What happens when you follow the whisper of a dream, and it leads you to a whole new life in Italy?

Today’s guest, Chris Sobolev, co-owner of Super Savvy Travelers and a rising fine artist, returns to share the extraordinary “after” story of what’s happened since her first appearance on the show in July 2024.

For those of you who have been in my world for a while, you know I love all things Italian. If you are new, welcome!

My love of Italy began in 1996 when I opened my first business, an entertainment PR company, where I worked with celebrities, visual and performing artists. I named it Capri PR because of my fascination and love of Italy and the Amalfi Coast.

Same time, famous author Frances Mayes wrote and released her memoir Under the Tuscan Sun. I was so enamored with her, the story and her lifestyle. I said at the time, “I want her life!”

The dream was planted. It was not until 2017 after 9 yrs in my coaching business that I honored that dream thanks to my coach at the time who helped me recover my dreams and make money with joy. 

The result of that coaching session was a month-long stay in Florence, Italy that changed my life. Three more trips to Italy happened between 2017-2024. This is how Chris and I met as you will find the full story in our conversation.

Now, Chris is living the dream she once only imagined—owning several homes in Italy, making art, and running a thriving YouTube channel and Italian Home Ownership business with her husband, Pete.

But it wasn’t all la dolce vita at first.

In this inspiring follow-up, we talk about the inner and outer transformations that got her there: rebuilding confidence, navigating online and offline stalkers, redefining her worth, and restructuring her business to align with high value clients, joy, authenticity, and ease.

Whether you’re dreaming of an Italian lifestyle or longing to unlock your next creative chapter, this conversation is rich with permission, possibility, and practical insight.

You’ll hear:

• The soulful connection that drew Chris (and me!) to Italy

• What changed in her business and mindset to make her dreams real

• Her advice for anyone longing to own a home in Italy and how she and her husband consult and take you through the process

• How art, following her joy, friendship, and inner work fueled her breakthroughs

Get ready to be inspired by what’s possible when you say YES to the life your intuition has been whispering to you each day. Find all her ways to connect in show links and how to apply to discuss Italian Home Ownership. Show links: IG: @chrissobolev and @supersavvytravelers LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/chris-sobolev-41a08713/ All About Italy FB Group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/205311277354653 FB: Chris Sobolev https://www.facebook.com/chris.ellis.3720 YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@SuperSavvyTravelersLLC  YouTube: @ChrisSobolevFineArt Fine Art Website: https://www.chrissobolev.com/ Italian Home Ownership First Steps: You will find all the  initial qualifications to have a zoom call with Chris by reading the application: https://www.supersavvytravelers.com/italian-home-ownership/

High Performing Women Entrepreneurs: Learn the NEW success paradigm that becomes a catalyst for lasting transformation professionally & personally. Ask yourself, is it time to change your success metrics to align with today’s challenging times? Free INSTANT ACCESS:  https://marladiann.com/prioritizing-desires/

Today’s episode is for the woman entrepreneur, speaker, coach, author, lifestyle expert, or service professional who’s craving more fun, adventure, play, and joy—while making and increasing consistent income.

If you’ve been feeling the shift lately—like something isn’t quite adding up, energetically or financially—you’re not alone. Many brilliant, creative, successful women I work with are sensing it too. 

This in-between space you’re navigating? It’s not a breakdown. It’s a calling—to something deeper, more aligned, and more authentic than ever before.

I want you to live and work from a blend of both Feminine & Masculine energy and traits with Feminine leading the way. It’s a dynamic dance between power & play as you redesign how you operate in your business or career without neglecting your feminine self or diluting your edge.

In this elevating conversation, I introduce you to a new paradigm of success:

Desires + Goals = Success + Transformation.

It’s the foundation of my Creative Achievement Formula, and the core of how I’ve helped women reinvent how they live, work, and lead—with feminine energy leading the way. I created it out of my own serious breakdown to breakthrough.

