Coach, Writer, Founder, Mom, Multi-Hyphenate

I'm a Mastery Method coach and a trauma informed care practitioner. I coach ambitious women on their business, careers, and in moments of transition.

I have had fifteen years of experience as an entrepreneur, making nearly ten million dollars in businesses founded with zero capital.

I’m also two time bestselling author. I'm currently writing romance, after a decade of having an open submissions inbox answering the internet's questions about relationships. (I've served as both one of the internet's big sisters, and as one of the internet's secret keepers.)

I've led a wildly interesting life, and love helping women step into their own adventures, and finally go for their big dreams and live their passions.

Meg Keene is a Mastery Method Coach and Trauma Informed Care Practitioner, who's spent more than a decade teaching women about entrepreneurship. She founded A Practical Wedding and served as it's Editor-in-chief for 15 years. APW started as a Blogspot account ran from her kitchen table, and grew to the largest independently held wedding publication in the world. Meg has published two (creatively named) books: A Practical Wedding, and A Practical Wedding Planner, both top sellers on the wedding bookshelf. Her passion is teaching helping women do the inner and outer work to get them to their breakthroughs, to help them step into their big dreams, and make the money they deserve. Meg’s work has been referenced in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, NPR, and The Atlantic, among many other publications. She currently resides in Northern California, with her husband and two kids.

Official Bio:

Trainings & Certifications Include: Currently completing a year long certification program with the Institute of Coaching Mastery, along with a credential with the International Coaching Federation. Certified Trauma Informed Care Practitioner, TIC Training Center. Graduate of Business Class.

Other Coursework: The Trauma Informed Coach & Safe To Be Seen, The Institute for Trauma & Psychological Safety // How to Get Clients Unstuck & Working With Core Issues of 'Never Good Enough', NICABM // Freedom from Flight or Fight, Morgan Pommells

Reputation

listening:

A really good bagel

CRAVING: 

Daisy Jones & The Six

READING:

Whisky, neat

DRINKING: 

Russian Doll

watching: 

Currently

(A few Of) My Favorite Things

Traveling. We started dragging our kids on planes when they were still babes in arms, and there is nothing like seeing the world with your family in tow.

Protecting my peace

Peloton. Robin. Jess King. The other women on my team. We ride with knives in our teeth.

My family: delightful theatrical weirdos. We're raising a tiny David and Amy Sedaris and we're not mad about it.

My Favorite Things

Sunshine. Wayfarers kickstarter semiotics, quinoa godard dreamcatcher hexagon pop-up hoodie.

Ice cream. Microdosing gochujang keffiyeh salvia. Hoodie knausgaard art party.

my guilty pleasure

Photos! Hashtag fashion axe palo santo fanny pack, ramps cornhole messenger bag asymmetrical.

Cool Shit I've Done

Born and raised—just like my husband—in San Bernardino, CA (The #909 represent), making me basically the eldest Millennial. 

Moved to the East Village (when we still called it Alphabet City) to go to NYU.

1980

1986

2001

Grew up at California's Renaissance Faires, which where an outpost of 1960's style community. Learned entrepreneurship from artisans. 

Survived 9/11 trapped in my dorm five very short blocks from the towers. Nothing is ever the same.

1998

Graduated from NYU's school of the arts with my BFA in Experimental Theatre (physical theatre) with a focus on personal performance.

2002

2004

Founded a theatre company with a bunch of my BFF's (including my soon to be boyfriend and now husband). As Managing Director, this was my first business.

What Made Me

My Early Career

Started
A Practical Wedding

Started
Writing Books

Started formal business coaching

Worked at the theatre company that launched In The Heights, and managed a gala where Lin Manuel Miranda was the featured guest artist.

Got engaged, started a blog called "A Practical Wedding," which went on to make millions of dollars and reach 100's of millions of people.

2005

2009

2010

Got married!

Sold my first book (creatively titled A Practical Wedding), quit my job at the bank to work for myself, never looked back.

2008

2007

Quit theatre, moved to San Francisco so my boyfriend could go to law school, worked at an investment bank writing research on local banks, as they failed during the financial crisis.

My first book was published, did a sold out national book tour on Amtrak, was interviewed on NPR, became a bestseller on the wedding shelf. Got home, got pregnant, had a baby. WHAT A YEAR.

2012

My second book was completed, my second child was born, my FIL and Grandmother died 11 days apart, my second book was published (and was even more successful than my first book). WHAT A YEAR.

Helped design a plus-sized wedding dress line, cared for my dad after a traumatic brain injury, hosted a feminist summer camp for 100 women, my dad died suddenly two weeks after camp ended. WHAT A. YEAR.

