Tigrilla Gardenia - What Plants Taught Her About Success - Your Next Success

Episode Transcript
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Caroline (00:03):
What if your next chapter isn't something you
chase, but something you grow?
Maybe success isn't aboutpushing harder or climbing
higher.
Maybe it's about listening,really listening to what feels
alive in you.
There's a quiet moment thatcomes before every big change, a

(00:25):
whisper, a sense that what oncefit doesn't anymore.
And if you give that whisperyour attention, it can lead you
to somewhere extraordinary.
That's what today's guest,Tigrilla Gardenia discovered.
Her story is a living reminderthat your next success doesn't

(00:49):
have to be built.
It can be cultivated.
This is the Your Next Successpodcast, and I'm your host, Dr.
Caroline Sangal.
I'm a life first career coachand strategist on a mission to
normalize questioning yourcareer because I believe each of
us is made on purpose for apurpose only we can fulfill.

(01:11):
The longer we live out ofalignment with who we are, what
we do best, and why we're here,the more we miss out.
And the more the world missesout on what only we can give.
The Your Next Success Podcast iswhere we explore how to build a
career that truly fuels yourlife.
We talk about self-discovery,smart job, search strategies,

(01:35):
professional growth, and you'llhear stories from people who've
navigated big career transitionsthemselves so you can see what
it's really like to make boldchanges and feel inspired to
create your own version ofauthentic success, one that is
aligned, meaningful, and trulyyours.

(01:57):
Meet Tigrilla Gardenia, a natureinspired mentor, certified life
coach, and world ambassador forplant advocacy.
She helps creativemultipotentialites, people with
many passions and a deep pulltoward purpose, live aligned
authentic lives in collaborationwith the plant world.

(02:18):
With more than 25 years ofexperience across the arts,
technology, communication, andeco social innovation, Tigrilla
bridges, plant neurobiology,ecosystem thinking, community
dynamics, and esoteric wisdom tohelp people evolve limiting
beliefs and thrive alongsidetheir natural design.

(02:39):
She is equal parts scientist,artist, and guide rooted in
creativity, growth, andconnection.
In this conversation, we explorewhat it means to grow your
career like a living system.
You will hear how Tigrilla'spath carried her from music and
sound engineering into the techworld to performance art,

(03:00):
spiritual study and life in theesoteric community of Damanhur
in Italy where she discoveredthat plants communicate, create,
and even make music.
We talk about how to know whenit's time to evolve, how to
listen for the next right signaland how collaborating with
nature rather than forcingoutcomes, can bring a new level

(03:24):
of clarity, creativity, and calmaction.
if you've ever felt like youhave too many interests, too
many pivots, or too many dreamsto fit into one box, this
conversation is your permissionslip to stop pruning yourself
and start growing in full color.
Welcome Tigrilla To Your NextSuccess.

(03:46):
I am so excited to have youtoday.

Tigrilla Gardenia (03:49):
Thank you.
Thank you so much for having me.

Caroline (03:52):
Awesome.
And you know, we're gonna talkabout careers, career pivots,
career transitions.
You have had quite an amazingstory.
I can't wait for our listenersto hear more about all these
amazing twists and turns.
But let's dial it back to thebeginning.
where did you grow up?
Tell me about your childhood,you know, what kind of things

(04:13):
did you love to do?
What were you dreaming about, etcetera.

Yeah, so I grew up in South Florida.
I'm a good old fashioned Miamigirl.
You're traditional at that timegeneration ina, which means I'm
Cuban American, I am of Cubandescent.
And, born in the United Statesonly because we were exiled.
Otherwise, I would've been bornin Cuba most likely.
And, I grew up reallymulticultural because in that

(04:37):
time, especially in the US Imean in Miami in particular, we
had all the exiles that werecoming in.
So it was very common for us tospeak in Spanish, speak in
English.
There was really no distinction.
We had just as much of the worldof Jose Marti and what was going
on with the Cuban Revolution aswe did of Thanksgiving and

(04:58):
what's happening in the 4th ofJuly.
So I had really, in so manyways.
The best of both worlds.
It was a time of a lot ofcreativity.
It was a moment of so muchfeverish like music and there
was like mixing of music.
Everything from the glam rockworld that was happening in the
1980s to the Latin rock that wasclimbing up so many bands that

(05:21):
actually came out of thatperiod.
And so music was really a veryintegral part of my life.
And then the other part thatwas, so I'm this right?
I didn't know it at the time.
I'm a right brain, left brainperson.
I'm one of those people that hasboth.
So I danced as well as wasreally involved in what was
going on in the music scene.
I loved a lot of elements ofschool and ended up going to,

(05:41):
what I found out later was oneof the largest schools in the
entire nation, which opened myjunior year.
So we were seniors two years ina row and I really loved math
and I just was, this sort ofstrange combination of rocker
chick with the nerds who could,I was a chameleon.
I could really easily flowbetween lots of different

(06:04):
groups, which has its benefits'cause it meant I could move
through tons of circles.
Didn't matter if I was goingwith super smarty people or the
misfit toys that work, hangingout in the corner.
But at the same time, it alsomeans you don't belong to
everything.
So you're have one foot in andone foot out all the time.
And that was really my kind ofupbringing, this whole mix.

(06:25):
And melange, my brothers aremuch older than I am, so I had
the opportunity to experienceworlds that were.
Very different from my own andyet play with this wide range of
age demographics and music andfood and, cultural ways of
being.
I appreciate it now and verymuch appreciate that in our

(06:45):
generation we didn't have tochoose between whether we were
Cuban or American, which I knowthat many immigrants, especially
those that leave for reasonssimilar to ours, like political
feel very much the need toeither hide in their little
corner or to wash away their,cancel out what there are.
We didn't have that at all.

(07:06):
And it wasn't until later Iremember, I was on a work trip
and I was watching, I don'tknow, PBS or something in the
hotel room when there was aspecial on about our generation
Indian, saying how privileged wewere because we didn't have to
choose because there was such ahuge massing of that.
So it was a very interestingtime.

Caroline (07:24):
It sounds amazing.
So, and you were growing up andkind of experiencing that, what
did you think in that moment?
What did success mean to you?
Or what were some tenets thatyou thought, ah, this is, this
is what success is gonna be?
Maybe this is what I wanna do,or this is what should happen or
could happen.

Yeah, so that's a really great question
that I actually, it's one of thefew questions I don't actually
have a good answer for, and I'llexplain why.
While I was, I am and stillcontinue to be a very active and
even ambitious to a certainextent person.
I never had the goal, like itwas, I'm somebody who I'm a

(08:06):
multipotential, I'mmulti-passionate, which means
whatever I'm involved with inthat moment is my entire life.
And that juggles and switchesaround.
So for example, I was deeply,like I said, into the music
scene, so I thought, oh, okay,I'm gonna, do a bunch of stuff
relating to music.
And I didn't know what thatlooked like because again, I
jumped around from things.

(08:27):
I danced for years, but I neverthought I would be a dancer.
I, was going out and spendingtime with a lot of musicians,
but I myself wasn't musician.
I was always somebody who washelping in whatever I was doing.
'cause I feel like the way Ienjoy events most is by being
actively doing something forthem.

(08:47):
Whether I was working the dooror working the till, or helping
out friends, move theirequipment.
So I always was connected to allthese, but I didn't see myself
as a mathematician.
I didn't see myself necessarilyas somebody who was gonna work
in psychology.
I just felt like everything waslike possibilities.
And what I did know was that Iwas gonna go to college.

(09:09):
I honestly didn't know what Iwas gonna study.
So when I graduated, as a matterof fact, my freshman year, I
thought I was gonna go to lawschool because I felt like that
I I was on the debate team and Ireally loved to speak.
So I thought, okay, law school,maybe that's it.
But I couldn't even tell youwhat kind of law I thought I was
gonna practice.
As a matter of fact, my freshmanyear, which is very funny'cause

(09:30):
I completely switched majorsafterwards, I was going for
psychology, philosophy and aminor in sociology.
So that was where I was thinkingthat was gonna take me towards
law school.
I had talked, talk about thosethree put together, where the
hell are you gonna do?
I didn't have any career inmind.
and so it was just reallyinteresting.

(09:51):
As a matter of fact, when Iswitched majors,'cause by my
college, by my sophomore year, Irealized I did not wanna go to
law school.
I took this one class that likeproved to me I did not wanna be
a lawyer.
And then I was like, what am Igonna study?
And I was looking around and I'mlike, what are the, consists in
my life like, what are thethings that are always around
me?
And it was math.

