When I was 7 years old, my mom was driving me to ballet class. I was in the back wrapping my hair into the perfect bun. This bun was a process and it had to be completed to perfection. Tight, taught. Immobile. And in the right place on my head. Not directly on top. And not too close to the nape of the neck either. It had to be perfectly balanced, right before the gentle curve of my head sloped down to my spine. Teetering on the perfect pointe.

THERE WERE FOUR INSTRUMENTAL STEPS THAT WENT INTO THE CREATION AND PERFECTION OF THIS BUN.

Step one: pull top half of hair into a half/up half-down on the crux of the head. Tie it. Step two, pull bottom half of hair to meet the half-done pony into a full ponytail. Tie it again. Step three: : twist the ponytail and wrap it around itself. Tie again. Step four: bobby pin stray hairs and spay with Aquanet. (Yes, I said it...Aquanet.)

The perfection of this bun determined how the next 60-minutes of my ballet class were going to go. Should it spiral...

It was this time two years ago that I found out...I was pregnant. And it was in that moment that I started to freak the fuck out.

You see, I wasn’t ready. And yeah, I know no one is really ever ready for the craziness of parenthood. But I REEEEEEALLLY, wasn’t ready.

I was unfulfilled teaching Pilates at my own studio...

I’d taken a side job teaching Pilates at a studio where I also was feeling unfulfilled...

Spike and I had separated ourselves from my parents while my dad got sober...

I was doing coaching in my car for $100 a month!

And I’d had this expensive blog, called Crown Yourself, that Is always wanted to turn into a coaching business, but I didn’t think anyone would take me seriously with all the sparkle. (LIES!)

I felt so alone.

BUT THEN, AS THE DIVINE WOULD HAVE IT, I WASN’T.

A little Being was growing inside me. A little being was dependent upon me for life.

BEST. THING. EVER.

IT WAS LIKE DECLAN WAS GROWING IN THE PLACE MY FEAR AND SHAME USED TO LIVE. I USED TO BE...

We lovingly called him Dr. Always Wrong. On our first ultrasound visit, he saw that my placenta was covering my cervix, which, had it stayed that way would have ensured a C-section, something that I was simply unavailable for. He told me I had a 50/50 chance of it moving.

I SAID, “GREAT, I’M ALREADY HALFWAY THERE!”

Meanwhile, my midwives had no qualm about the placenta moving. And it did. And I had my son exactly as I wanted to have him - naturally, in a tub, like a merman. (You can see the final result on Chicken Soup for the Soul’s Netflix show, “Being Dad”)

AS A HIGH PERFORMANCE COACH, I SEE DAY IN AND DAY OUT HOW WE ARE SHAPED BY OUR BELIEFS.

Everyone has the ability to shift our perceptions of what’s possible, given the information they choose to share with us. And, the information we choose to accept shapes and sometimes creates our beliefs about what is possible.

The people who raised you, be it your mother or father shaped your perception of the world from infancy. Perhaps...

Like many women, finding that right guy was a mystery to me for a long time. I’d gotten it wrong so many times in the past. I questioned my judgement. I questioned whether there really was someone out there who could handle all this sparkle.

SOMETIMES I EVEN QUESTIONED MY SANITY FOR JUMPING BACK INTO THE DATING POOL AFTER SEVERAL MAJOR FAILS.

Then, one night back in 2012, when I wasn’t looking for ANYONE, while I was on my way to a networking event, I said a prayer. I had just turned off my street, paused at a stoplight and said, “God, I just want to learn more about me. I want to be 100% authentically me...oh, and I want to travel.”

That was my deepest desire.

Because all my failed relationships were stepping stones on a search to understand who I was, what I wanted. And I was tired of living by other people’s rules as to what that would look like.

After successfully having a film that I co-wrote be produced and distributed, after successfully owning a private pilates business, a...

When I started my first online business 6 years ago, the online arena was sooooo much simpler. Email list. Facebook. Youtube.

THOSE WERE THE GIANTS. AND IT WAS PRETTY SIMPLE. A POST. A VIDEO. AN EMAIL. EASY PEASY.

Maybe we’d Twitter from time to time or throw up an Insta image, since Instagram was in its toddler years back then.

But, now...

