Hi, I’m Janice Martinez.

For twenty years, I poured everything I had into education. I showed up every day, served my students, led my team — and somewhere along the way, quietly disappeared.

There was an accident that dimmed my light. And then years of drift. Going through the motions. Fitting into someone else’s story. Performing the version of myself I thought was required. From the outside, I still looked like I had it together. But on the inside, I was depleted soil — and nothing was growing.

The turning point came when I stumbled across a book, then a coach, then a decision that scared me financially but changed everything. What cracked open wasn’t just strategy. It cracked open me.

What I found on the other side was something I hadn’t felt in years — aliveness. That free, creative, unguarded version of myself. The little girl who ran barefoot on a ranch, full of light, bold enough to sing a solo at church without thinking twice. She wasn’t gone. She had just been buried under years of compliance, conformity, and drift.

That’s why I started Joyful Light Coaching.

I coach educators — people who give everything to everyone else and have quietly stopped giving anything to themselves. People who are brilliant at leading classrooms but have never been taught to lead themselves. People who get up on Tuesday morning, go through the same motions as last Tuesday, and feel something knotted in their stomach they can’t quite name.

I know that person. I was that person.

My core belief — the one I’ll stand on without compromise — is this: personal development must come before professional development. You cannot pour from an empty vessel. You cannot plant in depleted soil and wonder why nothing is taking root.

My coaching isn’t motivational fluff. I bring my teacher brain into every session — I assign the work, I check for understanding, and I follow up. You’ll leave with homework. And I will ask you about it. Not to shame you. But because when no one is asking, people drift.

I am still a full-time high school assistant principal. I am a mom. I am someone who has bad days and has to choose joy as a daily practice — not because the framework makes it automatic, but because I know what the alternative costs. I will never stand in front of you and perform a version of myself that has it all figured out. That’s not honest. And you can feel the difference.

What I will do is see you. Truly see you. And refuse to let you stay small.

The purpose of my life is to be a light — to awaken, to rise, and to shine, and to remind others that they can shine too.

That’s not a tagline. That’s the whole thing.

Welcome to Still Figuring It Out — the work no one sees.