(10:12):
Don't ask why and music.
So I was like, okay, I'm gonnabe a music engineer.
Where should I go to study musicengineering?
So I started looking aroundsaying, what are the programs
that do some form of music andengineering type thing?
Turned out that the best schoolin the nation for music
engineering and was actually inmy backyard.
So I had gone up to Boston fromMiami and then I came back to

(10:34):
Miami to prepare myself becauseI wasn't a musician at this
point.
I had played a little bit ofpiano, but I wasn't musician and
it was in the school of Music.
So I had to like spend an entiresummer pouring myself into piano
lessons of all sorts in order tobe able to get up, to be able to
audition.
Because I had already gotteninto the school,'cause I had

(10:54):
applied to a bunch of differentschools.
And so I had gotten into theUniversity of Miami, but I had
not ever thought about the musicprogram.
So I was like, oh my goodness,am I gonna be good enough to be
able to do this audition and getinto the school?
'cause it's a very highlyregarded school.
So it was just like this, Ireally, I knew the route in the

(11:16):
sense of I knew it was collegejob, and most likely all the
other things that go with it.
But I couldn't actually tell youlike, I wanna be this.
And as a matter of fact, incollege, I ended up doing three
different internships in threedifferent things connected to
music engineering.

Caroline (11:33):
Oh, that's so cool.
But nobody knows in that moment,I've come to realize now after
diving into this, that peoplestart questioning their careers
and it happens at reallypredictable stages.
And so the first ones go rightalong with transitions in
school, so around 18, around 22.
But even like most people.
Go into it not not knowing, theylisten to very well-intentioned,

(11:57):
well-meaning people.
Or you have this vision ofcareers based on what you've
been exposed to in your family,for people that you know, or
careers that you think soundgood.
So yeah, one of the things, ifanybody's listening and they're
in that timeframe now I now havedata-driven, scientifically
backed, valid reproducibleassessments that can help guide

(12:18):
somebody to say, here's howyou're hardwired, and here are
some careers that could bewell-suited for how you're
hardwired, and now let's pairinto it.
Your interests, your skills,your values, your goals, all of
these things.
So we can make a really awesomeplan, and it's still gonna be
18, 22.

(12:38):
Then every 7 to 10 years afterthat, a questioning period where
you can either act on it andrefine or override it, and then
you'll start feeling it in yourbody.

Yeah.
I just knew, I remember becauseone of my older brothers is very
different than I am in the sensethat he was like, what are you
gonna study?
And I was like, dude, relax.
Like I'm gonna study whatever Iknew that if somehow I did know
that if I followed my passion, Iwould be taken care of in that
perspective.
I didn't know how, I didn't havea line perspective.

(13:11):
I knew that what I had to be wastrue to my interests.

Caroline (13:16):
Yeah.

And I knew that the first years of
university were exploration.
So I did not feel at all guilty.
it was a little bit hard to comeback to Miami because I just
didn't expect it.
Like I thought, oh, I reallywanted to get out and explore
something new, and then to find,oh, no, the place you need to go
is right back home.
I was like, what?
Now?

(13:37):
And I didn't want it to seemlike I was coming home.
But I realized that was part ofit too.
I just knew really deep downinside me that I had to be as
completely immersed in whateverit was.
And I have to say, because mybackground is so odd, and
because I did do so manydifferent things, like my last

(13:58):
year of college was, ofuniversity was really hard
because I wasn't, like I said, asuper high-end musician.
I wasn't also, I loved math, butI didn't do the traditional
statistics route or some of thephysics routes that are all kind
of part of the engineeringworlds.
And I was getting this major inmusic engineering and a minor in

(14:18):
electrical engineering.
And I had to, and I didn't evenknow how to study because when I
was young I had been reallygood.
At, like I had just learned, Ilearned very fast.

Caroline (14:29):
Yep.

When I got to college, I realized about my
sophomore to junior year that Ihad never learned how to
properly study.
It wasn't until my senior yearthat in working with some of my
classmates, I discovered thetechnique that allowed me to
learn the techniques that Istill use today.

(14:51):
And had I known how to studyback, like for example, I'm
somebody that, I need to write,but I can't write too much
during because I miss what'shappening.
I'm very verbal in thatperspective.
So what is best for me is if I'mlearning, like in a class, I
love having books or handoutsand I love highlighting with

(15:12):
writing little things in themargins, but or, and I have to
copy that over to a notebook.
So if it's in the copyingprocess that I actually.
Learn.
And then if I can get intodiscussion study groups rather
than, just reading more, if Ican discuss it, that's like the
cherry on top, like that's thepart that's really gonna nail it

(15:33):
for me because I'm verbal.
But highlighting notes in themargins that squiggle around
copying notes into a completelynew notebook where I make sense
of it.

Caroline (15:44):
Yeah.

That technique got me through my
senior year.

Caroline (15:48):
And then what happened?
Like, so now you're graduatingwith this amazing combination
of, you know, music andelectrical engineering.

Yeah.

Caroline (15:58):
What do you do from there?

This is another great story.
So here I am, I graduate and atthe time I didn't know we had
the benefit because our programwas very specialized and like I
was one of 24 people graduatingfrom my major and only the only
two women, my se my senior year.
We're talking about a superhighly specialized type of
thing, and so we support eachother a lot.

(16:21):
And throughout the year we hadthese forums where people who
had graduated before us wouldcome in and have conversations
and stuff like that.
I met someone there who wasworking for the FBI doing audio
video forensics.
And, he was like, would you beinterested in this?
And I was like, sure.
Like, Who wouldn't type ofthing.
I thought I was gonna be doingkind of more theater sound.

(16:44):
It was one of the pieces that Iwanted to be doing because I had
done various different, like Isaid, internships.
I had interned with REM whenthey were recording the Monster
album.
I had worked for a major radiostation.

Caroline (16:56):
How amazing is that?

Yeah, it was a fun time, it was a great
studio.
It was like such amazing things.
But I realized I didn't wanna bein the studio, so it was like a
lot of things were helping meknock stuff off.
And so he was like, okay, Ithink we have another position
opening up.
We'll contact you in themeantime through a friend.
I got two jobs, so I was doingtwo jobs.
One, I was working at a CDpressing plant.
This is back when we used topress CDs and I was putting

(17:18):
what's called PQ.
They're the markers that tellyou where the track starts and
the track ends.
So I was working these nightshifts there, and then another
newly person who had graduatedfrom my program, I don't
remember how the heck I had methim, but he was the head
engineer for the Bee Gees.
And he used to work at night.
Everybody in my program is likeon and from my school, are all
over the place doing one's thedrummer for Shakira, the other

(17:41):
one works with Shania Twain.
One does the major, like almostall the movies that you watch,
he does a sound on it.
Like there, these people aredoing amazing things.
And he used to work in the majordepartment store there, creating
their commercials.
So I was doing these two likeodd jobs, trying to figure out
where I was gonna go.
And, I went to a conferencebecause we have a big conference
connected to the audioengineering society every year.

(18:02):
And I bumped into a friend whohad graduated the year before me
from the master's program andwe're chatting and she had moved
to Seattle and she was like, aswe were talking, she's so what
are you gonna do now?
And I was telling her, and she'syou know what, you would be
perfect for my job.
And I was like, what do youmean?
She's I wanna move into thisother position and so I'd love
for you to do my job.

(18:23):
And I thought, okay.
And she was like, But I justwanted to let you know that if I
put your name in the ring,you're gonna get an interview
and you're most likely gonna getthe job.
At the time I had alreadyinterviewed at the FBI, but the
FBI process takes six months andit was to do the audio video
forensic stuff, and it takes sixmonths to do the top secret
clearance.
So they were interviewing myneighbors and my like old

(18:45):
friends and all kinds of weirdstuff.
So here I am doing these sort ofwhat looks like menial jobs, but
in reality were giving me a lotof experience in the audio
world.
And here's these twoopportunities that are showing
up.
And I had almost forgotten aboutthe FBI thing because like I
said, they just go radio silent.
You do the interview and thenthey're like, okay, we'll let
you know.
And then you go radio silent,you start hearing popups.

(19:06):
Somebody just knocked on my doorand told me they're an FBI agent
and they're asking about you.
And I was like, oh, okay.
I guess I'm still in therunning.
So she puts my name in the rink.
So I get, invited up to Seattleand I do this interview and I
come back and it's really funnybecause they give me an offer,
and this is about in December,right after, so I had graduated

(19:28):
in May, and this was in Decemberof that year.
And I get a phone call likemaybe a week, not even a week
later.
And it's like the FBI saying,okay, so your start date is, and
they tell me it's whatever,February something.
And I'm just sitting theregoing, I have another offer,
like another job offer.
And they're like, yeah, thishappens.

(19:50):
We just need to know within aweek.
So here I had this I go to,Washington DC and work for the
FBI, which will be a career forthe rest of my life?
Because basically the trajectoryis you go in there, you do this
type of forensics, which isstuff like, the stuff that they
made me watch, I had to watchpeople getting their heads blown
off because you have to watch, Ihad to watch like fights and

(20:12):
listen to gunshots to see whatkind of guns were used.
It was like heavy stuff.
But that's a career you do untilyou retire and then you become
an expert witness and that's howyou make your money.
For real.
Or I could go to Washingtonstate and go into the internet
bubble, which at that time waslike into the audio video world

(20:33):
that was just being born onlinewith stock options.

Caroline (20:38):
Ding, ding, ding.

