I started this practice because every job I've held, every hard chapter I've worked through, and every friend I've helped do the same has quietly prepared me for it.
My dad was a mortician for 46 years, which means death was a normal kitchen-table conversation in our house. It shaped me, taught me to honor loss with deep respect for the layers of emotion and work it asks for, and left me comfortable doing work most people put off until they can't anymore.
Now in my mid-fifties, I'm in the exact friend group whose parents are preparing for their last chapters. I've been the person people call when they don't know how to start the documents, the conversation, the move, the after. And with a brother who runs an estate planning law firm, my family connections give me access to a network of attorneys, financial planners, and probate specialists that few independent practitioners can claim.
I'm a recently-certified Death Doula (IAP) and a Certified Project Manager. More than two decades of work as a recruiter — five of them at Google, hiring world-class talent for a company that demanded clarity, judgment, and follow-through — taught me to sit across from someone at a hard threshold and listen for what they aren't saying. Years of project and people management taught me to scope complex engagements and deliver them at scale without dropping pieces. Before Google, I moved my family to France and built and ran my own consultancy, Lauren Milan Studios, during which time I raised two kids, moved five times, and solved problems in real time with no manual.
I came home to Seattle, kept working in tech leadership, and a few years ago went through my own consuming life transition: a divorce after twenty years of marriage, with two children watching how I handled it.
I've grown into this moment. The chapters that built me — wonderful and challenging in equal measure — gave me the skills, the steadiness, and the kind of ground only lived passage can give. I'm honored to bring all of it to my Threshold Works clients.
If you're at a threshold and looking for guidance and support, I'd be honored to walk it with you.
— Lauren