This is where it began. At a second-home in Wimberley, Texas when our children were toddlers.

Preserving slivers of life for these sacred moments is a renewal from the chaos of the other moments.

Those modern moments of running a family.

Where I lean on my phone too much.

Where instant access allows me to add length but not depth to my to-do list.

Where my kids and I are shuttling and commuting to get to all the places we “NEED” to be.

Then I get to the beach. Seduced by the ocean, I put down the tech. I live out of one suitcase. I drive on the wrong side of the road in a white, non-descript rental van. Our family of five snuggles tight in 2 slightly dated bedrooms like a throwback from a beach vacation movie of the 90s. I heal in the salt and get space to laugh and cry without agenda.

It is prime preserved beach front on 7 mile beach. Yet undeveloped by large developers, though the trend is starting.

That discussion to develop started in our little condo this year in fact, and I found myself in a condo owner’s board meeting wanting to hold my hands up and shout “wait, please wait.”

I was in a small majority that voted NO to developing. I wanted to say yes to the sacredness of all the things that are perfectly not right about it that make us remember a time when the quirks were golden.

But that is a hard sell in this day and age.

In the rest of my life I restore houses. I like to buy older properties and give them a second life. To let in the light and work with talented local designers and trades people to do the best I can on the budget. I like to make our homes work a little better for modern life, but still keep the energy of what is special and makes a space home.

Spaces hold energy. They hold the energy of laughter and love spent there. They hold the hours where we frame our sunsets and our sunrises. They hold space to breathe.

I’m an optimist. I hold out some hope for keeping this strip of beach sacred and smaller for a bit longer. It is a tough decision to put aside the big and lucrative and new and keep the small and sacred and old.

It’s not always sensible. Sometimes the numbers don’t add up, especially when forward momentum to scale seems inevitable. In business and in life.

But somehow, I find preserving those spaces that feel just right in your gut, usually pays off in ways you don’t even imagine possible. For me, finding those sacred spaces in modern life are the things to hold on to.

The author, Marie Kondo, also got me thinking about another form of life changing magic.  Girl time.  A soulful kind of making space.

Time when you get together.  Let your hair down and let go.  Let go of negative energy and fill your tank.

Time we realize as humans that we all encounter the same bullshit that weighs us down.  When that happens, we need to purge a little.  Tidy up our souls.  Start fresh.

This weekend, I gave myself an early birthday gift.  I attended a “Living your Yoga” women’s retreat at Tres Lunas Resort in Mason, Texas.  Hosted by dear friends Aline Hanle and Iva Drtina-Hall, my intention was to enjoy girl time, yoga and connection.  To step out of mom mode for a second and recapture some time to be “just a girl” myself.

I received so much more.  I began the weekend unwrapping a small Dove chocolate candy.  Inside the wrapper it read,

“Because you can.”

On day one of the retreat, it just seemed like a fun message.  Then the weekend unfolded.  Stories that brought ten different girls together emerged, and it made total sense.

Why me?  Why me became the question among us.

Why me to take a weekend away from my kids?

Why me to have to be the one to shift this situation that has been safe for so long?

Why me to find myself battling an illness I couldn’t have fathomed?

Why me to step into a dream that still feels too big for me to grab my arms around.

Why me to face life and death decisions at this phase of life?

Why me?

The answer was in that little wrapper.  Because you can.

As Life Coach and Dream Coach Mary Morrissey says,

“Today is the gift of a brand new, never before lived day.”

Often, we go through our days asking, “Why me?”  Why me to step in to this role, this dream, this next step or challenge in life that calls today?

The answer is simple, but not easy.  Because you can.  Because as I learned in yoga, you have your breath.  The essence of your aliveness. When nothing else makes sense.

Surrounded by friends new and old in this hill country hacienda, I felt supported in “Hell Yes. I can.” I celebrated with poignant clarity for life, because I can.

Life and nature gave us its own agenda that weekend.  In this art-filled and soul-filled place in the middle of nowhere, we felt anything but alone.

There is an illusion that we need years upon years of shared experience to find deep friendship.  I learned we just need moments of honest vulnerability.  Deep connection can happen in minutes.  Like love at first sight. When we are our truest selves.

The hard part becomes we have to seek it.  We have to create it.  It takes some effort on our parts.  We have to do the work.

To seek connection.

To sustain community.

To seek within yourself to share your own courage and truth.

Ten women from all parts, all walks of life, yet with so much in common.

This is no coincidence.  It is the sisterhood that happens in the serendipity.  It is the magic that happens when we make the space for miracles.  The miracle that we are perfectly designed.  We don’t have to BE anything or anyone else.

