Michelle Ihrig
Hello! This is my story.
I graduated college in 1991 with a goal to join the US Foreign Service. Not passing the entrance exam, my mentor suggested I move abroad to gain some ‘international experience’ before coming back to reapply. I moved to Germany where I had some family and found a job with a US Relocation company as a Consultant for international expatriates and diplomats. I met my future husband who was in the German Foreign Service and began following him and his jobs around the world, from the Cote d’Ivoire, Africa, to Detroit, to Chicago, to Germany, to Montreal to Vietnam and finally to Thailand where I have spent the last 11 years, just now returning to the US in July 2020.
Each place we went I started a new job hunt. I went from Relocation Consultant, to International School Teacher Assistant, to Key Corporate Account Manager, to Contract Manager with Thailand’s largest hospitality group in the Catering sector for Schools.
Two years ago I co-founded Women Empowered professional networking group with the driving belief that when women share, connect, support and grow one another, amazing things can happen. I now am moving into Leadership with Heart Coaching and offering empowering workshops online and in person on a variety of topics with a focus from within.
In all of this, my most revered position is that of being a mom to my 2 boys who have just now started college.
I started coaching in 2016 after having experienced coaching myself in 2014 during the toughest time in my life. I was separating from my husband on whom I was completely dependent. I was scared and alone. There were many months where I was not sure I was going to make it. I learned to trust myself, to believe in the power of me, to use a growth mindset in moving forward into being the cause of my circumstance, my life CEO.
What inspires me...
I am thrilled to be part of the GEM coaching team to pay forward what I have experienced first- hand, someone who believed in me, held me accountable, pushed me and trusted my growth process. It also allows me to continue my purpose, the base for co-founding Women Empowered, that when women support one another, we can tap into the most powerful aspect of ourselves, our own belief, resiliency and trust from the heart empowering our own leader.