Suzanne's WOW Story:

We all have a story to tell and this is a small part of mine.

I was born in Montreal, QC on January 16. I was supposed to be born on February 14. I am a premature baby. Anxious to get going and do what I have to do in this world.

I learned about struggle at a very young age. Starting with my birth. I was eager to come out but my body wasn’t. It took a few flips and turns before my mother could grab me by the head to pull me out.  I am the middle child of a family of three girls from middle class working parents. Growing up, there were a lot of embarrassments and fears, mostly caused by my father’s dis-ease, alcoholism, and his regular disappearances.

Early on, I learned to build a strong wall around me hiding my fears, my sensitivity, my susceptibility. This wall was my safe barricade of invulnerability.

I started working when I was ten years old, baby sitting for the people in the building where we lived. At eleven I worked into an amusement park hustling at a pitch toss game. At twelve years old I took a job flipping burgers at the bowling alley where my mother was the manager. At age fifteen I became an entrepreneur. 

With fourteen models by my side I put my intuitive business-savvy skills to work and presented fashion shows at various venues in Montreal. I finished grade eleven, held multiple industry positions and then began my career as a Flight Attendant in 1979.

Through my years with the airlines, I never lost my entrepreneur mind and have created multiple businesses. In 1996, my life took a complete new meaning for me. I had found my life purpose. I founded and created OraOxygen, the first oxygen wellness airport spa in the world. We opened our first location in Calgary in 2000 and our second location in 2002 in Detroit, MI.  The goal was to be located in all major hub airports in the world.  OraOxygen soon became an award-winning business and the talk of the travel industry. The business was thriving and we were expanding into other airports.

All was great. Until one day when the business became the centre of a brewing storm that would change my life forever. Irreconcilable differences between my investors and myself, resulted in the demise of my association with OraOxygen. Pressed to the wall and paralyzed, I was living the worst day of my life as they callously left with my company, my vision, my life purpose. For me it was the same as losing a child.

Losing my company sent me into a sinking spiral where I found myself with no purpose, no passion and, no excitement for life. For five painful years, I kept on floating, kept on trying, pretending that I was not hurt, that everything was okay, hiding my vulnerability; the one thing I knew I could do very well. I read books after books, went to seminars after seminars, conferences after conferences. For five long years I kept on trying to fill that void inside of me.

In 2009 while I was attending yet another training seminar, I found myself in front of a group of people with a microphone in my hand.  For the first time in five excruciating years, I actually started feeling something. Could something still be alive inside of me? (continued at right)