away we go.

"If you knew me yesterday, please do not think that is the same person you are meeting today." I'm not sure if that's quite the quote or who to attribute it to, but you get the point. I'll add my own quote from the other night . . . "You don't know how deep in the shit you are until you get out of it." I think it's safe to say I've been in some shit for quite some time and even though I somehow managed to thrive during it, it was some deep shit.

I was starting to think to think I sounded like a broken record with always commenting about how much I've grown and learned and changed and another year of making it through hard things but it's not a broken record, it's just the truth. Each year has been new growth, new changes, new hard things that seemed to keep piling on each other. I'd suspect that's just the pattern of life when you're the type of person who refuses to simply check out and settle. What is different this time is nothing super tangible (although do you see how amazing my skin looks??) it's very much internal and energetic. (Which is in fact reflected in your physical being but that's another post for another time) At some point something clicked and it hit me that I am the person I have spent many years striving to be. All of these ideas and visions of who I could be and how I would show up in the world are right here, right now. And not because I hit some goal or accomplished some thing, because I am living each day in full alignment and flow. From how I start my morning, to what I eat, to where I go and who I spend time with and what projects I take on, it's not what I am doing it's who I am being.

And people are noticing. I've received a lot of comments about how something in me has shifted. And want to know what people think it is from . . . new work projects, weightloss, new boyfriend, completed house renovations, new clothes. I promise you if those were the things that could shift something so drastically for me, you'd have seen this me a long time ago. I've have done amazing things in my life. I have had incredible relationships. I've worn pretty clothes, I've gone cool places. I'm grateful for all those things but they sure as shit didn't do anything to help the anxiety, depression or desperation to change but inability to do so. It would take a very long and very deep conversation to explain this shift . .the how, the why, the actual work I've done internally and I am more than open to sharing that but not in a blog post. My purpose of this is to show it's possible and to offer an explanation as to how all these pieces translate into what the world sees of myself and my various projects.

Everything you see me do externally looks a bit disjointed and truthfully it's felt that way for a while. I was simply pursuing things I loved doing, brought me joy and I was good at. It's always been extraordinarily hard for me to answer the question "what do you do?" in terms of work because I do so many different things and I don't define myself by any of them. The problem is society wants to define you by those things so for years it was "I own a real estate brokerage." Then I started adding "I own a real estate brokerage and outdoor apparel company" which always throws people off cause clearly those are two very different things. And lately I just go with "I do a lot of weird things, what do you do?" I still don't exactly know my answer to that question, but I have uncovered my answer as to WHY the hell I'm doing all these random things and what my purpose really is.

My purpose is to guide others along their journey to build a life of authenticity and freedom. It's exactly what each business does just in a different manner in a different industry. It's what all of my writing and coaching and speaking has been around, but often in a unique setting or manner. My gift is that I have the ability to reach people across many different aisles. This is why I thrive in a traditional sales setting (real estate) and with dirt loving hippies who want spend all day hiking and living in vans (dream life!). The thing is people in both of those worlds deserve to live a life true to their values and desires and both often have a hard time doing so. I have some weird ability to stay insanely grounded in the reality of numbers and business and every day life, while also basking in intuition, mysticism, and heart centered faith that it will all just work out.

So that's where this all comes together. The Not So Normal Way is the overarching umbrella for everything I do because none of it is normal and yet it all aligns and makes oh so much sense. What I do is help others on their journey to authenticity and freedom. How I do it varies from person to person. My current and future businesses will all support that endeavor. So when I introduce something new. . . no, it's not a"geez you're starting ANOTHER business" it's "cool, you found another means of reaching new people in support of your mission". And when I do that, it makes every other business under this umbrella that much better. And it allows me the ability to bring on partners and team members to support the mission and take it further.

So yeah, I've had a lot of growth, a lot "fresh starts", a lot of falling apart and feeling lost only to discover it was there all along. I just needed the pieces to fall into the right spot and the final layers to get peeled away to reveal what the point has been all along. Nothing is random. It often just takes time to see the connection. And I don't think we get to see it until we are truly ready to step into our power and purpose. I don't feel super ready, but I know deep down I am. Away we go. . .

xoxo,

Ali