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HOW TO CREATE YOUR NEXT AMAZING STORY! FREE EBOOKGET IT NOW!
HOW TO CREATE YOUR NEXT AMAZING STORY - FREE EBOOK
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It’s never too late to live the life you imagined!

Hi, I’m Suzanne Oshima…

I help women transform
mid-life into their best life in their next chapter!

Free eBook: How to Create Your Next Amazing Story!

Get It Now!
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“For what it’s worth:
It’s never too late to be whoever you want to be.
I hope you live a life you’re proud of,
and if you find that you are not,
I hope you have the strength to start over.”

~ F. Scott Fitzgerald

 

Together we can change your life!

Are you like a caterpillar, moving slowly through life without much direction?

I totally get it, as that was me, too a long time ago. I was just living my life on autopilot day in and day out, not knowing what I was truly capable of.

I knew I wanted more, but honestly I didn’t know how to get there…that is, until I finally freed myself from my own prison of limiting beliefs and self sabotage, that I had been holding myself in for years.

When I finally had the courage to emerge from my safe cocoon…I had finally transformed into the amazing powerful butterfly, that I was meant to be!

I was finally free!

Free to be the authentic, empowered and inspired woman that I was meant to be in my mind, body and soul.

I discovered my true core calling was to help amazing women, like yourself realize that it’s never too late…to live the life you imagined!

I help you dream big and then chase down that dream with you…

I help you transform to become the best version of yourself from the inside out…and I do that by helping you discover your next amazing story.

You may be stuck on the merry go round of life, going around in circles, going nowhere. And I know all too well, how that feels.

You know you want and deserve more out of life…but your fear, limiting beliefs are holding you back and you’re not sure where to start, or how to get there.

You’re passionate to uncover and unleash your life’s purpose — personally, professionally and in love.

You know deep down inside of you, that there is a beautiful butterfly waiting to emerge…yet, you don’t know how to set her free.

And that’s where I come in, as your Life & Love Transformational Coach, I guide you through the transformation process. From the caterpillar to the cocoon stage, where you emerge as a beautiful powerful butterfly ready to take on the world!

What personal issues are you living with? What’s holding you back from being the person you could be, the person you want to be?

We often don’t even recognize that those barriers are lurking in the recesses of our mind… until a coach exposes them and guides you through the transformation process.

Whether it’s family issues (past or present), health issues or just a feeling of being overwhelmed and without a plan, I help you overcome all of that to help you move forward.

Your next amazing story is out there; I help you discover it, connect with it, and live it…because it’s never too late!

My Amazing Story!

For someone who is always punctual for appointments, it’s ironic that when I look back on my life, that I’ve achieved a lot of amazing milestones a little later in life.

Maybe my life story will inspire you to realize that it’s never too late to live the life you imagined!

I’ve gone through several stages in my own life, transforming from the caterpillar into the beautiful butterfly that I was always meant to be.

I’ve never let age get in my way, because I believe age is truly just a number, and I never, ever want to say, “what if?” in life.

I Was Late!

It all started from the day I was born…I was late. My mother was 38 years old when she had her last child, me! While by today’s standards that may not seem like it was late in life, back then in 1965, it was considered really late to have a child at that age.

My Mom Inspired Me…

My mom was that strong independent woman of the 70’s; she believed and supported the Gloria Steinem, women’s movement…and it inspired her to go back to college in her 40’s to get her Masters degree in English. She became an ESL (English as Second Language) Instructor at the local colleges in San Francisco.

Soon she discovered that there weren’t any textbooks for ESL students, so she and another colleague, collaborated and wrote the first ESL textbook for college students (which are still used to this day, all around the world). Later, she wrote three more ESL textbooks, well into her 70’s. In fact, she edited her last textbook 3 months before she passed away.

My mother and father always taught me that I should go after what I want in life, and to never let anything stop me. And that’s how I’ve always been committed to living my life.

Graduated from College a Little Later

I graduated from college a little later than most at 24 years old. I followed in my older sister’s footsteps and chose Marketing, as it seemed like a good solid course of study and that’s what I received my degree in.