At Tres Lunas, I received the best early birthday gift a girl could ask for.  The life-changing magic of girl time.  With deepest gratitude to Aline Hanle for creating this magical space for connection. You can find more about her incredible lifework and retreats here: http://www.alinehanle.com

Friends, I’d love to know, what has been ONE of the most impactful experiences of retreat or connection for YOU?  How do you fit in the ritual of girl time or friendship?

Here are some things that got me through sick week, and resparked my wellness and creativity.

1.  Bragg’s Apple Cider Vinegar + Tea + Rest. I haven’t been to the doctor in a long while.  Echinacea tea with lemon, fresh ginger and local honey and a swig of Bragg’s twice a day is my go-to.  A cycle of tea and restorative foods combined with rest nurtures me every time.

2.  Make Art:  Brush Lettering Art Class.  Midweek I was on the upswing and needed to get out of the house.  I signed up for a brush lettering class.  On a recent trip, I’d admired the hand drawn journals of friends.  I wanted to add some fun to my own writing and journaling.    

It is hard for me at times to take a pause from mom duties and projects.  To give myself permission for simple, non-goal oriented fun.  But so glad I did.  It made me feel better, physically and mentally.

This passage “Decide to Be Creative” from The Power of Decision came to mind:

“Pleasure and fun are creative mental atmospheres.   Too many people have too little pleasure in their usual week.  It is a tonic that keeps the mind functioning in the ways of health.”

Check out CRAFT in Austin, Texas for a rotating schedule of creative fun.

3.  Take time for Gratitude and Fill your Jar of Awesome.  Tim Ferris mentioned this gratitude practice on his podcast.  He talks about an old girlfriend teaching him gratitude and appreciation.  She made him a mason jar labeled the “Jar of Awesome.” He writes on small strips of paper moments that he adds every time something good happens in his life.  It’s a visual reminder and keepsake of the grateful milestones.  I loved this as a homeschool idea or workplace idea.  What a fun way to take measure of the moments and the wins that really matter.

I also wanted to add my 2 cents on this idea and create “The Jar of Oops” or “The Jar of Epic Fails.”   Celebrating and honoring those character building mess-ups is almost as important as the successes.    An easy craft project in our future.

4.  Read More.  Tony LaPorta, veteran trader at Simpler Trading, shared this link with me on a common habit of some of the world’s most creative and successful people: READING.

My own book picks this week:

Turning Pro, Steven Pressfield.  Turning Pro is the book I re-read every time I get stuck.  It’s short. It’s an ass kicker in the right direction.  It gets me out of “woe-is-me” thinking.

My friend Terra reminded me of Big Magic.  It’s by Elizabeth Gilbert, author of Eat, Pray, Love.  A great book for sparking the inner creative muse and creative confidence.

5.  Sleep Well.  Insomnia can spark that manic creativity.  But for me, solid sleep is what sustains my creativity and health over time.  This Marpac Sound Machine for Sleep is the best thing ever.  Thanks to my husband for stocking up on these for our bedroom, our kid rooms and our guest space.

Sleep also activates our dream state.  A mentor and friend Cindy Cashman has an extraordinary process for cataloging her dreams.  She gave me a great suggestion to fall asleep:  Ask a question or set an intention.  When you wake, catalog anything you remember.

This process has given me clarity, a next step and sometimes full fledged solutions to my questions.  The more I practice, the stronger “downloading” of these “dream messages” seems to happen.  Sleep journals become mines of creative sparks and solutions as you start to see the connective threads emerge.

So this week, here’s a cheers to good health, good sleep and a nice dose of creativity.

It’s where I take notes and read. Finish a conversation with my husband uninterrupted.  Spend time with my babies letting them run muddy and wild. It’s the place I restore my sanity and my soul.

Right now, Texas Hill Country spring is pretty magical. Animal babies being born.  Wine on the porch at sunset.  Kids jumping in the pool and on the trampoline.  Cow patties as far as the eye can see.  Ok, that part, not as magical.

Call it Rancher-preneur time.

We tune out of the business of busy.  We tune into the things we love.

Here are some notes and finds from the weekend:

A different approach to a Productivity Planner for folks with big dreams but too much on the to-do list.

Cuyana leather bags.  I am a domestic nomadic and I tote a lot of stuff. This bag goes everywhere with me and I dig their motto too, fewer better things.   I have this blush one with my initials on it.

How to stomach one-hour commutes to the country with 3 kids, 2 dogs and a snake in an aquarium?  Podcasts! In 2016, I consider podcasts a legit homeschool subject.

My 10-year old son James’ podcast pick: Interview with Shawn White, Olympic Snowboarder, on the Tim Ferris Podcast.

My podcast pick: Q&A with Paulo Cuehlo, author of the Alchemist.  A peek into his unexpected writing process and advice for first-time writers.

If you haven’t seen it yet, Room with Academy Award winning best actress Brie Larson is on DVD.  Brie’s performance had us hooked and hugging our babies a little tighter.

