The Space Between The Waves

There’s no doubt you’ve looked at someone before and thought, “Man, they’re just lucky.” Some people seem to catch all the breaks. Right place, right time. Everything just falls into place. But here’s the biggest illusion, thinking successful people are simply lucky. Luck has a funny way of showing up for people who are already in motion. The explorer who decides to sail won’t find treasure every...

I wish I had learned earlier that it was okay to be different. We don’t all need to fit into the same mold. Quite frankly, imagine how boring that world would be if we did. There was a time when blending in felt safer. Safer to agree. Safer to not stand out. Safer to dim your light just enough so nobody noticed you were shining a little differently. But here’s what I’ve come to understand, the ver...

There was a time when she felt like she always needed to be in a relationship, moving from one to the next, dragging the baggage of the last mistake right into the new one. “Those poor guys never had a chance,” she laughed. We were sitting at the World-Famous Wreck Bar in Fort Lauderdale, watching the mermaid show through the large portholes that look into the hotel’s pool from behind the bar, the...

We’ve all stood at the crossroads of life before, those defining moments where you chose something harder over something easier, stepped out in faith instead of comfort, or learned a lesson the long way around. Looking back now, those moments don’t feel random. They feel like bookmarks in the book called “You.” Markers in time where something shifted. Where you grew. Where you realized you were ca...

Sometimes overcoming obstacles can feel like an endless stretch of roadblocks, one after another, testing your patience and your resolve. Other times, it’s nothing more than a little debris in the road, something you simply steer around without much thought. The difference isn’t always in the size of the problem… it’s in your approach to it. You have to be willing to adjust the sails when the wind...

Somewhere in the background I can almost hear someone ordering a Piña Colada… and just like that, your mind drifts somewhere tropical and warm. It’s funny how a song, a smell, or a simple thought can transport you. Waves of motivation, that’s what a good vacation feels like. Reset. Recharge. Refill the tank. I always thought that would make a great song title… and now that I’ve thrown it out to th...

Happenstance and twists of fate sometimes feel like they’re one and the same. Life has a funny way of unfolding. Certain moments happen so strangely that we sit back and wonder how, or why, they were even possible. Some people believe we get “passes” in life from time to time. Moments where something small shifts… and it quietly changes everything. The story of someone who forgot their wallet, tur...

Painted on a boat sitting at Pier 5, standing out among the much larger boats, were the words: “Loyalty is a lost cause.” It caught my attention. The merits of loyalty are often debated. Anyone who has ever been hurt by someone they considered a true friend can tell you loyalty can feel like a double-edged sword. When it’s broken, it cuts deep. But anyone who has ever truly needed someone, and had...

somewhere between where you started Monday and where you hope to be by Friday, reality usually shows up. And sometimes reality looks a lot like failure. We’ve all been there… feeling crushed by it, wondering if it’s even worth continuing. A missed opportunity. A business idea that didn’t take off. Unexpected problems that shake everything you thought was steady and even the small daily setbacks th...

there’s this old way of defining you by asking a simple question: Is your glass half-empty or half-full? How you answer that age-old question about positive thinking is supposed to reflect your outlook on life, your attitude toward yourself and whether you lean optimistic or pessimistic… or at least that’s the theory. Well, I like to believe the glass is always refillable. And not only that, you g...

Early Friday morning at Gulf State Park Pier, the world was just beginning to wake up. The movers and shakers appeared quietly from the darkness, rods in hand, coffee steaming on the railing beside carved initials that read, “Janice and Tom Forever.” I couldn’t help but wonder where they are now. Funny how “forever” can sometimes be a short time. Was it just a summer romance? Or were they here cel...

“Paradise found,” he said, standing beside his car with shirts, signs, and handmade treasures spread across a small table just off the beach in Costa Rica. He was waiting on tourists to wander down the sandy path that led to The Monkey Bar, a hidden watering hole tucked back in the woods and a favorite among those lucky enough to find it. Although English wasn’t his first language, we understood e...

yep… you guessed it. Time just keeps rolling on, like the steady waves of life, an endless tide that never slows down and never waits. In all kinds of sports, trainers often teach athletes to go slower in order to go faster. It sounds strange when the goal is to win the race. But maybe that applies to life, too. We rush around like there aren’t enough hours in the day, yet when we handle each task...