I was like, and the advice given to me was
like, you're young.
If the company fails, you'lljust find another job.
I was like.
Okay, so that was it.
I went to Seattle and I startedat Real Networks.
Back then it was calledProgressive Networks, which was
the first real company that wasdoing audio over the internet

(20:59):
who was doing like internetradio and who eventually did the
first real launch of video.
So thanks to what we worked on,which was the product I
originally worked on real videofor, we have this video that
we're here on today.
It was like the precursor ofthat world, it was a really
different, so I just followed, Ijust went along with the flow.
I was like, here are my optionsbeing placed in front of me, and

(21:22):
let's just go with it.

Caroline (21:24):
Wow.
And so then you're there, andnow you're immersing yourself
into that world, and are youstill doing any sort of music
stuff outside.
Like for your own self outsideof work.
Like what are you doing in yourfree time?

So at the beginning, yes, like I stayed a
little bit, I got into, doingsound for some bands and was
working out, but then back thenthe internet was literally just
being born.
The way that we think about ittoday, we were still at the,
what we call the bubble.
It was like everything was justgrowing exponentially.
So the hours were really long.
We would, I would often get homeat 11 o'clock at night, going to

(22:01):
work at eight o'clock in themorning.
I slept in my office a lot.
Like it was a crazy time.
Very fun.
Nerf wars, like with Nerf gunsand they would give us lots of
toys to play with because it'sthe internet and you just do,
and you have to have creativityand you have to blow off steam.
But it was still a lot of work.
So eventually that fell away.
And as a matter of fact, maybe afew years, maybe about three

(22:25):
years into me working there, alot of things started to change
in my life and one of the thingsthat I started to really miss
was I didn't have a creativeoutlet outside of work.
Like I didn't have that anymore.
And I found myself in a reallybig funk of not having any kind
of way of expressing.
I had always been part of, inthe the music scene in so many
different ways, and I hadnothing.

(22:47):
So I ended up.
I ended up contacting some oldfriends of mine and got the name
of a voice teacher because Ididn't wanna go back to piano.
And I ended up taking voicelessons.
I would drive 45 minutes duringmy lunch hour to go take voice
lessons because she was likehighly recommended and I wanted
to just be with somebody that Icould trust.

(23:07):
And she was, north of where wewere in downtown Seattle.
So 45 minutes at lunch in orderto, so 45 minutes up and then
40, an hour lesson and then 45minutes down because I was
freaking out.
I was like completely inside mywhole expression was only my
work stuff, which had lots ofdifferent avenues, but it didn't
have that music, creativity.

(23:29):
And it was actually thanks toher.
That she's at some point when Ifinally left Real Networks and
ended up at a startup, that thenfailed, but, which was fine
because it ended, it took meinto Microsoft after that.
But, she was the one that waslike, when I was in that
transition period, she's youknow what, you should just start
auditioning and do some theater,do some musical theater, maybe

(23:51):
do some, whatever, any kind ofshort films.
Like just have some fun andexpress this stuff.
'cause I was doing recitals withher, but I wasn't really doing
anything else other than,singing in the shower, which was
great.
But it was, I think I needed alittle bit more.
So that got me into a completelydifferent creative scene in my

(24:11):
town and was pivotal to movingme through another set of
transitions.

Caroline (24:16):
Okay, this is awesome.
Yeah.
'cause I was wondering,'causeonce you went into that, you
know, real networks position as,as fun as it is and as much as
they did try to have the thingsto blow off, but it's like with
your background of how you grewup, you did lots of things.
You interacted with lots ofpeople.
Yeah.
So it's, I'm glad that yourealized that early on, so to

(24:39):
say, right.
Not going decades with just theFBI thing is as cool as it
sounds like it could have been,not the fit for you.

As a matter of fact, I had a friend who took
my job, like he took the jobthat was offered to me because
he came in right after me andthey offered it, and just as I
said, he was there.
Up until he retired a few,whatever years back, and now he
does expert witness.
It's the trek that they do.
And I was like, oh my goodness.
I would've died.
I would've died.

(25:08):
Instead, at least at RealNetworks.
We had, of course thestimulation of the internet.
We were designing things, soeverything was new and different
and I was doing audio quality.
Most of my work was really abouttesting the audio.
So I got to watch the BreakfastClub on laser disc every single
day, about three times a day fora year.

(25:30):
I was like, I knew every singlepart of the Breakfast Club
backwards and forwards andbackwards.
I had a set of laser discs thatI had to watch and encode them
and test them.
So I did get to meet some supercool people.
I got to go to conferences andthat was all great and a great
way to express, plus it was verydecadent back then.
But, but yeah, I needed thatcreative outlet.
And as much as I was trying toentertain myself with the

(25:53):
softball club and home and likebuying a home and all these
types of things, it wasn't thesame as what I had always had of
being able to jump around and doall these topics.
And I really needed that pieceof myself.
And so the singing lessons forme was like a great way of
getting my foot back into thatdoor.

(26:14):
That when I'm out of it for toolong, my body looks for it.
It's, it starts to seek it outin different ways.

Caroline (26:22):
Yes.
So then you mentioned somethingabout Microsoft.
So let's let, let's talk aboutthat, that fun tangent, and then
how did that kind of go fromthere?

Yeah, so when I left Real Networks because
there was the person who Istarted dating who would become
my husband, who is now myex-husband.
He was actually in the samegroup and was destined.
He wasn't my direct boss, but hewas destined to become the big
boss.
So I was like, you know what,you're a rockstar in this
company.
I'm just gonna go and I'm gonnago explore other things.
I had not explored othercompanies before, so I went to

(26:53):
this super small little companythat was doing internet radio
stuff, and then they folded andI spent the next three months
playing around doing lots ofshows like theater and movies
and stuff like that, which wasgreat.
Lots of industrial videos andthen I landed this job at
Microsoft, which was weirdbecause I had a non-compete,

(27:14):
which you can't do now anymore.
But anyways, back then youcould, and I had this
non-compete, so I couldn't gointo the creative side of it.
I ended up in this other place.
working on some server stuff andso I spent the next five years
at Microsoft, which ended upsolidifying another piece of who
I am, which is this project.

(27:34):
More project, what's called arelease manager in the software
world, which is somebody thatkind of manages the overall
project.
And that was, had many beautifulthings.
Microsoft is today, it's a verydifferent company than what it
was when I was there, but it wasboth the, we used to call it
like the evil empire on one end.
And on the other hand it was afantastic company that really

(27:56):
did take care of you and gaveyou a lot of opportunities and a
lot of abilities to do things,take classes and work with some
of the smartest people in theworld like I remember sitting in
Windows, what's called Windowsback then it was called Windows
War, which is this meeting everyday of the project managers
connected to everything that'sinside of Windows and thinking,

(28:19):
this group of misfits,'causewe're all misfits, affects
millions of people around theworld.
So you really have this sense ofresponsibility, this sense, and
brilliant minds, like reallybrilliant minds.
And they have a theater groupand lots of like programs.

Caroline (28:35):
Awesome.

So I was able to express myself in many
different ways, butunfortunately, having that
non-compete took me out of theartistic realm, which I had
always still combined in with mywork.
'cause at Real Networks, I wasworking on audio and video.
And also in this other company Iwas in that.
At some point it was like,luckily I was still doing

(28:56):
theater shows and such, andthat's where the next pivot came
in, which was that I ended upwalking, so I was doing these
auditions and I ended upauditioning for something.
And I walk in the room and thedirector, I'm looking at him and
I'm like, Jake?
And he's like, Hey, he wassomebody I had worked with at
Real Networks.
And I was like, oh.
'Cause when you're doingauditions and you're just doing
it for fun, you don't even knowwhat you're auditioning for.

(29:18):
You just go in'cause it's fun.
And you're like, okay, I'll findout when I get there.
And it turned out it was aperformance piece, like a
theater piece in the middle ofthis dance party.
And I was like, what do youmean?
He was like, like a rave.
And I was like.
I knew nothing about this world,by this point I was married.
My ex-husband has two children.
I had a steady job.

(29:38):
Yeah, we were a little kooky andwe were traveling a lot and
doing things, but I was still onthe mainstream, so I had no idea
of that, this world.
And he was, he ended up castingme and I ended up going into
these rehearsals with these, tome, they felt like kids.
They were all pretty much myage.
Maybe about four years youngerthan I was, but to me, they felt

(29:58):
like children because they werejust so free.
Like they were all theseunderground artistic side of
Seattle that I had never met atall, that felt very close to my
original roots, but in acompletely different style.
Like back then it was Rock andLatin Rock and the traditional

(30:19):
club scene.
And these were like undergroundparties and esoteric knowledge
and all this other world.
And I was sitting there going,this is possible.
No, this is possible.
And so at some point, I go to dothis performance and I realize

(30:39):
that night with the help of agood friend of mine who I had
met doing theater that, I waslike, I don't want my life, I
don't want at least parts of mylife.
I need a different life.
And so I went into thisperformance.
I came out, it was an all nightevent.
It started at seven o'clock atnight.
I ended up at seven o'clock inthe morning.
I walk out at seven o'clock inthe morning and I'm like, I go

(31:02):
home and I walk through the doorand I look at my ex-husband and
I'm like, I'm outta here.
And he's like, what do you mean?
I don't want, I don't want this.
I don't want, this is abeautiful home.
I loved my house, but I'm like,I don't want this.
I need different, this is tooanchoring for me.
This is too much.
And a few months later I endedup meeting, again one of the

(31:24):
founders of the company, youmight say, the group that I had
performed with.
And, we were, we got to becomereally close friends.
And we were chatting one nightand he was like, you should
manage me.
He was an artist.
And I was like, okay.
So I started managing him.
He started coming into theoffice at Microsoft.
He's like working on music andgraphics and creating and
painting, and I'm like trying toget my work done.

