This week, I was reminded - again - that growth never happens inside our comfort zone. And trust me, if comfort zones were real places, mine would have absolutely no funnels in sight. But I have been on a mission… and I knew my “You Don’t Know What You Don’t Know” summit was non-negotiable. It came through to me in a meditation 6 months ago, and despite being on a very crazy adventure, I never gave up. The message was to make this community a resource centre by interviewing women who had been through the struggles and made it to the other side - now living a beautiful life. It was about giving women hope - to go along with those resources. I simply knew I had to do it. But with this mission came all the obstacles: the fear, the overthinking, and the feeling of not being ready, because I never will be. I fell behind this week, and last week, and last month, and the three months before that… not because I’m not capable. But because I’m human. And life kept moving. And so did I… even if it was slower and messier than I planned. I knew it was not about doing it perfectly. It was about doing it because it needs to be done. Because when you have something that the world needs, something that comes from a place of truth and purpose - you owe it to yourself to take action… even if you feel scared, unprepared, or a little bit lost in the tech world. We all have a message that deserves to be heard.We all have a story that’s meant to be shared.But if we wait for the perfect moment, the perfect setup, the confidence… we risk taking that message to the grave with us. And that is one regret I refuse to carry. So I’m choosing courage over comfort, progress over perfection.And I chose to keep building the skills, the confidence, and the resilience it takes to follow the vision placed inside me. If you’re reading this, maybe you needed this reminder to: Do it scared. Do it messy. Do it anyway. But for the love of your future self - just do it. Because something beautiful is trying to move through you too.

It’s Monday. And I completely forgot to write a Sunday Short Story. Sometimes things slip our mind, even when they’re part of our routine. We get distracted, busy doing other things. This Sunday I attended Kimberly’s church, and had an amazing southern hospitality experience. I wrote about it in Yvonne’s Crazy Adventure. Experiencing something is not the same as reading about it, or hearing someone else’s story. Even the best authors and storytellers, that take us into their world, cannot compare to being in the experience. At church yesterday, it was all the handshakes, the genuineness of the people, listening to the singing, tasting the southern food at the potluck, hearing the southern accents - while they heard my Canadian one. Hearing stories allows us to use our senses in our imagination, but there is nothing like the real thing. You know what it’s like to taste an orange. You know the sweetness (or sourness), the flavor, the texture, chewing the pulp, separating the segment. But when you actually eat an orange - all these things are amplified. It’s the energy. The energy of the people, the food, the music, the environment… It’s also the interaction. In our imagination, we can create the story but our senses cannot fully engage. Touching, tasting, smelling, seeing, listening - they all amplifier our experience. Often we live through other people. We read books, scroll TikTok, watch movies, follow TV shows… We get so focussed on other people’s lives, that we forget to have our own experiences. Sometimes it can be as simple as going for a walk in nature. Think about how you feel during that experience, versus watching somebody on the screen walking through nature. It is a completely different vibe when you are immersed. Slow down and appreciate what is around you. Next time you are cooking dinner, slow down - take in the smells, listen to the sizzling, feel the textures, taste what you are preparing, really look at the food. Think about everything that had to happen in order for that meal to get your dinner from farm to table.

WOW! Has this been a week with a huge learning curve! Who says you can’t teach a couple of old dogs new tricks? I have, of course, arrived in Alabama, and Kimberly and I have been working on getting her first ever workshop ready for tomorrow - so exciting! My Summit is in December (December 10-12 from 9am-12:30pm CST to be exact, just for a little “plug”) and I will also need to be figuring out the tech side. We are two non-techies now determined to be techies. We have made more mistakes doing the tech set up than should be possible - from deleting required funnel pages, redirecting people to the wrong website, not activating campaign e-mails… you get the idea. But here we are - 10pm the night before, AND THE FUNNEL WORKS! If we can do it, anybody can. And hey, if you want to attend Kimberly’s workshop “From Idea, to First sale, to Daily Pay”, the link is HERE. She has 3 amazing guest experts sharing their insights - and they are all multi-millionaires who, at one point, had to figure it out. It will also give you a chance to see our work of art funnel. Okay, we were going for working - the art will come later! Now I am feeling super excited about the tech side of my Summit. Prior to this week, well really two days ago, I was in paralysis due to the aspect of setting up the tech part. Now I have had a complete mindset shift because I KNOW I can do it. It feels so empowering. When we tell ourselves constantly that we can’t do something, we prove ourselves correct. But here’s my new insight - it’s all just skills we haven’t learned YET. I’ve been told this many times before, but only after conquering funnels this week did it really sink in. When you start a new job, you go through training. We learn new things all the time. My habit had been to try and eat an elephant in one bite, then give up (okay, not even start) because it was impossible. These past few days have made me realize when I decide to take bite size pieces, I am fully capable of becoming a tech genius if I set my mind to it.

