Money may not bring happiness … but a lack of understanding about money and the power it has to affect virtually every area of our lives, will, eventually, generate deep and persistent unhappiness within us.

I know because I felt that unhappiness at several points early in my life, which is why I became committed to not only learning from my mistakes, but also finding ways to teach others – simply and effectively—how to become confident managers of their money.

Coming from real poverty, my mom and dad moved to the United States with an unending drive and commitment to fulfill their dreams. My father became a surgeon, my mother an attorney. They would have loved their daughter to follow in their footsteps—law, medicine, even investment banking were all acceptable choices.

Instead, I graduated from Williams College, a wonderful liberal arts school in Massachusetts, with a degree in theatre. I then trained at a conservatory in London, and moved to Los Angeles to build my career as an actor.

As you might guess, my decision terrified my parents. Now, however, they are grateful that my untraditional path resulted in me (eventually) developing strong business muscles and the resiliency to weather the ups and downs of our economic climate.

I had some successes in my early years as an actor, but, despite working countless part-time jobs to try to make ends meet, my deep lack of financial understanding led me to amass close to $80,000 in credit card debt and to spend copious amounts of time each month crying, worried that I would not be able to pay my bills.

The tipping-point came one day when I nearly missed the opening curtain for a play in which I’d been cast, because I got “stuck” at one of my horrible day jobs.

I’ve never forgotten that day.

It was the day that sparked my quest to turn my life around and learn exactly how to build financial stability and a solid foundation for my life and career.

I finally figured out how to design a clear and executable financial plan which turned my financial life around—but I’m not going to claim that it was easy or that all it took was a “willingness to learn.”

I had to make real changes. I had to look at the financial choices I had been making—I hadn’t even realized they were choices! I had to prioritize, and make sacrifices, and accept that pursuing my dream wasn’t just about wishing and hoping, or even about working hard.

Eventually I stopped crying . . . and eventually I paid off all of my debt—every. single. cent.

About 18 months after That Day – and after reading countless books and working with as many teachers as I could find – I was able to make such significant changes to my financial picture that one of my mentors (a well known author in the world of personal finance) invited me to train to become a financial coach for her company.

I did that work for two years before making the decision to start my own business, Abundance Bound.

Today, in addition to my financial coaching, I continue to work as both an actor and a writer. My husband Adam and I have been married 26 years and we have two children. Together we juggle the joys and stresses of home ownership, private school tuitions, sports fees, out-of-the-country family visits, unexpected pet bills, the very rare but occasional vacation, and on . . . and on . . . and on.

Adam works in television as an assistant director, so we are very familiar with financial volatility – sporadic periods of unexpected unemployment, followed by great “gigs” and paychecks, and then more unemployment. We must face our finances head-on – knowing that there are absolutely no guarantees, but also knowing that this is the life we chose. But it’s precisely because we have financial systems and plans in place that our entrepreneurial, creative life has way, way more pros than cons for us.

I bring as much transparency to my coaching as possible. I don’t hold back from sharing my failures, disappointments and struggles, as well as some of the victories I’ve experienced along the way. I’ve struggled with enormous debt and paid it all back. I’ve built savings, only to be hit with a series of emergencies that felt like they took me back to square one. I’ve overcome terrible fears and feelings of inadequacy to learn how to invest in the stock market and in real estate. I’ve made some great investment decisions, and a few spectacularly bad ones.

Overall, I think we learn best when we can really see what is possible and when we understand that no one’s journey is without its pitfalls. Fortunately, I am able to help my clients and students avoid many of my own mistakes, steering them towards the simple systems that have proven, time after time, to be the most effective.

I will never teach this work from a place of being “done” – of having reached some great pinnacle of success. Our relationship with money is one that will last a lifetime. And, like every relationship, it will have its sunny days and its storms.

Our job is to embrace our relationship with money, to honor it, and to work every day to make it as strong as possible.