(31:47):
And about six months later I waslike, you know what?
This is not the life I want.
Like I do not wanna be sittinghere.
Yeah, I make great money.
Yes, I can travel.
Yes, I could buy houses.
Yes, I could do this, but thisisn't the life I want.
And so I just left.
I told my boss, who was awonderful person, I was like,
I'm outta here.
And he's are you sure?
And I'm like, yeah, I just needsomething different.

(32:10):
I don't know what I'm gonna dobut I'm gonna manage this kid.
And,

Caroline (32:14):
Yeah.

Maybe I'll make money, maybe I won't.
I had saved already from my 10years at this point in software
development, and I was like, I'mout.
And that's it.
I took it.
I had no logical thing to say, Ididn't have another job lined
up.
I didn't know what the hell Iwas gonna do.
I just knew, I couldn't be thereanymore.
And I knew that these peoplemade it on a lot less money than

(32:35):
I did.
And so I was like, if they cansurvive, I can survive.

Caroline (32:43):
Imagine what your life would be like if your career
aligned with who you are, whatyou do best, and actually fueled
the life you want.
At Next Success, we support allages and stages through career
transitions from studentsexploring majors or careers to
job seekers actively searchingor re-imagining their next move

(33:06):
to professionals committed toself-awareness and leadership
growth.
Stay connected and explorewhat's possible at
nextsuccesscareers.com andfollow@nextsuccessmethod on
LinkedIn, YouTube, Instagram,and Facebook.
This is what I want to try tohelp people do.

(33:28):
Like, what is the life you wantand how can your career or your
employment fuel that lifeinstead of detract from it.
So that's so amazing you hadthis experience.
Now did you have any signs inyour body or what's going on
other than,"I don't think thisis it." Like how did it show up
for you?
Because Yeah, by all externalmeasures,

I was a success.

Caroline (33:52):
Many people would say you were very successful because
you had the stable job at thegreat company and the house and
the husband and all the, all thethings, and yet the pain of
staying the same became greaterthan the pain of leaving.
You chose to leave, but like wasthere or how did that show up
for you?
Or just more of a inner voice.

There was more of a void you might say.
Like I would say that was thepart that there was more missing
than what I had and what wasmissing for me was.
By this point, I think if Iwould've stayed at real
networks, I don't know whatwould've happened.
But, by the time this happenedto me, where I was in Microsoft,

(34:37):
I had been on multiple teams atMicrosoft, and I have to say,
there was maybe only one ofthose teams where I felt like I
felt that passionate creativityemerging.
I think if I would've ended upnot having that non-compete
clause and would've gone intosome of the teams that were
connected to audio and video andI tried to get into one of the
other groups, but unfortunatelyit was full at the time.

(34:58):
That was more about working,like product placement, and so
you would've gone into Hollywoodand all that type of stuff.
Had I been able to get intothose types of teams, but I
ended up getting, keep keptgetting farther and farther away
from that creative source that Iknew I needed to be around.
I'm somebody that's very muchfueled by passion.

(35:19):
I'm, that was the void that Iwas missing.
I had this beautiful life and Ihad lots of fun that we would
have on vacation, but I wantedmy life to feel like vacation.
Like I wanted that and whatthese people that I met were
showing me was that you could doit.
And I think that was prettymuch, I think I had three things

(35:39):
going for me.
One, I did have savings, like Ihad saved up money and I had
been, I'm somebody who's verygood and frugal and knows how to
make her money, go a long way.
I had sold my house, like I hadbought a house and then I had
sold it.
I had also had some money putaway, so I thought, okay, at a

(36:00):
worst case, I can survive for alittle bit.
Two, I did just come outtaMicrosoft on my own volition,
which means I could probably goback, like worst case scenario,
I could get a job somewhere.
Some software company is gonnatake me because I have 10 years
of experience and I know whatI'm good at and stuff like that.
And third, I had their example,yes, they weren't living the

(36:22):
same kind of life that Iwould've wanted a hundred
percent, but I was watching, wewere producing these amazing
events.
And by this point I started toproduce events afterwards.
But like when I went to do thatshow, here was a show that, like
I said, ran 12 hours, it was ina old supermarket, like a huge

(36:43):
supermarket that had beencompletely transformed into this
whole space, traveler space.
I was seeing like theater andorganization of health and
wellness spaces and educationand sponsorships And I was like
looking around at all thisgoing, they don't have, the
money in their pocket like theMicrosoft people have.

(37:04):
But then it's not that theydon't know how to do things,
like they're not sitting aroundtwiddling their fingers.
They were following an ideal anda passion and even our
rehearsals, like this was reallyimportant stuff for humanity and
the way we were perceiving theseprayer performances.
And so it wasn't just Oh, I'mjust gonna do some theater for

(37:25):
some people." It's no, I'm gonnagive a message.
I'm gonna explore a topic.
I ended up becoming a part ofthis organization up until we
finished the series of eventsthat we were doing.
And each event was like a deepcatharsis of let me understand
what this means for humanity andhere are these massive
archetypes and here's how we'regonna create.

(37:46):
And so where they weren't maybeas educated as I was or didn't
have the refinement or theability to like project manage
in the way that I did, because Ihad come from this structured
world, they had a level of iningenuity and creativity.
And some of them were working inreally important companies that
were doing.
So it just showed me that therewas another life than the more

(38:09):
structured life I had alwaysseen in front of me.
And that was enough to give me asense of oh, I can do this.
And worst case scenario, I canstep back into my old life.

Caroline (38:20):
And so then what happens?
So you're doing these amazingperformances and then,

Yeah.
So I ended up, like I said,managing this artist.
Eventually he asked me to be hisbusiness partner and I ended up
opening a company, founded myfirst company where we started
to produce these events.
And I thought, oh great.
this is amazing.
My events were growing.
It was a lot of heartache.
They're not easy things to do.
but they were really soinspiring to do these.

(38:45):
I loved the music.
It was a whole another world ofmusic.
'cause I had come from the rockscene and this was like
electronic music.
And so I got to know the artistand I got to host people and it
was just.
Mind blowing for me because itwas an entirely different
experience.
And then, I started to datesomebody who, at some point, so

(39:07):
actually before that I ended upin one of my performances hiring
a circus, a small circus troupe,and became really good friends
with one of the ringmasters whowas like, Hey, do you wanna be
one of our partners?
we're we, we have a number ofco-owners.
Do you wanna be one of theco-owners and take care of this
piece and do all this stuff?
So I was like, yeah, and thatgot me into an even more

(39:29):
expansive way of looking atperformance that was more than
just acting or singing ordancing.
We had like traditional stuff,aerials.
And I got to learn a lot aboutthat world.
And I got to learn about,acrobatics.
But I also got to learn aboutmore darker stuff.
So it was really expansive,which was perfect for me.
Like I was in this.
I worked really hard because itwas a lot of work to do for the

(39:52):
marketing and to get everythingdone.
And then my partner says to meat some point after we're
producing these events, and he'syou know what?
I really wanna work with Cirquedu Soleil.
And I was like, okay, like Ineed to think twice about it.
I was like, okay.
I was like, okay.
By this point I was also in theesoteric arts, so I was studying
more on the esoteric side andhad become an initiative of

(40:13):
school.
And so I was like, yeah, okay.
Here's what we're gonna do.
We're gonna clean up your Karma.
And I actually have an episodeof my podcast that's about this.

Caroline (40:20):
What is the esoteric side?
Like?
What is, what is,

I was, I was, I walked, one of the events,
one, one of the groups that theevents that I was working on
partnered with was with thismystery school.
And so I started to study withthis mystery school and I
started to understand more of,the spirituality and more of
what is magic and how does magicwork.
I had always had an affinity forthat.
When I was younger.
I grew up with a lot of peoplearound me from Santeria to all

(40:45):
other kinds of different pieces.
But I had again, another one ofthose things that just left
behind.
So now I got back into this andI was starting to learn about
magic and Kabbalah and how is itthat all this works?
And I was loving.
So Kabbalah is a, so Kabbala.
The word Kabbalah means toreceive.

(41:06):
And so Kabbalah is really anunderstanding, a receiving of
the understanding of thecosmology, of the universe, of
how is it energetically that theuniverse comes into being from
nothing into the world of form,and what are the major
archetypes and relationshipsbetween these archetypes that
make up it?
That's a very simplistic way ofexplaining it.
So Kabbalah gives you a, anunderstanding of how these

(41:30):
different energies work acrossand how I can build anything
from them.
And how do I myself master themboth within me and around me?
And how do I then traversethrough the tree of life?
How do I walk through thesedifferent pillars, these
different ways of being in orderto elevate and refine always

(41:50):
myself and to really step intothe highest, the highest version
of myself, understanding how Ican navigate these different
energies.
So it is a very powerful system.
And by this point I was alreadylike studying, getting close to
being a teacher of it.
So I had, my, my own group thatI was, my, my company, which I

(42:12):
was producing these events.
I had the circus that I wassupporting and doing work with.
I had my esoteric studies that Iwas starting to get into
teaching.
And here he's I wanna work forCir Soleil.
And I was like, okay, sure.
We made it happen.
He ended up a few months later,finally, got offered a job and
we decided that we were gonnaleave the United States to go on

(42:34):
tour with Cirque du Soleil.
And that was where the nextphase started.

