Why Authenticity Is Becoming the Ultimate Family Office Advantage | Dawn Mari La Monica

Arthur Andrew Bavelas (00:00.45)
Hello, welcome everybody to another episode of Arthur's Round Table. Super happy to have Dawn with us today. We actually started a podcast and we ended up just talking instead of doing the podcast a few months ago. So I'm super happy to have Dawn back. And then we also have connected recently an event that she's taking off to tomorrow that some of you have heard about. And we're going to talk a little bit about that today too. So Dawn, thanks for doing this.

dawn mari la monica (00:28.048)
Thank you so much for having me. I always believe in trusting the timing of God or whoever is in universe. so this was definitely, and I promise you, whether it was like four, I think it was six months ago, our conversation would have been really different than what it is now.

Arthur Andrew Bavelas (00:34.904)
The universe, whatever it is, yeah.

Arthur Andrew Bavelas (00:46.498)
Well, that's great. Yeah. Progress. Yeah. So let's, let's go ahead and start with your origin story so people can get a little bit of background on who you are. So I have Don Marie Lamonica JD. So everybody needs to know that. It's not showing up on the, on the graphic here, but that's, that's your full name. Correct? Yeah.

dawn mari la monica (00:53.948)
Sure. Sure.

dawn mari la monica (01:04.684)
Only one me. So origin story. So I'm 47 now. I lead with the age because I kind of wear that as a badge now. So I have some some wisdom, although I am still learning so much every single day. I did about 25 years in finance and asset management. I was originally born in Bogota in Colombia and I was adopted when I was born, which is kind of like a thing that you usually unravel and go on.

Arthur Andrew Bavelas (01:30.111)
It is a thing. It is a thing, yeah.

dawn mari la monica (01:33.276)
It is a thing, which you kind of unravel and kind of unpack usually around age 35 to 40. A lot of studies have been done on adopted children. So I was adopted as soon as I was born. I grew up originally in New Jersey and then New York. I went to Boston College and worked on Wall Street and then went to Georgetown Law, which I hated, but I was really good at.

making the best at it. I would say Georgetown was really challenging. I'm so grateful I went there, but I was never very a linear thinker. So I think for me being, and I've never been around that many smart people, like book smart people that could read.

300 pages of legal text and memorize it and were insanely like and could analyze it like there were certain skills that I did have so that I had to really hone in on and then in 2008 I graduated from Georgetown law with 250k of student loan debt and no job and it was the economic tsunami and that's kind of when my life broke and

Arthur Andrew Bavelas (02:34.786)
BUMB

dawn mari la monica (02:42.094)
It was one of these things that I believe everything happens for a reason. I think when you're young and you're graduating with tremendous student loan debt and there are no jobs, you really come to face a lot of, I guess, your shadows and not necessarily your weaknesses, but you figure out who you are. When you're selling everything that you own and you're moving back to Orlando and you're waitressing with a law degree from Georgetown, you gotta sit with yourself and all of yourself.

Arthur Andrew Bavelas (03:09.518)
Yeah.

dawn mari la monica (03:11.998)
all of your shame, all of your ego, all of your, I went to Georgetown Law, I should have a $300,000 a year job and I'm waitressing in Orlando and working, I volunteered at the district attorney's office and Brevard County Legal Aid, I did what I had to do. And so I think I mentioned that 2008 because largely when I built my family office service platform in my business,

the work that I started in 2008 on myself, I pulled into that platform when it comes to the dynamics between principles and sitting with your ego and sitting with the feeling that you're not enough. And God, what happens if something happens to your health or something happens to your job and then the world tells you that you're not enough? What are you going to do about that? And so,

what I did with that and I had started my own business for the first time in Nantucket whilst I was going through law school. So there was always an entrepreneur in me. I did about, I ended up moving to London because I wanted to travel the world and I knew that in London you could travel the world, that it wasn't such a grind. And so I wanted to explore all different parts of Europe. I'd never been to Europe before. I'd done all of like,

the right things of Wall Street and all that. And then I was in London and I worked as a receptionist with the Georgetown Law Degree in Mayfair. And I worked my way up very quickly into compliance and regulation because a law firm wasn't going to give me a job because my grades weren't good enough from Georgetown. And also I had this entrepreneurial divorce consulting, you know, that I was doing whilst I was in law school. I didn't do the work for free at a big law firm. And so I was always a little bit different.