This travel route in going on my vision board.  It’s pulled from The Four Seasons Resort Extraordinary Adventures itinerary but I will use it as inspiration for figuring out my own version.

Just finished reading, “The Power of Decision” by Raymond Charles Barker.

Just ordered, The Conquer Kit, by Natalie MacNeil.

Always on my nightstand in Wimberley, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Self-Reliance.

“There is a time in every man’s (and woman’s) education when he arrives at the conviction that envy is ignorance; that imitation is suicide; that he must take himself for better, for worse, as his portion.”

Thanks for the reminder Mr. Emerson.

Only you know your own truth.  Weekends in Wimberley remind me of mine.

Necker Island, April 8, 2016

While on a entrepreneurial retreat with my husband and three children, I waited for the questions that always come.  Those questions that come when you are a mom running a family, but also running an entrepreneurial life.

You know those questions….

“Do you work?”

“What do you do in your business?”

“Do you run the business with your husband?”

“Are you a stay-at-home mom or do you do something else?”

“Yes.  And NO.”    I say.

It’s the all-in, in-between place.

How do you describe the all-in, in-between space in life?  The one that doesn’t have one title but that holds a significant place.

It makes me squirm a little everytime I get those questions.

Then, one night on this retreat, I found myself at dinner at a long wood-carved table that sat 40 people.  Folks with extraordinary life stories and businesses.  Sitting next to me was an amazing woman named Natalie MacNeil.  She has a beautiful view on entrepreneurship and contribution.  She didn’t ask me any of those questions.

Instead, she asked me, “How do you help people?  How do you want to help people?”

And I lit up, because that’s the question I could answer, and grow from.

The truth is “What do you do?” stumps lots of folks. Not just moms.  Not just entrepreneurial moms.

For the mom with no title or the CEO with a title in all capital letters, there is a shared understanding.  There is more to a person than what fits on the space of a business card.

A business title might trap us into a rigidity of role that doesn’t fill all that we are.  For a mom like me with other pursuits but without a title that is easily summed up, it can feel untethered.  Being in that space for a long time.  The one of not having “the one thing” you do that is simple to describe.   The thing outside motherhood that is the dream not yet manifested.   Or that you don’t yet get a paycheck for.  Trying to explain that place has made me feel phony.  Unrealized.  Unseen.

Then I remember that is my own BS.  Of feeling I need to fill in that space, or beef it up to check all the boxes of outward success.  I often look for a role to armor me during those times, instead of just being in that space of discovery and appreciation for the script I am writing for myself.

So, how do I fill that human need for appreciation, clarity and acknowledgment of what I do?

I have to give it to myself first.  I have to ask for the words of love and appreciation when I need them and don’t hear them enough.  I have to write daily down what matters to me, what gets in the way and where I vision going.  I have to surround myself with people that get this life and get me.  I have to do the things I love and find meaningful even if those things don’t yield immediate gratification sometimes.  Like raising children.  Or writing.  Or going through the hurdles of raising a business family.

Most of all, I have gratitude for the blessing of having the choice to have blank space on a business card that I get to fill in each step of the way.

Roles can armor us.  They can tether us.  And they can also bind us from experiencing all that we are here to be.

In that conversation with Natalie, I stopped sweating how to describe my title for a second.

“How do you help people?” she asked me.

These are questions I know the answers to.

I help my kids know who they are and feel loved & honored in their skin.

I encourage and stand by my husband and his team at Simpler Trading to help people invest in themselves.

I support my family and friends in dreaming big and pushing through the adversity that comes along the way.

I offer sacred, beautiful spaces for families and friends to breathe and reconnect at my AirBNB’s.

I help families be brave explorers in learning and life again by sharing our own experiments and stories.

And thank God for the friends that help me.  They help me in creating a circle of support that gives me wings and sanity.  They give me the freedom to be Maria, not a title.

Right now, my family is my highest order of business.  My three children, my husband, AND me.  As a mom, I often mess it up.  As a family, sometimes we mess up. But from the mess-ups, we take the brave steps into the scary but magical spaces one at a time.

I don’t have a single business card.  I am not sitting at the conference room and the presentation tables I did ten years ago.  Some days I miss it.  Some days I don’t.

Right now, the dinner table is my table.  The picnic tables are my tables. The car I travel in with my 13-year old son wrapped in long discussions is my business meeting.  The bleacher my sister watches her daughter play softball from is her board seat.  The yoga floor my dear friend T restores bodies and minds from is her Chief Executive Offering.  If you are a mother, you are birthing and raising the children that will be sitting at those tables.

Today.  My writing desk. That is my table.

Our presence as mothers and leaders and compassionate humans at whatever table we find ourselves in to help ourselves and help others.  That matters.

The work tables just look awesomely diverse now.  May you take a seat proudly at your table.