You’ll hear:

• How my own burnout in 2017 led to a reinvention by following my desire to Florence, Italy for a month-long stay—and how that changed everything

• The reason your desires matter just as much as your goals

• What happens when you prioritize pleasure, play, spirituality, and intuition as part of your business strategy

• Why suppressing your feminine gifts keeps you disconnected—and how to reclaim them with joy and power

• Two stories from clients who’ve shifted into this new way of being and are seeing powerful, life-changing results

I encourage you to change the metrics you use for success. I’ll also guide you through a few soul-stirring exercises to begin your own desires-led reinvention today.

This is your permission slip to redesign how you achieve success—and finally treat yourself well in the process. Because you’re not stuck…You’re being called. 

Show Links:

A 1-1 zoom call is required to be considered for the cohort. We will explore your life, business and how the cohort fits into all that and if we are a match. Email [email protected] with your interest to schedule a call and we will send you the cohort pre-call form with a few important questions. Or fill the form out here: https://bit.ly/Spring-Summer-Cohort

Join the Cohort! We begin May 28th: A curated cohort for visionary women entrepreneurs ready to embody their next level of success in how they manifest their one-year desires and goals in four months through refined intuition and innovative strategies. https://marladiann.com/create/

I have a special guest today who I reconnected with a few months ago after 10 years.

Christie Flynn was a client back in 2014 when she was a health coach. We re-engineered her business and transformed her money relationship. And then we lost touch for a while, which I found out why and you will hear about that in our interview.

When she found me on LinkedIn back in November 2024, I was delighted to see her direct message in my account. But something was different about her energy and the info on her profile had changed. It read Psychic Medium and Executive Coach.  I said to myself “What? Really? Oh I want to hear this story.”

I went to her website to get the gist of what happened and now I was really intrigued. We continued to direct message each other excitedly to schedule a zoom call to catch up. That's when I invited her to the show.

I wanted you to hear this for yourself. You know I love a good story for you.

Well, her story is as profound as it is inspiring. She shares some personal info that involves a life changing event that heightened her intuition and clairvoyance. She began to see, feel, hear, and know things about people, places and beyond her physical world.  That's when the story gets intriguing.

Christie shares her own formula for connecting with her intuition, the 3 P’s, and how you can begin the same process she does for her medium and executive clients.  She reveals the real meaning behind asking your intuition, “What is my highest good in this situation?” 

Listen closely to the client stories where you’ll get the profoundness of her mediumship. Enjoy!

Show links and offers: www.christieflynn.com and Amazon: How To Date A Guy and Get It Right - 7 Core Concepts To Multiply Your Confidence Level, Eliminate Bad Dates, And Attract Your Dream Partner Schedule an intro call - [email protected] Social: FB: ChristieFlynnPsychicMedium, LinkedIn: christie-flynn, IG: christieleighflynn Free Guide: Your Top Desire is Nudging You for Attention. Learn how to blend the achievement of your desires (feminine) and goals (masculine) as a catalyst for lasting transformation. INSTANT ACCESS:  https://marladiann.com/prioritizing-desires/

Are you a woman speaker with a true calling to impact humanity through speaking? Join Marla, Laura Weintraub & Ashley Rivera for a full day workshop, Your Voice Matters: Setting the Stage to Impact Humanity. Sept 6. Newport Beach. Registration: www.marladiann.com/your-voice-matters

For women who have either given birth, tried to embrace menopause, or grow a multi-million-dollar business, they have all turned to my guest, Maraya Brown, for support with their physical, emotional, and sexual health.

After years of working with women who are dismissed, overlooked, and told they are 'fine' when they clearly aren’t, she saw a huge opportunity to show women there is a better way where they are heard, understood, and given healthy solutions to their adrenal burnout, mental, emotional, and physical exhaustion due to hormonal imbalance.

Maraya Brown is a Yale and Functional Medicine Trained Women’s Health Expert (CNM, MSN) and creator of The Women’s Vibrancy Code program.

