This is a story about making scary mistakes and being gullible. It’s about small and large connections with people who have helped me.
My mentor, my family, my friends and strangers. For me, life has been a series of forgetting, remembering, forgiving, doing scary things, and loving myself and others through it all. Over and over. A client once told me,“Connections you have with people are for a reason, a season, or a lifetime.”

I have a mentor, Alan Lewis, who can be considered a reason, a season, AND a lifetime friend. I’m sharing some embarrassing mistakes here because Alan taught me, crisis is a gift. He said, “Liz, you have a great story, share your stories.”
I said it’s too embarrassing. He said,
“I don’t care, share it anyway. Lean into your fears.”

Alan Lewis wearing a blue jacket in the middle of his family members, holding one another. 

So, here is one of my stories. I’m going to start by giving you a bit of my background. I’m an artist and a massage therapist. I consider myself to be a bit of a gullible person. I believe what people say, I believe people tell me their truth. So basically, you can lie to me and I won’t see it coming. I do want to take accountability for believing things that were probably in hindsight silly for me to believe. Hence the belief I hold that I’m gullible.

I’m from Marshfield, MA and my parents met as teenagers in Cohasset, MA. My mom came from a well-off family and my dad from a complicated family. My dad went to college and had a career. My mom stayed at home and raised two kids. In the 70’s they consumed too much alcohol. My dad quit, my mom didn’t. They were divorced in the early 80’s. My mom passed away in 1995 leaving me and my brother with a small inheritance and broken hearts. To this day, I share a family cabin in Plymouth with my brother passed down to us from my mother. I paid cash for a little condo in 1997, got married, had a baby, got divorced, got married again, and divorced again. The second guy was after money and he got it. This is the first time the gullible part of myself hugely kicked my butt. In Rhode Island if you co-mingle a bank account or say, your spouse gets onto the deed to your house, if you get divorced (even if you have only been married one year), they get half of everything. So the second guy in 2007/2008 gets a payout, then the housing crisis sucks out the rest of the equity of my property.

So in 2009, I felt like “a poor little rich girl.” No condo, no house, no money in the bank. I realize how gullible I’ve been. I stopped trusting people. Definitely stopped trusting being in a romantic relationship. I put my head down and went to work.

I'm a massage therapist. No dating, no going out. Just raising my daughter and working. During this time I found my dream clients. One after the next dream client. I don’t ask what people do, I’m much more interested in who people are. I get to know my clients really well. I’m a good listener. I read a lot, I love sharing what I learn and I take in what people teach me. I think I met Alan in 2011 and worked on him for a few years before I found out what his work life was all about. We got to know each other super well. I shared the ups and downs of my life and so did he. I found out about one of his businesses because one day in 2014 he said, “I’m sending you on a trip. Bring someone with you.”

I said, “I don’t know what you are talking about but, no thank you. I don’t really travel well, I'm dyslexic and airports are difficult for me to navigate.  I don’t like to fly and I don’t have money for a trip and travel scares me” and on and on no thank you. He laughed. A few days later a thick travel magazine arrived in the mail. Overseas Adventure Travel, attached with a note, “Pick a trip."

I was confused. The thing is I’m a single mom. An adventure somewhere in the world was not at the top of my to-do list. I was in the mode of, well, survival. This was not going to happen. I was settled into working on 30 people a week, every week, head down, go to work. No travel, no going out, no buying extravagant things, definitely no dating, no messing up, again. Nothing scary. Keep it simple mindset. When Alan sent me this Overseas Adventure Travel book and said “Pick a trip,” I was like, who is this guy?

Well, Alan Lewis is the most generous person I’ve ever met in my life. I know some generous people, believe me, but Alan takes the cake. He owns travel companies, Over Seas Adventure Travel and Grand Circle Travel,  a corporate retreat center Alnoba, real estate all over the world and I’m sure a bunch of other companies.
Yes, I do have a privacy policy, he gave me permission to talk about him.

