Victoria — Author of Let Go of the Anchor

The Book

A life spent learning to open her hands

Let Go of the Anchor — a memoir by Victoria

Some people spend a lifetime chasing one dream. Victoria ran into burning buildings, buried a husband she had to leave, earned a doctorate in secret, and paddled more than a hundred miles across open ocean — faster than any man had done it — all in one restless, relentless life.

Let Go of the Anchor is the story of a woman who was chosen as an infant and spent the rest of her life learning to choose herself. It's about surviving and thriving in worlds built for men, about the courage it takes to walk away from a good life toward one you can't yet see, and about the quiet, recurring act at the heart of every reinvention: opening your hands and releasing the weight that's pulling you under.

Written not from a triumphant mountaintop but from inside the fog of a life still in progress, it's a book for anyone standing at the edge of their own next chapter, wondering whether they have what it takes to leap.

You do. You just haven't done it yet.

Inside the Book

What you'll find in these pages

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Proving Ground

Sixteen years in the fire service, and a lifetime of walking into rooms built for men and refusing to leave until she'd earned her place.

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The Open Ocean

From grief to a world-record crossing — how the water rebuilt a broken body and mind, one stroke at a time.

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The Anchor

The hardest, most freeing lesson of all: you cannot rise while you're clutching the weight that's pulling you down.

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Written from the Fog

An honest, present-tense account of reinvention — told not from the far side of certainty, but from inside the not-knowing.

The Author

Meet Victoria

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Victoria has been a firefighter and paramedic, a world-record open-ocean paddler, a national stand-up paddle champion, a doctor of human performance, a coach, and an entrepreneur — often several of those at once.

She made a practice of walking into rooms that weren't built for her, and refusing to leave until she'd earned her place.

Over a lifetime in male-dominated arenas, she learned to reinvent herself again and again — surviving loss, releasing what no longer fit, and chasing the next impossible thing with everything she had. Let Go of the Anchor is her first book, written from inside the uncertainty rather than from the far side of it.

16 yrs

Fire & Rescue

115 mi

Ocean Crossing

PhD

Human Performance

National

SUP Champion

Speaking

Bring the story to your stage

Victoria speaks to audiences ready to be moved and challenged — corporate and leadership events, women's and women-in-business groups, conferences, athletic and endurance communities, first responders, and associations. Every talk turns a life of fire, open ocean, and relentless reinvention into something an audience can carry straight into their own next chapter.

Let Go of the Anchor

Why the boldest move is releasing what holds you down — and how to do it even when the thing you're clutching is one you love.

You Haven't Done It Yet

What crossing a hundred and fifteen miles of open ocean taught me about fear, the voice that says quit, and the door waiting just past it.

The Only Woman in the Room

Earning respect and thriving in male-dominated fields — from the firehouse to the lab to the boardroom.

When Effort Isn't Enough

Resilience, faith, and the hard art of doing your part completely — then letting go of the outcome you can't control.

Book Victoria to Speak