Caroline (42:39):
Okay, so now you throw all caution to the wind and just
follow this desire and thispassion to just keep creating
and this your romanticrelationship to just like evolve
and all this and leave theUnited States.
So where did you go?

So he got a job on, it was a hard decision.
The hardest part of thatdecision was we had three cats
at the time and we were like,can we leave the cats?
Like getting rid of everythingelse was easy, but we're like
the cats, what do we do?

Caroline (43:10):
I get it.

We ended up finding homes for the cats.
We ended up selling everything.
We got rid of our apartment, weput a little bit of some stuff
in storage, got rid ofeverything else and'cause we
decided we were just gonna go ontour and see where the heck that
took us again for myself.
Going back to what's yourmentality of, how do you think,
because I'm a Taurus, so I needhome, like I need home.
And so my home was this onesuitcase that had a certain

(43:33):
amount of things that no matterwhere I was staying, I had to
build out that suitcase, whichwas like my little altar and
stuff.
And then that made me home.
But I kept thinking to myself,I'm producing events in the
United States.
They don't happen that often.
Like at this point I wasproducing some really bigger
ones, so it took a long time.
So I was like, okay, I can justfly back for when the event
happens.

(43:54):
I was teaching esoteric stuffand he was gonna be having this
job, which took care of like ourlodging and some other stuff.
I was like, okay, we can dothis.
Let's just see what happens.
So again, in the back of my mindI'm like, worst case scenario, I
can just all leave it all andcome back to Microsoft.

Caroline (44:09):
Yeah.

That was my kind of reserve that was always
sitting there in the background.
And, and so we end up going,where did we go first?
We went London first.
So we flew out to London andthat was the first, stop on the
tour.
He came into the Raki tour.
It had just gotten to Europe.
I think this was like the secondstop for them.
And so we joined the tour there.

(44:31):
And I was working, I was tryingto like doing things a little
bit of remote.
This is already years ago.
So we were able to do a fewthings online.
Not as much as we can do rightnow, but I was able to prepare
my stuff for my group back home.
And, we're on tour for a fewmonths.
And I get offered a job withCirc also, which I only worked

(44:52):
for Circ for a short period oftime.
'cause to be honest, thatparticular show was not for me.
Anyways, I was on tour for ayear and we went London,
Amsterdam.
I don't remember the orderexactly.
We did Vienna, we did Lisbon.
We did, Valencia.
We did Madrid.
It was a tour.

Caroline (45:10):
Prior to this, had you done much traveling?

I had traveled a lot in my life.

Caroline (45:15):
Okay.

Yeah.
I had traveled quite a bit.
My, my family was alwaystraveling, so traveling was a
normal thing for me.
Traveling in this way was alittle bit different, especially
again at tourists.
So the idea of like, all I haveis we had two major road cases
which were oversized, which wasa pain to even get them to
Europe.
And then we each had onesuitcase each, and then we each

(45:37):
had one carry on.
That was it.
That was all we had.
Like one rolling bag, one bigsuitcase, one like road case
each, and that was our lives.
Like everything else was gone.
It was like, okay.
Which, that part of it was avery big switch for me.
'cause I had always been usedto, not just change everything
relating to like work, but alsochange a lifestyle that I was

(45:58):
very used to.
I'm in control.
This is my home.
I had always been the kind ofprimary on the house.
So that part of it was, was veryodd.
I was like, I gotta get used tothis thing.

Caroline (46:13):
Yeah, character building.

Plus Circ is its own little world.
It is a city of 200 people.
There are cliques.
It is work all the time.
You're in hotel rooms which arenot comfortable, contrary to
people's thoughts.
In the US they usually doapartments for the talent, but,
or for the techs, like we were,but instead, in Europe it's
mainly hotel rooms.

(46:34):
And hotel rooms are not fun forlong periods of time.
You don't have a refrigerator,you don't have a washing machine
there.
I learned how to wash things.
I could take them to the tentand get them washed there, but I
didn't like doing that, so Iwashed them all.
Like in the bath, I got verygood at washing things in the
bathtub.
Like it was just crazy times,like in that perspective.
Very crazy.

Caroline (46:55):
And you have to have your card to make the lights
work.

Absolutely.
And you didn't.
And sometimes we had, like whenI ended up working with them, we
had two rooms because everybodywho works gets a room no matter
what.
But while I was just travelingwith him, we had one room and
one room for a couple in, like aforeign city with just, for
long.
It's not good.
It's hard.
It's stressful.
It's very stressful.

(47:19):
Packing up, where do you go inbetween,'cause you have a week
off.
You have to figure out whereyou're gonna go.
'cause they don't necessarilyalways put you up.
Are there, are your visas comingin on time?
When we got to Amsterdam orVisas didn't come in, so we were
left out Circle was like, youcan go back to the US if you
want.
And we're like, go where?
They're like, your visas haven'tcome in, so we're not taking
care of you.
So we had to wait until ourvisas came in.

(47:40):
It was craziness.
There was a lot of madness tothe whole thing.
So much that I came off tour,the relationship ended, and I
came off tour a year later.
Little over a year later.
And that started another pivot'cause it's here I am getting
ready to break up with thisperson and get off this tour.
And I was like, where am I gonnago?
I don't have a place'causeSeattle had been my home for 11

(48:01):
years and I no longer hadanything there.
Like I didn't have a house, Ididn't have anything.
Miami was where I grew up, but Ihadn't lived there in 11 years.
So I had nothing there otherthan my family.
What do you do?

Caroline (48:17):
What do you do?

So here's what so funny when I think about
it.
It was around Christmas time, soeverything is like closed'cause
it's Europe, everything isclosed.
I am freaking out.
It was not a pretty breakup.
Like I was like, I was not doingwell and I'm thinking to myself,
what am I gonna do?
I had bought a plane ticket togo back to Miami.

(48:39):
'cause I was like, you go intothe arms of family'cause
whatever, where else are yougonna go?
I bought this ticket, but I didnot wanna go.
Something inside of me was like,I do not wanna go back to the
us.
I'm not ready to go back to theus.
This is not what I wanna do.
So I decided on this whimsaying, huh, I wonder if I could
take a language course for amonth.
And so I ended up starting likethis feverish search right

(49:03):
around New Year's Eve.
My ticket back to the US waslike on the 6th of January or
something.
So here I am on like the 30th ofDecember, frantically searching
online.
And I don't remember how I endedup, I think I thought.
The only language I had studiedlong term had been French.
So I was like, what if I go toFrance and I just study French
for a month until I can get myhead on straight back?

(49:23):
This time I was like cryingevery day.
I didn't know what the hell Iwanted to do.
We were in Madrid luckily, whichfor me is a city that's very
similar to my culture.
So I felt very comfortable inMadrid.
I thought I wanted to come backto Spain to live, but I wasn't
sure.
So I said to myself, I ended uplike finding this school that
was like heaven, but I tried tocall them and they were closed.

(49:47):
Mind you, back then, youcouldn't just use your phone,
although you had to buy new simcards and every country that you
were in and things like that.
So I, I called the school, Ileave a message on the voice
message and I send an emailsaying, Hey, I really wanna see
are, because they started likethe 2nd of January or something,
their new, their year, theirmonth program.
And I was like, I wanted to seeif you have any space or

(50:09):
anything like that.
And they didn't respond'causethey were closed.
And so I sent a message toanother school, this was in near
Nice.
And I sent a message to anotherschool that was, near
Montpellier and they respondedsaying they had space, but it
was a different kind of program.
The one in Nice was like allinclusive.
You were in school all day.
They had housing for you, thewhole nine yards.

(50:30):
But the one in Montpellier wasmore like, you go to classes and
then you're just living in thecity and it's like going to
school.
Like literally I live there andthen I go to school type of
thing.
And I wanted the immersiveexperience because I was a wreck
and I was like, I can't eventhink straight.
So I end up, I said to myself,okay, this is what I'm gonna do.
I was like, I'm buying a planeticket, which cost me a fortune

(50:52):
because it's the last minute.
I think I ended up buying it atthe airport.
It cost me like almost athousand to go just from Madrid
to Nice.
And I had to go through.
I don't, I think I had to gothrough Geneva or something like
that.
And I said, this is what I'mgonna do.
I'm gonna go to this school thatI wanna go to.
I'm gonna get there when they,I'll be there a little bit later

(51:13):
than when they open.
But, for their first day of likeorientation, if they don't have
space, I will just go to thetrain and I will take the train
to montpellier.
And I know that they have spacefor me.
And so that's what I'm gonna do.
So I ended up going to Genevaand then, ended up like, there
were overbooked.
So I spent the night in Geneva,which was very stressful for a

(51:35):
lot of different things, butalso very relaxing.
'cause at least I had a placethat was mine, that was like my
space.
I didn't have to talk to anybodytype of thing.
And phones don't work in Genevabecause Switzerland is a pain in
the ass.
And so all these types ofthings.
So I go to Nice, I get to theairport, I get on a cab.
I am crying my eyes out, sofreaked out.