Resource Links: Natalie MacNeil has an excellent video on this topic at her website, “She Takes on The World.” If you want to hear Natalie’s strategy on how to explain what you do to a 10-year old or at a business function, you can check it out here.

For an interesting take on the in-between spaces in life from an Astro physicist, Jedidah Isler, listen to the first 3 minutes of this TED talk.

Hint: Those spaces are usually where the magic happens in the universe.

Family Photo courtesy of Alex Kane, Photographer & Videographer.

Yesterday, we celebrated my grandma’s 91st birthday.  We call grandma Wella.  Wella is a pistol.  She loves Jesus, her occasional sip of tequila and family.  Wella has never been to a mastermind event or a personal development workshop.  But with the wisdom she doles out, she’s a mastermind to me.  91 years of living teaches a thing or two.

Last night, Wella shared these five things with me.   Between laughter and tears, I don’t think I’ll ever forget.

(Spanish translations noted below.)

1.  “La gente mala tiene lenguas largas.  Te quebran con sus palabras. No los dejes.”  Bad people have long tongues. They will try to break you with their words. Don’t let them.

I feel this one loud and clear.  It also reminds me of the other side of that coin, “Be mindful when it comes to your words.  A string of some that don’t mean much to you, may stick with someone else for a lifetime.” -Rachel Wolchin

2.  “Reza para illuminar tu calle.”   Make time for prayer to illuminate your path.

Prayer, meditation, intention.  Whatever you want to claim as your time in stillness – just do it.   My grandmother told me to pray for myself.  Pray for patience.  Pray for one another.  Holding good intentions will illuminate your own path.

3.  “Quedate firme sobre tus ninos.”  Be there and be strong for your children.

She told me you think your children will need you most when they are babies. That is not true.  They will need you more later.  Don’t miss the years when they need you most.  Or they will need you longer.

4.  “Los hombres que te ofrecen dinero y casas pero no su tiempo o respeto se pueden chingar.”  The men that offer you money and houses, but not their time and respect are the men you tell to go f@#! themselves.

My grandmother became a widow at 52 with six surviving children. She said some men came along that tried to court her, offer her things and marry her, but none spoke to her strong and loving spirit.  She told them to hit the road.  She was a woman fueled by family and faith.  She figured it out and made it work and managed to have all those children go to college. Wella don’t play.

5.  “Cuida tu mariposa.”  Take care of your butterfly.

That is grandma code for take care of your essence.  And your va-jay-jay,.  Leaving for a party once, she wouldn’t let me leave the house in a miniskirt. Not until I threw on some control top pantyhose to lock it down.  Yes, people, grandma is 91 and she might be old-fashioned in some things, ahead of her time in others, but wth experience comes wisdom and perspective.  She knows things. Best to pay attention when she’s got something to say.

Happy Birthday to my Wella, our matriarch.  She shines on us with attitude and spirit for days.

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Then that certain song played through my headphones.

If I die young bury me in satin,

lay me down on a bed of roses.

Sink me in the river at dawn.

Take me away with the words of a love song.

–The Band Perry

I ran, and I cried for two miles straight.

That was the same song on the radio that morning. September 4, 2012.   My Uncle Frank appeared in the river at dawn.  A jogger found him. He was dead.

The next three days of September 2012 blur together.  Police calls and medical theories and the back tracking of steps.  Uncle Frank’s small container of an apartment scoured for clues.  Frank’s children taking his bus routes looking for breadcrumbs to how their father died.

Did he fall, did he collapse, did he jump, was he pushed? Was he alone?  Our family asked why.  How?   Needed answers.

The next days were the making of funeral arrangements.  The calls, the thousands of questions, the mystery of his death.  The movements of a family not ready to let go.

I helped my aunts and mother edit the obituary copy for the paper.

They said, “You have to do the eulogy.  You’re the writer in the family.”

I thought to myself, I am not a writer.  A writer knows the words to say.

I looked to my mom to help me find my way out of it.  She said, her voice catching in her throat, “I can’t.  He was my brother. Right now, I can’t.”

That day, I was called to be a writer.

Every time before, I found my way out of it.  I found the easier thing. The thing with deadlines that made sense.  The things with plans that were clear.  I did the things that left a beautifully groomed trail of productivity and accomplishment to show for myself at night. Marketing executive, mother, wing woman to the people with the clear plans.

On September 5, 2012, I was asked to be a writer and I didn’t know the words to write.

I wrestled with my memories.  I wrestled with the words that would comfort and honor and have answers.

I felt the distance from the man I thought I knew as I tried to think up the right words to sum up a life.  I took sum of my own life. I was 39 years old, almost 40.  He was 59 and would have been 60 in a month.

Moments of my Uncle Frank started coming back.