I began my career fresh out of college in the promotions and ad agency world. If you were ever a fan of “Madmen”, then you will have some idea of the type of male dominance there is in the advertising industry…but I held my own.

Stuck in a Boring 9 to 5 Job

In my early 30’s, I was living in San Francisco, commuting an hour each way to a boring job, where I would sit in a grey dull cube from 9 to 5. All the employees were lifers…who were waiting it out, to just retire to get their pension. It was a completely mundane life, and I started to feel like, that’s all there was in life.

But that all changed when I turned 31 years old.

Most people have a life crisis when they turn 40 or 50, but since I’m not “normal”, I instead freaked out when I turned 31.

That’s when I finally woke up and came ALIVE again!

New York, New York – I Made It!

I had always dreamed of moving to NYC since I was 14 years old, but I never did.

I realized at that point that I had to take the risk and just do it, because I never wanted to look back on my life and say, “what if?!”

I had this picture in my mind that I was going to be just like Mary Richards…do you remember, Mary Tyler Moore?

I took a huge risk, and I began this next chapter without a place to live, or a job and I knew one girlfriend who lived in New Jersey.

Frank Sinatra was right…if you can make it there, you can make it anywhere…New York, New York!

It wasn’t easy by any means; I spent many nights in tears. Believe it or not, it was easier to find a job in the ad agency world, than it was to find an apartment in NYC.

Even though I was a strong independent woman, I thought maybe I wasn’t strong enough to make it in New York. But I didn’t give up, I kept going and fast forward I'm still here 22 years later.

Quick update: While NYC will always hold a special place in my heart, after 22 years of being a NY'er I decided it was time to move on. In 2020, I moved on to the next chapter of my life in Southern California. I'll update my story soon...

Climbing the Corporate Ladder to Nowhere

As I climbed my way up the corporate ladder in the ad agency world, I felt a sense of emptiness and dissatisfaction with the whole status quo. I was working like a dog, to make someone else rich. Ugh!

By all accounts, I appeared financially successful and career fulfilled, but that wasn’t the entrepreneur I knew deep down inside of me, that I was meant to be.

Work had sort of become like a bad relationship, I felt stuck, bored and I wanted out …I was no longer in love with my job or cubicle.

You’re Fired!

Then in 2001, the dot com bubble burst, I was laid off for the very first time.

First I decided to take a break and go on vacation with my severance to the Dominican Republic and then when I returned I got serious about looking for a job.

As I went on job interviews at various ad agencies I remember one time in particular, sitting across from a big ad agency executive in an interview. I remember feeling like I was completely uninterested in the job and the 6 figures they were offering.

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And that was a major turning point for me in my life!

I knew I would never quit another job to start another job…and that’s when it hit me.

I knew deep down inside from the time I was in high school (when I had a subscription to Entrepreneur Magazine) that I was always intrigued by people who had the guts and intuition to start their own business and follow their passion.

I’m My Own Boss!

I took the plunge, at 38 years old and started my own business! I had always been intrigued with the dating industry, so I launched an online dating site to compete against Match.com.

But it didn’t happen the way I envisioned…it was a complete failure. I didn’t have the funds to go up against the big players in the industry, but I didn’t give up!

At that time, the show “Millionaire Matchmaker” was a really hot, so I transitioned my online dating site to an offline matchmaking agency, Dream Bachelor & Bachelorette where I would match my male clients with their ideal woman.

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During those years, I discovered more about men, than most people would in a dozen lifetimes.

The book “Men are From Mars, Women Are From Venus” is full of stereotypes and dated assumptions (1990’s) but it did get us talking about important relationship issues.

That’s when I had an A-HA moment!

I realized if I could give women the same secrets that I was learning about men, then they would infinitely become more successful in dating, relationships, and getting to marriage!

And that’s why I launched, Single in Stilettos, to empower and inspire women with the secrets about men!

You Have Cancer…WTH?!

