A Life Built on Strategy. A Year That Changed the Blueprint.

Today, I sat in the quiet of my room and began my morning the way I’ve learned to, slowly.

Journal open.
Three words written with intention.
Five cards pulled from my oracle deck.

What struck me wasn’t the cards themselves, but how perfectly they mirrored the words I had already chosen. Not aspirational words. Not hopeful ones. Just honest ones. Words rooted in where I am now.

It reminded me of something I recently heard from Rabbi Steve Leder that stopped me cold:

“He’s given up all hope of a better past.”

So simple.
So profound.
And yet, so complicated.

I wish it were as easy as shaking an Etch A Sketch, erasing mistakes, removing what no longer fits, and starting clean. But this past year has taught me something truer: the past isn’t something we delete. It’s something we integrate.

I wrote this on January 8th, one year and one day after the fire ravaged my community and changed my life forever.

The day before, and through that evening, and again the morning...

Today marks one year since the fire erupted.

January 7, 2025. Three hundred sixty-five days since everything familiar- the home, the history, the illusions- went up in flames.

As this anniversary approached, I found myself thinking less about what was lost and more about what it has taken to heal, not just individually, but also in partnership.

For months after the fire, I didn’t have the words for what I was feeling.

The grief was too big. The losses are too layered. The shock is too deep.
I kept moving; doing, managing, surviving because stopping felt dangerous.

It wasn’t until I started writing that something finally softened.

Writing became the place where my nervous system exhaled.
Where truth could surface without interruption.
Where I could name what hurt, what was lost, what was changing, and what was quietly being rebuilt.

And unexpectedly, writing became the bridge back to myself and to Mitch.

As I put words to what I had been carrying, the fear, ...

This is part 5 of 5. Read Part one here  |  Read Part two here | Read Part three here | Read Part four here

This year taught me something I wish I had understood much earlier:

Identity isn’t who we build, it’s who we already are.

It’s the stories we tell ourselves… until we finally learn to hear the truth beneath them.

For decades, I shaped my identity around what the world reflected to me:
Titles.
Roles.
Achievements.
The circles I kept.
The validation that came from being dependable, capable, and strong.

And yet, I was often misunderstood.

People saw me as intense, direct, and even intimidating at times.
But underneath all of that was something softer:

A deeply sensitive, empathetic woman who feels the world more acutely than most.

That sensitivity has always been my gift,  the way I see patterns, truth, and possibility long before they fully emerge.

But for most of my life, I was told I was too sensitive. It became an insecurity instead of the strength it truly ...

This is part 4 of 5. Read Part one here  |  Read Part two here | Read Part three here

It’s been a heavy week.

Australia.
Brown University.
A home in California was terrorized for placing a menorah in the window.

And the senseless murder of Michelle and Rob Reiner. People I knew during those early parenting years, when everything felt innocent and possible.

Some weeks, the world presses down so hard that moving through it feels like wading through water. This week, my body has felt it all: low energy, a quiet mind, and everything in slow motion.

And still, tonight is the fifth night of Hanukkah.

We are closing out the month of Kislev, the month that holds the tension between darkness and light. Hanukkah teaches us that a single flame can push back a vast night. But if I’m honest, there are moments when holding that flame feels almost impossible.

Yet Kislev rolls into Tevet on December 21, and Tevet is a month of resilience.

Not loud resilience.
Not performati...

 This is part 3 of 5. Read Part one here  |  Read Part two here

After last week's blog, "What the Fire Actually Took," my inbox filled in ways I hadn't expected. Messages poured in: tender, brave, mirrored back to me from strangers and friends alike. And what I realized, sitting inside all that reflection, is this:

Vulnerability doesn't isolate us. It gathers us.

In the stillness of my quiet room, where I begin most mornings with intention and listening, something else came into focus with startling clarity:

My trauma had been writing my drama.

For much of my life, I didn't think of myself as "traumatized." I thought I was resilient. Capable. High-functioning. The one who handled things. It wasn't until November of 2021, when I was diagnosed with a brain tumor, metastasized from my original cancer in 2016, that the word trauma stopped being theoretical.

