Sharon Herbert Turns Lived Experience Into Support for Women Moving Forward

Sharon Herbert launched her life coaching practice with a purpose rooted in personal experience: to become the coach she once needed. After leaving a 14-year marriage, she rebuilt her life while raising her then 13-year-old son, learning to manage personal finances, addressing toxic behavior, and pursuing financial independence. Today, that experience informs her work at Primrose Life Coaching in Richmond, California, where she supports women seeking a way forward through challenges of their own.

A Certified Life Coach with a PhD in Molecular Genetics, an MBA, and more than 20 years in corporate America, Sharon brings both professional experience and a deeply personal reason for choosing this work. Her requested focus is support for clients dealing with a loved one’s alcoholism, addiction, or substance abuse. For her, that subject is connected to the practical and emotional work of rebuilding a life.

A Focus Shaped by Personal Experience

In her account of the marriage she left, Sharon describes her former spouse as struggling with alcoholism and addiction. The transition required her to navigate several responsibilities at once. Parenting did not pause while she worked toward independence. Financial decisions existed alongside relationship difficulties. Moving forward involved more than a single change in circumstance.

Those overlapping demands help explain the emphasis of her practice. Sharon offers coaching for people affected by a loved one’s alcoholism or addiction, rather than describing her work as treatment for the person experiencing substance use problems. The focus is on the client’s own life and the challenges they are seeking support to navigate.

Her motivation is specific: during her own difficulties, she wanted someone who could understand and relate to what she was going through. That need became a foundation for the kind of connection she now seeks to offer. She draws on lived experience to approach clients with empathy, while tailoring her work to each person rather than treating her own journey as a script for theirs.

More Than One Area of Life

Sharon describes her approach as holistic, recognizing that one area of life can affect another. Her coaching areas include career, money management, divorce, single parenting, toxic relationships, life purpose and personal development, and spirituality. Support around a loved one’s alcoholism or addiction sits within that broader scope.

The connection between these areas is visible in her own story. Leaving a marriage meant attending to parenting and finances while also working through difficult behavior and pursuing independence. Her practice reflects that experience of interconnected responsibilities, rather than presenting personal change as an isolated task.

This breadth gives context to her emphasis on women moving forward. The purpose she describes is not limited to a job transition or a relationship change. It encompasses the work of considering personal direction while managing the demands already present in a client’s life. Her own experience supplies the reason for that focus, not a promise that every client will follow the same path.

A Professional Background, a Different Purpose

Before launching her coaching practice, Sharon spent more than two decades designing and leading global clinical trials. Her last corporate role was Director of Clinical Operations at a large multinational medical device manufacturing company. Her education includes a bachelor’s degree in Biochemistry alongside her doctorate and business degree.

That background is part of her story, but her explanation for becoming a coach centers on what she learned while navigating professional and personal challenges. The shift brings a different purpose to her working life: helping other women move forward through a supportive, individualized coaching relationship.

Building the Support She Once Sought

Sharon says she brings her genuine self to sessions and aims to create an environment where clients can feel comfortable talking openly. Authenticity and empathy are central to how she describes that relationship. Her experience informs the connection; each client’s circumstances shape the approach.

At the heart of Primrose Life Coaching is a clear link between experience and purpose. Sharon’s account of rebuilding her life explains why she chose this work and why support for those affected by a loved one’s addiction matters within it. She now directs that purpose toward empowering women to move forward in their own lives.