I remembered 1991, when I interned for my uncle while a student at the University of Texas.  He was an educational consultant.   A teacher.  An activist.  An excellent writer.  A passionate speaker.  I put together folders and pamphlets and he buzzed around the tiny portable shed we worked from.  He buzzed to and from meetings and appointments.

My Uncle Frank.  His crazy big open mouth laugh. That tornado of energy.  That buzz.  The Cesar Chavez  references he’d shoot out with fist raised, “Si se puede. Yes, you can.”

The way he always shook his head till his hair moved – shaking a big yes or a big no when he knew the big yes’s and no’s.   He would almost stutter out the words and pound them into the ground with his foot, “Yes, yes, yes” as if letting the answers stick.

I remembered Frank’s music always blaring.  That Tejano music always blaring. That funny dance step only he could do, back and forth and crooked.  The music that was always a part of his story.

I remembered the Type I diabetes.  I never noticed it until his diabetes hit harder. The insulin shots he had to stop for.  The battle of the discipline it took to take care of himself while keeping the other things of life going.

Just before I graduated from college, I remember hearing how Frank drove the car off the road.  In 1994, when he forgot to take the shots. He had a stroke a year later.  He was never quite the same Frank in his body after that.    His body was different. His tornado of energy shifted from the things that paid the bills and earned degrees and fit his plan to the things that didn’t.

Some things in his tornado were shed over those next ten years.  The business blazers, the projects, the solid place at front and center of something.

Other things grew.  His spirit, his heart.  The new, silly way he loved.

I was gone those years.  Traveling.  Having babies.  Working.  I only heard about the bits and pieces of Uncle Frank.

Days before his funeral, I struggled to put back the pieces of him.

Family gathered at my mother’s house the evening before the funeral.  Cousins, siblings, his children, his mother huddled as a video that would appear during the funeral played.  The pieces of Frank’s life.

That certain song came on.  They had chosen it for the video.

If I die young bury me in satin,

lay me down on a bed of roses.

Sink me in the river at dawn.

Take me away with the words of a love song.

Watching the photos of his life, his children, his grandchildren, his hugs and his smiles.  My heart stuck in my throat. I had no words.

The next morning, I got dressed.  I had to arrive early to the funeral home and drove myself alone borrowing my husband’s car. My husband would come later with our three kids in the SUV.  I had jotted down notes about what to say and scratched them all out.

Anxious and pressured, about 15 miles from the funeral home, I turned on the radio.  Frustrated, I fiddled with the knobs on my husband’s car looking for a station.  The channel settings were different than mine.

I turned, and that song played.

It was a hit song.  I couldn’t escape it.  I cried so hard I could hardly see through the windshield.  I let myself cry for the first time since I’d heard my Uncle Frank was dead.

I turned the channel.   Angry.  Searching.  Sad in a way I can’t remember.

A song I’d never heard:

Let’s Just Kiss and Say Goodnight – The Manhattans

“I had to meet you here today
There’s just so many things to say
Please don’t stop me ’till I’m through
This is somethin’ I hate to do.”

I registered the words, not prepared for the oldies station to come on.

I changed the station again, hoping for something familiar.

The Crystals, He’s A Rebel

“He’s a rebel ’cause he never ever does what he should
But just because he doesn’t do what everybody else does
That’s no reason why I can’t give him all my love.”

I thought of Frank.  His crazy, passionate ways.

I turned the channel again. One of Uncle Frank’s favorite bands, Los Lonely Boys.  The song Heaven.

“And I know I need to change
My ways of livin’
How far is heaven, Lord can you tell me.”

I felt an awakeness enter me.  A sad, crazy open-mouthed laugh came out of me.  I calmed. I listened.  I changed the channel.

These words came through.

“Hush now
I see a light in the sky
Oh it’s almost blinding me
I can’t believe I’ve been touched by an angel”

I turned off the radio.  I pulled the car over.  I sat with shaking hands not able to let go of the steering wheel.

I sat silent for a long time.

After some minutes, I typed into my cell phone all the titles of the songs as they had flashed across the digital display so I would remember.  I drove to the funeral home.

I don’t know exactly what I said at Frank’s eulogy once I stepped up to that podium.  I had only my scraps of notes from the car.  I had only the words he gave me in the music.

What I do remember is looking out to the sea of faces in that room.  That day, I heard the stories from the countless faces Frank touched.  Stories I’d never heard before.  His eulogy wrote itself.  On my car stereo.  In that room.  The letters from senators and congressman about how Frank knocked on their doors and sat at their tables for the things that mattered.

The teachers that shared how he loved learning and books and wrote the grants that began a bilingual preschool in the East side of Austin. How he rode the bus when he could no longer drive to deliver breakfast tacos to a woman who desperately needed someone to listen.  How he loved on his granddaughters and children even when he didn’t know exactly how to.  How he danced, crooked and crazy, no matter what.