Her passion lies in dismantling the myths around women’s health, providing real answers, and creating communities where women feel seen, supported, and empowered to thrive—not just survive.

She helps ambitious women navigate success without burnout by helping them fine tune their nutrition, supplementation, mindset, passion and ascension from the past to a vibrant future.

Maraya is a mom of 3 children 11 and younger and a wife to an amazing man with heart. Her work online brings her 23 years of experience supporting women together in one place to co-create deep transformation, hormonal health, beautifully felt stamina, and undeniable confidence and passion.

Maraya has managed Women’s Health in Federally Funded clinics and Functional Medicine private practices and has been a part of international health endeavors in Nicaragua, Ghana, and Haiti.

In our interview, you will hear:

• Her answers to stop all the struggling to wade through all of the misinformation out there

• Her response and strong stand when women are being told by their doctors their health is “just fine” when they don’t feel fine.

• Alternative solutions to feeling sluggish, uninspired, and heavy

• How to reverse the pining for a sex drive that’s years or decades long-gone

• Why it’s not just about data and labs; instead, it’s her intuitive way to listen to what’s not being said that guides her clients to clarity and healing

• How to prioritize your vitality and make your energy the foundation of your creativity, leadership and success

Free download: 7 natural, alternative resources to help heal brain fog, gain more energy, sleep better, & build your vitality: https://marayabrown.com/resources/

Follow: IG: @_marayabrown_ LinkedIn: @maraya-brown FB Group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/1603969509778639 FB: https://www.facebook.com/energyhormoneslibido TikTok: @_marayabrown_ YouTube: @marayabrown

Marla’s Free Guide: What if you could manifest your one-year goals in 90-Days? By using the blend of masculine and feminine energies and traits, imagine what you could accomplish quicker with less stress and more ease. INSTANT ACCESS:  https://marladiann.com/prioritizing-desires/

We had such a blast on Dayna’s podcast talking about music memories and how they impacted my life so why not bring it to you! 

Hosted by Dayna Sol, a national DJ and event host for over two decades, lives her life through music so how dynamic it is to interview guests about their cherished songs that shaped their lives shared on her Soundtrack of Life Podcast.

Remember Monkees’ Daydream Believer song? That is certainly dating me, but it was that song I swooned over during my young girl days. How about iconic Led Zeppelin's Stairway to Heaven? Yep, High School class song. :)

You’ll hear why these songs are favorites of mine and never heard before memories of my young, free-spirited days from childhood to college to my breakdown to breakthrough milestone in 2017 that led to a month-long stay in Florence, Italy all during Dayna’s Soundtrack of Life Podcast interview. 

Dayna is not only a dear, cherished spiritual friend, but I was honored to coach her in my Life Design program and her global DJ/Host/MC business for an entire year in 2023.  A special result that came out of that year-long experience among many more personal and business successes was HER podcast. 

I helped her birth her longtime desire to produce Solful Soundtrack of Life podcast idea and strategize the how and why. I am so proud her! 100% in her zone of genius! Grateful for that. 

Enjoy the episode! See if you recognize some songs from your own soundtrack of life. 

Show links: Dayna Sol - Soundtrack of Life Podcast:  https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/solful-soundtrack-of-life/id1781458520 @_daynasol_ Instagram  @marla_diann 

Free Guide: What if you could manifest your one-year goals in 90 days to 6 mos?  By using the blend of masculine and feminine energies and traits, imagine what you could accomplish quicker with less stress and more ease. INSTANT ACCESS:  https://marladiann.com/prioritizing-desires/

You are invited to begin the transformation with a Next Level Empowerment Call to develop your blueprint for achievement with Marla. Use this link to complete the form and schedule your call. bit.ly/life-reimagined-now

Episode sponsored by Your Voice Matters: Setting the Stage to Impact Humanity Workshop April 3, 2025 

Our options for healing our emotional, mental, energetic, and physical challenges are vast compared to 10-20 years ago.

