Today we’d like to introduce you to Amy Kahl.
Alright, thank you for sharing your story and insight with our readers. To kick things off, can you tell us how you got started?
Stemming from an upbringing of entrepreneurial influence and firsthand experience, people are much more than what you see on the surface. I founded Spero Transitions (originally From Here to Organized) with the belief that we all make life’s tough transitions smoother when we have someone to link arms with. Life has a lot of layers. There are unexpected twists and turns, seasons of grief and joy, and through it all, there are heavy places of significant transition. When faced with the challenge of uncomfortably hard transitions, most of us muddle through and try to do our best. Often, it’s not pretty. At an early age, I learned the importance of being alongside people in challenging places, and to this day, I do not shy away from it. I channeled this life experience into where I work to compassionately and skillfully help people navigate major transitions with a healthy dose of hope.
Spero Transitions (originally From Here to Organized) was founded in 2014 as a direct result of my imperative transition story upon the adoption of our youngest child just eight short years ago. My husband and I already had two amazing children ages 10 and 8 at the time, so parenting was not new. What was new and immediately extreme was the same day notice to fly to Ohio to meet our adopted daughter, who had just been born.
Though we had been in the process for years, first at the international level, then domestically, we had no idea what our future adopted child’s gender, age, or timing of arrival would be. The day we received a call to come to Ohio, everything changed. We informed our employers, found care for our 8 and 10-year-olds, and flew to Ohio the same day we got the call. While I stayed in Ohio for close to a month, focused on bringing our new daughter home to MN – family, friends, and neighbors — beautifully swarmed around our family. When I finally returned to MN with our daughter, I came home to a front entryway filled with every baby thing we could need and a fridge full of food. People came around us and fill in the gaps while everything in our lives was changing instantaneously. Believing in the importance of bonding in an adoptive situation, I decided to step away from my current employment and spend 6 months to a year at home bonding. Within two weeks of being home, I decided it was time to start high-level conversations, putting out some feelers for possible projects I could take from home.
Within 20 minutes, those feelers led me to my first client and the launch of Spero. My first client faced significant loss: her husband, single sister-in-law, and both of her inlaws within 4 years. She had 4 kids at home. They were all navigating significant grief. The estate work that accompanied those 4 losses amid grief was beyond her capacity. Over a year, we navigated complicated estate situations, together with my newly adopted baby, one layer at a time. After one year of working together, my first client and her children were thriving. She found freedom out from under the weight of the looming estate situations.
Today the work of Spero continues to be inspired by our love of people and our desire to see them thrive. We embrace two sides of Spero: the business services side and the family services side. We believe that our personal and professional lives are woven together – and thus, so is the messiness of personal and professional transitions. We’re here to link arms with people in transition and navigate forward so they can thrive.
Can you talk to us about the challenges and lessons you’ve learned along the way? Would you say it’s been easy or smooth in retrospect?
The beginning of COVID was an extremely challenging time, as it was for many businesses. We are in the business of transition – and the entire world was in a major transition simultaneously. But instead of being faced with the downturn, like was the case of many businesses, our challenge was intensity. We spent the full extent of every day and every night tackling huge problems and finding new solutions for all our clients – while working through our COVID-related challenges. It was an extremely intense and overwhelming time.
Alright, so let’s switch gears a bit and talk business. What should we know?
Spero provides transition services for families and businesses. Transitions are messy, but they are part of the process. At Spero, we live by the transition curve comprised of three stages: 1. Ending (letting go) 2. Neutral Zone (instability and innovation) 3. New Beginning (re-freeze, future state). Knowing the full picture and meaning of the curve allows us to envision purpose beyond the transition space where there’s a stuck-ness. And – we fully believe that it doesn’t matter where anyone is at on the curve: people can step into their purpose and thrive.
Family Services: our Family Services clients are often facing loss or late-life transitions. Our clients are often in the career phase or life with children and home. They may have lost their spouse or need help establishing their aging parent in the next phase of life. Our goal is to close gaps, bring alignment, develop a plan, set priorities, serve as advocates, and manage projects – while also holding space for families to experience the emotions accompanying transitions like these.
Business Services: our Business Services Clients often face growth, a need for a strategic change in direction, or a situation that needs immediate attention. We help our clients with strategy, systems, processes, and project management while also holding space for the hard conversations, emotions, and challenges accompanying these transitions. Our clients are small to mid-sized purpose-driven organizations – both for-profit and non-profit. Whether business or family, the transition is messy from the get-go. That is completely expected. Through persistence, straightforwardness, and fun to hard conversations, we link arms with our clients and dig in. Our process is about people first, which means being in the muck with those feeling sad, burdened, overwhelmed, and depleted. It’s also about believing in them and that there is a better future on the other side of transition.
That’s the people part of the strategy, and tactics of tackling the transition flow naturally from there. From decades of lived experience and helping clients, Spero intuits a plan that accounts for our client’s emotional energy, mental health, time, and resources. We plot out how to address tactical items from filling out paperwork to technology hurdles; to setting more long-term visionary goals and celebrating the smallest of victories. Then we watch our clients step out of the muck and into their purpose! And it is beautiful.
What do you think about happiness?
People. Coffee. My family. Watching people live in their purpose.
Contact Info:
- Website: www.sperotransitions.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/sperotransitions/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/sperotransitions
Image Credits
Belu Photography