That day, I felt the vibration of Frank like an ocean in that room. His purposeful work did not look perfect.  It did not fit his plan. It simply resonated.  It vibrated.  Like music.

Frank died in the river.  Ushered away in the words of love songs.  His wealth is counted in moments that mattered.  His wealth is counted in those faces.

As far as how Uncle Frank died, it went down as a drowning.  The real how is an answer we can’t know for sure. The manner of Uncle Frank’s death is but a detail. I’m at peace now knowing that the details of his living mattered more.

Four years later, running to find my own answers, I thank Uncle Frank for once again giving me the words and the courage to write again – my music.

It’s like he whispers still:  “Si, se puede.”

That is Spanish for yes, you can.  You think you can’t.  But yes, you can.

I was a freshman in college.  Naive and curious.  Lived in one state my entire life.  Grew up in a huge Catholic Hispanic family.

He was three years older.  Well-traveled.  Calm and confident.  Disarmingly great sense of humor.

He had a map of the world stuck full of push pins on his college dorm room wall.  He studied at a desk he made out of a door and two file cabinets.  He had a table full of books.  Books on trading and writing and history.

I tutored him in Spanish.  He recommended a little stock to me called IOMEGA that helped me make it through college.

This guy was different.  He stayed home writing and trading while his dorm mates partied and puked in trashcans.  And somehow, we just fit together.

Five years later, we got married.

It’s still a toss up on which was the bigger risk.  Me, investing my financial aid money into IOMEGA.  Or him, marrying a first-born Catholic, Hispanic girl.

So far, both risks have worked out.

Since I was 19, I’ve watched my husband, now a full-time trader and entrepreneur at work.  I’ve seen him take risks.  I’ve seen him mess up at times.

I’ve watched how he’s developed the behind-the-scenes discipline and courage to take the life changing risks.

Over the past 20 years, creating a life around risk and uncertainty has been our journey.  Creating a business around this first love of the stock market has been our journey.  For many of us, we put the brakes on when risk shows up in life.  Maybe we’ve been burned in love or career or childhood.  We put up our shields.  We play small and stay small.  I have often.

Fear of risk protects us and it shackles us.  Unless we learn to master it.

How about instead of putting on the brakes, we learned how to lean into risk and navigate our circumstances up or down?

Taking risks is learning to manage the edge of where fear meets possibility.  If I think about it, I’m married to a guy who is in a profession that asks him to daily manage that edge.

In my marriage to a trader, I’ve learned to navigate, break down and manage some of the elements of risk.  I’ve seen my husband and other traders learn to balance these spaces:

REBELLION- INTUITION- STRATEGY- KNOWLEDGE

REBELLION –  (noun) the action or process of resisting authority, control or convention.
To be a trader, you have to let go.

You have to be comfortable with a level of independence and autonomy and self-governance.  You have to see opportunities where others don’t, and not fear taking them.  You often have to go against the trend.

Rebellion is a double-edged sword.  The instinct you need to take action in the markets is the same instinct left unchecked that can kill you in them.  Your state of being is everything.

Success in the markets is like peaceful rebellion.

It is learning to stay grounded in your unique position.  Yet, it is having the capacity to flow with the circumstances you find yourself in.

Ask yourself, why are you trading today?  Are you pissed?  Are you euphoric?  Do you have something to prove?  Are you in a state where you feel like YOU?

If you aren’t, and are in a negative rebellious energy, go to a golf course, go the the gym, go drive race cars. Do yoga.  Get it out.  But don’t get it out on the market.   Don’t get it out on your marriage either.

INTUITION – (noun) the ability to understand something immediately, without the need for conscious reasoning. 

Has a market move ever just felt good or you just have a hunch about a stock without researching why?  Yes, my husband has too.  And he’s been annihilated.

In trading, some clients feel my husband has some superpower.   Some hunch.  Some intuition about the markets.  My observation is that his seeming intuition in the markets is simply trust in himself gained over time.  It is trust in his ability to make a decision.

Strategy + Knowledge + Pulling the risk trigger = Experience.  Through trial and experience, we gain a more intuitive trust in ourselves.  We cultivate our intuition. We learn to listen to and filter the information at our disposal to create a knowing and decisiveness. Acting on a hunch is different from cultivating your intuition.

STRATEGY – (noun) A method or plan chosen to bring about a desired future.

Many of our clients have had a degree of success in another field or role first.  Tech, medicine, law, real estate, parenting – disciplines that all involve a plan and persistence.

Whether you are a lawyer, a doctor, an IT director or a parent, you have a method. You have a way of doing what you do, that you repeat, that makes you successful.  You create your unique method for consistent performance.  You observe your results and adjust your course, often automatically.