What is considered acceptable, common, and very much used, we now have an abundance of healing modalities to heal our pain and remove low vibrational emotions and thoughts.

Living a metaphysical life for 25 years, this is why I was very intrigued when Ragan Thomson reached out to me to be a guest on the show.

She is a beautiful Spiritual Facilitator, Intuitive Transformational Coach and Global Activist using her calling to bring more harmony, peace, and alignment to our world.

It was her own emotional pain that became her teacher that led her to the calling of healing others. Her spiritual healing was profound. Listen in for her remarkable story how that happened and all the ways she lives that calling today.

Ragan has dedicated over 20 years to spiritual healing, guiding thousands on their paths to deeper connection and purpose. Through gatherings, monthly meditations, and teachings, she creates spaces for personal transformation and collective healing.

As Chairperson of the Board at World Systems Solutions, Ragan focuses on climate action, merging spiritual awareness with global activism.

I am excited to gift you her knowledge!

Show links: https://raganthomson.com/@ragan_thomson IG

Ragan-thomson-b10802240 LinkedIn

Free Gift: Find Your Inner Balance- 21 Days of Journaling Prompts https://raganthomson.com/21-days-of-journaling-workbook/

Are you a woman speaker with a true calling to impact humanity? Join Marla, Laura Weintraub & Ashley Rivera for a full day workshop, Your Voice Matters: Setting the Stage to Impact Humanity. April 3. Newport Beach. Registration: www.marladiann.com/uyour-voice-matters

✨ Part 2 is HERE! ✨

“You don’t need to have it all figured out—just take the next step.” 💡

Today’s episode, I’m sitting down with Saul Blinkoff, Hollywood filmmaker, Disney animator, and motivational speaker, for a powerful conversation on resilience, purpose, and the courage to keep going.

We talk about the moments that define us, the setbacks that shape us, and the mindset that turns dreams into reality.

In this episode, we dive into:

🔹 How to embrace the unknown and trust your path

🔹 Turning obstacles into opportunities for growth

🔹 The daily habits that fuel success and purpose

Saul walks us through his first day working at Disney animation studios in Orlando. It was quite a defining moment for this young, incredibly eager artist living his dream. Imagine, with all the setbacks he had, just how that day felt. 

You’ll have a front row seat hearing his story on how he continued to follow his joy no matter what got in the way.

If you’ve ever felt stuck or unsure, this one’s for you. Take the step. Keep going. Your story is still unfolding.

🎧 Listen now! Drop a ✨ in the comments if you’re tuning in.

Show Links: 

Visit Saul at www.saulblinkoff.com and IG: @saul.blinkoff 

Are you a woman speaker with a true calling to impact humanity? Join Marla, Laura Weintraub & Ashley Rivera for a full day workshop, Your Voice Matters: Setting the Stage to Impact Humanity. April 3. Newport Beach. Registration: www.marladiann.com/uyour-voice-matters

I am so excited to feature Saul Blinkoff! 

In this inspiring episode, I talk with the vibrant, compelling Saul Blinkoff—a Hollywood filmmaker, Disney animator, and motivational speaker—who shares his 20-year journey of unwavering perseverance and self-belief. 

From his early days as a passionate artist to landing his dream job at Disney, Saul opens up about the challenges he faced, the power of persistence, and how embracing failures shaped his success.

We dive into the importance of self-definition, mentorship, and turning weaknesses into strengths, plus why joy is an internal choice—not something dependent on external achievements. If you’ve ever doubted yourself or felt like giving up, this episode is your reminder that YOU have the power to write your own story.

Saul had so many golden nuggets to share, we turned this into a 2-part series. Today's episode is part 1. Feb 26 is part 2. Mark your calendars! 

Tune in and get ready to be inspired! 

