ABOUT US
Boutique career coaching for
mid and late career high performers
Come home to yourself and your new career
I’m Laura Simms
I've been a trusted guide and thought-partner for high performers since 2011. I see you as you have not yet seen yourself and see through what you perceive is holding you back.
As a pioneer of holistic career change strategy and the creator of The WHOLE Method, I understand the deep personal work and specialized strategy that is required by high-stakes career change.
I’ll help you choose the right career, yes. But the biggest treasure of our work is that you’ll be more of who you are and live more of the life you want. True homecoming.
When brilliant people are ready for the most creative, impactful, and rewarding season in their career, I’m the one they call.
What if you've invested everything into becoming the wrong person?
That question persists. Through another year of "maybe next year I'll figure out what I really want,” the creative work that stays locked in your head, and the erosion of believing that work could ever feel like yours.
It's not just the decades spent in the wrong room. It's who you don't become while you're there. The income you don't earn because you're not operating in your zone of genius. The full expression of your gifts that never creates meaningful change. The version of you that remains unrealized. The waste of it all.
There’s another way. A way paved with more ease, presence, and even (could it be?) fun.
Coming home to yourself professionally doesn't mean losing everything you've built. It means building something that's actually yours. I would know…
You're good at what you do. But somewhere along the way, "good at" and "meant for" split into two different paths.
The hardest career questions come after you’ve already succeeded.
I’m not your typical “career coach.” I’m not a former recruiter. I’m not a life coach who niched down. Before it was my profession, career was a profound personal crisis.
I grew up as the child of an artist and attorney, and the tension between those worlds led to some real mixed messages around work:
You can do anything you set your mind to. Except art, because that doesn’t pay. And don’t be a lawyer, because that’s a grind. But we believe in you. Unless you want to be a scientist, because you’re bad a math. Do what you love. But make sure it makes money.
My conflicted self got a BA in history with no vision beyond “graduate.” In an act of desperation/inspiration, I smuggled myself to a regional audition with the theatre majors where I got one job offer, starting my career as an actor.
This proved to be a fantastic choice. I had loved acting since I was a child, and I loved the work and life of an actor as an adult. My ambition kicked into high gear. I landed a coveted spot at a top MFA program, moved to Los Angeles, got an agent and manger, and committed to my career for the long haul.
Acting was not just what I did, but who I was. My identity, my community, my income, and even my marriage came out of my work.
I was finding success in a career most people said was impossible, and big names in the industry encouraged me to stick with it. I was living my dream.
And then the quiet questioning started.
Mixed Messages + Follow Your Passion
HOW IT STARTED
After spending a glorious day working on set of a primetime television show, I had a disorienting thought: “I’m not sure I want to do this anymore.”
That thought lead to a cascade of questions.
Just asking those questions felt like a betrayal. I tried to ignore them. I knew that if I answered honestly, my entire life would unravel. But those questions didn’t go away. They just got louder.
Eventually I faced the painful truth that I wanted to make a change. But to what? Without acting, what would I do? Without acting, who would I be?
An acting resume didn’t feel like a solid launchpad for anything. I scrolled job boards (depressing). I faithfully did the exercises in five career books. I went to therapy. I tried monetizing other passions but quickly realized my fantasy was not the reality.
I had some puzzle pieces, but none of those books or experts seemed to get this: I wasn’t just choosing a new career. I choosing a life, while taking care of real world needs.
About a year and half into my crisis, I was once again grappling with what career could possibly meet my needs AND feel fulfilling when a phrase went through my head like an airplane flying a banner across the sky: “What if it’s less about WHAT you do and more about WHY you do it?”
That moment created a paradigm shift in how I thought about work, helped me choose a career I love, and is the foundation of everything I teach to this day.
That thought lead to a cascade of questions.
- Is this making anyone’s life better?
- Is this making my life better?
- Do I even want the more successful version of this?
Just asking those questions felt like a betrayal. I tried to ignore them. I knew that if I answered honestly, my entire life would unravel. But those questions didn’t go away. They just got louder.
Eventually I faced the painful truth that I wanted to make a change. But to what? Without acting, what would I do? Without acting, who would I be?
An acting resume didn’t feel like a solid launchpad for anything. I scrolled job boards (depressing). I faithfully did the exercises in five career books. I went to therapy. I tried monetizing other passions but quickly realized my fantasy was not the reality.
I had some puzzle pieces, but none of those books or experts seemed to get this: I wasn’t just choosing a new career. I choosing a life, while taking care of real world needs.
About a year and half into my crisis, I was once again grappling with what career could possibly meet my needs AND feel fulfilling when a phrase went through my head like an airplane flying a banner across the sky: “What if it’s less about WHAT you do and more about WHY you do it?”
That moment created a paradigm shift in how I thought about work, helped me choose a career I love, and is the foundation of everything I teach to this day.
THE TURNING POINT
Quiet Questioning & The Lightbulb Moment
Finding the Right Career Feels Like Coming Home
My life did unravel a bit. It needed to. That came with grief and identity shifts. But I learned quickly that I wasn’t “starting from scratch.” I was building on my past successes and education in a new way.
What I designed next has been better than I could have imagined, in ways big and small.