And so I ended up working in regulation compliance and working for the FCA. And then that led to a compliance consultancy and that led to being... Yeah.

Arthur Andrew Bavelas (05:10.326)
And the FDA, just so everybody knows, is the regulatory body for financial services in the UK,

dawn mari la monica (05:18.69)
Exactly. It's the same thing as the SEC over here. And I had a project where I was responsible for five people and we were implementing something called AIFMD. And all of this is very boring. But the reason why I ended up being really good at compliance and operational risk and reputational risk is because I knew when people were lying.

Arthur Andrew Bavelas (05:37.622)
Yeah, right.

dawn mari la monica (05:39.324)
I just did. so my ability to kind of under well, to look under the hood and figure out here, the real risk was very, very quick. No one could really understand how I do. I was like, well, you the receptionist that you haven't spoken to pretty much ever, she knows exactly what's going on in this firm. And I would make friends with everyone in the company, but also follow my instincts. And so

Yeah, that was I did. I can't say I really love regulation compliance, but it allowed me eventually like after being a chief compliance officer, then I worked for myself as an interim executive, operational regulatory and reputational risk in CCO interim roles and COO interim roles. And I scaled that daily rate pretty quickly. And I was also able to work remotely and take off to north of the Arctic Circle in Lofton in Norway or South Africa, where

Arthur Andrew Bavelas (06:35.267)
Nice.

dawn mari la monica (06:35.908)
seen a white or brown person, like it was me and a whole bunch of black people for like, I don't know, three weeks. And it was, I really just took off and started doing all of this solo remote travel. And so I guess part of this is when, when I created my family office platform, it was almost an Ica Guy framework of every single life experience that I had and what I knew I could do, you know,

blind or drunk. Like I just built it based upon my soul. I built it based upon what I believed in and I gave myself grace to do that. Yeah.

Arthur Andrew Bavelas (07:10.286)
Very cool. Yeah, super cool. So how long ago was that when you started that?

dawn mari la monica (07:17.212)
The family office, so I went from regulatory and operational risk interim executive work into executive coaching, which I did for free for two years in London. Should not have done it for free. I had a bit of imposter syndrome like charging anyone. Then translated into doing it for a fee. And I was doing executive coaching for money for a year and I was half in Florida because my parents are here and half in London. I was back and forth and then I knew I had to make a decision.

And if I came back to America, what did I want to do? Did I want to do corporate executive coaching or did I want to do this thing, family office that I heard of and someone had heard me do a next gen workshop for an asset manager where I was bridging the gap between gen Z and gen X. I'm 47 gen X and bridging the gap between these 20 somethings and 40 somethings and even baby boomers like over age 50 or 55.

and how to leverage the differences for a high performing team that is cohesive with clear communication when there were so many differences, right? And so communication, executive presence, cohesion, kind of checking the ego, leveraging differences versus letting those differences be a source of conflict. That's kind of what's my next gen platform for corporate.

executive coaching in teams and someone heard me and they were like you should really do family office like you should explore that. They have this next-gen problem too and so that's where I did the pivot when I came back here and that's that was about 18 months ago that I launched my I launched my website in October 2024.

Arthur Andrew Bavelas (08:58.104)
So help us understand the fact pattern for which you're most interested in applying your skills. Like, what does that look like?

dawn mari la monica (09:09.82)
So now, because I still do all of my thought leadership around next gen and women wealth. There's 30 trillion that is transferring to women right now. Largely, if you go to most of these family office conferences, they're dominated by men. would say maybe five to 10 % are women. And even if those five to 10%, it's not the 30 trillion demographic. That 30 trillion is a horizontal transfer going to widows. Those women are never in that room. So I have a whole talk and a corporate workshop on that. And then I have a

workshop on next gen and conflict mediation, then I have one on really functional and integrative health. So how to get your brain performing better and how to deal with the fact that maybe you don't have ADD, but you have this inability to focus. And so what does all of that look like in consideration of how you eat, how you sleep, how your supplements, what supplements you take every day, your ability or inability to focus your relationship with your smartphone.