(51:56):
And I'll never forget thisbecause he was like my little
savior.
I get there and it's thisbeautiful, up on a cliff.
The school is this beautifullocation up on a cliff, and I
am, I'm coming out of the caband I'm coming outta the taxi
and I'm grabbing my bag.
And this little man with abeautiful suit comes in very
short, very demure.
And he looks at me and he goes,"Mademoiselle?", he says my name

(52:19):
and I'm like, and I said, yes?
And he goes, don't worry, wehave space for you.
I was like, oh my God.
I was like, cry.

Caroline (52:29):
yeah.

Thank you.
So at least I knew I had a monthto figure out what the heck I
was gonna do with my life.
So I didn't go back to the US.
I was like, I'm not going.
'cause if I go back to the USI'm gonna be stuck there.

Caroline (52:40):
Yeah.

So, that's what I do.

Caroline (52:43):
Wow, wow.
Side note, do you have a hardstop?
'cause I would

I don't.

Caroline (52:47):
Okay.
Awesome.
Okay.
Alright, so now you go to thisimmersive language school, and
now are you fluent in French?

I was at the time, I was like the most
improved in the thing.
'cause I started off like crap.
And of course I was heartbreakthe whole thing.
You immersed yourself completelyin it.
So by the end, I got like anaward for most improved and
things like that.
And then in that time I had meta woman in Madrid.
She wanted to open, a likespiritual, esoteric wellness
type place in Madrid.

(53:16):
So I'm thinking, I'm gonna go toMadrid.
I'm thinking I'm gonna go and dothis with her.
Because we had met, we had come,I don't remember how we met, and
I was like, oh, this will begreat.
But she wasn't ready.
And her sister lived rightoutside of Lisbon, in Portugal.
So she's come to my sister'shouse.
We have plenty of room for you.
you can rent a room from us andfigure your stuff out.
And so I show up there afterthis, month in France and spent

(53:40):
the next three months rightoutside of Lisbon, which was not
a place I ever wanna live in.
I'm not a Portugal person, Ilearned, but I was very
grateful.
It's a beachside town.
It's very cathartic feeling in alot of different ways.
Besides the fact that we werefreezing,'cause there was like
no central heating in the houseand it was just very cold.

(54:00):
But I ended up, I threw myselfinto building a new business.
I was like, okay, I'm here, I'min Europe.
It looks like I'm gonna stay inEurope, so I need to, what am I
gonna do?
What was the other constant?
I always look for what are theconstants?
And the constant had been,obviously I can't produce events
or stuff like that because I'mnot in a place that's stable and
I can't do that part of my life.

(54:21):
I'm not going back into softwarebecause at this point I am not
ready for a nine to five.
So I said, I was alreadyteaching by this point, like
Astral Travel and SacredGeometry and Kabbalah, and so I
said, I'm just gonna pour myselfinto this.
So I started my second company,eternal Light Energy and and
just started to build a website,build out what my programs were.

(54:42):
I just spent the next threemonths completely immersed in
that and crying a lot.
I spent six months where I criedevery single day.
I was just like, the whole lifewas changing and I just had to
go through it.

Caroline (54:55):
That lets you release stuff though.

Yeah.

Caroline (54:58):
So like that's amazing that feel bad that you're
crying, but, Oh no.
I'm a big proponent.
Release all of that.
Yeah.

I am a huge proponent in the fact of you
have to go through it.
You have to let yourselfcompletely go through it.
And that's what I did.
I was like, I'm just gonna gothrough this and I am gonna sit
here in this like little hunchedwith sweaters and a space
heater, and I am going to liketap, tap to create things.
And I was gonna learn how to useFacebook and all these types of

(55:26):
things to create this new worldfor myself.
And I thought I was gonna beworking with this woman, and
then we did one trip togetherand we looked at each other and
we're like, we can't do thistogether.
She's oh, yeah, no, we justweren't compatible from a
business perspective.
I knew I didn't wanna stay inPortugal and I was like, you
know what I kind of just went.

(55:47):
I'm going to Barcelona.
Barcelona is my, on my father'sside, my family heritage, like
few generations out, like fromthe ones that came from Cuba to
Santiago were from the Barcelonaarea.
And I was just like, I'm gonnago to Barcelona.
That's probably of all of theselike transitions that I'm
talking about, it is the mostleap of faith ones because as

(56:11):
you've noticed in almost all ofthese, there was, how do I say
this?
There was a job or someopportunity.

Caroline (56:19):
Yeah.

I leave Microsoft because I had the
opportunity to manage thisperson, and that eventually
turned into a business.
I leave the United Statesbecause I go to Cirque du Soleil
with my partner.
It wasn't mine, but we werethere and so there was always
like, something.
Barcelona was the first onewhere there was nothing like

(56:41):
literally absolutely nothingother than I wanna live in the
place of this heritage.
I feel like that's the placethat's gonna take care of me
right now.
That's where I'm gonna build mybusiness.
I speak the language, I know theculture.
That's about as much as I had.
Other than that, I knew nothing.
I had never been there.
I got an apartment without everbeing stepping foot there.

Caroline (57:01):
Wow.

And I was like, I really know that I am at
a place in my life at thispoint.
I was in, my mid thirties and Iwas like, I know that I want to
create something and Barcelonais the place that I want to
create it.
I have no idea why or how orwhat or anything.
And again, in my mind, I hadsafety nets can always go back

(57:22):
to Microsoft.

Caroline (57:23):
Yeah.

I could always go back to Miami and just
start over with supportive mamaand, that type of thing and get
a job at target or something.
I was like, at that point I waslike, you know what?
I've done a little bit ofeverything at this point.
I'll figure it out somehow.
So that was the, probably thereal, the first jump with no
safety net whatsoever.

Caroline (57:44):

I spent the next few years Ithought I loved Barcelona.
It is my city.
Other than Miami, it's the placethat I feel most at home.
Ever.
And I was convinced I was gonnastay there.
I was building, I built out mybusiness.
I was teaching classes there, Iwas teaching classes already
online.
I was traveling to teachclasses.

(58:07):
I was coming back to Miami toteach classes.
So I was creating thisrelationship with Miami.
That was great.
And I thought, this is perfect.
I'll come to Miami a few times ayear and teach, I'll be able to
teach wherever anybody invitesme to come.
I had made some amazing friends.
I was set, I was like, this isit.
I made, I got life.
This is it.
And then a friend came to visitme and says to me she was coming

(58:31):
through town.
She is actually at the time, shewas my friend's sister.
I didn't know her very well, butshe was coming through town, and
she was like, Hey, she came tovisit me and we were out in
Barcelona having fun.
And she's Hey, I'm heading toItaly, she was a glass blower
and she was like, I'm headingover to Murano.
Do you wanna maybe meet up?
'cause she had other, thingsthat she was gonna do.

(58:52):
She's do you wanna meet up inMilana?
We can go to this place,Damanhur..
She's like, you know that placethat we've heard talk about with
these cathedrals that areunderground and stuff.
And I was like, I'm always up Ifsomebody asks me what?
I'm a in human design, I'm aprojector, which means if you
invite me to something, I ammost likely gonna say yes.
So I was like, sure, let's doit.

(59:12):
And so another girlfriend ofmine ended up adding herself to
this trip.
And so we went and planned thistrip.
We met in Milan.
We rented a car and drove outback with printed MapQuest maps
and it was crazy to drive inthis rural area of Italy.
And we decided to spend aweekend out here in this town.

(59:34):
I had gotten in touch with anold client student who had spent
a lot of time here.
She put me in touch withsomebody who was living here at
the time, who helped me organizeall of the trip.
She got us a place to stay andwe were like, oh, okay, I'm
gonna come and spend thisweekend exploring this spiritual
community in the middle of theItalian Alps.
And just, I had no expectations.
I was happy in Barcelona, I wasloving it.

(59:56):
And I come out here and it wasmind blowing to say the least,
because basically Damanhur islike a cross between Hogwarts
and Oz.

Caroline (01:00:08):
What?

Tigrilla Gardenia (01:00:09):
Exactly.
You have to be here to see.
So Italian countryside,underground temples, esoteric
community, everything isspiritually based.
Like all these things.
And I was telling this womanthat I had just met the things
that I had done in my life in myvery odd background.
And she looks at me and she'soh, we need you here.
And I was like, absolutely not.

(01:00:30):
Like I living in a house.
'cause we live in community hereand I'm like, me in a house with
20 people, I will kill somebody.
No.
But thank you so much forthinking of me that way.

Thanks for thinking I could.

Exactly.
I go back home and of coursefricking synchronicity here is
this crazy little thing that youjust don't mess with.
So I get back and my roommatelooks at me.
She's like, how was your trip?
We need to talk.