My next life chapter knocked me off my feet, literally.
While visiting my father in the hospital after he had a stroke, I collapsed with excruciating pain in my abdomen and I was sent to the ER. They ran several tests and discovered a cyst on my ovary the size of an orange (whaaaaat?!), and recommended it be removed as soon as possible, to see if it was cancer.

After I recovered from the surgery, my doctor told me that I was a very rare case. Rare in this situation, is not the words you really want to hear.

And that’s when he dropped the C bomb, “You have cancer!”

WHAT?!

I literally heard nothing he said after that.

As a smart woman who has been a strong advocate for my health, I decided to get a second opinion.

Second doctor, “You have cancer!”

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Still I refused to believe him…so, I decided to get a third, fourth and fifth opinion. And their prognosis was still the same!

And my response was the same too, “Nooooo, I don’t have (f*@#ing) cancer! I know deep down inside, I don’t have cancer!”

Maybe it was me, being the stubborn woman I am…or maybe deep down inside, I just knew I didn’t!

After all I was fit, I was healthy, I had even trained for and run the New York City Marathon at 40 years old…just like my amazing mentor, Oprah. She was my inspiration for the marathon and in my vision for my business.

I took control of my life and finally found a doctor who specialized in rare cases like mine at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center. While he wasn’t taking on any new patients, he agreed to take me on.

I was completely exhausted from the process of disagreeing with the other doctors, but it was worth it.

I finally found the right doctor who agreed with me, “We don’t know if you have cancer!”

He was a very progressive alternative cancer practitioner and we agreed to try an experimental treatment.

And I’m proud to report, that I have been cancer free now for 11 years!

Rockin’ It, In My 50’s!

Maybe you’re a little older than me or maybe you’re a little younger, but we’ve likely had some similar challenges in life.

While I’m in my 50’s now, I don’t act or feel like it.

I have the attitude of woman in her early 40’s and I have the sense of humor and playfulness of a 12 year old girl.

However, parts of my body and mind remind me every day that I’m in my 50’s, from the moment I role out of bed – my bad knees snap, crackle and pop; the font on my iPhone is so large, so I don’t have to squint; and I still can’t figure out how to take a proper selfie, where I don’t look like a dork.

I’ve managed to survive and thrive in all those earlier stages of my life; it was definitely a learning and growing curve. But I wonder now how different life might have been if I had had someone to guide me; someone that had been there before and could have shown me the shortcuts and shared their privileged knowledge.

I learned it all later in life by studying and working with some of the leading experts in transformational coaching.

The good news is, you don’t have to do it alone, like I did.

I’ll share my transformational life and love journey, along with all the successes and failures along the way.

You’ll laugh, you’ll cry and you’ll relate, and you’ll come out the other end transformed like a butterfly into an amazing and empowered woman.

If you remember Helen Reddy then you likely remember the anthem she empowered us with, “we are women hear us roar in numbers too big to ignore”.

Remember, you’re not a victim and you’re not to blame.

But, if you’re not leading the life you want you to, then you need to confront your demons, develop a plan and then move onward and upward.

A coach can help you get there…and I’m your Life & Love Transformational Coach!

Fear kills more dreams than failure ever will; don’t be afraid to take that next step.

So let’s take ownership of your life, rock those stretchy yoga pants and get to work between hot flashes, because your next Amazing Story is just around the corner…and just remember, it’s never too late!

Fun Facts About ME!

When I was little girl I wanted to be a Veterinarian…that is until my mom told me you have to operate on them. That’s when I decided I’m better off with pets!

I love to cook, but I can’t follow a recipe…if my life depended on it! I think I have “Recipe A.D.D.” LOL!

I love running…it’s my problem solving time and my most creative time!

The first concert I went to when I was 16 years old was The Doobie Brothers at the Oakland Coliseum.

My favorite music is anything 70’s…old school Rock n’ Roll, Soul and Disco (yes, really!). And of course, a little Motown mixed in.

Favorite regional foods…I love NY pizza & bagels and Chicago dogs!

One of my favorite things is sunsets…no two sunsets are ever the same!

I love the simple things in life…I don’t care about materialistic things. I care most about spending time with friends & family. Because the one thing we can never buy more of, is time!