AUTHOR · COACH · SPEAKER

Elizabeth Adkins

Helping high-performing individuals stop staying and start choosing lives that actually align.

Through powerful storytelling and practical frameworks, Elizabeth helps audiences break patterns, lead with clarity, and build lives with intention.

About the Author

Elizabeth Adkins is a certified life and executive coach and former senior operations officer with the Defense Intelligence Agency, with over twenty years of experience in national security, international diplomacy, and strategic risk management. Recognized at the highest levels for her service, she now dedicates her work to helping high-achieving professionals lead purposeful, intentional lives filled with alignment and purpose.

The daughter and granddaughter of Polish immigrants, Elizabeth draws deeply from her family’s story of resilience. She titled her memoir after the red currant bush her grandmother carried from Poland to America — a symbol of strength, survival, and growth across generations.

Elizabeth lives in Arizona with her husband and their two children, Patrick and Amelia. Her father, now 87 and facing health challenges, also lives with the family — grounding her daily life in the same values of care, courage, and connection that shape her work.

MEMOIR

Red Currant

Leading Life with Courage

Some childhoods are made of scraped knees and summer afternoons. Others are made of hiding behind bushes, learning to read danger before you can read a clock.

Elizabeth grew up between worlds: a Polish immigrant household alive with music, hard work, and deep love, shadowed by a sister whose drinking turned ordinary days into survival exercises. She learned early to stay still, hold her breath, and carry more than any child should.

But she also learned something else.

Resilience is not the absence of pain.
It is what grows through it.

From the red currant bushes of her Detroit childhood to the desert compounds of an overseas deployment, this memoir traces the long, uneven journey from endurance to choice.

It is a story about loving the wrong people for the right reasons. About inherited patterns and hard-earned wisdom. About the moment you stop waiting to be chosen and finally choose yourself.

Raw, tender, and deeply human, Red Currant is a testament to what blooms when we stop holding on and start reaching forward.

“

The moment you stop waiting to be chosen and finally choose yourself.

— ELIZABETH ADKINS

WHY "RED CURRANT"

A Symbol of Resilience Carried Across Generations

The memoir takes its name from the red currant bush Elizabeth’s grandmother carried from Poland to America — a symbol of resilience, survival, and growth across generations.

Like the bush itself, the stories within these pages explore what it means to take root, adapt, and flourish despite difficult beginnings.

FOR READERS WHO...

— Have outgrown old versions of themselves
— Are learning to choose differently
— Carry complicated family stories
— Want permission to stop surviving and start living
— Believe healing and growth can exist together

COMING SOON

The Garden I Grow

In her next body of work, Elizabeth explores what it means to live out those choices in real life — through experiences like IVF, caregiving for aging parents, and balancing ambition with presence.

Because growth doesn’t stop once you choose differently. It evolves into what you are willing to nurture, protect, and carry forward.

Ready to Begin?

Order your copy today and begin the journey from endurance to choice.

A PHILOSOPHY FOR INTENTIONAL LEADERSHIP & LIFE

Hurry Slowly

“In high-performing environments, we’re taught to move fast. But the most important decisions in your life — and leadership — require something different: clarity before action.”
“Hurry slowly. Move with intention — but don’t stay stuck.”

In high-performing environments, we are taught to move fast. To decide quickly. To act immediately. To keep going.

But the most important decisions in your life — and in your leadership — require something different. Clarity before action.

“Hurry Slowly” is a philosophy that challenges the instinct to rush what matters most, while also resisting the tendency to stay where you’ve outgrown. It is the balance between reflection and movement. Between awareness and action.