Hi, I am Laura Van Den Hurk. I have always run towards the opportunities to do the things no one wanted to do and to the opportunities where I got to learn the lessons and gain more skills.  It has brought many rewards to me as it is how I went from the photocopy coffee girl to CFO, of a $40 million company, in 3 years at the age of 23-25 years old. 
 
I stayed with that company for 15 years until it wound down.  I was learning from all the functions of the business and was given room to practice and learn.  My favourite part was learning how to pivot a company of different sizes as it changed over the years.

After being employed and having my boss of 15 years "renting me" out to his family, friends and colleagues, I got the idea to go on my own as self-employed and I worked the rest of my career hunting for inefficiencies and places to improve while doing the job I was hired to do.  In my second "gig" I was faced with fraud and that's when I became certified.  I wanted to feel more empowered in this area as I worked with businesses.

I was able to apply my skills setting up and running our farm in 2013-2022.  It was a challenge at first to "play" with my own money as I was more conservative and I felt more restricted in this area than when I was dealing with arm's length businesses.  I learned a lot from Naked Acres Farmstead and my favourite part was Sales and Marketing. 
 
I have learned so many transferrable skills that I branched out to writing a homeschooling plan in 2010 for our son with Autism, who had a laundry list of learning disabilities. (I am READY to Learn is on my  Autism Resources page). 

I always look at the I CAN side of things and focus at what is possible with some hard work.