Trading involves doing this everyday, consciously.  The markets will seek out those without a strategy.  It will sniff out the folks going into the arena without a plan.

In creating your strategy, a huge hinderance is over thinking.  I’ve seen traders fret long and hard about which content provider, stock or style to follow.   The Power of Decision by Raymond Charles Barker states,

“Every failure motivated mind has been an indecisive mind.  Only the dreamer who acted with decision on his dream brought forth something new and valuable.”

Follow your curiosity and choose paths or strategies to follow that interest you.  Decide.

Give yourself enough practice and runway to test and find your method.  There is no one-size-fits-all in trading success.  You will develop more and more strategies as you gain skill.

Decide on what makes sense, don’t over think it and practice at your craft.  I imagine trading is a lot like writing, or any other profession.  At the end of the day you are alone with yourself in your decisions.  But if you can’t start with one decision – nothing else is possible.  For me it’s what to write.  For traders it’s what to trade.

Then, be honest with yourself.  Be honest in your accountability to your strategy.  If you aren’t entering the arena each day with a strategy, then you are handicapping your chances for success.

KNOWLEDGE – Noun.  facts, information, and skills acquired by a person through experience or education.

There is a term in Zen Buddhism called beginner’s mind.  It refers to having an attitude of openness, eagerness, and lack of preconceptions when studying a subject, even when studying at an advanced level.

I recently observed my husband at a trading event our company hosted this month in Austin, Texas. I watched him give a bunch of talks and coach others during live trading.  Then I watched him in the back of the room, listening to other traders, taking notes.

He is in a constant state of learning.  He recreates beginner’s mind.

The attitude of humility and growth is the same attitude that creates perseverance and joy in trading.

Trading is cultivating a skill not just growing a bank account.  You would not expect to make one million dollars in any other profession without honing your skills and knowledge.   If that’s what you want, do it once, and then go home.

For traders wanting to learn to master the trade, learning is not static. You may get frustrated because you feel you don’t know enough. Give yourself some grace and pace in your learning curve.  Focusing on consistency of practice can be more powerful than trying to cram too much information.

I’ve watched my husband put thousands of hours into his profession.

He’s put thousands of hours into the technical, mechanical and strategic understanding of trading.  He still makes mistakes.  But when you put your hours in, and take care of your human state, you are going to get better at what you do.

You succeed at what you do.

What I’ve found being married to a trader, is that you create your relationship with the market.  You create your relationship with risk.

The relationship you decide to create with RISK will define the kind of trader you are.

For my husband, the kind of trader I’ve seen him evolve into is:

The kind of trader that takes care of himself and his state of being.

The kind of trader that has perspective.

That kind of trader that doesn’t go into battle without a plan.

The kind of trader that never stops learning.

The kind of trader that trusts himself enough to take risks.

The kind of trader that envisions the big picture.

The kind of trader that can push the pause button and reset.

The kind of trader that surrounds himself with a community of people that are supportive and elevate their game together when the arena gets challenging.

It’s been a road of lots of learning and lots of risk.  RISK is someone and something I’ve learned to love.

Best of luck in taking those risks in trading and in life.

Today, my bruises ache.  Standing in the mirror, sporting black bra and underwear with white stars, I stare at my legs.  The fronts glow gold and tan.  The backs throb, bruised in deep purple welts from hip to knees.   I crane my neck to see my backside.  I see them, my bruises, and my eyes rim wet.

I pull out brown-black eyeliner.  I fix my eyes, run a quick blow dryer over my hair .  It’s bleached gold on the ends from my week on the beach.  I stretch an aqua skirt around my legs careful and wide.  Like stepping into a hula hoop.

I feel the sting up the back of my legs and my spine jarred out of place.

Outside, my husband John knocks at the door of the Tahitian style hut we are staying in.

“You coming hon? Are you ready?”

Sitting at the edge of the bed, I reach over to put on my flip flops. My legs reflect back to me in the full length mirror, two black and blue half slabs of meat.

Trapped on this island, I have nowhere to hide.  I can put on a maxi dress instead of this skirt.  I know even that won’t hide my bruises.

In March of 2014, I took a business trip with my family to Necker Island.  It was a fantasy island of a place owned by the entrepreneur, Richard Branson.  Necker is his home and a unique guest retreat nestled in the British Virgin Islands.

How a stay-at-home mom ended up on Necker Island is a long story.  What happened when I took a running leap off of a forty-foot cliff on Necker Island is this story.

During this trip, I observed Richard’s daily evening tennis match.

His boyish vitality and graceful discipline of taking care of himself stuck with me.   Inspired, I signed up for a tennis lesson.  An opportunity to try something new.  I hopped down a flight of stairs to meet my instructor.