Anyway, I pushed back a bit. I don’t have money for the flight, I don’t have money for the time off. On and on. He wasn’t having it. He said it’s all included. I mean, who does this for someone? So, where do I go? The least scary place in the book. Italy. Who do I pick to go? My kid of course!
If we can go....We couldn’t go.

There was a hang-up with my passport. The federal government didn’t want to give me one. Because I was arrested in 2009. Not a small arrest either. It was a shit show arrest. I had a really bad 4-year streak. You know, married and divorced, married and divorced, lost my house, then arrested. I mean, come on, how many mistakes can a person make in four years?

It turns out, many, many mistakes. The arrest proved how gullible I am. Again. After losing everything I loved, my car broke down and I reached out to my one and only shady friend for help. We all have a shady friend, right? I mean when you’re in the depths of the darkest despair who do you turn to? Someone who is in the shade themselves.

So I asked for help and she said, “Of course I can help. I know a guy who can fix your car, you will just owe me a favor.”
Later, when said favor came up, she said,
“I have a screen printing project, I’ll ship some stuff to your house”.
I said "of course."
Seriously? “I know a guy?” “You’ll owe me a favor?” Looking back, gullible is not a strong enough word. So, anyway, the favor was that she shipped 50 pounds of weed to my house! I accepted the package, thinking it was t-shirt screen printing stuff for an art project she “needed help with."

Around 30 FBI agents came out from behind every tree with guns pulled and told me to “get down, get down!” I proceeded to pee my pants, screaming “What is happening?!” over and over. They bring me back into my apartment, (because I’m no longer a homeowner), give me the low down, that I just accepted illegal substances, then put me in jail for 2 weeks. 2 weeks.

My art teacher Luke Randall took this picture of me one week after the my jail experience.

Let me tell you, it was the worst thing that ever happened to me, and the best thing that ever happened to me. I say the best thing because it woke me up from a nightmare, a crisis, of only looking at all of the stuff I just lost. I was living in a mindset of lack. Stressed out about money. This was a wake-up call, it was 'for me' not 'to me'. During those two weeks, I saw people with serious struggles. You hear people talk about having a wake-up call. It’s true for me. I went from a poor little rich girl to 'holy shit I’m fucking lucky to be alive' in 10 minutes.

My lifetime friend, Terri, picked me up from federal court when the case was over. I found out who my real friends were during this time. Everyone but one person said, “You will dig yourself out from under this rock Liz. You are strong and capable.” They saw something in me that I did not see, yet. The arrest was in 2009, I applied for the passport in 2015. I am very lucky because the arrest was dismissed. It went federal and then dismissed because I got extremely lucky.

I have read about 50% of the people who end up in jail are dyslexic.

So, Alan gave me a trip, remember that trip from earlier? And I can’t go because I can’t get approved for the passport. I applied through the mail, but they ignored me. I drove to Boston, they said they couldn’t help me. I have to go to Stamford, Connecticut to the passport headquarters and they need to contact the FBI! No!!! Off I go, 1 week before this trip of a lifetime! I walk in alone, metal detectors, and police everywhere. Get my number like I’m at a deli, walk up to the window when my number is called, and who is on the other side of the glass with my fate in their hands? An angel. She was fierce and angelic at the same time. I was scared. She said,
“We have a problem, I need to make a call and see what this is about. Go have lunch, I’ll call you in an hour.”

Oh my god! How can I eat? The system of justice has my forever travel plans in their hands! I might be stuck in the U.S. for the rest of my life! Okay, but that’s a good thing, right? I don’t even like to travel! She calls my phone an hour later to come back, I get to the window and say, “Okay, give it to me straight. You don’t let gullible people leave the country, I get it.” She said, “Here’s your passport.”

I cried all the way home. Trauma. It has a way of sticking to your cells. Crying helps. My step mother calls crying emotional sweating. Crying does feel like a workout to me.