The stabilizing effect of clarity of purpose
Location independence to move closer to family
Creating the financial stability for my husband to be full time stay at home parent
Modeling a healthy relationship with work for my child
A team, colleagues, and clients with shared values and mutual respect
Waking up excited for my work
Using my natural strengths
Showing up as myself
Contributing to significant change that I care about
Once I figured out to create a tailored-to-me career for myself, I wanted to structure how I got there into a repeatable and reliable process for others.
HOW IT'S GOING
What will homecoming mean to you?
You’re ready to close your chapter of striving, shrinking, and shelving the best of what you have to offer.
Now: enter your season of creativity, joy, purpose, direction, fun, contribution, heart, ease. And let’s get you paid well while doing it.
I’m not promising you a career with zero stress or challenges. I’m not saying you can send your wishlist to Santa and get everything on your list. I’m not even saying it will be easy.
But it will be worth it.
If you’re ready to be seen, challenged, and put yourself back at the center of your own damn life, I’d love to help you find a career that feels like home.
LEARN HOW WE CAN WORK TOGETHER
MY PRIMARY INFLUENCES
Literature
I imagine each client as a work of literature. I know a sensical, obvious-once-you-see-it structure is lying beneath the surface because every author has intention, even if the pattern is hard to see at first. Once we find the thread of your story, new chapters can be written.
01
History
I help people start over, but I know that no one ever starts from scratch. We always build on the ruins of what came before. Nothing lasts forever, but the things that adapt last the longest. Careers are fluid. Evolving. Wanting change isn’t a sign of failure; it’s often what ensures survival.
02
Theatre & Performance
The theater taught me curiosity. It taught me about human behavior, courage, and the discipline of failing over and over again until something real emerges. To listen deeper, stay present, and be in electric moments with others.
03
Teaching
Having taught at the graduate and undergraduate levels, I love a syllabus and instructional design. But there are some moments you can’t plan for, and you always have to teach to what’s happening in the room.
04
Nature
Part of me thinks that modern-day work is for the birds and we should all be picking berries by a river. We are wild creatures at heart. Some of that wildness can be preserved through our work. When clients reclaim it, they come alive.
05
Equity-Centered Coaching
I became a certified equity-centered coach so I'd be better prepared to support clients from diverse backgrounds through a trauma-informed, culturally responsive approach.
06
Creativity
Career change is a creative process, and nothing can tank that faster than apathy or fear. A sense of play, wonder, and exploration, when paired with a solid framework, yields transformational results.
07
your guides, champions, & thought partners
the team
meet
Brooke Dinse McCarrison
Client assessment Coach &
Enrollment coach
Brooke holds a degree in English Literature with a focus in Spanish and Political Science and is a Certified Leadership Coach with 17 years of coaching experience, 7 as an entrepreneur and 10 in corporate America across management, mentoring, and training. She has coached over 150 clients and supported more than 300 career changers, bringing expertise from social work, non-profit, corporate operations, education, insurance, and law. As a mid-life career changer herself (many times), Brooke understands what it's like to be on both sides of this journey and all the stages in between. With a big heart and even bigger belief in what's possible, she brings empathy, honesty, and focus to both what currently is and what could be, guiding people to clarity and certainty. Brooke happily wears many hats: mother, wife, daughter, aunt, teacher, and literacy advocate for young kids.
Dara Paoletti
Career change strategist &
client assessment COach
Dara holds a BFA in Metalsmithing/Jewelry and is a Certified Life Coach with additional training from Embodiment Unlimited and the Strozzi Institute. With 9 years of coaching experience, she has coached over 700 clients and supported more than 400 career changers. Her expertise spans consulting, higher education, arts, non-profit, and edtech, with roles across operations, student success, admissions, art education, community management, and animal behavior/training. As an introvert with a creative background, Dara offers a reflective, empathetic approach to supporting clients. Curiosity and inclusivity guide her work, and as a Your Career Homecoming alum herself, she understands the Homecomer journey from the inside out. Based in the Philadelphia area, Dara's diverse background allows her to meet clients wherever they are in their journey.
Laura Simms
FOUNDER & CEO
Laura Simms is the Founder of Your Career Homecoming and a Certified Equity-Centered Coach (IECC) with 15 years of experience guiding high-performers through meaningful career transitions. She has helped over 450 professionals choose careers with both meaning and money, and her clients have come and gone from places like Google, OWN, NPR, Fortune 500 companies, the FBI, Broadway, and HarperCollins. As the creator of the WHOLE Method—a holistic career change strategy—Laura brings a unique approach that integrates purpose with practicality. Her expertise has been featured in US News & World Report. She holds degrees from Furman University and The University of California, Irvine, and has taught at the graduate and undergraduate levels. Based in Atlanta, Laura enjoys thrifting, interior design, and walks in the woods.
Shannon Guild
Career CHange COach
Shannon started as an intern at Morgan Stanley with an Associate's Degree in Marketing. Twenty years later, after earning an Executive Director title, she resigned to pursue entrepreneurship full-time. With 22 years of coaching experience (12 in corporate America and 10 as an entrepreneur), Shannon is a Certified Executive and Leadership Coach with deep expertise in Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion and Executive Leadership across human resources, operations, and learning & development. Her signature approach is both highly intuitive and empathic, and her extensive experience across multiple sectors allows her to offer insights and guidance on career possibilities across many areas. Based in Northern Wisconsin, Shannon's favorite identities include tree hugger, dog (and plant!) mama, gem hound, manifesting generator, big sis, and auntie. Brandi Carlile and Kristen Wiig are her heroines.
