What happens when the dream you built crumbles overnight? This is the first time I’m sharing the story of the hardest chapter in both my business and my life. The moment everything I had worked so hard for slipped through my fingers. I’m telling it now because I wish someone had told me back then that it wouldn’t end there. That even in the silence and the loss, something new was being born. If you’re in that place, holding pieces of what used to be, I hope you take a moment to read this.

We hear countless stories about rising from failure to achieve something beautiful. But what we don’t hear enough about is what happens when failure comes after success. When you climb the mountain, feel the wind in your hair, and think, This is it. I made it.

And then, everything falls apart.

This letter is for the version of me that walked through that exact season. The woman who once felt unstoppable and then, for a while, couldn’t see how she’d move forward at all.

My twenties were full of firsts and milestones. I was never the best in school, but the moment I discovered entrepreneurship, something clicked. For the first time in my life, I felt the freedom to build something that reflected who I was. I didn’t follow a roadmap; I built one.

And it worked. I built a business that gave us more than just stability, it gave us a life we loved.

We went from living paycheck to paycheck and biking my daughter to school because we didn’t have a second car, to both my husband and I working from home full time, doing work we loved. That season was rich with joy, confidence, and creativity. I found a version of myself I had only dreamed about as a girl. I had found success.

And then I lost it.

Not slowly. Not gently. But in the kind of way that feels like a violent wind ripping your roots from the ground. My business failed. Not because I gave up or made poor choices, or wasn’t working hard enough, but because sometimes, no matter how much you fight for something, it’s just not in your control.

In my case, my digital products that I had spent so much time and energy creating were stolen and leaked on the internet, and my sales went from making half a million in a year to almost no sales at all.

I had just had my third baby. Emotions were high, hormones were everywhere, and I was likely dealing with postpartum depression I didn’t know how to name. What had once been a life I loved felt foreign. We had to sell out home in Maui. We had to leave Maui. Everything felt so uncertain. For eight months, we drove around the country as a family, wandering from place to place, searching for something that would feel like home. Looking back, I also remember feeling a huge sense of being lost and really not knowing where to be or what to do. Hitting the road full time was a way for me to just be, without needing to really make any big decisions.

There were beautiful moments in that season, adventures, laughter, sunrises in new cities, and starry nights in some of the most breathtaking national parks. So many days spent in places where no one knew where I was. No one expecting anything from me. No inbox. No pressure. Just space.

I remember standing alone in the vast canyons of Big Bend National Park in Texas, surrounded by silence so big, you could hear your own heart beating. A quiet unraveling. A shedding of everything I had been holding onto. For a moment, it felt like I was the only person in the world. And strangely, that aloneness didn’t feel lonely. I had my husband. I had my kids. And in that stripped-down version of life, that was enough.

I didn’t need to be anyone other than who I was in that very moment. It was a kind of presence I had never felt before. A silence I’ll never forget.

But underneath it, there was this deep ache. A quiet fear that whispered: Maybe that was it. Maybe your moment already passed.

We eventually landed in Bokeelia, a tiny island off Florida after covid started and halted our travels. We sold our RV, bought a little house and settled in. During this time I took up biking, mostly as a form of therapy.

I would ride to the end of the island, past this little white cottage near the water. There was a small dock, and I would sit there, letting myself just feel. The waves knew my grief. The sky held my silence. Rain or shine, I kept showing up.

Sometimes I cried. Other times I rode like I could out-bike the sadness. But slowly, those moments became sacred. I started to believe that maybe, just maybe, this wasn’t the end. That the loss, the heartbreak, the confusion, it could all become part of a bigger story. And even today I remember those days so clearly because I kept thinking that maybe I would be lucky to look back on this hard chapter from a different place.

I started working again. I created slowly, quietly, with less certainty but more depth. I let that little dock become a sanctuary. Not a place where dreams ended, but one where new ones were born.

If you’ve ever lived in Florida, you know how quickly the weather turns. One minute it’s sunny, the next you’re in a downpour. Some days it felt like the rain matched my own heartache. Other days it reminded me that not everything is in our control. And that’s okay.

If you’re reading this and you’re in the in-between. After the high, before the next chapter, want you to hear this: Failure after success doesn’t mean your best days are behind you.

It doesn’t mean you were wrong to believe in yourself.

It just means you’re human.

You are allowed to change. To grieve. To question it all. But don’t let the fear convince you that this is where it ends. If you did it once, you can do it again.

And this time, you’ll build something even better because you have so much more experience.

Today, years later, my life looks completely different. My business has changed. I have changed. But that chapter, the one with the dock, the rain, and the silence, will always live inside me.

It taught me not to let success define me. And just as importantly, not to let failure define me either.

If you’re sitting in your own quiet moment, wondering if the best is behind you, let this be the reminder you didn’t know you needed: Your story isn’t over. Not even close.

I know it’s hard to see it now. When you’re in the thick of it. When the light feels so far away, and all you can hear is the echo of what once was.

There is still so much waiting for you. Things you can’t yet see. People you haven’t met. Versions of yourself you haven’t discovered. Joy that will find you in the most unexpected places.

I wish someone, anyone, would’ve looked me in the eyes back then and said: Your best days are still ahead.

That the dream wasn’t gone. That the spark would come back. That even though everything felt broken, something beautiful was still being built underneath it all.

So I’m saying it to you now.

Things will get better.
You will find your way.
And the best moments of your life are still ahead.

Even if you can’t see it yet.

But you have to keep going.
And you have to keep holding onto hope.

You’re not done.
Not even close.