About Lindsey
My central focus:
How can long-engrained systems be reimagined and made better?
The question above drives all areas of my work. Whether it’s the way health problems are solved, how families manage their money, or how society functions more generally, I’m always looking for the inefficiencies or ineffective practices rooted in long standing tradition and asking myself: Why is it this way? And how can we do better?
This curiosity applies particularly to the spheres of women, parents, and families, hence my work record in:
Scientific research related to women’s health (pregnancy loss, infertility, pregnancy complications)
Empowering families, predominantly women, in money management here at The Family Money Mentor
Writing about the common threads that have enabled successful women and couples throughout history to make significant impacts on their world, and applying that wisdom to modern life
Notable bits:
As an entrepreneur
With no prior business or web training, I built The Family Money Mentor from scratch, learning as I went. I feel like the process and trainings involved are worth an honorary degree in something!
I aim for integrity above all else in any products I sell or recommend, as well as in my writing. You can trust what say is the same as I would to my best friend.
The most surprising part of online entrepreneurship has been the number and importance of connections and collaboration. Building a network has helped me learn and grow – and made the journey a whole lot more fun!
As a professional
I started out in animal sciences, planning to become a veterinarian.
I've worked a lot with horses, including working as a groom for a year for a large carriage driving farm where I got to work with Friesians (the gorgeous black draft horses with long flowing manes and beautiful feathers over their hooves that you see in movies). I later worked with sheep in my PhD research. Thus, I know my way around farm animals, though I’m not great at operating a tractor.
I was named the Outstanding Senior in the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences at Virginia Tech at my undergraduate graduation.
Instead of veterinary school, I went to graduate school to pursue research related to pregnancy, nutrition, and fetal growth. Instead of implementing what was already known by becoming a vet, I came to be far more curious about uncovering what we didn’t know yet.
I graduated summa cum laude for each of my degrees: B.S., M.S., and PhD.
I’ve published over 100 research articles published in peer-reviewed scholarly journals. About 16 of those are first-authored papers.
I sometimes write NIH grants on a contract basis. The first R01 grant that I helped develop and write for a client was funded on the first round of review. Since that’s relatively unheard of, I’m pretty proud of my work on that one!
As a community member
I’ve volunteered at a therapeutic horseback riding stable to support children with special needs riding and connecting with horses.
I teach a 4th grade Sunday School class with my husband. I particularly enjoy the kids looking somewhat baffled when we give them free reign to build, create, question, and speak their hearts with minimal structure boxing them in.
As a parent
I began homeschooling our kindergartener as a means of minimizing conflict while working at home full time during the pandemic. That evolved over time to homeschooling both of our kids, now going on 5 years.
I subscribe to the philosophy of building independent adults out of my kids, thus encouraging them to do more and more things on their own and push through fears to experience, with support, plenty of life.
Even as homeschoolers, we juggle an increasingly busy schedule that includes aftercare for our elementary age kiddo, piano lessons, two baseball teams, soccer, playdates, cookouts, and time to veg.
As a person
I love herding dogs. I rescued one Border Collie when I was in grad school, and our family rescued our Aussie-BC mix in 2020.
My favorite fiction series is the Outlander series by Diana Gabaldon. I’ve read all nine book and am anxiously awaiting the next (and possibly final!) book. I’m rereading them all currently, but in a foreign language…
I can read relatively fluently in Spanish and began rereading the Outlander series in Spanish as a means of practicing. After reading the first two books, I switched to audiobook for the third to improve my listening ability (it's currently abysmal).
I read 30-40 nonfiction books per year, mostly for insights that inform my writing, but also out of sheer curiosity. I read 10-15 fiction books, plus what we read for homeschool.
I always wanted to "live differently" than the norm and I think I'm finally starting to do it.
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