Our story....

As women, we are nuturers and caregivers. You probably spend more time watering your plants, weeding your garden and landscaping your yard that you do working on yourself,your happiness, your life.

The GardenOfMe.com is about clearing the land, getting rid of the rocks and the weeds,the negative beliefs that have held you back, and preparing the soil and planting the seeds for what you want to reap.

More happiness, more balance, more fun, reaching your goals, feeling like yourself again.

Whatever it is that you want and need, here is the warm supportive enviroment you need to grow.  You will be inspired, encouraged and challenged to grow to be your best self.

We are a mother-daughter coaching team, Valerie and Stacey Hylen.  We are trained coaches, who walk the walk, which means that we are also on our own personal growth journey. We know what works and what is a waste of time and want to help women live their lives fully without wasting our most precious gift, time.

Valerie Hylen

I have struggled through many ups and downs, and through many tough times in my life. While I had the luxury of being a stay at home mom while raising my 3 children, I suffered from a lack of self esteem and self confidence while watching other moms have fabulous careers.  I had majored in Education in college, but discovered I didn’t want to teach, felt I had no special skills or talents, and didn’t know what I wanted to do!  I began reading personal empowerment books and decided to co-author a book on giving great children’s birthday parties with a friend. In other words, I started from where I was, with the experience and expertise I had. I started with no idea how to complete the project including printing and publishing the book, or how to promote the sale of the book, and I didn’t have a definite goal in mind.

 Once the book was (self) published, TV stations were contacted and it was shockingly easy to book live guest spots with all the local TV stations! One station even aired a LIVE birthday party! Surprisingly, one of these TV appearances led to a year contract for a TV spot giving parenting tips to parents and a major bank sponsored these shows! The point is, once you get started, and good things happen, you can begin to think bigger and bigger and to have a much greater sense of possibility!

 Being an entrepreneur gave me lots of schedule flexibility while my children were young, and when the “Country” decorating craze hit my area, I looked for a niche that was not being filled and started designing country motif lampshades, and expanded to finding a potter to make lamps to fit the shades. I sold these wholesale to antique shops, furniture stores and “country” gift shops. Again, I had no idea how to go about this business, had never written ads, or handled shipping. It is much easier to learn as we go than we think when we are first starting out, and in fact most highly successful business people will tell you that is how they learned!

I also started to make jewelry for myself, and never dreamed of selling it. I was still having trouble thinking big! Every day it seemed someone would stop me in the bank, the store or on the street and admire me jewelry and ask if they could buy it! I finally realized that there was indeed a market for my creations, and thought an extra $100 per month would give me some extra mad money. Someone asked me if I sold at local craft shows, and that gave me the idea to look into selling at these shows. I didn’t know about display booths, keeping inventory, display for products etc.  I soon realized I could make several hundred dollars in an afternoon, and soon looked for bigger and better art shows in my area. As the business grew, I needed more inventory than I could make, so I hired and trained first one and then multiple employees. I added all types of jewelry, hair accessories, and a line of clothing to my business. I had employees running multiple shows each weekend, and I also got to the point where if I could not make at least $1000 per show per day, I crossed that art festival off my list for future shows! In my WILDEST imagination I would not have dreamed that I would create the successful business that evolved! When I moved from the area, I sold the business to one of my employees including the entire inventory.

As my self confidence and belief in myself started to grow, I became really interested in books on self improvement and self empowerment. Who knew how much I would need this knowledge in the near future!

Soon after moving to another city, and building our dream house, my husband received notice that the Fortune 300 company he worked for was bought out by another mega company. The new company brought in all their own executives and gave my husband notice his position was eliminated!  Within a few months of being let go, my husband was diagnosed with terminal lung cancer, and he passed away 3 months later! Gone was my husband, the huge monthly income, and the life insurance policy his company had carried on him for years!

I could not afford to keep either the fabulous home or fancy cars and had to immediately sell them, find a place to live, find a job with health benefits and start life over!

If this was not enough to handle, my mother also passed away 3 months after my husband, in the midst of trying to accomplish all of the above!