A new social media platform emerges every minute! And every existing platform keeps adding on more stuff...Insta Stories, InstaTV, Facebook Live, Facebook Messenger, Facebook groups, Facebook stories, Facebook group stories, Facebook page stories.

AAAAAAAAAAAHHHH!

SOCIAL MEDIA MARKETING IS HERE TO STAY, BUT THE OVERWHELM OF IT ALL CAN GO.

That’s because in my interview with social media strategist, Sarah Lorenz, we break down what platforms you should be on for your business, and we practice the K.I.S.S. model - Keep It Simple Silly.

After studying marketing, working as a Marketing Manager and becoming a freelancer, she now runs her own busi...

Every bar needs a good bouncer, right? Well, so does your body.

NEGATIVE EMOTIONS ARE TOXIC FOR YOUR BODY.

And just like any good bar, your body needs a team to tell those negative emotions to BOUNCE, especially when they get drunk off of Fear and start tainting the fun for everyone.

Anger, anxiety, and depression can trigger inflammation linked to heart disease. Stress, which is the fancy-modern name for fear, literally makes your body stupid. Too much stress causes your blood to coagulate faster. It causes the natural peristalsis in your intestines to slow.

This is all well and good if you’re stressed out because you’re being chased by a saber tooth tiger. Being in fight-or-flight mode is necessary…in that moment.

But, it’s not so good if your stress is because of too many distractions because you’re multitasking five different things, downing cup-after-cup of caffeine with an overwhelming to-do list that’s barely done.

That’s why every single high performer has healthy self-ca...

Been a while since you slid into the splits, isn’t it? I get it. You’re a little older than you were two years ago and maybe that fave yoga teacher of yours moved away. And between balancing growing your business, managing the day-to-day, and the kids who has time to stretch, right?

FLEXIBILITY IS COMMONLY THE LAST THING PEOPLE THINK ABOUT...UNTIL THEY’RE IN PHYSICAL PAIN.

In my Pilates days, one of the most common problems I saw was a lack of flexibility. Back then, I only assessed the physical. Yet, as I learned more about our glorious minds, flexibility is a key to maintaining sanity let alone physical agility. Looking back on the hundreds of clients I worked with in Pilates, the ones who were the most stressed out, most emotionally taxed, most stuck in a fixed mindset (meaning totally not open to new ideas or new ways of thinking) were also the ones who were the LEAST flexible physically.

You see, back in 1989 Dr. Deepak Chopra, in his book Quantum Healing, said that “Neurotrans...

Have you ever been on a roll with your productivity and then suddenly...WHAM...life hits you in the face? Do you ever start practicing a new habit, like journaling everyday, and you’re feeling super awesome, like things are finally unlocking for you for a couple weeks and then...HOLY SHIT...a freaking tsunami of doubt, fear, and anxiety wreck havoc on your emotions? Have you ever started putting yourself out there, maybe jumping back into the dating scene, or actually doing those Facebook Live-streams for your business that used to scare the crap out of you, and then suddenly, all you want to do is crawl in a hole and hide?

I SOOOO GET IT. AND YOU KNOW WHAT ELSE, THIS IS TO BE EXPECTED. IN FACT, IT’S NATURAL...LITERALLY.

One of my awesome high performance clients was rocking a new meditation practice. She’d committed to doing 100 days of meditation. (Dang girl...get it!) After two weeks, both she and I could see a massive transformation. She was more assertive, confident, joyous, and...

“Why mama?” Spike and I hear a toddler say while on our regular hike up Tesmescal Canyon in Pacific Palisades, CA. We look to each other, knowing that our days of Declan’s blissful baby talk are coming to an end. Soon we will transition into toddlerhood, and our son will begin to unequivocally question everything.

And rightly so.

OUR QUESTIONS CAN FACILITATE MASSIVE CHANGE AND RAPID GROWTH...

Or they can keep us stuck in victim-hood. Questions are powerful.

Look at the difference in the power of these questions:

• Why does this always happen to me?

• What can I do differently so this doesn’t happen to me again?

The first question will leave you with a lot of reasons, excuses, and limiting beliefs that keep you stuck.

“It must be because I’m too fat/skinny/old/tall/short/feminine/masculine…” And the list can go on for as many reasons that you can give it. The problem is that takes away ownership or any ability for you to create change.

IF IT’S SOMEBODY ELSE FAULT, OR SO...