#Perseverance #SelfBelief #Disney #Animator #CreativeSuccess #MindsetMatters #Lifeofawesome

Show Links: 

Visit Saul at www.saulblinkoff.com and IG: @saul.blinkoff 

Are you a woman speaker with a true calling to impact humanity? Join Marla, Laura Weintraub & Ashley Rivera for a full day workshop, Your Voice Matters: Setting the Stage to Impact Humanity. April 3. Newport Beach. Registration: www.marladiann.com/uyour-voice-matters

When I choose guests for the podcast, I come from an intuitive place obviously given the purpose and premise of this show and how I operate. I also look for creatives with compelling stories – the strength of the human spirit.

Being a journalist, writer, and storyteller as a foundational part of my background, I love how the story is what inspires people to relate as they apply it to their own lives and take action.

So, when I met my guest In October 2024 at a women’s global networking event here in LA and listened to her story as she was introducing herself, I intuitively knew she’d be a good guest for you.

Our biggest transformations are always when we evolve from a challenge, a crisis, a big wake up call – whatever that is in your life. No different for my guest Salima Yacoubi.  As she writes, “my current career chose me through a crisis that became a calling.” I love that! That’s humanity at its best! That’s the core of her story and that’s why she is here.

Salima, from Casablanca, Morocco, resides in Los Angeles as an executive coach where she guides CEOs and family businesses to build meaningful legacies. Prior to that while in New York she founded and led a successful consultancy helping global brands establish their presence in the US market. 

She worked as a UN-based journalist and lectured on women and politics for master's students. These experiences led her to develop a way to help leaders align their achievements with deeper purpose. You will find her story of crisis to transformation fascinating as she explains how her intuition led her to a far off place in Patagonia. 

Show Links and notes: www.salimayacoubi.com for her free guide on desire-driven leadership. Book recommendation: Growth Mindset by Carole Dweck, IG: _salimanova

LinkedIn: Salima Yacoubi Soussane

Marla’s 6-month Elite Life Design Mentorship: A New Identity-The Empowered, Intuitive, Confident Woman Request a Clarity Empowerment Call to begin the discovery by filling out my form https://marladiann.com/lifedesign/ to schedule your call. We will explore – get clarity and direction.

Big environmental and ecosystem impact. Global cause. In today’s episode, I have the honor of talking with two visionaries and humanitarians. Plant with Purpose CEO Scott Sabin and Kathy Kellogg Johnson, co-owner of 100 year old heritage brand Kellogg Garden Products and 15-year volunteer for PWP.  

In this lively, highly informative and inspiring conversation, Scott shares his story how he started with Plant with Purpose in 1993 as an accidental environmentalist (article link below). He explains he had various roles ultimately rising to CEO, after beginning as a volunteer while in graduate school. 

Kathy joins the conversation as a loyal 15-year volunteer and donor whose life perspective changed dramatically from her first PWP expedition in a third world country and how passionate she is with PWP’s three pillars: Thriving People, Healthy Ecosystems, and Climate Resilience.  

I’ll let the profoundness of PWP’s impact sink in with you as you hear how the core efforts are integrated in long-term community-driven programs with local partners in nine countries.  They partner with farmers in 1650 communities to plant 73 million trees, while dramatically reducing poverty in their watersheds. 

“Trees are the lungs of the planet. Fundamentally, the reason we started planting trees is because they are one of the best ways of helping hungry people, who grow their own food, to restore and get the most out of the land they depend on,” says Scott.

Incredible. Share this with your children, grandchildren, relatives, and friends. We are all one.

Links from the Show:

https://www.scottsabin.com/blog/the-journey-of-an-accidental-environmentalist www.plantwithpurpose.org www.scottsabin.comwww.kellogggarden.com IG: @plantwpurpose, YouTube, FB, TikTok: Plant with Purpose   PWP Celebratory YouTube video: https://youtu.be/XLH22r3TKXw?si=xt6lfTsiEj2aX6AA

Download free entrepreneurial resources about higher earning power, a success books list, and creativity impacting your income at www.marladiann.com/free