Hi, my name is Jenni Gritters!

If you met me seven years ago, you’d have met a very different person. In 2016, I was a journalist working for an online media company as an editor, pulling 12-hour days on a laptop while covering politics and activism. I experienced chronic shoulder and neck pain, and near-constant insomnia. I was focused on performance, hustle and proving myself.

Then everything changed.

In 2018, I was laid off from my job as a full-time editor. I realized that I couldn’t go back to work without risking my mental and physical health. Instead, I decided to launch my own freelance writing and editing business. I created a business plan, onboarded clients, and nearly doubled my full-time salary within a year. When I wrote about my 6-figure year, the post went viral.

Since then, I’ve kept running that freelance business, which has brought in over $500,000 in revenue and counting, allowed me to take two long maternity leaves, and helped my family buy a house in the woods. In 2023, my husband left his toxic job; my business was able to support us through that transition, too.

As a business coach, I help freelancers build businesses that support their lives.

This has taken many different forms, including co-founding the popular freelance business podcast, the The Writers’ Co-op, in 2020; becoming a certified business coach in 2021; and starting my own freelance membership program, SUSTAIN, in 2023.

Because of my personal experience with being laid off, I specialize in coaching journalism refugees who aren’t ready to go back to the newsroom and want to build their own life rafts via freelancing.

I also work frequently with people dealing with complex lives, like those who are caregiving, tending to a mental or physical chronic illness, or navigating neurodivergence.

I love partnering with freelancers who are in the midst of career crises and need clarity in order to move forward, too.

No matter your life circumstances, I work with you to build a business plan that acknowledges your human needs, rather than silencing them.

My masters degree in journalism from Boston University taught me key skills like interviewing, reporting and close listening, which are invaluable in coaching conversations.

My undergraduate degree in psychology (and the book I ghostwrote about emotional agility) primed me to address the psychological needs that often underpin our deepest desires.

My yoga and meditation training program (200-hour) taught me how to center myself during anxious moments, which is knowledge I pass along to both my coaching and writing clients.

My experience working in the journalism industry has given me a very close, very painful look at why clarity, empowerment and boundary setting are requirements if you want to survive working in this arena without serious mental health effects.

And my professional coaching certification from IPEC schooled me on how to work with clients to push through barriers and make progress fast.

Here’s what I know from personal experience: The “standard” way of working fails to serve most people.

I’ve lived it. I’ve experienced the migraines, the existential angst, the anxiety, the burnout, the stress no vacation can fix.

AND I know firsthand that it’s possible to build your own escape route.

You can create a business of your own that brings fulfillment, pays the bills, serves your clients, and adapts as your needs change.

I’ll help you do it.