From diagnosis to surgery: 23 days.

Tests. Bloodwork. Experimental radiation. Putting my house in order....

 This is part 2 of 5. Read Part one here

About eleven months ago, our lives looked very different.  If I’m being honest, it was already cracking.

Our home was beautiful, but our foundation wasn’t. The space between family members had grown wide and brittle. And the only way I knew how to cope was by closing doors,  emotional ones, mostly, and staying busy enough not to feel the ache underneath.

Then the fire came.

It took everything I thought was mine; every object, photograph, and memory, gone in a single night.  But what I’ve learned since is that the fire didn’t just take things.
It took illusion.

In the ashes, I found truth.

Truth about my family, my past, my patterns, and about who I’ve always been underneath all of it.

For decades, I tried to find that truth through therapy, travel, meditation, building a business, Torah study, ketamine journeys, workshops, mentors, teachers, all of it. But none of it cracked me open the way the fire did.

Loss has a ...

I haven't written publicly in over a year. Not because I had nothing to say, but because I was living through something I couldn't yet put into words. This is the first of five pieces about what happened when everything burned down, and what I'm building from the ashes.

It's been a while since I've written.

Not because I didn't have something to say, but because life rerouted me. The kind of rerouting that changes your view before you even realize you've turned a corner.

When we last connected, everything I was building felt aligned. Every experience, every lesson, every pivot had brought me to exactly where I thought I was supposed to be.

Then, in the summer of 2023, I was chosen to lead in a new way. An opportunity that felt both validating and sacred. It reconnected me to the proud Jewish woman I've always been and allowed me to build and nurture community in ways that felt beautifully aligned with my soul's purpose.

That season gave me something I didn't kn...

Have you ever thought about the “cost” of doing business?

The financial, physical, and mental cost of it all?

After reading that 90% of new businesses fail and 10% of those fail within the first year and 45% of them within the first 2 years, I started asking myself, why?

So many reasons:

➛ burning through money
➛ lack of research
➛ bad partnerships
➛ ineffective marketing
➛ not being an expert in their niche

With entrepreneurship among women, specifically, women like us on the rise - that’s a lot of people giving up. 

In this week's episode of The Power of the Pivot, I share my perspective on the five stages of building a business and how those stages can help you keep going even when you feel like giving up. 

As an artisan, creative, and visionary shiny object syndrome can distract you and take you off course on the road to your dreams. A lack of a clear vision, plan, strategy, and systems can also lead to failure.

Here are a few takeaways:

📍creating systems for recurr...

I was conversing the other day with a client and she asked me if she was the only one whose emotions waffled as much as hers.

And the answer was NO!

None of us are robots, even though the chatter and obsession around AI might be telling us differently. 

You’re human and your emotions will fluctuate from day to day if not from hour to hour.

In my groups, we call those down times “being under the covers.” Which gives everyone permission to feel the way they need to feel at that exact moment.

In this week’s episode of The Power of the Pivot podcast, I talk about those ups and downs and why now is a good time to reevaluate your intentions.

There’s always a lot of pressure surrounding those first-of-the-year aspirations or goals. Yet, you and I both know that 9 times out of 10, those ideas or dreams fall flat.

The reason why they do is because they are just words or ideas on a page. They lack a plan and or a strategy for achieving them.

I am here to tell you ...

It has become clearer with each conversation that I have that we are all craving connection, conversation, and community.

Feeling alone and lonely is affecting our happiness and our well-being. 

Because of that, my friend and lifestyle and brand photographer, Sheryl Wachtel, and I are creating a modern way to gather, focusing on building on the skills, knowledge, talent, and expertise you already have and re-packaging them. 

Introducing, Let’s Brand You, an intimate group experience designed to improve your relationship with you. 

Whether you want to build confidence, new connections, or gain a fresh perspective, you will walk away feeling transformed and energized.

You’re one of a kind - from your personality to your process - let’s tell your story!

What it is:

A four-hour, in-person gathering, where you will uncover a fresh perspective on how you present yourself to the world.

 When you leave you will walk away with your:

 ➣ Headshots - 2 professional images o...