That said, I did have a fantastic hammam experience at Le Bain Bleu, which was quite luxurious and gave me an experience of the Moroccan mystery, the way things are hidden and unfold in somewhat unintuitive ways. Walking down a winding alley to a dead end where a beautiful bathhouse emerges was an experience unto itself, and to find profound peace amidst the chaos was also an experience.

Chillax after my massage and hammam at Le Bain Bleu

I would say the same was true of my riad experience (Riad Lumiere), where it was down in alleyway and super quiet and calm . . . with a two-minute walk emerging to utter chaos.  And for this combo, I’d definitely stay there again.  

My room at Riad Lumiere

I really loved dinner at Le Ferme and ate there 2 of my 3 nights!  You’ll notice a theme, but I love peaceful places and the garden ambiance was fantastic.  And the food stellar.  I also wandered into Dar Marjana after I’d eaten dinner and enjoyed their music and belly dancing performance over a dessert.  I’d defintiely go for the whole dinner next time and 10/10 recommend.  The courtyard is stunningly beautiful, and the overall experience really awesome. I think I might’ve gotten lucky to be allowed to go for just the dessert.

El Farabi cosmetic was ironically the highlight of the city tour I took. While we saw the palace and the tombs,  stopping by this place for herbs and medicines included a fantastic talk, and he shared some pretty amazing products, including samples, history, etc.   I purchased some of the creams and medicinal products and it’s on my short list of reasons to go back to Marrakesh to buy more.  Otherwise, the city tour was fine, but nothing special. The palace is interesting, but I think you can see similar architecture in some of the other places around the country. Same with the tombs. Although I suppose it is interesting to get a little bit of the political history through the lens of Marrakesh.  The big square was also interesting, and I kind of wish I had seen it at night. I saw them starting to set up the evening food booth, and that was enough to see that it would be really cool.

Wonder no longer the origin of things like lipsick!

I wandered the medina and the Big Square and enjoyed a fresh fruit smoothie and time with snake charmers.

Gotta admit it’s kinda cool to see a king cobra, and responsive to music.

this doesn’t get old

The post Morocco: Marrakesh appeared first on Kellie Okonek.

With prohibitively, expensive hotel rates, I ended up using kindred, a house swapping app. And since I had a referral code, I got five nights before having to swap my own home. A fantastic way to check out the program! Overall, I thought it was super cool and I ended up with a sweet studio apartment in lower Manhattan, around $85 a night fee and service fee balance, a fantastic deal, I thought.

My second day I headed south, and on my way into Chinatown, little Italy, and the lower east side, motivated first by eating a bagel at the recommended Russ and daughters, and then by finding my way to the financial district to lay eyes on Wall Street. I didn’t have time to go to the 911 memorial or the ferry to Staten Island because I was heading uptown to meet a dear friend from high school for dinner and a night at the opera!

I’m all for a bull market!!! Was kind of cool to lay eyes on Wall Street and the NYSE . . .

The show was The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay, and I really didn’t know what to expect.  Perhaps I had a true opera experience because by the end I was move to tears by both the presentation and the message. It was a stunning work of art, and super engaging at every step. It is unreal what people do with their voices and the live music of the Orchestra enhanced the experience in ways I don’t totally have words for. What was even more fun is that music is to Ari what the mountains are for me, and so it was fantastic to experience the opera through his eyes and influence, enhancing my experience. 

Just . . . wow.

The highlight of day three was wandering that led me to places like the Highline and Chelsea Market before meeting up with Ari and together exploring Rockefeller Center, including the viewing deck from the top.

Lower Manhattan and the Empire State Building at sunset, as viewed from the top of Rockefeller Center.

We topped our evening off with the Broadway show called Maybe Happy Ending.  i’ve been contemplating the question in life, “what is Love?” And the performance endeavors down a similar path of inquiry, arriving at a similar position, it seems. That love is many things, and even the same type of love can be so different for the people involved; varies even by individual for those involved. The music and set were impressive, and I can certainly see why the production won 6 Tonys, including Best Musical! 

I love this quote for “Maybe Happy Ending” – so true!

My final day I was feeling stimulus fatigue and frankly endeavored to “do less.” I went on a mission to retrieve an Amazon order from what ended up being the SOHO area and found my way through there and Tribeca before meeting up with a friend to cross the Brooklyn Bridge and enjoy lunch before coming back on the ferry. It was cool to see how distinct the character of Brooklyn is from Manhattan and to get a taste of it! And of course fantastic to catch up with a friend because one of my primary reasons for a New York stop was to build and strengthen connections. I enjoy knowing really diverse and interesting people, and anyone who calls New York home certainly fits that bill!

