Gratitude

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I am profoundly grateful to many many many people whose love, support and inspiration got me where I am today, and continue to help me deepening the impact I was meant to make.

I am grateful for the pain and struggles that brought me to doing the healing work of finding my voice.

I am grateful to my dear friend, teacher, and partner Nancy Sanchez www.nancysanchezpilates.com for her HUGE contribution to making Deepen Your Impact a reality. 

• She corrected my posture, and helped me hear, understand, and value the voice of my body;
• She designed our first website, and created many inspiring images and posts;
• She directed the first street performance of the VOICE in Georgetown, and managed to get a group of executive non-movers participate in an impromptu flash mob dance during our pre-conference DYI retreat in Georgetown. (For the International Leadership Association annual conference).

Together we:

• Launched my book, the VOICE;
• Imagined and delivered numerous Deepen Your Impact: Lead From Your Voice leadership development programs;
• During COVID, for three years, every week we showed up on ZOOM to host a free 30 min ZOOM mini retreats -- MMM -- Making My Marc -- offering a positive space for people to reflect and recharge in the community of like-minded individuals from all over the world;
• As we came together, week after week, she worked on my body, and I worked on her mind, and we discovered that the best and most enjoyable way to access our VOICES is when we access our bodies through our minds, and our minds through our bodies. That's how our signature MARC method was born -- Making My Marc through Movement, Art, Reflection and Community -- set in nature.

I am so thankful for her creativity, expertise, humility, curiosity, depth, an amazing ability to hold space for myself and others, her honesty, and steady, loving and patient presence. 

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I am grateful to my coach and teacher Ajitha Srivansan for teaching me how to listen to my own voice as I further develop a soul-based business. Thank you for giving me business and intuitive tools, support and encouragement to pursue the spiritual path of leader as healer.

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I am thankful to Monica Dolphyn, my business manager, for her love, expertise, warmth, and always going above and beyond. Without her my business would not be possible.

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I am grateful to Andrea Dunathan, my part-time CEO and business advisor for helping me stay focused on the structure, processes, and vision for my business, and for her generosity with her time and expertise in helping me engage the right experts after the sudden death of my husband,

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I am grateful to my late husband, Ittai Kan, whose love, patience, good humor, and steady and solid support made everything possible. He was my most honest critic, my biggest fan and a cheerleader. He encouraged me to push through fears, and saw to it that the poem originally written on a napkin became a book, which is now in its fourth edition and has been translated into two languages.

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I am so thankful to so many friends, family  and colleagues who walked with me after the sudden death of my husband, and encouraged me to keep going and doing the work I need to do in the world:

Natasha Mirny for her love, unending energy and positivity, for directing the performance of the Voice in nature, and awesome creative movement classes she offered for all of our retreats;

Kofi Dennis -- for his love, infectious loving and positive drumming, which became part of my work with teams;

Tamara Tarasova for bringing Tango back into  my life, and for partnering with me now in this adventure.

And of course my friends, neighbors, and family: Alex, Olga and Elena Karpeisky, Michael Klugerman, Michael and Tamara Kan, Vera Kadamyan, Jim Butz and Liz Johnson, Cece Hallisey, Robin and Damon Feldman, Laura Granato, Susan Moore, and so many others!

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I am thankful to my mentor Teri-E Belf, MCC  for her guidance, encouragement, deep connection, and for providing me with a platform to share this and other poems with an international audience.

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I am grateful to Ina Gjikondi, PCC of GW Center for Excellence in Public Leadership for encouraging me to publish the book, purchasing the first batch of copies to be used in working with the Center clients, and her many creative and intuitive contributions to developing my vision and staying the course. 

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I am grateful to Dr. Susanna Galle, Robin Slonager, L.Ac., and Guthrie Syen who helped me arrive at a place of freedom and truth that created the VOICE, and many other poems and ways I contribute to this world.

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I am grateful to Dean Harmon Dunathan (former Dean of Academic Affairs at Rhodes College in Memphis, TN), who made it possible for me to come to the US, and to late Dr. Vincent Davis, former Director of the Patterson School of Diplomacy and International Commerce at the University of Kentucky, who made it possible for me to become the first Soviet graduate student here.

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I am grateful to my niece Elena Johnson, DPT for her vibrant, creative spark, love, and honest feedback.