This week, I’m hopping on a plane and heading to Alabama to hang out with my friend, Kimberly, for 51 days. It’s hard to believe that it’s finally happening! My flight leaves Tuesday. All my insurances are covered, and I know what I’m doing with my car. I’m parking it in airport parking, but not at the actual airport. I chose the place that I parked during my last trip because they have your car all ready for you when you arrive back. You hop off the airport shuttle, and into your warm car. And because it could be very cold when I return in January, I’m putting some extra blankets and my warm down-filled coat in my car. That’s another challenge when you go on vacation – the weather can vary a lot when you return home. For a small fee ($5/day) aggravation factor - Zero. I’m in Alabama during three holidays – American Thanksgiving, Christmas, and New Year’s. It’s interesting because not long ago, during Canadian Thanksgiving, I was thinking about how I will work on my perception of holidays. They have not had much meaning to me, and I wanted to learn to embrace the holiday for what it was intended. Now I get to experience a real American Thanksgiving. We see it in the movies, advertising, commercials for Black Friday. It’s a very different celebration than in Canada. For us, it’s an extended family dinner with turkey, but that’s really about it. Often, people think of it more as a day off of work than a day to be thankful. I guess they’re thankful for a day off of work. Preparing for a vacation can be a lot, as many of you know. There’s so much planning and preparation, and it won’t always go as you wish. I have decided that more than a vacation, I am on an adventure. I am going to trust whatever happens, happens, and I will fully embrace it. Some of my most memorable experiences have been when things go sideways - a 42 hour trip home from Australia spanning 5 countries and lost luggage. Flying to Wichita this past September to have the pilot do an emergency ‘slam on the brakes’ stop on the Denver runway. A straight line is awesome and a lot less stressful, but sometimes sh*t happens. At this phase in my life, I’m living in a snow globe - when things get shaken up, and the snow settles, I don’t know where I will end up but I’ll trust it’s exactly where I’m supposed to be.

The systems are broken, all of them. The government, education, healthcare, financial - they are no longer serving the citizens of the country. The government deficits are insane and that debt will be passed on to generations to come, the education system is not something I would want my kids in, healthcare might be “free” in Canada, but the waitlists are beyond comprehension. The financial institutions - “ the big five”, lack customer service, have extremely high fees, you have to put your firstborn up for collateral to borrow money - they definitely do not care about the customer, and they definitely are not your friend. When smaller financial institutions start up and are successful, the big five just gobble them up by purchasing them - so there is very little competition. My question is, how come people work 40-45 years in a job or two (they often don’t enjoy) for a paycheque that makes them barely comfortable, and when it comes time for retirement, they’re terrified they won’t have enough to live on. The result - they watch TV and maybe go on one vacation a year. And they seem to simply accept this as normal - it’s slavery. Yet many of these same people bash my desire to be an entrepreneur, to follow my “why”, to live my life with my heart - all because I don’t have a steady paycheque. I’ve had some huge financial ups and mostly downs - you don’t have to look past Yvonne’s Crazy Adventures to know about that, but I will have no regrets. When you have a late in life divorce, everything is split in half and time is not on your side. This is where I am at, as so many of you are too. If I did get 2 full-time jobs, I still have a zero percent chance of ever retiring. Also, I would never be able to get two full-time jobs due to the unemployment crisis, as well as my mental health. With entrepreneurship, even if I have a one percent chance of success, I’m willing to take that risk. I understand that not everybody is cut out to be an entrepreneur. You need skin like a rhinoceros. Some people want the comfort of a steady paycheck. Some people absolutely love their job, are happy to go to work, come home and not have the extra responsibility. It is a very personal choice and there is no right or wrong answer.