The Brooklyn Bridge with Emerson, a friend I met on the Reality trip to Israel last spring – fun to reconnect, and to experience a taste of Brooklyn!

I got coffee with a new friend before doing most of my packing and making it to Thursday kitchen for dinner. And I kept off my New York experience with a comedy show, which was a legitimately good choice! Most legitimately funny, it was everything I thought a comedy club might be.

No pics once the performance started, and it was largely the vibe one might expect from a New York comedy show! The idea of laughing just cuz is definitely my style :).

One final coffee at 787 and I was off to JFK for a hop across the pond

The post NYC: braving the wilderness appeared first on Kellie Okonek.

You’ve made peace with the women you’ve been, 

and learned to relax into their loving arms. 

Now it’s time to relish in the one you are, 

to revel in all you’ve become, 

to cherish the product of all of that striving. 

Savoring the benefits of so much becoming, 

and now delighting in this body that has grown, been pretty beat up, 

and rebuilt itself time and time again into a strong and reliable vessel, 

ready to play.  

Blossoming from where you were once broken, 

strengthened from everything you’ve been through, 

fortified and yet softened, 

by everything that’s gone wrong. 

Worthwhile might be hard, 

but hard doesn’t make it worthwhile. 

And you’ve got hard things like you’ve got Tuesdays. 

You just don’t need them to know you’re awake, 

to know you’re living. 

And yet, the capacity is there in case it’s fun to live a little louder, 

a little more vibrantly, than your average girl.  

Nobody can take away all that you’ve become, 

although you no longer need to endeavor the way you’ve always done.

Because it’s time to indulge in the joy of just being.

Comparison is the thief of joy,

And inspiration the seed of adventure.

Let longing lead you to the experiences you yearn for,

While receiving life as it comes with grace and growth,

noticing love woven through the threads of the unfolding.

The post Cherish the Product of all that Striving appeared first on Kellie Okonek.

This is for them. And for you. For every woman who has ever looked back on her past self with judgment or disdain. And for every one of us ready to re-write that script.

The post Please Make Peace with the Women You Have Been appeared first on Kellie Okonek.

An invocation to the muse and mystery

To spirit, in your divine mystery. 

Welcome me with your fierce grace, your tender strength.

Hold me in your generous embrace of all that is grounded and peaceful while being wild and pure.

Soothe me with your magical forest energy. 

Nurture my inner child that we may know love. 

And from this energetic sanctuary, guide me to ultimate freedom. 

Annihilate any belief that gives me limits. 

Eliminate any barriers to giving and receiving love. 

Destroy completely any victim stories and drama triangles. 

Obliterate judgment from self and others. 

Extinguish the need and desire for the present moment to be any different. 

And propel me to truth and light, free from the bounds of ego and emotion. 

Create me anew … inspire me to continuously create anew. 

To be free in my body, free through my body. 

To be the risen Divine feminine. 

To know the graceful and powerful path through challenge, and to guide others with immediacy and efficacy. 

Mobilize the fierce grace in me to move mountains, socially and culturally. 

Connect and integrate me and my experiences with frequent ecstasis.

Guide me to natural intimacy that grows out of magic and is magic. That is safe and edgy. New and familiar. Adventurous and grounding. Transcendent and foundational.

The post A timeless prayer of becoming . . . appeared first on Kellie Okonek.

So, here’s the TLDR (too long didn’t read): I’m evolving from purely working 1:1 executive coaching, and now also working in organizations to create High Vitality Teams.   

What’s a High Vitality Team? A team in coordinated and effective action, fueled by the principles of adventure. And why the principles of adventure? Simply because they’re my tactics learned from a lifetime of adventure (and underpinned by some really great stories!) to articulate dynamic modes of engagement that create power and impact … and infuse teams with VITALITY.  

It’s time to move from functional to flourishing.

In the functional paradigm, things are adequate – they work.  Teams interact in an almost robotic and mechanical way. While it gets the job done, it’s stale, mundane, and you know you’re not realizing the true capability of your people. You know you’re not doing what’s possible.

In a flourishing paradigm, teams awaken their full potential. Team members are integrated and amplify each other. It’s exponential. There’s a vitality, a coming to life associated with coming to work. We can exist in a completely different paradigm than the one we’ve all grown used to. One that supports, enables, and propels our greatest work and most authentic contribution.  And game-changing outcomes are the result.

So how do we shift a team? In the functional world, we design around performance. There are metrics, goals, delivery. And generally speaking, it’s not that inspirational. In a High Vitality Team, we design around flow… And amplified performance is the outcome. The first step in designing for flow is creating a bottom-up strategic vision that inspires the team. So performance is baked in as the outcome of individuals thriving in the workplace, integrating their respective talents, and amplifying unique contributions.

Practically, what does transitioning to the Flourishing Paradigm look like?  

Step 1: We hop on a call.  You help me understand your organization and its particular challenges.  You will leave the call knowing what needs to be done, and how to do it.  

Step 2: Working together, we implement the design we’ve come up with to create a High Vitality Team.  This could be starting with a division within a large organization, or with the senior leadership team.  In certain cases, we may spend some time in the design phase before jumping to implementation.  Each program is completely customized for your organization.  

Step 3: Watch the magic happen . . . and enjoy the ride as you lead the team to a future you didn’t previously dare to imagine.  Because now you do . . . and you’re doing it.  

It’s clear to me that everything I’ve ever been and everything I’ve ever done has been leading me right here, to what I’m up to now. A convergence of my professional experience, combined with a lifetime of adventuring, amplified by my deep knowledge of neuroscience and all things flow states, and infused with the vivacious spirit that’s been behind all of it all along. The Kellie Okonek way of loving possibility, enamored with doing impossible things, inspired by executing big ideas with unrivaled enthusiasm and unbridled vitality.

My pinnacle offering is to bring your team to Alaska for a truly transformative experience as we lay a foundation that transcends the current concept of what’s considered attainable. There’s nothing like the raw power and expansiveness of an Alaskan landscape to infiltrate the soul and psyche and inspire the liberation and flourishing of both. There really aren’t words to express the power of it, but connecting to nature in its raw and most powerful form has a profound impact. Interacting and engaging with the landscape is the source of my Principles of Adventure and there’s nothing like learning from the teacher herself. Alternatively, I’m happy to bring all of this to you, and use a local landscape to deliver these lessons.

It’s already been a fun and wild ride, and I’m just getting started!  Don’t hesitate to reach out  if this is what your team needs!  And especially if you want a powerful start to 2025, there’s no time like the present . . .

The post Perhaps my greatest adventure yet! appeared first on Kellie Okonek.

If we had to list your favorite places based on where you spend the most time,
Your growth edge would top the list.
Out, walking headfirst into the things that scare you most.
Becoming who you must become to realize your longings.
Leaning into whatever’s calling you
With all you’ve got.
You’ve never done anything else
And if you’ve dabbled in another way, you soon tired of the boredom,
Stagnation, the feeling of dying on the vine.

No, you’re made for the arena.
For the fire.
Where you feel at home because you burn so hard inside for all of it.
For experience. Dreams. Adventure. Novelty. Transcendence.
For expansion. Assemblage. Life.
Wild spaces reflect the wild in you and soothe your lust for life
By meeting it, welcoming it, absorbing it.

And this growth edge that you so rarely leave
Always comes with growing pains
Struggle. Resistance. Fear. Discomfort.

But remember, comfort can never be the goal.
And it is anathema to being here.
Comfort, in excess, is stagnation.

But don’t let me stop you from designing it in.
Ask for help.
Seek grace in the struggle.
Ease in hard things.

But do not ask it to be easy.
Do not ask it to be comfortable.

These are not the games we’re playing.

You know it in your mind.
Please remember it in your bones.

Rise. Grow. Evolve.
Feel the pain of it.
The friction tells you you’re in motion.

In motion, pulled by longings, to a destiny we can only imagine

The post Life on your growth edge appeared first on Kellie Okonek.

Ostensibly, it was not adventurous since it’s a place you can drive a car to . . .  That said, interacting with Alaska, and in a Super Cub, is never NOT adventurous!  Also, everything is an adventure to me.  Plus, this is my website so I get to write about whatever moves me. And this experience moved me.

Seward Mobile Saunas was interested in figuring out wheel plane-accessed spots along water where they could set their sauna for some fly-in rejuvenation. I explored the area and determined that Resurrection River had a number of workable options, but would have to be figured out on the day-of because the location of other vehicles and tents is always changing. On the day-of my friend Cassie joined me and off we went to sauna on the river

Landing itself was really interesting because of the number of vehicles, fire rings, tents, and other obstacles along the river. Objects in motion! I felt like a number of times as I went to line up, a car would have moved to where I wanted to be – definitely an added complication!  As it was, I found a decent spot and taxied over to where they had the sauna set up, which was actually in an area that turned out to be the ideal landing spot.  We ultimately dismantled the few rock fire rings and moved the sauna out of the ideal runway, ultimately finding/preparing a perfect 600 ft strip with a great lineup and clear exit. So in the future, the spot can be more easily utilized because of the prep they can do on the ground and the way we figured out to position the sauna so you can literally taxi up to it. Seriously cool.

Red line is the landing area . . . paced off at a solid 600.’  The river is only about calf deep, so landing on the “island” across the stream likely would have worked too, and avoided car-based complications . . .

The experience of the sauna itself was heavenly. Perched right along the edge of the river, it felt like wilderness and was so stunning. With a cold plunge set up at the river’s edge, a lovely sunny deck to chill on, a warming room to change in, and a luxuriously hot sauna with a huge window… It’s hard to find words for how pleasant the combination is. Sitting in the sauna, we had a spectacular “eagle TV“ show across the river and a great mountain view. The sauna itself is really big as well which is great for a larger group, and really lovely for a group of three like we were.  And we gazed from the plunge toward the Harding Icefield, which made me laugh at so many memories that direction . . .

So many memories in that direction Across the spectrum of adventure!

A mesmerizing view to bake in

I had reached out to my friend Heather, who lives in Seward, to join us and she did! I didn’t give her much information, all I said was to come to Resurrection and meet us to go in the sauna, and I had to laugh because she figured that there would be something far more adventurous and was prepared to cross the river, go for a hike, and a sundry of other ambitious undertakings. I suppose I have somewhat of a reputation for hard things! But the reality is there very little effort involved in this sauna experience!  And it was so rejuvenating

We easily spent five hours between the sauna, plunge, and sitting on the deck. We had lovely conversation, especially because none of us had seen each other in a while, and the three of us had never even hung out collectively! It was such a special evening of being with two women I’ve known a long time, and who know each other by virtue of the Girdwood community, sharing something so cool and unique as this sauna experience along the river. It’s actually really difficult to put into words this experience, which is odd for somebody like me who loves words.

The sauna was so hot that this glacial cold plunge actually felt refreshing!

It would’ve been lovely to camp, and the company will even set up sleeping arrangements in the warming area, though we just did it as a day trip and that was lovely too. The flight home in the late summer light with calmer air than we’d found in the afternoon was really beautiful and the perfect cap, such an indulgent evening.

For days afterwards, the whole experience just felt surreal. I really love what these guys are up to with these mobile saunas, and there’s something really special about what they’ve built. Again, it’s funny to be someone who loves words like I do, and feel so wholeheartedly lacking in finding the ones that can do justice to this experience.

Ciao Seward!

Does summer light ever get old?!?

10/10 recommend

The post Seward Mobile Saunas for the win! appeared first on Kellie Okonek.

At a minimum, moose hunting is good for viewing morning sunlight and contemplating life

Fun to apply my river skills to rowing a big raft!

One of the best lights shows I’ve ever seen!

The Mosquito Fork (Cowden) dredge

Scenes along the South Fork

What’s better than reconnecting with people you haven’t seen in years, in the middle of nowhere?!?! Alaska is so big and small all at once

GOLD!

North Fork scenes

It wasn’t all flatwater, but that’s where the best reflections were!!!! I was smitten with how beautiful it was.

Looking back at “The Falls” rapid . . . not a huge deal, could be sportier at higher water.

And then the Fortymile Bridge appeared and the float was over . . . Bittersweet.  I definitely could have continued onto Eagle, but this wasn’t the trip for it . . . plus, we were out of the gourmet food!

The post It’s not about the moose (except how it’s totally about the moose!) – Fortymile River, Alaska appeared first on Kellie Okonek.

• Taking space from a big problem I’m solving (and leveraging the pattern recognition that comes from it!) . . . when things are really challenging, I oftentimes “ride a bike about it.”
• Resetting my nervous system from being out of whack – what better way to purge stress chemicals?!?!
• Using flow states as a mechanism to grow in my sports – accelerated learning is a thing!
• Flowing with life – using the triggers/flow cycle as a frame for the process of being alive, creating, flourishing
• Coping – I frequently remind myself that the antidote to trauma is flow, so flow can be a great tool to incorporate after a hard/undesirable occurrence to mediate its ability to overwhelm our coping skills and change the brain.

As I write that, I realize that each bullet point is a rabbit hole unto itself, which reminds me that talking about triggers is just the icing on the cake of understanding flow and it’s benefits

The post FLOW TRIGGERS: wrap up appeared first on Kellie Okonek.