how does that all that integrated health look when it's not necessarily biohacking? I'm not saying go and stick yourself in a tub of ice cubes. I actually think that works for men, but the sign shows that actually doesn't. It has a detrimental effect for women. And so that has now translated and I still do all of that, but now I do dinners and I do pop-ups and I do retreats. And the reason why

Arthur Andrew Bavelas (10:22.114)
That's interesting. Yeah, I've heard that.

dawn mari la monica (10:38.076)
And it's, guess from a big step afar, you started out in next gen and doing conflict mediation between principals. And that really worked out well because I'm 47, but I'm lucky enough that I don't look 47. So, and I have this weird origin story where I kind of traveled all over the world by myself and I quit a whole bunch of contracts. I worked for myself. I never got married. I don't have any kids. I just have my lovely little dog. And I have this story that resonates with Gen Z. So I actually have a lot of friends who are Gen Z.

And then I have this Georgetown Law degree in these 25 years in asset management when a 55 year old or a 65 year old wants to sit down and talk with me about how their kid is a bit of a fuck up or their kid just is like, is not achieving what they thought they would. And how do I preserve it? Yes, every family.

Arthur Andrew Bavelas (11:23.242)
Yeah, every family has them. That's for sure. And by the way, I think that independent of the big law firms not hiring you, because for whatever reason, being trained to think like a lawyer is valuable in many, many ways, not just in your career, but other people, when you help them, they don't think like lawyers, right? And so, you know, let me

dawn mari la monica (11:50.172)
Yeah.

Arthur Andrew Bavelas (11:51.595)
I just happen to love lawyers because they've helped me make a lot of money. Yeah. No, Yeah. If, I didn't have the original lawyers that helped me with the first company I sold, first of all, this is not really a miraculous statement. Things would be different, but they would definitely be very different because the lawyers made everything happen in my first exit. was made. Yeah. Really. Yeah.

dawn mari la monica (11:55.29)
that's good! Most people don't!

dawn mari la monica (12:10.17)
Hahaha

dawn mari la monica (12:17.104)
They were good lawyers. I love that. It's very rare that I hear the statement, love lawyers, or I love lawyers.

Arthur Andrew Bavelas (12:23.67)
Well, the problem that you have, if I could say you have a problem and I don't think you have anymore, is people hate compliance because compliance is just a business non-development department, right? And so everybody has this disdain for compliance because they're always getting in the way of the salesman, right? And of course, what they're doing is really keeping you out of jail, right?

dawn mari la monica (12:47.42)
100 % I kind of I got into compliance, but then made it really about The senior manager regime which has to do with conduct at the top like I really made it more about people because but still people hate compliance I was the most Friendly fun laughter compliance person you've ever met and anyone who'd met me said you should do anything with your life other than compliance You're really good at it. But like this is not suited to your personality because I would make jokes and make laughter

Sometimes, yeah.

Arthur Andrew Bavelas (13:16.728)
Do you remember the compliance guy in Billions, Spiro? It was so bad. What a great actor, but it was so bad. Wendy Rhodes, I get it.

dawn mari la monica (13:20.964)
Yeah, he's terrible.

What a great actor. No, I'm more like Wendy Rhodes, but towards the end of like the seasons, like season five, season six, because she had a bit of a trajectory with her character.

Arthur Andrew Bavelas (13:33.134)
And yeah, yeah, she did. Yeah, it was a great.

dawn mari la monica (13:37.733)
And so now my main focus is really on community. If you look at and I can still do thought leadership and corporate workshops, but what I do is I facilitate and I build community. So there's a lot of people who do investor or single family office dinners. I think I do it a little differently. look, I work with smaller numbers, so anywhere between nine and 15 families. But at my dinners, everyone speaks for three minutes. That means each family. I don't do things by a

