Life keeps showing me things I didn’t know to look for.

Part one · Before I Left

One book, cover to cover.

The summer after college, I’d been applying for jobs for months. I went on several interviews, and nothing landed. I was looking for some sense of career direction.

One day I went to the library for books about how to make money, and found Robert Kiyosaki’s Rich Dad, Poor Dad. I sat down with it and didn’t get up until I’d finished.

It showed me I didn’t have to wait for someone to choose me. I could build something of my own, and if I wanted to build anything, I’d need to learn to sell.

That became my direction.

I didn’t know yet what I’d build. It would take me years to find the shape of it.

Part one · Before I Left

Three questions before closing time.

Sales was going well, but I was increasingly anxious and disconnected. I began exploring Bob Proctor’s Success Puzzle and had just finished the section on paradigms.

The next day, just before the office closed, I sat down and improvised an exercise. I wrote down the answers to three questions: What was my most painful memory? What was I most grateful for in my life? Would I have what I was grateful for without that painful experience?

The answer was no.

As I stood up, tears streamed down my face. I walked through downtown Minneapolis in the wrong direction and didn’t care.

The worst thing that had happened to me was part of the best. That was the beginning of an awakening.

Part one · Before I Left

Opening a market among nonprofits.

At Siteimprove, the attention was on our Fortune 1000 market. I chose to open a new one among nonprofits instead. I liked that they stood for something. Management didn’t expect much to come of it.

For a long time, it was just me. I found the prospects, ran the demonstrations, and carried every deal from beginning to end. It was slow, tedious work.

Then they handed me the New Vertical MVP award. Pound for pound, I’d outsold the people working our Fortune 1000 market.

I hadn’t known I was doing that well. I’d just been doing work I believed in, one conversation at a time.

Part one · Before I Left

The art of the cold message.

By the time I joined the early team at Demand, I thought I knew how to get meetings. I certainly knew how much work it took.

Then I started working under Daniel Z. Daniel is a genius, and learning from him was like drinking fire out of a garden hose. He doesn’t hold back his opinions. For several months, my work wasn’t acceptable to him.

Slowly, what he’d been teaching me took hold: “magic logic,” “equals networking,” writing deliberately in a natural, human tone. A message didn’t have to be pushed. Written well, it could bring meetings in without my sending every one myself.

Eventually, my work was deemed acceptable. I began writing outreach campaigns for our clients and mentoring the account managers in their messaging.

A few words, written well, can open a door. It took a garden hose of fire for me to learn how.

Part two · Five years abroad

Chanting beside José.

I’d spent years communicating for a living, but for most of my adult life I’d been too insecure to share my singing voice.

Tulum was the last stop on my travels. I arrived in 2021, and a couple of months later met José and Ina at The Light Portal, a weekly healing gathering I attended as a participant. When I booked a private session with them, José served me rapé snuff and began chanting.

He was shaking maracas beside my ears, still chanting, when I began chanting too. It was the first time, and I couldn’t stop.

I still chant every day. It’s usually where I see the next step.

Part two · Five years abroad

Laughter across the fire.

At my first ayahuasca ceremony, held in the Huni Kuin tradition, I wandered over and curled up beside the fire. I thought I was alone. My heart burst open, and I started laughing.

Then, from somewhere across the fire, I heard Sebastián laughing. I laughed harder, and he laughed harder. Back and forth we went until the laughter seemed to have a life of its own.

The next morning, people told me they’d started calling me the Laughing Buddha. It hadn’t mattered where they’d been sitting. My laughter had felt right beside them all night.

Part two · Five years abroad

A song, and a wider voice.

When Tien walked into a room, it felt like Santa Claus had arrived. The room brightened before he’d even said anything. A few minutes later, you’d realize he’d been making everyone else feel like they were the reason he was happy to be there.

My voice was beginning to open when I met him. During a Bufo ceremony, he stood beside me as a full song came through. With it, my voice opened into much wider, different ranges than I’d ever experienced before.

Afterward, people wanted to hear me sing in ceremonies. Within a short period, Tien invited me to join The Light Portal as a facilitator.

Part two · Five years abroad

The Blue Dragon.

I was working with Panshin Nima in my first Shipibo dieta, a period of dedicated work in that healing tradition.

During an ayahuasca ceremony, I met a blue dragon. It blew smoke on me, and a message came with it: “The Blue Dragon is the guardian of all life, and it wants you to take this seriously. Slow down. Focus. Control.”

Mosquitoes left me alone for over a year afterward.

Part two · Five years abroad

A dieta over Zoom.

I didn’t think a screen could carry much. Ben, also known as Maestro Metsa Meni, is a Shipibo healer. We worked together over Zoom through healing chants. Our Marosa dieta was energetic only; we worked without taking plants. I was sitting at home in Tulum, with him on the other side of the call.

During that work, I experienced what I call a high-heart opening: an intoxicating state of love. Some of the deepest experiences of my life happened there, at home.

I’m still studying with Ben. Now I chant for people over Zoom myself.

Part three · Bringing it together

Beginning private work.

When I was a core facilitator at The Light Portal in Tulum, people began asking to work with me privately after our group ceremonies. I didn’t feel confident guiding an individual session, so I referred them to colleagues.

That lack of confidence inspired me to train as a Biofield Tuning practitioner when I returned home to the States. The training gave me a structure for how to guide an energetic session that made intuitive sense to me.

It gave me somewhere to stand. Eventually, I began taking private clients, and over time, my voice became the main instrument.

Part three · Bringing it together

He handed me work.

On a return trip to Mexico, I spent three days with Abuelo Antonio, a Mayan elder. He hugged me and said, “Nice heart… Beautiful heart.” Chickens and dogs roamed free, people gathered around him, and he shared what he had.

I’d gone looking for wisdom. He handed me work: carry this, sweep that, feed the fire.

Within a few days of leaving that trip, a new sound emerged from my voice: a warble that still comes through my chanting, carrying the energy of laughter.

Part three · Bringing it together

The pieces I’d kept apart.

I’d spent years helping other people open doors through cold messaging. But I couldn’t do it for my own energy work. I didn’t think my sales background was spiritual enough to belong there. I’d walled off one of the things I do best.

On the first day of my advanced bullet journaling cohort, I took inventory of my work and poured my heart out about what I’d been keeping apart. The next morning, I saw the two were meant for each other.

From there, I shaped a new offer that brought them together, and built a campaign around it. Within days, people I’d never met were landing on my calendar. This was actually happening. I’m still finding out where it leads.