VISIONARY SPOTLIGHT
Photo: Nicole Crone, LinkedIn
Some people wear a lot of hats and somehow make every one of them look good. Nicole is one of them.
Nicole and I met at a High Vibe Women event, chatting strategy around a table, and we've been getting to know each other in small doses ever since. A few months ago I was a guest on her podcast, so it was so fun to flip the mic and have her on Rain or Shine. Nicole is the Co-CEO of My Aligned Purpose, host of a podcast with more than 600 episodes, a newly published author, and a brand-new mom to her son, Cruz. So for this Visionary Spotlight, I'm pulling from our conversation to bring you her journey, in her own words.
Tell us about your business and how it started.
Before My Aligned Purpose, Nicole taught junior high and high school from her late 20s into her early 30s, and that teaching background still shapes everything she and Kaila do. "When you have a theme and structure that students can buy into, it makes everything more enjoyable." Teachers submit year plans, unit plans, and lesson plans, and they took that same approach to building a business. "We call ourselves a coaching and educational company."
That includes making it fun. They run visibility challenges and bingo challenges, and reward clients with gift cards to hotels, spas, and restaurants when they do the work. "Adults like to be incentivized just as much as kids do." Six and a half years in, many of their mastermind clients re-enroll year after year, because they're buying into a movement.
Every January, each client chooses a word of the year, and Vancouver jewelry brand Melanie Auld engraves it onto a necklace for them. Some clients now have six pendants. Nicole does it too: her word for 2025 was "become well-known," and for 2026 it's "become well-paid."
Did you always know you wanted to be a mom?
Not at all. By her teens, Nicole had developed a deep fear of childbirth and wrote off having kids entirely. In her 20s she traveled a lot and lived a nomadic, "free-as-a-bird lifestyle." At 30, after a six-year engagement ended, she quit her teaching job and moved to Australia for a year, still sure kids weren't for her.
She met her husband, Jeff, at 34 or 35. On their very first date, he asked if she wanted kids, and she told him honestly that she didn't. It wasn't a dealbreaker. They fell in love fast and got married.
Then, during a guided meditation, she had a vivid vision of two kids in Christmas pajamas standing in front of a fireplace. "I'm a vision-boarder, a journaler. That vision had never included kids before." A couple of days later, she told Jeff, "I think I want kids."
How did you navigate the season of trying to conceive?
They started trying in March 2023, expecting it to happen quickly. It didn't. Nicole spent two years testing every cycle, going to fertility clinic appointments and bloodwork, with everything coming back fine. On Valentine's Day 2025, she got her first positive test, and a few days later she lost that pregnancy.
That loss taught her she truly wanted to be a mom, and that she wanted it now. All her fears about what it would do to her business, body, or bank account stopped mattering. In March 2025, after a birthday trip to Mexico, she tested positive again. That was Cruz, born in December. "This is why I'm here. This is my purpose. Five years ago, I never would have believed it."
The season deepened her compassion for friends who'd struggled before her, and it changed her relationship with time. She's always wanted everything in business fast, but now she wants life to slow down so she can soak in the little moments with Cruz, even if that means slower business results.
"Everything you want, wants you back, and it arrives in its own timing."
-Nicole Crone
What do you wish you'd known before maternity leave?
To take the time off, seriously. Kaila, who's had two daughters while running the business, warned Nicole that she'd want a few months with nothing on the calendar. Nicole insisted she'd keep taking their weekly mastermind calls. Then Cruz arrived early, on December 1, "and the insane expansion of love" changed everything. "I could stare at him for 24 hours a day."
It also forced the business to grow up. To keep their pace, they had to automate and delegate for real. She leaned on Dan Martell's line that "80% done by somebody else is 100% awesome," and the book Who Not How. Her advice for a client who's about to have a baby: plan for the time off first. If you truly miss work after a month or so, you can always add calls back in.
Photo: Nicole Crone, LinkedIn
How did you navigate a major setback in your business?
This past May and June were the hardest eight weeks Nicole and Kaila had faced in years. It came to a head at a sold-out 100+ person event where they revealed their book cover, when a difficult interaction with an attendee left Nicole worried about their reputation. At the same time, they were dealing with a few clients who weren't a great fit and parting ways with a team member who kept dropping the ball, all while Cruz went through a sleep regression and Nicole's postpartum hair started falling out.
Here's what got her through:
Remembering she's done hard things before. "This isn't the first, and won't be the last, so just ride the wave."
Sitting in the discomfort instead of rushing to fix it.
Solo drives. Just like she did as a teen in rural Nova Scotia, she'd buckle Cruz in, let him fall asleep, and cry it all out.
Processing alone first, then bringing it to her husband or her mastermind of eight seasoned Canadian women entrepreneurs.
Audiobooks that reminded her this was just a blip.
How do you decide what to share publicly?
Nicole is an open book about her personal life, and she shared the highs and lows of her fertility journey close to real time. Business is different. With client contracts, NDAs, and a 50/50 partnership, she's mindful of everyone involved. "If she's not ready to have a conversation with someone publicly, I don't want to open that door for her." So business stories usually come with a bit of a lag.
What are you studying right now?
Nicole calls herself a student for life, and her current list covers a lot of ground. She's learning how AI can help organize her life. She speaks her to-dos out loud, Claude sorts them into an Eisenhower Matrix, and it sends reminders straight to her phone. She's also deep into human design, astrology, numerology, and Kabbalah, plus baby-led weaning. "Do you like all of me? Because that's all I can be."
How do you wind down after a busy week?
With a "duvet day," a term she got from her mom's love of Coronation Street. After a back-to-back week of a VIP day, eight hours of mastermind training calls, and travel, Nicole asked her husband to handle the baby and the dog and bring her coffee in bed. She stayed cozy, listened to an audiobook, and made no plans. By 3 p.m., she felt rejuvenated. It's a big change from her pre-baby downtime of yoga and hiking. As a Generator in Human Design, "if I don't force the slowdown, I literally won't stop."
Advice for other entrepreneurs having a rough day?
Zoom out. When things felt huge this spring, Nicole kept asking herself, "In five years, will this matter? No. In a year? No." A problem only stays big if you keep feeding it your focus and energy. "It's already happened. Now it's my choice to process the emotion and then decide I'm past it."
“Yes, as women we're amazing and can do it all, but you don't have to.”
-Nicole Crone
A resource that’s added value to her journey?
by Benjamin Hardy The book Nicole kept coming back to during her hardest eight weeks. It explores Newtonian versus quantum time, and how to expand or collapse time to go after big, seemingly unrealistic goals. Bonus resource: Who Not How, which helped her shift from figuring everything out alone to asking who can help.
Nicole's full story, including the My Aligned Purpose masterminds, podcast, and book, can be found on their website and Instagram.
Visionary Spotlight
Want to be featured in an upcoming Visionary Spotlight?
Email support@kelseyreidl.com