Luma mass, a Luma mass like invite. With Whitefish, that's more of a pop-up. So I had to go outside of my normal network to really get people because I didn't know too many people in Montana and Wyoming. I'm getting to know them much better now. But the dinners are about how do you facilitate connectivity, collaboration, courage? And when I say courage, mean

courage to ask the harder questions like of each other in a way that is not so necessarily transactional because you know this like no family is going to be pitched at for half an hour or 45 minutes and be and enjoy it and a lot of conferences most people are looking at their phones whilst the panel you might have their attention for like nine minutes so my sponsors any sponsor that I have at dinner gets nine minutes to speak nine

and there is no pitch deck because no one's gonna no one cares about the pitch deck anyway right now what we're doing is you're opening the door and you're peeking curiosity and I have a certain discipline to it so every person at dinner can get at most one sheet of paper if you want to make it double-sided okay every single family office talks for three minutes about and it could be on one of a number of things but maybe how they accumulated their wealth what their exits were what project they're working on for the next 90 days

and what they're most excited about. And within all of that, they can say what type of introduction might be useful for them. That makes it not about any one particular sponsor, whether it's a fund manager or a single family office looking to do a club deal. It makes it about everyone. And then I also make sure that people switch seats twice. And all of the food at the restaurant. So right now I've only been doing them at restaurants. It's all served family style. we have

dawn mari la monica (16:00.668)
beautiful fish dishes, steak dishes, vegetarian dishes. And what does that mean? That means from the moment you sit down, it's not about you. You're sharing plates and you're interacting with people. That also allows me to switch seats twice when I feel like it's the right time. At most of my dinners, I don't sit down. I'm curating the whole time. I'm watching, I'm making sure the food is served a certain way, people are interacting. I'm enjoying just kind of making sure that the energy of the room.

is right because we're all energetic beings. If you look at what Einstein and Tesla were talking about. And then afterwards, it's about, it's also, can be intimidating for some people to speak for three minutes, to stand up and speak for three minutes. So I'm like holding eye contact, encouraging them, you know, the nine minute, the sponsor, like if I feel that they're super pitchy, like in our prep calls, then I teach them how to speak to wealth. Cause I think a lot of people sometimes,

And I did this too. I had to really do a lot of inner work. You meet a single family office and you put them on a pedestal and then you start tripping over your own words. And then you start kind of devaluing yourself. And then you start kind of like dancing like a little puppet because you want them to like you because you want them to hire you. And once I stopped doing that, my frequency changed and the families who started coming into my network were much bigger families because I had finally relaxed.

Arthur Andrew Bavelas (17:15.032)
You want something from them. Yeah, you want something.

dawn mari la monica (17:29.646)
And so I help people with the communication part. then, so the dinners are just like a dinner series. I do one a month and I'm super excited about it. And I think it's, it's really at a investment or a price point that's very, very competitive and compared to the other price points out there. But also I just love it. I love bringing people together.

and seeing friendships form and then having like two guys at a dinner table who are like, I'm not moving seats because I love this guy so much and I'm just gonna sit next to him the whole time. And I'm like, it gives me a giggle. Like then I know I've done it right. I don't think this world is a hot mess right now. And there's so much that's going on that is so negative and overwhelming. But I believe that you can change.

the trajectory not only of your life, but the lives of others with one conversation. I fully believe that and I embody that. When I do these dinners, that's what I'm looking to do. I'm looking to catalyze change.

Arthur Andrew Bavelas (18:24.533)
No, no.

Arthur Andrew Bavelas (18:30.582)
I it's, well, I personally have seen it, know, so many times I can't even count, but yes, you can change the trajectory of a lot of things. So Don, suppose you, I want to get to the meat of the matter on why people come, right? So if you met a family office and you say, I'm doing these dinners, what compels them to decide to join in?

dawn mari la monica (18:47.92)
Yes.

dawn mari la monica (18:55.918)
Yeah, yeah. So I would say the more I've leaned into my 100 % authenticity and honesty, the right people have come in. The less I tried, the right people have come in. So I think that whether I have a particular LinkedIn strategy, which is very unusual within the family office world, like I did a post about a fiat Italian girl, the whole thing is in Italian.

and it's a little bit racy, but it's done by Fiat. It's done by the Italians. And some people would say, well, why is she both, how is she going to tie a Fiat ad about a woman like going up to a man with a cup of coffee? How is she going to tie that into communication and family office? But I do. And that post that I did yesterday got over 85, 88,000 views. And it's because it's me showing up a hundred percent.

