Almost a year has passed since my father went into the hospital for Covid. Without going into too many details, he suffered an accident in the hospital and passed away two months later. We had a celebration of life for him in the spring, and I thought I would share my speech here, so that you can know and celebrate him along with me. 

Gratitude

All of my life I have seen my dad through a daughter’s lens. 

He took his role as a father seriously and filled it perfectly. 

Like the time he drove me and my boys to Mexico to reunite with my husband Octavio. We packed up my little two door Nissan, carved out little spaces for the boys to sit amongst the boxes of household items, and hit the road to drive from Santa Clara, California, to Nogales, Mexico. We drove for two days, and then met with Octavio just after crossing the border into Mexico. My dad was a great road trip buddy. I felt safe with him, even as we searched in the border town for the least sketchy hotel,...

Are you stuck in a job or career that is unfulfilling? Do you desire more in your life but don’t really know what that is? Are you tired of setting your own dreams aside only to help others pursue theirs? Do you feel like you're doing it all wrong? You are sacrificing all that time away from your family and the things you love, and for what?

You might  think that it's too late to start over, or that it is too much of a risk. After all, you have a family to support! Maybe you don't feel like you have the luxury of changing directions at this point in your life. You chose this path, you got yourself here, you just have to stick it out - make it work. Maybe you think you have worked too hard to get where you are, and the thought of starting over, at the bottom, feels exhausting. You might spend hours scrolling through job listings, as if somehow you will find the answer there, only to feel uninspired and even more desperate. 

The truth is that it is never too late. The...

I created a bookmark for this title in my blog five months ago. Hmm, maybe I am not the right person to be giving advice on procrastination! The truth is, we all procrastinate. Some more than others. Out of the free "life skills" tools that I have created for people to level up in their lives, the Five Days and Five Ways to Beat Procrastination has definitely been the most popular and most needed tool to date. 

There are a variety of theories out there as to why we procrastinate. Here are ten reasons why we procrastinate and a way to fix each one. 

Fear of Failure 

The truth is, procrastination is riddled with fear. You can call it fear of failure, or even fear of success, but at the root it is fear of change. Your ego will fight at all costs to keep you from evolving, and fear is one of its most powerful tools. I would even venture to say that all of the other reasons listed below for why we procrastinate, fear is always lurking in the background. The fear might show...

Today I learned of the passing of a friend. Our sons went to elementary and middle school together. I wasn't expecting it; it happened almost out of the blue. There was a time when it wouldn't have been such a surprise. A tragedy, of course, but not a surprise. In 2017 she was diagnosed with lymphoma. She underwent eight rounds of chemo, radiation, and topped it off with an autologous stem cell transplant. Her descriptions of the treatment were that it was brutal - especially the stem cell transplant. In her words, "This treatment pushed me physically and mentally in a way that none of the chemo or radiation of the previous 10 months had come close to." But there was light at the end of that tunnel, and she was declared cancer free in March of 2018.

Our boys were in fifth grade at the time. Her son chose my son, Andres, and another friend to be a part of his support group at school. They had some lunch time sessions with their teacher where they formed a safe space for him to share...

This past year, born out of an international pandemic, I launched my first ever location independent business. It has been a dream of mine since before I can remember, and now finally, at the age of 48, after careers in dance, real estate, event planning, and start-ups, I have done it. For the first time in my life I have truly aligned my passions, my talents, my skills, and my values, and poured them into a business that allows me to have a positive impact on peoples’ lives. And I can do that from anywhere in the world as long as I am connected to the Internet. 

But we all know that starting a business isn’t easy. In the beginning, as you are building, it feels like you are pushing a boulder up a hill. Some days you make very little progress. Other days it feels like there are too many obstacles. Then there are glorious days, where the ground seems to level out, even just for that day, and you make enough progress to keep you going. 

As I continue to push my...

What is confidence? Let's get right down to the nitty gritty of it. We're going to talk about what confidence is, and possibly more importantly, what it isn't. We'll also address some common misconceptions about confidence and explore our own personal relationship with it. So let's dive in.

The definition of confidence is: 

A feeling of self-assurance arising from one's appreciation of one's own abilities or qualities.

Let's use it in a sentence:

Hazel was confident that she would win the tennis match.

So why was Hazel confident that she would win the match? Did she have some kind of psychic powers that told her so? Possibly, but most likely not. I would guess that she had won lots of matches before. I would surmise that she has trained for many hours to gain the skills that she needs in order to win a tennis match. 

Now if the sentence was: Hazel is a confident person, that would be very different. That would mean that in general, and in most situations, Hazel is...

Starting over can be so overwhelming that quite frankly, most of the time it never happens.

We justify NOT doing anything about it with a variety of excuses:

• I'm too old to start over
• I don't have the experience that I would need to change careers
• I don't have the education I would need to get that job
• I've never started a business before, I wouldn't even know where to start
• I can't afford to quit my job
• I don't have the money to start a business
• I don't even know what I want
• I should be happy with what I have
• I'm not qualified
• I don't have the confidence to put myself out there
• Looking for a job is the worst (this one is true!)

Our egos do an amazing job of keeping us right where we are. Their job is to keep us right there in the safety of our comfort zone, even though our comfort zone might have become quite uncomfortable.

Isn't it amazing how long we allow ourselves to stay uncomfortable? Why do we do that? For the most part it is:

• Fear of getting MORE uncomfortable 
• Lack...

Have you had an online course brewing in your brain for some time now? If you are overwhelmed with the idea of actually going from idea to product, start with Part 1 and Part 2 of this series. Breaking down a big task such as creating an online course really is the key to achieving your goal. I have broken the process down into 10 steps, from idea to execution including the very important part of sales and marketing your course. 

In part 3 you will learn about some of those steps, post content creation, that are super important to the success of your online course. After all, what is the point of having one if users all over the world don't get to benefit from it!

Step 7 to Creating an Online Course - Pricing and Beta Testing

What are you going to charge? Checking out the competition is a great way to start as you are trying to pinpoint a price point. What are other people charging? How do their courses compare with yours in terms of what they are offering and promising? Who is...

In Part 1 of this series, we talked about how to get started in the process of creating your first online course. At this point in the process, you should have at least a first draft of your course content planned out. This includes a general outline broken down into modules each having their own title and content. 

Now it is time to think about how you will deliver your content to your audience. What platform will you use, what medium you will use to deliver the content, and what supplemental materials will be available to your clients to help them master your course or topic.

Step 4 to Creating an Online Course - Creating Supplemental Material

Oftentimes there are supplemental materials to go along with a course. These come in a variety of different forms:

• Worksheets 
• PDFs 
• Printables
• Templates
• Workbooks
• eBooks
• Audio files
• Journals

These materials can be supplementary reading or a way for people to do assignments between modules and put some of what you have been...

For as long as I can remember I dreamt of having a location independent business. I am a wanderlust at heart. I come by it honestly--my father has the same itch to travel and experience other cultures as do most of my siblings. My first experience with travel was when I graduated from college and purchased a one-way ticket to Europe. At the time my brother was studying printmaking in Italy, and my sister was teaching English in Hungary. After a few months of traveling around Europe and visiting them, my friend and I set up a home base in Prague where we lived for the next year and a half or so, taking the occasional trip including the time we hitchhiked from Prague to Barcelona. 

I learned that one of my happy places is on the road. I also learned that travel provides an educational experience that is second to none. Perhaps it is this free spirit in me that pushes me towards entrepreneurship and the laptop lifestyle that would allow me to adventure as much as my heart desires....