Gen Georget grew up as an only child of a single mother learning that work was a means to an end. After earning her degree in communications, she’d taken a job at an ice cream shop on Parliament Hill in Ottawa. One day a young woman came into the shop and she recognized Gen from high school. She told her she was leaving her job with one of the members of Parliament and suggested that Gen apply for the role. Three months later, Gen was offered the job, although she claims that she landed it “by accident”. Ironically, her start date was September 10, 2001… the day before 9/11. The job was exciting, very political, and chaotic, requiring long hours. Three years in, Gen had to re-think her situation as her health was suffering. Fortunately, she found a job that was better aligned at the National Gallery. Gen was at the National Gallery for six years, during which she got married and had her first child. The maternity leave policies in Canada are generous, enabling Gen to explore her creative self while home with her first child. She left the National Gallery to be home with her children and to establish a photography business. She focused on many subjects, but in particular, began to shoot weddings. This led to her writing blog posts and stories about the couples. Gen wanted her business to be heart-centered and relational. She found that writing people’s stories created those important connections. Eventually, she added posts about herself, and her life as a mother. Then one day, everything changed… One of her posts went viral. She went to bed with 500 friends on Facebook and woke up to 750 messages. Within three days, she had 5,000 friends and 35,000 followers. It was out of control, but it opened up doors, including the opportunity to write for Oprah.com and her work as an executive editor at the Roundtable Companies, which is how I became connected to Gen. She was my amazing, devoted writing coach for a year while I wrote my book.  Gen has written two books: (2016) and , (2019) which won the 2020 Book of the Year Award for Faces magazine. In this week’s learn more about Gen’s  journey: Gen is a full-time storyteller whose work as a writer, and photographer has been seen on Oprah.com, the Good Mother Project, Love in the Rockies, and Simplify magazine. Learn more and connect with Gen here: