Living My Best Life: About the Author: Magdalena Anna

Welcome to Live My Best Life. Who dares to write about such lofty aspirations? My name is Magdalena Anna.

The experience gives me an insatiable drive to help people discover their highest potential, design their own lives, and experience them to the fullest. The journey is different for everyone, and I feel compelled to offer practical ways of changing your inner and outer reality to help you create the life you desire.

From a young age I knew I had the power to create my dream life. I ignored that whisper for a long time, until I realized I was betraying myself.

Just over ten years ago I quit my day job. It was a good, respectable job by many standards (especially my mother’s), but it wasn’t me. (Okay, full disclosure, I left a full time job at the Center for Ethics at Harvard University to play poker professionally . . . which turns out to be a very effective way of upsetting an Eastern European mother.)

It felt like jumping off a cliff and trusting that somehow I will land on solid ground.

I left the clamor and bustle of city life and moved across the country. Along the way I ran a marathon just for the experience. My (now ex) husband and I settled in Nevada City, a beautiful mountain town in California, where we created a successful family business and renovated homes as a side venture. I gave birth to two children and we learned how to balance the intense realities of parenthood with work and everything else in life that needs tending. We built our dream home on a couple acres of lush forested land, where our little girls can run and gather chestnuts and watch the deer wander. And we still share this beautiful property even though we are divorced.

All this . . . and I still find time for a meditation practice and to nurture and deepen the relationships that are meaningful in my life. I still find time to garden, write, dance, read, drink tea, and spend time alone in the wilderness that surrounds me.

Not only did I land on solid ground, but I am growing deep roots.

The truth is that the methods and skills I use to change my life can be applied by anyone. When I realized how powerful we all are, I felt compelled to empower others to create what they want for themselves.

Back in 1999 I earned a B.A. in Psychology and Sociology from Boston College, and since then I’ve worked in many fields (publishing, research, real estate, project management) but writing resonates the most with me. It doesn’t feel like a “job”, it feels like being home. This is what I want to be doing with my time.