Ever since my first visit to Florence, I felt at home. I knew I had to live there. It took me 7 years before I could make that happen. I wanted to create a new life in Italy, however at the time, I didn’t know it would be in the literal sense.

Destiny has its own unique way to have it's way in your life. A year later, my beautiful son was born. And while I didn’t marry his Italian father, I wanted him to know his father and was 100% sure that I would do everything in my power to make that happen.

And so the trips to Italy began when my son was only 14 months. I did my best to teach him Italian, and while I know you won’t believe this, his first word at only 9 months was cappuccino. By year 13, I realized that it was time to move back to Italy, as I was determined to give my son the opportunity to know his father. I sold every bit of our personal belongings, including my son’s huge Star Wars Lego collection to scrape enough together to get us to Italy. It wasn’t much and it definitely was not enough, but I was determined. Some would call me stupid, and maybe I was a little bit, but off we went.

It wasn’t easy, but we found a little stone house to rent and I got my son enrolled in school. He didn’t speak Italian but he learned quickly. Anyone who has been a single mother who has had to work full time, without financial support from family or the father, will tell you it’s hard.

For anyone who has tried, they will also know that Italy is not a place to go and find a job to support yourself. I was teaching English to the little Italian kids of my new Mom friends. It was not enough to make ends meet, and one day I said, if I’m going to work this hard, and still not make ends meet, then I might as well do something that I love. So I’m going to start my jewelry company again.

Except I didn’t have any money. One of my new friends said she would lend me €3,000 to get started. Except I didn’t know how to make jewelry. And back in 2010, YouTube was not the go-to resource to learn how-to-make-anything yet. Trial and error with some creative ingenuity, and being creative with lot’s of artistic handiwork growing up helped me manage and get started. I was excited to be doing something I loved again, and within about 6 months I got a big first order! Whoo Hoo! I was on my way!

Anyone who has entered into the entrepreneur arena will tell you the same thing; it’s a wonderful feeling to be living a passion as it doesn’t feel like work. But then it is. And now after creating some beautiful jewelry over the past fourteen years, with many twists, turns and almost-breakthroughs to some big success, the one thing I can tell you is that when you are living your passions and waking up every day excited to share it with the world, you can never give up, or surrender.

Because doubt is a dream killer, you will have days of doubt in yourself and your dream. But the reason you never give up or surrender is because you don’t know that in five minutes, or 5 hours, 5 days, 5 weeks, or even five years that your passion will take you to places you never imagined.

And those places could make all the difference in someone’s life. Even if it’s only one person that was inspired by you or your work, that one person could be the next inventor of something that will affect and improve even more lives, and possibly even the world.

One thing is for sure; you cannot get to the end of your life with regret that you didn’t try harder or that you gave up on yourself.

So when you think that you are just one person, and you see yourself small and that you don’t make a difference in the world, think again. I know there is something inside of you that will make a difference in our world.

How do I know this? Because together we are one powerful limitless Humanity, and without YOU, it will not be the same.

And because you are here now, at this most pivotal time on Earth and Humanity’s history, I also know that you have something important to do in a way that only you can do.

Now is the time to begin sharing who you truly are, why you chose to be here now and what you are to do next.

It’s no longer time to prepare for the New Renaissance, it’s time to CREATE the New Renaissance.

Get ready and get going, we’ve got work to do and it’s going to be absolutely amazing!