Ok, so now, here is a story about Italy!
We get on the plane, hallelujah! We arrived in Florence with a driver waiting for us. He drives us to Luca, home of Pinocchio and the best gelato ever. We joined our tour guide and a group of 12 people. We traveled to Pienza where I bought a belt from a leather artisan. I was so excited to meet this leather artist that I gave him money before I picked out what I wanted! We had the best pizza ever in a tiny take-out place. They use scissors to cut pizza there. Traveling to the top of the Carrera mountains, a crazy maniac drove us up the crushed marble-covered road way too fast with zero guard rails, so scary. Up there on top of the mountains, they recreate the statue of David with lasers, often. It’s wild. We had a private cooking class on the bank of an ancient pine forest. The family has four generations living together. The grandmother lived through World War 2 and translated through her daughter because she only speaks Italian. She told us about having to move out of the house for a time while the Germans occupied it. Scary. We toured one of the oldest olive orchards and road donkeys. Also scary. We drove to the top of another mountain where the road is one way at a time! They told us every day the school bus drives up to get the kids and honks the horn while driving around the sharp corners to let other drivers know they’re coming! Scary. The family has owned this mountain for 700 years! They took us to the tip-top of the mountain to go truffle hunting with their dogs. Then on the way back, using outdoor cooking set-up gear they made us truffle eggs with unlimited Prosecco. The herd of sheep in the background and the sheepdogs at our feet.

Me and Bailey in front of The Rose Garden in Florence.


Me and Bailey in the center square of Lucca’s Piazza dell’Anfiteatro.

Me and Bailey at the top of the Carrara Mountains.


Me and Bailey in Spoleto.

Bailey after we went truffle hunting at Campello sul Clitunno.

We were about to have fresh eggs, truffles, cheese and Prosecco. 

I mean really, who do I think I am? This is unbelievable! We went to many heritage sites. One of which is this huge park with huge boulders sculpted into monsters! Scary. Then we went to my favorite place, I discovered St. Frances. Our tour guide said he was the first hippie. I’m in! We went to his tiny church on a tiny island outside of Assisi. I had hands down the best food I’ve ever put in my mouth. Simple. Chicken, chickpeas, and salad. It tasted like you imagine food could taste if it tasted like it was supposed to taste. I don’t know how to say that better. On and on. Fourteen nights in three towns with day trips every day. Florence, Chiusdino, Barberino, Greve, Siena, Montepulciano, Sorano, Pitigliano, Trevi, Spoleto, Pettino, Montefalco, Bomarzo. We lived in a dream for 14 days. We were given a magical trip by a magical man.

Rock garden in Bomarzo.

Thank you Alan Lewis. Thank you for believing in me, thank you for forgiving my gullible nature, thank you for supporting me and your guidance and mentorship, and thank you for encouraging me to lean into my fears and into what scares me. Thank you for saying, “I don’t care if you were arrested, listen to some of the crazy things I’ve been through.” Alan never judged me, I think he respected me for going through crisis and coming out the other side with self-accountability. He said,
“The world needs more women leaders. Liz, tell your stories.”

Travel, public speaking, loving myself, and connecting and loving others.Taking risks.That’s what life’s all about. Finding meaning through all of the connections with other people and learning from things that scare me a little bit. Remembering, forgetting, forgiving, loving remembering again. Living.
Alan sent us to the UK a year later, to tour England, Wales, and Scotland.I wish more than anything else in the world I could thank him in person. He passed November 2nd, 2022.

I miss him every day, my guru.

My wish for everyone reading this is for you to have friends who are a reason, a season, and a lifetime friend. Friends who support you and get you out of your comfort zone. For you to do things that are a little scary, to lean into your fears and remember to give to others and forgive yourself easily.

I told a version of this story at Tell Newport on February 2, 2023. Here is a link to the video.

Today I Felt Dyslexic. I leaned into the discomfort and did one small action towards my goal. It was scary and difficult but that’s ok. Time is on our side.

Much Love,

Liz