Why I Started The People Biz

I didn’t start The People Biz because I wanted to be a business owner. Honestly, I never had dreams of being an “entrepreneur”.

I started it because recovery taught me to stop sleepwalking through my life.

As a family walking through addiction together and as a loved one focused on my own recovery I had to take a hard look at where my time, energy, and purpose were going. Work. Life. Family. Health. Hobbies. I saw the buckets clearly and realized I was pouring almost all of my mental energy into one: work.

I’ve been so lucky in my career to work for great companies. I’ve had incredible coaches, mentors, and supportive leaders who gave me opportunities to grow and learn, fail and pick myself back up. But when I started doing the deep work in my personal life, I began asking harder questions professionally, too:

·       What impact am I actually making?
·       What does meaningful work really look like to me?
·       What would it feel like to stop just being busy and start being useful?

I didn’t have all the answers, but I knew I had the experience, heart, and drive to help small business owners who are overworked, overwhelmed, and ready to get serious about how they employ, manage, and lead their people.

Still, I needed a nudge. Thankfully, Danny Colella voiced the question I hadn’t yet allowed myself to say out loud:

“Kourtney, what is stopping you from starting your own firm?”

And the honest answer was: me. Only me.

So, if I was the one in my own way, it was time to step aside and let myself get to work. That’s when The People Biz was born with equal parts courage, clarity, and “let’s figure this out as we go.”

For the past eight months, I’ve had the honor of helping some incredible small businesses translate “big, scary HR” into understandable and digestible business essentials.

Today’s HR is not about paperwork it’s about giving your business the structure to run well, the leadership to grow right, and the humanity to last.

This is my why.