At the base of the steps, two businessmen I met during the trip detoured me from my tennis lesson.  They stopped me with an invitation to go cliff diving. I have never been cliff diving.  I am a mediocre swimmer at best.  I have three kids and two dogs that depend on me to feed them.  I have a fear of heights. I suck at tennis.  On all fronts, this detour was a bad idea.

My brain registered a “hell no.”  My soul was in that Branson, Necker Island energy of “anything is possible.”  So, this invitation presented itself and something made me leap.

A forty minute boat ride and hike later, I stood barefoot at the edge of a cliff.  Sweaty layers of tank top, running shorts, and Nike tennis shoes I’d shed dotted the hill behind me.  Standing in my black sports bra and swim bottom, I felt exposed.

I looked out at the ocean, counting the waves in and out as if waiting to jump rope.  I waited for my moment, terrified.  I thought of my three kids. I questioned my sanity.  My mind backtracked to that tennis lesson detour that got me in this spot in the first place.

Before I could let another thought come, before I could let another ounce of fear enter my head, I jumped.

I broke the surface of the ocean with the elegance of a brick.   I hit the water, hard.   Ass first like I was sitting in a chair.  A bracing sting radiated down my legs and spine.  My legs felt spanked, fifty shades of red.

As I ascended, the heat in my legs intensified.  I popped my head up from the surface of the water.  I swam to the boat, face flushed with pain and embarrassment.

Hours later, bruised started to form. Huge bruises and welts covered my backside and legs top to bottom.

On my way back to my room and to my husband, I felt the tears finally come. It was a few hours before the meeting I had been waiting all week for on the island.  A roundtable discussion with Richard Branson.

In that moment of waiting, a funny thing happened.  I realized there was nothing to hide.  I was on an island with nowhere to run.   I made a choice,  I jumped and I got hurt.  I took a leap of faith in front of some of the most influential people I’d ever met, and epic failed. My legs told the whole story.

In that moment on Necker Island, something in me loosened and let go.

My ideas of what I thought I was supposed to look like and act like and prove on this trip went out the window.

Two choices emerged:  hide out in my room alone and sit the trip out. Or, experience the rest of my beach trip in my bikini with my wounds on full display.

I got dressed.  I dried my tears and made my way to the roundtable discussion.

Nothing dramatic happened.  Mr. Branson made some lasting points about business and life that I was so happy to have heard.  We did not become BFF’s and engage in a long discussion on business and parenting like I might have dreamed.  Richard inquired on the condition of my bum in his gracious British way with earnest concern. Entrepreneurs and new friends sat with me with ice packs and beers and humor and caring.

In that full acceptance of head to toe pain, I finally felt like myself.  I felt without armor.  I stopped caring about having anything to prove.  My biggest fear had just smacked me in the ass.  The fear of going big and messing up, in public.

My outside finally mirrored how my body felt on the inside all week. Painfully imperfect.   Painfully imperfect in this group of business rock stars.

I realized how guarded I’d been to just be myself.   When I dropped my guard, this group of entrepreneurs let their guard down with me too.  I had more conversations in those last few days than I had all week.  We connected through stories of epic fails and torn body parts and life in general.  The things we had in common.  The life moments that exist whether you are a billionaire or a stay-at-home mom.

Sometimes, my bruises and my fears and my failures still threaten to overtake me from the inside out.  I remember I always have this choice: to hide from the moment or to be raw and myself.  To simply own it. To hide from this life.  Or, embrace vulnerability and own my choices along the way.

On the last night of the trip at the farewell dinner, the organizer handed me a microphone.  He asked me to describe what the experience meant.  I climbed on top of Mr. Branson’s long dining table. I stood above forty people in my beachy maxi dress, hiked my gown over my head and flashed my wounds.

I said, “What I learned is this.  When you take a leap, the universe has your back, and when you leap with faith, it’s got your ass.”

Each day, we surface with new wounds, and we trigger old ones.

Those emotional bruises that live deep.  Those that take years to fade, if ever.

The secret is no one knows.  No one sees those bruises.

Sometimes, my oldest bruises ache.  Those phantom aches of worthiness I think I’ve healed from haunting me.  I am fearful.  Every time I sit to write, to try to become the writer I’ve dreamed of being, I am a little bit afraid.  I’m afraid my flaws and bruises will show up.  And then I remember those are the things that also connect us. Those are the things that remind us we are human.

When I am afraid, I remember I can hide.  Or I can choose to show up and keep on leaping.

My daughter Avery on Necker Island

With gratitude, to Yanik Silver and Sophia Umanski of Maverick Business Adventures and to Joe Polish of The 25K Group for creating this experience on Necker Island.  Thank you for modeling abundance, giving and daring in the world through business.  With gratitude to Richard Branson for sharing his generosity with the world through Virgin Unite, and for sharing his home and his spirit so openly.  And deepest love and respect for my husband John, for all he does in his life’s work at Simpler Trading to make dreams come true.