BLOG

The other day my daughter walked into the room frustrated. Something had happened at school. A teacher. Some classmates. The details almost don’t matter anymore because what I remember most was the tone. She was stuck in that familiar spiral where one complaint leads to another. I listened for a moment. Then I stopped her. “Wait,” I said. “Take a breath.” She paused. “Tell me something good about the situation.” She looked at me like that was the most unreasonable request I c

The impact of my great uncle’s vision Most of what we do goes unnoticed. Most of the seeds we plant grow somewhere we can’t see. Most of the conversations we have ripple far beyond our awareness. Recently, I received a message from two former clients, Amy and Molly. Their podcast is called “Meet Me in the Penthouse.” A couple years ago, I helped them launch it. They landed in the top 5 percent of global podcasts within the first month. We worked together, editing and building

For the past few weeks, my body has been operating at half capacity. Normally, my energy sits at an eight or nine out of ten. I move quickly. I hold a lot. I create momentum in my days. That’s my baseline. But during this stretch, I’ve been waking up most mornings feeling like I’m at a five. Not sick enough to cancel everything. Not well enough to feel fully like myself. The cough lingers. My stamina hasn’t fully returned. And I don’t like it. Earlier this week, I decided I w

December and January carried a weight I didn’t anticipate. There were early-morning phone calls because of the time difference back to the U.S. Conversations tied to administrative and legal responsibilities around our home — the kind that require focus and steadiness, even when your capacity already feels stretched. By the time the new year was underway, the pressure hadn’t lifted. It had simply continued. And then my body stepped in. Toward mid January, I developed chest co

There’s something many of us quietly want, whether we admit it or not: to feel validated. To know we matter. To feel seen, acknowledged, and appreciated for who we are and how we show up in the world. What we don’t often stop to examine is how easily that desire turns inward as self-criticism. For so many women, the inner voice is sharp and relentless. We replay conversations. We judge our decisions. We focus on what we should have said or done differently. Instead of buildin

I didn’t write anything the first two weeks of January. That felt intentional. Spacious. Needed. The notebooks stayed closed. My laptop stayed quiet. After the intensity of December, I let myself step into the new year without immediately asking anything of it. Now it’s January 17th—halfway through the month—and this feels like the right moment to begin again. Every January comes with its own kind of pressure. Plans, intentions, resolutions. The familiar promise to make this

We’re finishing the school term, and suddenly we’re here: three weeks off at the end of the year. Living in Bali has taught me something I’ve shared before—you can have your plans, and then there are Bali plans. Things unfold differently here. Slower. Less rigid. I’m learning to loosen my grip and move more with what’s actually happening, rather than what I thought would happen. Normally, I don’t leave travel planning to the last minute. I like structure. I like knowing what’

We were on our way to pick up my daughter from her school field trip when we saw the puppy hiding in the bushes of our parking lot. It was Friday afternoon. My daughter had been away for three days, and my husband and I were heading to meet her at the bus when something small and still caught our eye. A black-and-white puppy was wedged behind the bushes and the wheel of a parked scooter, pressed low to the ground. She wasn’t moving. She wasn’t pacing. She looked like she had

I’ve always believed that life has a way of redirecting us, especially when we’re trying too hard to control the plan. But I didn’t realize how literal that could be until a simple Saturday in Bali unfolded into something far more meaningful. My husband and I were on our way to pick up our daughter from a sleepover when we decided to grab lunch nearby. He had been wanting to try a specific restaurant, and although I had my own opinions (and tendencies to steer things), we hea

The Saturday after Thanksgiving always invites a pause. The rush settles, the noise quiets, and what remains is the simple question: What does gratitude look like for me this year? For me, it’s looked nothing like a curated holiday. It’s looked like real life in Bali—messy, unpredictable, surprising, and strangely beautiful. This week alone, one neighbor’s son battled lice… twice. After she disinfected every sheet, helmet, and surface, the lice returned three days later. Anot

There are weeks that pass quietly, and then there are weeks that feel like the universe is handing you a story. A couple of weeks ago in Bali was one of those weeks. It began with something simple: my neighbor Marina, sleeves rolled up, fully devoted to a mission she took on the moment she arrived. In just three months, she’s become a one-woman movement to spay and neuter as many stray dogs and cats as she can. Not because anyone asked her to. Not because she had funding. But

There are moments in life when something so unexpected happens that it makes you pause and wonder whether what we call coincidence is actually something far more intentional. Bali has been teaching me that when I stop gripping, stop pushing, and stop trying to control the timing of everything, life moves with a kind of clarity and precision I could never manufacture. About a month ago, word spread quickly through our community chat: a rare Javanese ebony monkey had been spott

The week before Halloween, my 12-year-old daughter came home with a mission. There was no Halloween party planned at her school, and she couldn’t believe it. New to the school, she assumed it was something the school organized every year—but it turned out that in previous years, it had been run by a family who’d since moved away. Most kids would’ve sighed and let it go. But not her. She wanted a party. Within hours, she rallied several friends to join her in proposing the ide

This week, I’ve been reflecting on how much our relationship with money shapes not only our bank accounts but also our ability to give, receive, and collaborate. If you’ve been following me for a while, you know I’ve taught about money from many angles — mindset, worthiness, energy, and practical strategy. My signature course, Money Magic Miracles, had a first cohort of just 22 participants, and together they generated over 1.2 million dollars in only 60 days. And yet, even a

There’s a certain irony in wanting to write while on vacation. Part of me wanted to simply rest—to lie by the pool, listen to the ocean, and not do anything at all. The other part felt inspired—an idea forming quietly, asking to be written down. That internal tug-of-war reminded me there’s a difference between writing from obligation and writing from inspiration. One comes from pressure to stay productive; the other from a whisper that wants to be heard. After months of busyn

Phones. Screens. iPads. They’re everywhere — and most of us can’t imagine life without them. Yet I sometimes wonder if we’re facing one...

In my last blog , I shared about busyness — how we wear it like a badge of honor and equate productivity with worth. But as I’ve been...

It happened in slow motion. I was hurrying down the narrow spiral staircase in our house, baggy pants brushing against my ankles, when my...

“I know you’re busy, but…” The phrase landed like a jab. A colleague said it casually last year before asking me a simple question. Yet...

The other morning, I noticed two lizards—one inside my house and one outside—facing each other like a living yin-yang. I couldn’t look...