Now I didn't make that video, Fiat made the video, but how are you... Right? It's provocative. So I think people who come in, I'm not gonna be everyone's cup of tea, but the difference between me and maybe me six months ago, and me even a year ago, is I stopped trying. I just kind of got good with me. I'm a deeply spiritual person, and I got good with God, because I think that God, or universe, or source, or whatever you wanna call it, he made each one of us...

Arthur Andrew Bavelas (19:51.95)
Yeah, I saw it. It's really, it's really provocative. Yeah. Yeah.

dawn mari la monica (20:17.89)
unique with a unique blueprint. And then somehow we kind of, we lose that as adults, as we conform to what society says we should do or what we shouldn't do. But when we just show up fully ourselves and also importantly have fun, that is magnetic. When you show up a hundred percent authentic, you become highly magnetic to the right people. And so when people, whether they're hire me for like a

a one-day workshop at a wealth management firm or an MFO so that I can show them, I don't know how to create a room where widows actually want to go to. a different type of environment. Or if I'm just talking about functional integrative health and like, dude, like all of our hormones shift after 40. This is why sleep is so important. And this is the reality of brain fog and being addicted to your phone. And this is the knock-on consequences on your sleep and also on how you relate to your kids.

And then let's also talk about your business and brain chemistry. Like they hire me because of some people say because of my personality, but I think it's because of my authenticity. It's, it's, it's my honesty. Like I'm even showing up now on camera, no makeup 47, like many women would not do that or even say their age. But when I own who I am 800%, then that creates an environment for other people to own who they are. And I think that's.

Arthur Andrew Bavelas (21:44.877)
You know, it's really interesting. I'm sure you've found this out. Even if the people who are attracted to your authenticity and what you're doing personality, even if they're not so far along evolved, let's just call it that. Right. And their radar is not particularly dialed into the energy. They feel it independent of how far along they are. Right.

dawn mari la monica (22:11.226)
Yeah. Yeah.

Arthur Andrew Bavelas (22:12.074)
So it's, there's, you don't have to have a room full of people who are, know, woo woo and all the, don't have to have that. And it's, it's absolutely true. It's been impossible for me for a long time to be anything but authentic. And it rubs people the wrong way sometimes. And so, well, you know, yeah, well.

dawn mari la monica (22:19.342)
No.

dawn mari la monica (22:35.347)
well. Yeah. well.

Arthur Andrew Bavelas (22:39.252)
And have you read the drama of the gifted child?

dawn mari la monica (22:43.844)
No, but now I have to.

Arthur Andrew Bavelas (22:45.834)
So it's actually not titled very well. So Alice Miller was this Swiss psychologist and she wrote a groundbreaking book about how the children are born as a unaccluded diamond. And as they grow old, their parents, society, just go down the list, pile on all these carbon deposits. And by the time they're 40, they have to go to

the shrink, the chip off everything that society. So people end up being occluded by society's imposition as well as their growing fear that they're not going to be accepted, et cetera, et cetera. So it's a brilliant, brilliant talk about, it's a short book, but it's super instructive.

dawn mari la monica (23:33.936)
Yeah.

dawn mari la monica (23:39.815)
There's a really good book by Brene Brown, who's she's from, I think she's a big professor in Texas. She's written a bunch of books, but she has one about belonging. She writes a lot about shame, but separately she writes about this concept of belonging versus fitting in. And she writes about it beautifully in a book called Braving the Wilderness and what it's like to really just kind of stand in your own skin, 100%.

Arthur Andrew Bavelas (24:03.374)
Hmm.

dawn mari la monica (24:09.758)
I didn't realize she was as spiritual as she is. So there isn't a ton of that in there, but there were enough of it that I thought this is really interesting. But everything from even like Ryan Holiday, do like to read a lot, Ryan Holiday, who's a great writer on stoicism. A lot of those principles can, when you think about what you can control for, well, you can control how you show up. You can control how you respond.

