realized it yet, but my journey—from design student to mental health warrior to podcaster—gave me a unique perspective on their biggest challenge.

They felt stuck between their calling to help others and the seemingly "dirty" world of marketing.

Just as I had turned my dark room into a laboratory for Holistic Healing and Growth, I turned my podcast and business into a testing ground for authentic branding.

I realized that like true transformation, True Branding isn’t about quick fixes or surface-level tactics—it’s about building your business as an extension of you and treating it as your life's work.

The Birth of Holistic Branding

After four years of study, experimentation, deep conversations, and hands-on work, I developed Holistic Brand Strategy—a process that helps heart-led coaches build brands that feel as natural as their calling to serve, allowing their values, mission, and experiences to shape a brand that deeply resonates and creates lasting impact.

The truth is, I'm still climbing, still experimenting, still learning. That’s what the Ascend journey is all about—keep climbing, one step at a time. And now, I get to climb alongside the very people who once inspired me by sharing their wisdom and stories with an open heart.

How’s that for a plot twist?