2015

2013

2020

A Practical Wedding (the website) became an early player in the world of 'Influencer Marketing', before the phrase was even coined.

We all remember it. Shut down was the most painful thing to happen to weddings since... ever. In the depths of pandemic isolation, I started . I started formally doing business coaching for women, after years of informally advising anyone who asked. Launched my first group program "Summer Session," which sold triple our expected slots in just a week.

2018

Launched Niqeva, a network for ambitious Jewish women. Worked as a coach for Brit + Co's Selfmade.

2021

2022

Launched Business BFF, my 1:1 intensive coaching program, retired APW from daily publishing after 14 years, and launched our first evergreen course, Big Idea Blueprint.

2017

Signed my first major commercial lease, had my most profitable and hardest year of business to date.

2023

Completed a year long certification program with the Institute For Coaching Mastery, and became a Mastery Method Coach. Also became a Trauma Informed Care Practitioner.

"Meg has a way of weeding through the feelings and the personal trauma, finding the root of what was holding you back in your creative and business pursuits."

The Real Deal

—Victoria-Riza, Editorial Director of The Riza

Build A Legacy

Talk About What Matters

1.  Tolerance
2.  Show Up
3.  Safe Space Matters

Give A Fuck

You know how to survive. But you’re ready to know what it feels like to thrive. And to get there, you need to stop hiding, stop apologizing, and take up the space you were born to take up. You’re ready to have a mentor, skills, and a community of like-minded women at your back that believe in you, see you for the amazing human you are and are not going to let you off the hook. If you’re ready to live the dreams your childhood self had no ability to imagine, you’re in the right place.

The Unofficial Bio

A HUSTLER

I grew up in San Bernardino, in California’s Inland Empire. It’s the second poorest city in the country after Detroit (but I know you’ve never heard of it.) People from the 909 wear that like a badge of honor. I know what it’s like to grow up around poverty, gang violence, and to spend a lifetime watching the system failing people you love.

I also know what it feels like when 'making it work' is your only option, because you cannot survive if you stay where you’re at. When I say I started my business with no access to capital, I mean it.

If you feel overwhelmed by an entrepreneurship world that seems to speak to women who were born into money and connections, but that is not the way you’ve done things… welcome home.

A Builder

I started A Practical Wedding on my kitchen table in the middle of the 2008 financial crisis, quit my day job when I was supporting both myself and my husband, and grew it to the largest independently held wedding publication in the English language. The company has gone on to make millions of dollars in revenue, while remaining entirely self-funded. I also have written two best-selling wedding books that have sold well over 100,000 copies.

I started coaching from the same table, this time pushed in the corner of my crowded living room, during shut down of 2020, while I was trying to keep my kids alive and my business working, because I knew, in that moment, that my job was to take the knowledge I’d gained over the last decade (plus) of running profitable businesses, and help other women do the same, in this moment of crisis.

I start businesses when the world is falling apart, what can I say?

I’m not here to tell you that it’s easy to build a company without investors, capital, and high-powered networks. But, I am here to affirm that doing it on your own gives you the freedom to build something that’s fully yours. And at the end of the day there is real value in that.

A Permission Slip Giver

A shortlist of things I have done that I had no formal qualifications to do: Written two best-selling wedding books, penned viral articles for Buzzfeed that garnered well over a million views, had my creative direction featured in AdWeek, collaborated on a plus-size wedding dress line that was featured in Vogue Business, pitched two reality TV shows, been quoted in nearly every major US publication, been a keynote speaker on many stages, pivoted a business over and over, and oh right, been the Editor-in-Chief of a major publication (while being dyslexic).

I am not interested in what the world says you’re qualified to do. I’m here to remind you that you have permission to do the things you need to do and create what you’ve been wanting to create.

A Feet First Jumper

What is my formal training in? Experimental Theatre. Was that a practical major for someone who knew they had to earn a living the second they graduated? No. Did I do it anyway? Yup. My career has been a series of plunges into the deep end and learning to swim after.

But that doesn’t mean it’s ever been easy. When I actually learned to swim, I was so paralyzed with anxiety (hello, undiagnosed anxiety disorder) that it took weeks of standing on the end of the diving board before I jumped again. Once I did though, I never looked back.

I am here to lovingly talk you off the diving board because I know that once you hit the water, you’ll swim like you were born to do it (because, you were).

Here To Help You Take Up Space

My Guiding Principles

3.  Honesty
4. There are many truths
5.  Transform Pain Into Power
6.  Make Cool Shit
7.  Take Up Space
8.  Profits Are Power

I send love notes to ambitious women. If you ever wanted BFF to send you "you've so totally got this" emails, lets fucking go.

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