I knew I could either give up, or get going. Based on all the books I had read, I knew I could choose to succeed, and I did! I set specific goals for what I wanted and when I wanted it by and made it all happen within several months!

Based on this life experience, I decided I wanted to become a life coach and to specialize in helping to empower other women to get what they want in life, so I enrolled in Comprehensive Coach University.

I went on to develop a subdivision on property I owned. I bought an investment property and a townhouse. These are all things that I had no idea how to do, but took one step at a time and learned as I went along!  Along with my coaching, I found a job that provided full medical benefits, a flexible work schedule, national and international travel and lots of paid vacation!

When a friend suggested that I should also consider modeling on QVC for internationally famous hair stylist Nick Chavez, my first thought was “you are crazy! I am in my mid 50’s, short and have never modeled before.” When she persisted that she thought he would hire me, I finally mailed off a snap shot. Was I surprised when a week later I got a call asking if I was available for upcoming shows!! I have been modeling on a regular basis for him for over 3 years now!! Again, I NEVER would have thought this was possible earlier in my life, so I would not have taken the chance and taken ACTION! All I had to do was send in the photo and take a chance!

I had learned through training to change my self talk. This changed my thinking, my beliefs, and therefore the action I took! My daughter Stacey and I became partners in Hylen Success Coaching.

Internationally famous coach and head of Comprehensive Coach University, Terri Levine approached my daughter Stacey and me to become co-authors of a chapter in a book she was producing on “How to Live An Extraordinary Life” We are co-authors on Self Talk and teach the techniques for changing your life by eliminating all the negative self talk and replacing it with empowering self talk that will change your life drastically for the better!

Stacey Hylen

My first exposure to personal growth came in 3rd grade when my parents introduced me to the book, How to Win Friends and Influence People.  Heaven knows I needed it as I was much happier with my head in a book than interacting with other kids. 

I have had my share of success and failures as well.  I started in a sales job and did extremely well. I was #2 in the company my first week and continued to be in the top 10.  Although my career was going well, my twenties were plagued by horrible relationships with emotional and physically abusive men.  What finally got me out of it was a book, Cheryl Richardson's, Take Time for Your Life.  I took the test and realized how miserable I was with my life and how I was wasting all of my potential.  I broke off my last terrible relationship and faced the next challenge, my dad's cancer and his death.

My dad was my mentor and coach so his illness and death were extremely difficult.  The only thing that got me through was my gratitude journal, a new practice I did every day even on the day he died. 

After my dad died, my personal growth journey intensified, I was so sad and feeling like my job was not fufilling.  I discovered coaching, which is what I was already doing with my clients helping them grow their business.  I enrolled in coach training at Coach University which is the leading coach training school.  The great thing about the training is that as I was learning how to help my clients I was working on my own life and what I wanted.  I worked with my coach to get rid of the things I didn't want and set goals and action plans to achieve them.

Things started happening very quickly as I focused on what I wanted!  I found the man who would be my husband in the most unlikely of places and was starting to attract great possibilities through my coaching business. My mom and I were asked to write a chapter in a book, Living an Extraordinary Life,on self talk and how to get what you want.  I started speaking and then auditioned to be a speaker for Mark Victor Hansen and Robert Allen's  best seller ,The One Minute Millionaire. After being chosen I did an international  speaking tour in Montreal , Ottawa, New York, Vermont and Philadelphia. 

I also studied with some amazing business mentors, Stephen Pierce and Yanik Silver in internet marketing and Jay Abraham and Chet Holmes in marketing and business growth and started coaching people who purchased their business growth programs.

On the home front in 2003 I  welcomed my daughter, Alexandra.  I cut back my coaching business and then when she turned two I started to build it back up.  Although my coaching business, Hylen Success Coaching, focuses on business, marketing and internet marketing, clients continued asking for help on their personal life and life challenges that they were having.  GardenofMe.com was started as a affordable way for women to give the care to themselves and their goals and dreams that they deserve.