A lifetime of ADVENTURE

Living in the Magic

As exciting and fun as it was making my home in Spain, eventually, I began to feel like something was missing. Teaching English had begun to take on the same monotonous pace as my previous corporate job. What's more, my romantic life had been virtually nonexistent since I had left my first boyfriend years before.

 

Hoping to make sense of my feelings, I returned to Los Angeles, only to wind up back at the same office I had fought so desperately to escape. This time, however, instead of again falling victim to my own disappointment, I held fast to the belief that I had the power to manifest experiences more magical than those I was living.

 

For the next few years, I spent my time and my money on a string of adventurous firsts, like buying and learning to ride a motorcycle, SCUBA diving in the Caribbean and Red Seas, and skydiving over the California coast.

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Seeking Purpose

Although checking off my bucket list of experiences had brought me great joy, over the long-term, it wasn't all that fulfilling. In an effort to bring more meaning into my life, I purposefully shifted the focus away from myself and began to put the spotlight on others.

 

Following my intuition, I designed and built an internet broadcast studio in my bedroom where I began to livestream interviews with successful people who had turned their passion into a profession. The more I learned about the entertainment industry, the more my new show grew, and, after a few months, I succeeded in moving it to a live one-hour spot at a local TV station. Eventually, the inspiring content my volunteer crew of 30 and I produced each week on Wake UP! Explore your Passion was syndicated, achieving a peak of 1.5 million views every day.

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Despite its reach and a tremendous effort on my part, our show was costing more to run than it was earning. Poor planning, poor communication, and poor management of my emotions had left me drained and poor, in every sense of the word. Uninspired and unable to turn a sustaining profit, after twelve episodes and two spin-off series, I finally made the difficult decision to pull the plug.

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Dejected, disillusioned, and drifting once more, I was desperate for a reset. After completing two more grand adventures, one to Egypt and one through Asia, I sat down with my roommates in my L.A. apartment for movie night. Serendipitously, the flick I had chosen triggered a memory from when I lived in Spain about an ancient pilgrimage route called the Camino de Santiago. A mystical series of trails that criss-crosses all of Europe, people have been walking parts of the Camino for some 2,000 years. While everyone's motivation for walking was different, I could think of no better way to gain the clarity of life-direction I needed so badly.