Have you ever found yourself wondering where you took the wrong turn? Was it that fork in the road… should you have gone left instead of right? The roads can look the same. The scenery feels familiar, but something’s different. Déjà vu settles in, leaving you with that quiet feeling that you’ve been here before, and maybe you have. The ancient Tiki leaders used to speak of “mirrors in the sky,” a...

Back on the other side of reality, the place where your hopes and dreams live before anyone else gets their hands on them, there’s a truth we don’t always like to admit. Have you ever been so excited about something you were about to do, a plan, an idea, a dream that lit you up from the inside, and you shared it with someone… only to have them shoot it down? “It won’t work.” “That’s risky.” “Be re...

Sometimes you just have to take a leap of faith, roll the dice, and go for it, stop overthinking every single step before your feet even move. This business of worrying all the time? It gets you nowhere. Things are going to happen… or they’re not. Who knows? Who cares? Life has always been a bit of a mystery, and maybe that’s the point. I once saw it scribbled across the back of a boat in Pensacol...

She wore white hats of every kind, big floppy beach hats, baseball caps with her long ponytail pulled through the back, even those crisp white Walla Roo hats with the black bands. Style? That girl had it. She never did breakfast, always brunch. Ten o’clock was just about perfect. Owning a flower shop with her crazy sister in Pensacola was the last place she ever imagined her New York law degree wo...

Back in the business world, I used to tell new employees, after the first day nerves, the half-answered questions, and that quiet “what am I doing?” moment, that there was absolutely no doubt they were going to mess something up. And that was perfectly okay, as long as we talked about it. Because that’s how we both learned. Failure always feels more public than success. We worry about it, try to a...

One of the biggest misunderstandings about putting yourself first or practicing self-compassion is the idea that it will make you lazy or unmotivated. People think being kind to themselves means letting everything slide. The truth is, it’s the opposite. When you’re younger, raising a family, building a life, everything comes at you from all directions, and most days there’s no room left for you. M...

Your life is not a mystery, it’s an experience, and it’s uniquely yours. Live it. Stop worrying about what might go wrong and start focusing on what can go right. Those words came to me years ago when I worked as a builder’s helper on log cabins. It was hot, the sun was high, and Larry would drink black coffee all day long without flinching. I’d just shake my head and keep working, learning how to...

The journey of self-discovery can be as exciting as a morning sunrise and just as scary as a lightning storm in the middle of the night. Your purpose has to mean the most to you and no one else. And for those who don’t share your purpose, that just means they have other plans, and that’s okay. Not everyone is part of the plan. Tina believed that moving across the country for a job was her purpose....

The ancient Tiki leaders left many messages behind for those navigating troubled waters. Sometimes the message was basic and simple. Other times it was a journey you had to embark on alone, one only you could recognize. The philosophy was always the same: never fool yourself into thinking it couldn’t happen to you, this thing called life and its ever-changing path. They believed life was all about...

“There is danger in your heart,” the fortune teller said as she read the cards in a dimly lit room, candlelight flickering while her dark eyes looked like windows into the past. “How so?” he asked. “Never wish bad on others,” she said. “It’s never okay to wish harm on anyone. When you do, you’re inviting that same energy back into your own life, often tenfold. Karma doesn’t discriminate, what you...

We don’t all fly the same or even soar as high as others, but given the right opportunity, we can all take flight, she said as she filled the coffee cup at Nancy’s Fork and Spoon on Beach Drive. True enough… and sometimes we’re carrying broken wings that simply need time to heal. That little place had seen more stories than most people realize. Sunburned fishermen, tired travelers, locals who neve...

If flaws were a type of material used to stitch our coats of good intentions, we’d all be wearing them. Some patched up from old lessons, some frayed at the seams from trying too hard, and a few buttoned wrong from the very start. I’ve learned over the years that those flaws don’t mean the coat failed, they mean it’s been worn. It’s been out in the weather, through long nights, early mornings, and...