Hello friends and family,

I hope your month has kicked off with the right energy! Thank you to everyone who replied to the last email and sent me their wisdom for my 40s. Replies are coming soon.

I got the sweetest message from a friend who said we should all take some inspiration from my birthday celebration plan to celebrate life more and I agree. If you don’t know the full plan starts with the year compass and me on a date with myself to spend about 3 hours unpacking the year and planning the upcoming one.

Then I add all my favourite things: salsa dancing, sleeping in late for a morning, bread from my favourite bakery, listening to my favourite album, catching up with friends, and creating an event for my favourite people. It’s a lot of tiny things that I love doing, seeing, eating, and moments from previous versions of me that I don’t usually get to indulge in…(like sleeping until 2 pm).

Why wait for someone to celebrate you when you can just do it yourself? Life is short and we have such little time, so we should make the most of it.

This week's theme is “Growth”

Do you allow yourself to grow, to change, to become a different version of yourself or are you still a version of yourself 10 years ago? I ask this because I had a curious conversation with someone recently and I watched them work through this during our chat.

He started with a solid stance of who he is and what he believes and midway he started changing his perspective. I mentioned a few times the word ‘yet’.

This is a potent word that we often don’t realise can be a trigger for changing ourselves.

Like this:

• I don’t have time to workout…yet

• I don’t know anything about saving/ investing money…yet

• I don’t have these skills…yet.

Yet is one of my favourite words to use when working with people because I know if I can get them to start adding in the word yet, it will make a huge shift in their lives.

Your task this week:

• Make a list of 10 things that you hold true about yourself and see if you can add the word yet at the end.

Remember each week, we are just moving one tiny step forward to creating a life you love. 

🤙🏾 Inspiration Labs

Inspiration Labs is a 1-hour call where we dive into your project, career, life, or big dream. This free session is to gain clarity, dream bigger, and walk out with 1 action step to start moving forward. This is the value I am adding back to the world 💫

I will open new sessions weekly for this. To have this available to everyone, you are allowed 1 session only. (Sorry I wish, I had all the time in the world to only do this but I have to work too)

I don’t think we ever figured out life or a way of living forever. I think it’s a constant play to make it work for each new level of life. There are some good perspectives in this video from someone in their 60s. I hope you are redefining your age to work for you!

🎨 Artists Who Inspire

Jaume Piensa

This is currently on in Madrid for all of you that are close by, go check it out. The mind and vision of a master. Meet artist Jaume Piensa, whose giant sculptures make you think. His work reminds me of the caligraphy of El Seed’s pieces.

This would be on my art bucket list to own for sure!

🎶 Song of the week

She is one of my all-time favourites in the world. Sheila-E, is one of my biggest inspirations for drumming and life. She is starting a whole new chapter at 67 years old. Enjoy this tiny desk concert of hers. If you didn’t know it’s full Latin month at Tiny Desk…all my favourites and more for October, enjoy.

✈️ Travel Inspo

“To travel is to wash your eyes”

Opening up more of the world to you…this section will be shared by travelers. Feel free to reply with your travel pic and some words to share!

✌🏾 Pay it forward

New Section Unlocked: This space is for any of you to share projects, go-fund mes, help needed, etc.

❤️Made by Stephanie

I met Steph many years ago at a Pecha Kucha talk. She was one of the people who stood out the most during my time in Cape Town. Her dedication to the community and helping those around her is admirable. It’s been over 10 years of her serving her community. Cooking on big pots outside and making it happen consistently through donations from those around her.

This is a project based in South Africa. If you feel called to donate you can drop her a message at [email protected] or hit the link below and contact her via her Facebook account.

💫 Send me info if you want to use this space 🙂 Happy to help promote those who need it.

Final thoughts:

It’s been over a year of us watching a genocide. I don’t think there was ever a time when seeing such an injustice was acceptable but after 1 full year and now the expansion into Lebanon, I am in awe at how the powers of the world are allowing this. Our journey on earth is to uncover the truth of lies told to us. Even if you do not boycott or march or support a movement, do yourself a favor and go do some research behind these worldly issues. I think we owe it to those who died to at least walk in truth.

(Sidenote, a few years ago I was in the Vietnam War museum in Saigon and was shocked at the photos and collection of facts. 2 years ago I was in the school that was transformed into a space to remember those who died in Cambodia during Khmer Rouge…and I remember sitting for a while in the garden with my Cambodian friend, both of us taking a moment to let this reality settle in….I can only imagine someone in a future generation doing the same in the area of Palestine.)

This note was supposed to be different… but hey this is reality. It’s a weird feeling knowing that in the future someone is going to ask me what was I doing during the genocide in Palestine and my answer will be salsa dancing in Mexico. WTF.

✈️ Final note...I Made This 📒 ...You can click the link below to buy That Travel Book (My First Baby). Please drop an Amazon review as well…much needed for that platform. Thank you!

🚀 Click here to SEND this to your best friend for their Dose of Love from you ➡️