Name: Dani
Age: 47
Sign: Aquarius
I grew up in: Chicago, IL
I currently live in: Brooklyn, NY
Occupation: Personal and Professional Life Coach
You can find me: www.shootforthestarscoaching.com
You will never find me: Making out with a guy
Favorite charity: St. Jude’s Hospital
1.) What has been the most life altering experience for you?
• At 15 years old, somehow finding my way to, and graduating from, a boarding high school in Colorado where the mission, vision, and values were in complete alignment with my own even though, as a city and suburban kid, I had never been exposed to this type of culture – a true learning environment that cultivated personal excellence, respect, responsibility, sustainable living, and community-building – set in the middle of magnificent natural, and awe-inspiring surroundings.
This experience opened me up to so many worlds completely
unknown to me before then. It was life altering, beyond
words: www.crms.org.
It’s also where I had my first girlfriend, at 16, so it’s sometimes
hard to know whether it was my drama group activities, the mountain-climbing, and my after-school work crew that made me love CRMS so much, or if it was the sneaking away with Natasha behind the bales of hay or down to the Roaring Fork and Crystal Rivers, for as long as we could get away without our constant and mysterious disappearances being too suspicious. Ok, like everyone knew. It was very “don’t ask, don’t tell”. The part that wasn’t so pretty was my bi-monthly (hitchhiking) trips to the Aspen mental health clinic in my senior year, always attempting tell the therapist of my “condition” – I could not get the word out, but I went every week to try and all I came away with from her was a book called, “The Guide to Rational Living”. I’m not kidding…1978.
• When I was in my late 20’s, getting a really cheap one-way ticket to Europe, letting go of my apartment, putting all my belongings in a friend’s basement, buying a used Bianchi bicycle, borrowing panniers and other various camping equipment, and meeting up with my American girlfriend in London where she was working as a bike messenger (we met eight months before in basketball class in college and I was
hooked from the minute she jumped onto my back from behind, with no warning, in order to shoot a basket while riding me piggyback… and she was practically twice my height and weight. I was smitten.For six months, we went everywhere and anywhere, all over
Europe, on our bikes, and sometimes taking trains (hauling our
bikes on with us) – sleeping in orange groves, cotton sheds, on ferries, farmer’s lands – waking up surrounded by hundreds of grazing goats, empty beach coves (until the “La Guardia” would poke us awake at sunrise), strangers’ homes who became like best friends overnight (thanks www.servas.org!), pensiones, hostels, chambres, cortijos, you name it. It was a wild ride.
2.) How do you measure success?
HEART and SOUL! I need to be in my life, full on, heart and soul, every moment or I feel like I’m not even alive. It’s impossible to be a failure if your “skin is in the game”. I attribute all of my successes to having listened to my heart and followed my gut and that frees up my soul to be on a journey that gives me more satisfaction and fulfillment than I could have possibly conjured up from my mind.
Like everyone else, I grew up being told how I was supposed to be and I don’t know why, but I have always refused to follow any of what I was told unless it really made sense to me. There is another word for this attribute and it’s called “stubborn”, but, for all it’s downsides, I have reaped the rewards of its upsides too: that I do whatever I believe to be right for me at the time and I have never gone wrong. And there’s a certain pride and sense of accomplishment that goes with doing that. By listening to myself, I take full responsibility for everything that comes into my life and that is freedom to me.
3.) What are you most proud of?
I’m proud of so many things, but, right now, I’m most proud that I fulfilled my dream of having my own successful business as a Life Coach. And that I get to make a huge difference in people’s lives - in how they view themselves and the world and how they then live lives that are authentic to who they really are and their true purpose. I am astounded every day that this is what I get to do for a living and I am supremely grateful. I’ve also worked very hard to be get to where I am and, for this, I’m very proud.
4.) How do you want to be remembered?
Bravehearted: as someone who, with all her heart, lived an authentic life - never settling, regardless of how much those around her give in to following the status quo.
That she passionately and confidently lived from her values of loving-kindness, open communication, caring, respect for herself and others, integrity, open-heartedness, joyful dedication to humanity and all living beings, love of learning, appreciation for all of life’s lessons, and making a positive and significant difference in people’s lives.
And, as a result of living true to the qualities that most mattered to her, she created a sense of peace and well-being, inside and all around her.
5.) What do you want to do before you die?
I want to share the rest of my life with someone who, like me, has a heart of gold – we’re crazy in love and she’s also my best friend – I want to grow old together and build memories with her. And, every day, we love being together and I know I’m the luckiest person in the world that she found and chose me and she feels exactly the same. We see each other’s strength and beauty, and foibles, and vulnerability, and embrace and appreciate all of it.
And, every day, no matter what life throws at us, we never doubt our love, deep friendship, and unwavering commitment to each other and to an open, honest, and fulfilling life together of fun, adventure, joy, laughter, and learning, while supporting and inspiring each other all along the way to be the best we can be.
Sounds cliché, but it’s pretty simple and I want it. I’m old enough to know what I want and crazy enough to believe I’ll find it!
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