If you defend your weaknesses, you get to keep them

If you defend your weaknesses, you get to keep them.

I know. I almost defended mine right out of the best thing that ever happened to me.

Two and a half years ago, an email lands in my inbox from Dean Graziosi's mastermind. Yes. That Dean Graziosi.

They want to fly me to Scottsdale. Put me in their studio. Record me as living proof of what's possible.

My first reaction? I closed the laptop.

I'm not exaggerating. Shut it like it was on fire. Because if I couldn't see the email, surely the email wasn't happening.

Then I did the thing I'm truly world-class at. I ran.

Not dramatically. I just got busy. Suddenly the laundry could not wait one more minute. Then it felt like the perfect time to make lunch, so there I was chopping an onion at eleven in the morning, because nothing avoids your destiny quite like aggressive meal prep.

And then, hands full of onion, eyes watering, from the onion, obviously, the perfect excuse arrived. I can't open the laptop now. My hands are a mess. I should really wash them first.

I have never washed my hands so slowly in my life.

You've done this. Left the message on read. Promised yourself you'd answer later, knowing full well later meant never. Not because you didn't want it. Because wanting it felt dangerous. Because what if you said yes and they realized they'd picked the wrong woman?

But I dried my hands. I went back. And I typed four words. Of course. I'd love to.

I was shaking when I hit send. And that shaking is the exact moment most women close the laptop for good.

I didn't.

I still remember the plane. Dressed up, my little handbag, my laptop tucked under my arm, flying to Scottsdale on somebody else's dime toward a version of me I hadn't fully met yet.

This beautiful, amazing fifty-something woman. Ready to take on the world. Ready to spread her wings. Ready to hand years of hard-won wisdom to other women so they could feel alive again and go build their own castles.

I stepped into her right there in my seat, in that short flight to Scottsdale, Arizona.

Because here's the secret nobody tells you. It isn't the deciding that changes you. It's the doing. The moment you act, something shifts inside, and there's no going back to who you were before you moved.

I haven't stopped growing since that day. The stages I stand on now, I have to pinch myself. And in the same breath it feels like the most natural thing in the world, like I was always quietly walking toward this.

And every bit of it started with an onion, a painfully slow hand-wash, and four terrifying words I almost didn't send.

Here's what I know now, after twenty years of sitting across from women watching this exact moment play out.

What almost stopped me wasn't fear. It was the reasonable version of it.

I never thought "I'm terrified." I thought "my hands are dirty." That's the whole trick. Fear doesn't argue with you. It hands you something smaller and more sensible to do instead, and lets you call it being responsible.

That voice has a name. It's your ego.

And your ego isn't your enemy. It loves you. It wants you safe, comfortable, still breathing at the end of the day. But safe and alive are not the same thing, and it has never once been able to tell the difference.

So it dresses your fear up in logic and calls it wisdom. It's not the right time. One more year, one more certification, one more sign.

It's not wisdom. It's fear in a very good outfit.

And you pay for every excuse, even though nobody hands you the bill. You pay in rooms you never walk into, stages you never stand on, the woman you were becoming still waiting on the other side of a yes you didn't send.

So here's what I need you to hear.

That plane seat has your name on it too.

The email is already in your inbox. Maybe it's a real one. Maybe it's a call you keep not making, a door you keep not knocking on, a truth about what you want that you stay too busy to face.

You already know what it is. You knew before you finished reading this.

So I won't ask what you're waiting for. Too easy.

I'll ask what you're defending.

Because whatever it is, you get to keep it. That's not a threat. That's just how it works.

And you don't need one more book, one more course, one more expert to explain what your body already knows. You don't have an information problem.

You have a permission problem.

So consider this your permission.

Go wash your hands. Then open the laptop.

With love, from that short flight to Scottsdale.

P.S. Those four words—"Of course. I'd love to."—changed my life.

Today, I bring that same spirit into every Plug-In Experience I facilitate around the world.

If you're creating a retreat, mastermind, leadership event, or community gathering, I'd love to help your audience move from inspiration... to transformation.
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