The Plan That Went Up in Smoke Led to Something Better

I never planned on being an entrepreneur and running multiple businesses. But looking back I think it was in my DNA and 100% completely meant to be. 

Farm Life Beginnings

I grew up on a small ranch in southeast Kansas, the oldest of four kids. Like most farm kids, and especially as the oldest - I spent most of my childhood helping dad out on the farm, running rampant with my sisters and brother during the summer, eating veggies straight out of the garden much to mom's annoyance, carrying around a “lucky chickens foot” *thanks grandpa🙄, and “helping” my dad but probably mostly just getting out of my mom’s hair and annoying dad with an “oww” every time we hit a bump in the tractor.

Early Entrepreneurial Lessons

But that’s really where my entrepreneurial journey started. Anyone who grew up on a farm or ranch knows that it comes with alot of hard work. And it is a business that’s usually supporting the family that’s putting in all that hard work. I watched my parents make sacrifice after sacrifice to give us kids a better life and accomplish goals their families had only dreamed of, even if I didn’t realize it at the time. 

Dad eventually quit his corporate job and started his own business manufacturing and designing agricultural fences, corrals, and more. Then once I was old enough to carry a 50 lb bag of cement, summers were spent building fences, digging holes, driving trucks, and helping him and his crew. 

But backing up abit…my mom, like her mother and grandmother before her, has always had a knack for cooking and baking. I was in elementary school when mom first started baking pies and cinnamon rolls on the side. Eventually, this became weekly farmers markets and a little catering business for local events in the surrounding small communities. Not to brag or anything, but Mom’s cooking is known in our parts. 

The Family Business

And that’s where my siblings and I really came into play! Mom would stay up late most weeknights after the younger kids went to bed baking bread, rolling out cinnamon rolls, wrapping and labeling everything, and testing out new flavors. So being the oldest and me not wanting to go to bed with the “kids” as I called them, she recruited me to help. For every batch of bread I made for her, I earned .25 cents. *which was a total scam, but at the time I totally thought I was making bank! Then once it was farmers market day, I helped her get everything organized and set up, the younger two girls would pass out little samples up and down the street and my brother, well even at 7 years old that boy could talk anyone into anything! We had quite a little business going! And mom always rewarded us by taking us out to lunch at our favorite Mexican restaurant in town. 

Life Takes an Unexpected Turn

But as I got older, got tired of manual labor with Dad, and started working fast food jobs in high school, I kinda forgot all of that and started planning my future. 

See I’ve always been a planner. Even as a freshman in high school, I knew exactly which clubs and activities I would be in, what year I would run for office positions, what college classes I was taking in high school, where I was going to university (def no community college for me), what I was majoring in and even had a plan for college- when I’d meet a guy, get engaged, get married, get a “big girl” job and start having kids. Which I’m sure by now you’re laughing and rolling your eyes. Because what was I even thinking???

But the first half of my plan worked out well, high school was easy and I hit the goals I wanted. Got accepted to the same college my parents went to and got into the same program my dad went through. I thought I had it all figured out. 

What I didn’t plan for though was meeting my husband one month into college, getting engaged, and married a year later, because by golly I wasn’t going to let the Army move him without me coming along! And then my entire plan went up in smoke. 

I had the realization that the agricultural degree program I was currently enrolled in, didn’t work well as an Army spouse that moved every few years. So I took a semester and decided to study abroad in Australia, my hubby was deployed at the same time and I said “If you’re leaving then I’m leaving!” And little Luvyna, who had never even been on an airplane, flew across the world to Australia completely by herself for the next five months. I spent the next five months, taking online classes in international agriculture business, exploring Australia, making friends, traveling to Asia for a few weeks just because I could, and stopped by to see my hubby for a few days and eventually made my way back home to Kansas.

The Challenges That Shaped Us

After that experience, I switched to business, we moved to Germany, had our oldest son, went through covid lockdown, explored Europe, made lifelong friends, and my husband was injured and started the process of being medically discharged from the Army.

We made the decision that I would move back home with our almost one year old and two dogs so that we had time to buy a house, find daycare, get a job, and be a little more settled before he came home for good in what we thought would be four months. 

Well four months quickly turned into a year and a half with only a two and a half week visit after a year of separation. Covid was a huge contributing factor to this, but it was mostly out of our hands and we just had to trust that it would work itself out. By then I had a really good job working for the Air Force, amazing daycare, a little starter house and my family was nearby to be the support system I needed at the time.

During those weeks home, we were fortunate enough to get pregnant with our youngest son. And let me tell you, going through a pregnancy alone that wasn’t complication free as my first was while working 40-60 hours a week with a toddler that missed his daddy and hardly saw his mom was ROUGH! But we made it through and that’s really where I made the transition into where I am now. 

Finding My Path

See I’m also a big numbers girl. And when I started doing the math of how much it was going to cost to have a baby in the US vs Germany and not knowing how long it would be until my husband was able to get a job…I started getting a little nervous. My friend saw this post about becoming an online virtual assistant and the rest is history. I took the plunge and started taking on clients on the side during the next nine months, to just have abit extra to put in savings and stock up on diapers. And all I’m saying is thank goodness I did!

My husband got home just three weeks before our son was born and from there things got TOUGH. Any military spouse whose gone through that transition of their spouse getting out of the military knows that the transition is hard..on both of you. We had spent the last seven years in this little bubble and now were tossed loose into the world with little direction it felt like. 

My husband struggled to get a job for almost a year, and even then was only able to get an entry level general labor position that required traveling all week and was incredibly hard on his military injuries. On top of that, he had major mental health things he was dealing with from his experiences in the military and some childhood trauma mixed in. Not to mention that we had been separated for the last year and a half, and even then he was constantly deployed or training. So we all had to relearn to be a family and rely on each other, plus adding a new baby to the mix. But more on that later…

I was fortunate enough with the Air Force to have three months of paid maternity leave. And very early into my maternity leave, I made the decision to see if I could get enough clients to replace my monthly income, so I could stay home full time. And I did. I took discovery calls while on my family vacation, completed work with a toddler on my knee, or nursing the baby. If the  baby was awake during the night, you bet your bottom dollar that I had my laptop open and working. I just knew that if I wanted my family to survive this, we all needed to be together and I couldn’t go back to the traditional job.

Where We Are Now (2025) 

Eventually, everything worked itself out, I learned more and more about online business and running my own business. I pivoted a few times until I figured out what I’m really good at; strategy and tools, and who I’m really passionate about; helping moms like me. We grew our teams and grew Mantle & Co. We launched our family beef business, which has been a life long goal of my parents. And even more recently, we purchased our section of land, put our cows on it, we’re building our dream house (and kinda family compound) and we’re welcoming our baby girl to the family in the next few months. 

2020 to 2025 has been a crazy ride and there are so many more stories I can tell here: from military life, that transition experience, pregnancy, ranch life, the whole shebang. But this is the gist of how I got to where I am today and how all those experiences and examples growing up and throughout life have put me in the exact place I’m meant to be.