Oh.

So she turns out, tells me she's leaving.
And she's going back toArgentina.
I'm gonna need to find a newplace, which sucked'cause I
loved my apartment and I waslike, okay, so I need to find a
new apartment.
And then this woman that I hadmet here in Damanhur calls me up
and says, Hey, I spoke to theking back then.
They were called king guides,who are like the head of the
social side of Damanhur Andthey're like, we'd love for you

(01:01:15):
to come and spend six monthshere working on a project for
us.
And I was like, okay.
I was like six months, then I'llcome back to Barcelona.

Yeah.

Come back to Barcelona and I'll rebuild my
life there.
Six months is not a big deal.
I can do six months.
And I decided to bring all mystuff with me because when I had
left Madrid, after leaving Circ,I had left my stuff in Madrid
and it was a pain to go and getit and stuff.
I had to make multiple trips togo and pick it up and stuff.
So I was like, you know what,I'm just gonna rent a car.
And I'll bring my stuff down.

(01:01:47):
I came back up to Barcelona.
I taught a class in sacredgeometry to a set of architects,
and I flew to Damanhur and Istarted on this project and
about three months into theproject I was like, okay, I had
been here and I had been workingon this project, and I had been
in the community, and I waslike, you know what?
I really want, what a greatopportunity for me who had been

(01:02:09):
a teacher now at this point fora very long time to be a student
again, to like really step backinto an esoteric commu and to
not be a solo practitioner, tohave the opportunity to do I was
really looking for the communityperspective, not so much the
magic, because I already had themagic, but I was like, Ooh, the
idea of doing things with othersand stuff.
So I signed up for the school,admitted action, and yeah,

(01:02:30):
that's 15 years ago and I'mstill here.

Wow.
Wow.
Okay.

I was like, okay.

somewhere along the way, or maybe always, and it
just didn't come up, butsomewhere along the way, plants
came into this world.

Yes, so I'm here in Damanhur.

Is this a thread that was in the background or,

No, we're getting there.
We haven't gotten there yet.
So I'm here in Damanhur and I'mworking on this project and
really it's more of a techproject.
It was because of my project, mybackground doing events and all
the tech world that I knew sowell.
So I was like doing all theirsocial media strategy at the
time and I was working on thewebsite and like developing a
new website, which is not thewebsite that exists today, but
it was a really amazing thingthat we did.

(01:03:12):
And, I'm putting all this stufftogether and I ended up, I'll
try to make this story a littlebit brief, but basically I ended
up hearing this music.
Remember my background is inmusic, so I ended up hearing
this music, and I follow themusic and I end up at a speaker,
connected to a box, connected toa plant.
And it was like this instantplant reawakening of like the

(01:03:39):
plant was making the music usingthis box as an instrument.
And I just kept staring at theplant like saying, are you
talking to me?
are you talking to me?
And it was just this experience.

It's one day you're just, you hear something, you're
like, what's that sound?
You go on this exploration, butin this literally magical place.

Yeah.

Okay.
Yeah.
Yeah.

Yeah.
That's literally it.
Like this plant literally islike all of a sudden this idea
that plants are alive andconscious and thinking, I didn't
have the words for it in themoment, but I was like.
Oh my goodness.
You are someone, you are someonethat is speaking or ex or
expressing or whatever words wewant to use through this music.
Music had always been thischannel for me, this opportunity

(01:04:26):
for me to experience and feeland live and all these, it had
been this continuous threadthroughout my entire life.
And all of a sudden now here Iwas thrust back into it with
this being that I would've neverexpress experienced as a
musician.
And that took me down thatrabbit hole, which is like, how

(01:04:47):
is this happening?
How is this work?
Remember, I'm an engineer, I'm amusic engineer, so I've got like
a device that is all engineeringand a plant that's making music.
So it was like, oh my goodness.
And so while I was working on,all the other stuff I was
working on, I was starting tolearn about this whole thing of
how is it the plants and

Like it just needs a big enough speaker for you to
hear or to be Like are allplants making music or

All plants can make music.
So if they want to, basicallythis device is a musical
instrument for plants.

This is just so freaking fascinating.
I'm just like loving my liferight now, learning about your
life like.

Okay, so basically you have this device
is a musical instrument thatworks for plants.
So it allows the plants to usetheir electrical response in
order to create melodies andcreate notes of music.
Plants can already make sounds,they make this like clicking and
there's like some popping soundsand where there is a whole field
of bioacoustics that's trying tofigure out exactly what they
mean.
Are they purposeful?

(01:05:47):
how do they work and all thatkind of stuff.
This is slightly differentbecause it's talking about
plants.
From the perspective of beingable to be the musicians.
And so this device was somethingthat the community built,
Damanhur started to build wayback in the 1970s, and so has
been perfecting over the years.
And so what ends up happening isthat I'm working on all of this
social media and with thewebsites, and then they pull me

(01:06:09):
over to the team that'sconnected to the music of the
plants because they're gonnalaunch their, we're ready to
launch it on a more globalscale.
So I get it asked if I was,gonna work on that project as
well as some other projects.
So that's really what took medown the rabbit hole of first
starting to work with plants.
I ended up doing it on the kindof more techie I was building
out, partnerships and I was,doing social media and I was

(01:06:30):
doing all these differentaspects of it.
And then at some point Irealized that I needed to step
out of like the work that I hadbeen doing inside of the
community because I could feelthat I was changing.

Changing in a way you didn't wanna be?

No, I ended up growing to an next self and I
was starting to realize that, alot of the social media strategy
and stuff that I was doing wascool, but it wasn't really that
interesting.
Then they moved me over only tothe websites, which really was
not what I wanted.
It was the same thing that hadhappened at Microsoft.
I kept getting back and backoutside of the creative music
other teaching all these typesof sides.

(01:07:05):
And I discovered that the kindof, in Italy, there's a very
famous professor, Dr.
Stefano Mancuso, he's worldknown, but especially in Italy.
He's like a superstar connectedto the plants.
He was starting a new master'sdegree in Florence, called

Vegetal Future (01:07:18):
Plant Social Innovation and Design.
And I thought, oh, that's great.
I'm just gonna move to Florencefor a year or two and I'm just
gonna do this master's.
Because we have, now being a dohurry in, we have a center in
Florence.
And so I contacted a bunch ofpeople.
I ended up getting into themaster's degree and I was like,
I'm just gonna go to Florence.

(01:07:40):
So I left everything.
I still had my home base here.
'cause again, we live incommunity, but I decided that I
was rather than just commuting.
'cause a lot of people werejust, it's a, the program was
every Friday and Saturday, so alot of people would commute.
I was like, no, I'm just gonnamove there.
I'm gonna go experienceFlorence.
And, and that forced me while Iwas doing my master's to think

(01:08:02):
again, now that I've left kindof Damanhurian work.
What is it that I wanna doagain?
Do I wanna teach, do I wanna dothings?
And this perspective?
And I really was working veryclosely with the plants.
And at this point I wasliterally collaborating.
And when I finished my master'sand came back, I started

(01:08:22):
collaborating with oneparticular plant, spider plant,
my business partner at the time.
And just everything started toclick into place.
Like I started to build out moreof my coaching world and
eventually then ended up gettingmy coaching certification
because, again, synchronicitytook over.
And with COVID, the Universityof Miami, ended up going

(01:08:43):
completely online.
I used to wake up in the middleof the night'cause I would do my
classes from 1 to 2:30 in themorning.

Wow.

Twice a week.
And I ended up kind of buildingout that entire world, which was
putting all of my knowledge of,the plants and my coaching and
all my experience that had a lotof tech and business experience,
everything, just putting it alltogether into what I do today.
So that's really what takes usto today was all this chance

(01:09:11):
encounter with a plant.

I'm still like, wait, what plants make music?
I feel like I need to go searchto find music that plants made.
You know?

Exactly.

is it choosing to make music or is that just like the
energy of the universe or God,or however somebody wants to
call it, coming through thatplant and you just have to know
to pay attention.

No, we thought at first that it was
just the plants randomly makingthings.
But over the years, you know howmusicians are, if there's music
happening, they wanna make musicwith whatever music is.
I remember my friends who would,we would be at the gym and they
would clink the weights togetherand they would be like, oh,
that's a whatever note, that's aD.
And then they would startsinging a tune.
so musicians are like, freakylike that.

(01:09:54):
And so when we started workingwith the music of the plants, a
lot of people who were musicianswere like, oh, I wanna play pick
up my guitar and try to playalong.
And then the plant would changethe music to harmonize with the
human.
So that's where we started torealize.

Wow.

And beyond now that there's a lot

Yeah.

Now that there's a lot of scientific data
for this, but even at that timewe were like, oh my goodness.
We were starting to empiricallyrealize that plants were
listening, that they had asenses that they could
understand.
The scientist has now caught up.
I have a whole series called thePlant Consciousness Commentary,
where I go through all of thescience from starting from 2006,

(01:10:31):
which was really the bigbreakthrough for plant
neurobiology to where we aretoday.
And really it was, I would saythat there's three things.

That's the same age as my oldest child.
I'm like, this is like, this isborn and this is now how
developed it is.

Yeah, so that gives you an idea.
And that's the interesting part.
I feel like there's three kindof pieces that really have glued
everything together with me.
For me, one has been plantsbecause plants have showed me
how to look at life like anecosystem, how to really put
everything together and how to,not try to throw anything away
from talents or things that youthink are wrong or limiting

(01:11:06):
beliefs or any of those types ofthings.
It encompasses everythingbecause an ecosystem is made,
there's no waste in anecosystem, so everything fits in
together.
Then there's been the Kabbalahbecause Kabbalah for me has
always been a giant map.
It's a way of me understandinghow things fit together in the
universe.
It doesn't matter if you'retalking to me about Jesus Christ

(01:11:28):
or Buddha, or if you're talkingto me about Allah or if you're
talking to me about colors oryou're talking to me about
sounds or smells or whatever.
With Kabbalah, I can figure outhow they all fit into a greater
mapping of kind of everythingthat there is in our spiritual
ecosystem and put it alltogether and be able to see the

(01:11:50):
past that they travel to getfrom one to the other.
And then the third was, whichwas the damanhurian side of it,
which is a combination ofspiritual physics and community,
which is about giving.
And the ecosystem gives you thecommunity, but really spiritual
physics, which is the cosmologyof the universe.
Sort of laying that with theKabbalah helped me better
understand like, why am I here?

(01:12:10):
What is our mission as humans?
Why are we playing this game?
All these different parts.
And I think having all of thosekind of clicked together has
allowed me, which is something Iwork with a lot with my clients,
is that as a multipotentialite,we have this tendency to think,
oh no, be disciplined, befocused.
Pick one, do this.
As you can tell from my life, Inever picked one.

(01:12:30):
I have always used all of them.
I found the continuous thread.
I've understood how it is that Iexpress myself.
And the parts of me that bridgethings together, and then I've
used that to be able to move.
And when you do that flow allowsyou to always feel safe.
Whether it's because you giveyourself the stories.

(01:12:53):
Like for me, that I could goback to Microsoft.
I can't go back to Microsoft.
It's been on ages.
In my mind, that's still astory.
That gave me a sense ofsecurity.
It was a sense of understandingthat the talents and the things
that I learned working at realnetworks and Microsoft have
still served me today in acompletely different way.
They don't have the same names.
They don't, but they're stillthe same principles.

(01:13:15):
And so once you start torecognize that your passions
really are just giving youdifferent avenues that you
filter through what I call yourwhat biomimicry calls your deep
pattern or endowment, or we callit your archetype, you feed that
through your archetype.
You are always going to be thenexpressing your true essence.

(01:13:35):
And when you express your trueessence opportunities just show
up in front of you.
They just do.
And then it's just a matter ofyou making those choices and you
can always experiment and playand step back.
And, it's not that I haven't hadhard times and I haven't had mo
moments where I'm like, what thehell am I doing?
But there's a flow that you thenwe say here in Damanhur,, it's

(01:13:56):
about guiding the synchronicity.
There's, that syn chronic flow,it seems to just like flow in
front of you.
And as long as you're not, I'vealways said, as long as you're
not running away from anything,but you're running toward it, it
doesn't matter if you change 17times, you can change 25 times.
You can jump.
If you saw my day, you think,how the hell does she get

(01:14:16):
anything done?
But I get lots done, but I'malways jumping from one thing to
the other, mid-sentence even.
But because there's anexpression and a flow and
there's a trust in the process,at the end of the day, my
checklist always gets done.

Hmm.

And I'm always doing the things that
feel most calling to me.
Do I have the money in my pocketthat my friends who stayed at
Microsoft the entire 20 years?
No, but you know what?
I don't even need it either.
I don't have those same needs.

Yeah.

If I did, my life probably would've showed me
ways to get that.
I have no doubt on that.
But because that's not whatmotivates me is that ideal, that
passion, that really beingimmersed.
I love having things thatcompletely engulf me and that
part of my expression, thatbeing the bridge, but that can
engulf herself in one thing andthen engulf herself in the other

(01:15:08):
and have all of these differentreally deep pieces.
As long as I'm expressing that,'cause that's, for me, that's
what works.
So what I work with my clientsis I don't actually care what
you do, what I care is howyou're doing it.
You have to find your way ofdoing it.
And when we discover thateverything else will just flow
into place, you might do theexact same thing for a long

(01:15:30):
time.
You might switch around every 10minutes, but if you know how
you're doing it, like how it isthat it expresses itself, you
will find that path.

That's so cool.
That's so cool.
Okay.
This community?
Is it all sorts of people?
Is it only women?
Like what's the deal?
What happened to the love lifealong this thread?

So Damanhur is, so in the first city, which
is where I am in Italy, in thefirst City, there's probably
about 500 people, includingchildren of all sorts.

Yeah.

We also have another about 800 around the
world.
So people who are initiates thatare connected to Damanhur, we
have multiple, what we call likegroups that are carrying out
either centers or what we callritual circles in the United
States, in Japan, in Germany, inNorway, Australia.
So Croatia, many differentgroups that are carrying out the

(01:16:26):
work that are part of our wholecommunity and our world.
So it's this beautiful location.
People are welcome to visit.
You'd love to see the temples ofhumankind.
They really are mind blowingtype of thing.
And so it's, yeah, it's thisamazing, it's a mission.
It's a life that's based on amission.

(01:16:47):
We also have schools that areopen to people, and we have all
kinds of alchemy school anddream school and mystery schools
and other knowledge and general.
But also we have then theinitiatic path, which is more
of, I feel the mission ofDamanhur as my mission.
I feel like this is part of whoI wanna be and what I wanna
carry out in life.

Oh wow.
That's so cool.
So cool.
Okay.
This has been so likefascinating and mind blowing.
I'm curious now.
How do you define success?
How do you define authenticsuccess?
So for, so for me, success hasalways been whatever somebody
defines it as.
Right?
And that can change over time,you're fully owning you,

(01:17:30):
utilizing all your gifts andtalents and potentials and
amazings, and allowing yourlight to just radiate throughout
the entire world.
And how do you define yourauthentic success in this
moment?

Yeah.
For me, success is exactly whatI said before, which is when you
express.
Whatever it is that you'redoing, no matter what that is,
is being expressed through whatwe call your archetype.
That way of being, that way thatI am.
For me, I'm a bridge.
I need to be bridging things.
I need to know, immerse myselfin what both sides are, and then

(01:18:05):
I need to help a company, peopleor connect or in that way, I
like to walk people across thebridge so that you get from
where you are to where you wannabe.
And if I'm doing that, itdoesn't matter if I'm using
software.
If I'm coaching, if I'm teachinga class, if I'm being a support
for a program that's happening,it doesn't matter what I'm

(01:18:26):
doing, but if I'm expressingthat part of myself using
whatever passion I have in thatmoment, which could be, I don't
know, paper airplanes, that tome is successful because that's
the thing that enriches my life.
That's what allows me toaccomplish my life purpose and
to really connect into my soulmission.
That is the part where I feellike I connect into a greater

(01:18:48):
society, into the ecosystem andthe community in which, as I
live in those pieces, thathelping people bridge the gap,
you might say, is really what Ido so well.
And if I'm expressing that I'mbeing successful, sure, I wanna
be able to make sure I live in anice place and I wanna have food
on the table and all thosepieces.
But if I'm expressing that Ireally, truly believe that all

(01:19:09):
of that will show up.

How do people find you?
If somebody wants to learn moreabout you, your work, this
community, the things that youteach, like how do they find
you?

So luckily I'm pretty easy because I have
an unusual name, so that meansthat you can find me basically
at Tigrilla Gardenia everywhere,whether it's
tigriillagardenia.com, all oneword, like putting it all
together.
And so first name, last name,altogether".com" Or at
Instagram, or at YouTube, or onFacebook.
All of those, and LinkedIn.

(01:19:39):
You'll find me on all of them.

Oh, that's awesome.
Thank you so, so very much forsharing your story, your
amazing, beautiful path and yourlife.
I am just so thankful.
So thank you for all of that.
Thank you for being on Your NextSuccess.

Thank you.
Thank you so much.
It's been really fun to gothrough it all.

Thank you so much for our conversation.
It has been such a pleasure tolearn more about you.
Tigrilla reminds us that successis not a straight line.
It's a living rhythm.
And when you align what's alivein you, the next step unfolds
naturally.
To learn more about Tigrilla'swork and her programs, visit

(01:20:22):
tigrillagardenia.com and connectwith her on social media
@tigrillagardenia.
And if today's conversationstirred something in you.
If you're ready to find thealignment that lets your life
and work thrive together, I'dlove to help you uncover it.
You can book a free clarity callat nextsuccesscareers.com or use
the link in the show notesbecause your success doesn't

(01:20:45):
need to be forced.
It's already taking root.
Thanks for listening to YourNext Success with Dr.
Caroline Sangal.
Remember, authentic success isyours to define and includes
aligning your career to supportthe life you want.

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Tigrilla Gardenia - What Plants Taught Her About Success

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.css-14f5ked{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:2;overflow:hidden;}Tigrilla Gardenia - What Plants Taught Her About Success