Arthur Andrew Bavelas (24:38.442)
you respond to the circumstances of the moment. Yeah, it has everything to do with it. Yeah. Have you done the human design?

dawn mari la monica (24:40.444)
correct.

dawn mari la monica (24:50.812)
I haven't, because I don't know the time of my birth. And I think that for human design, you have to know the date, which I do know, which is October 18th, 1978. I'm a Libra, but I don't know the time. when you're a doc, maybe it's time for me to do it. Cause a couple of people have said that, like I think I'm a generator manifestor.

Arthur Andrew Bavelas (24:54.732)
No.

Arthur Andrew Bavelas (25:05.058)
They have an option where you can guess, right?

dawn mari la monica (25:18.296)
No, it's human. Is human design the one with the numbers or is it the other?

Arthur Andrew Bavelas (25:21.902)
So for example, I'm a manifest generator one three. So yeah, no, it's been the thing about human design that I like is it. It laid out whatever it does. And then I, when you read it, you go, that's why I do that. that's why I do, you know, it's part of my design. So it was super instructive. Yeah.

dawn mari la monica (25:47.931)
I need to do it then. If we can guess a little bit on the time, I've run into two or three people who do it because I was going to get it done and they were like, and what's your time of birth? And I get there and then I think I tried to get in touch with the adoption agency in Columbia. I mean, literally my birth certificate is like 20 pages all in Spanish and it's just maybe I just need to give them money, but then I don't know. To do it.

Arthur Andrew Bavelas (26:12.77)
Yeah, right. Right. Let's talk a little bit about the health wellness sort of thing. I'm a lot older than you, and so I've been focused on staying healthy and alive for as long as possible for my kids, grandkids, wife, all that business. So how do you talk about that with folks?

dawn mari la monica (26:20.368)
Yeah.

dawn mari la monica (26:25.884)
Thanks.

dawn mari la monica (26:33.467)
Yep.

dawn mari la monica (26:38.21)
with balance, think with that it's, there's a lot of noise right now around longevity and people saying they're longevity experts. And then I spoke to an actual longevity expert and he was like, got to be really careful on who you pull in for a speaker or, know, to have it a room because everyone is raising their hand and saying they're longevity expert because it's a big trend right now. And then you can get lots of business. So I think as with everything, I hate performance and I love

presence. know, I am the person who shows up without makeup. I am the person who says like stream of consciousness. had no thoughts or like notes before this call, though I probably should have like been more strategic. I think with there's which one? Yes, you shouldn't should yourself. So with health and wellness, I think it's important that the person who is in front of you who is trying to educate you embodies it. So

Arthur Andrew Bavelas (27:20.942)
Careful with that word, should.

Yeah, yeah.

dawn mari la monica (27:36.965)
Should someone who drinks, and there's nothing wrong with drinking Diet Pepsi every single day if that's something that is important to you and gives you joy. But should they be the same person who's kind of running around and maybe they're there for their kids, but maybe their nanny is bringing up their kids. So I think it's really important to have that authenticity all the way through, but for a different word, I would say embodiment.

If someone is coming to you and saying, okay, this is how I stay in my lane. So I'm not a heavy drinker, but I've looked at the signs about what drinking does to your body after 40. And now I'm after 45. I've also for myself, never had a really addiction problem with alcohol, but I noticed that after 40, it just didn't taste the same. Like my physical chemistry change. So I think that it's about

presenting and also I know that sleep is fundamental and what we eat is fundamental. I am not a huge believer in pharmaceutical drugs. I do believe in nature and being outside, moving your body and hanging out with your dog or your horses or just holding a chicken. I think that in this modern day and age, we have made things so much more complicated than they used to be.

I used to wear a Fitbit all around so I could know my step count and then I got to a point where I was like, really don't give a shit about my step count. I care whether or not I'm fat. And for me to figure that out, all I have to do is look down at my belly button and I will know based upon how my pants feel whether or not I am fat. I think that there's tremendous, I tore my meniscus about a year ago. I am very impressed with peptides and exosomes and alternative ways of healing that

do not require big time surgery. There's now exosome and stem cell treatment that you don't have to get a knee replacement. can get it is expensive, but you can get these different types of treatments. Health is something that always fascinates me. And so I jumped down the rabbit hole of it all the time. And I'm always learning more about it because I think that you and I both know billionaires and millionaires who have all this money, but not health.

dawn mari la monica (29:53.029)
And more importantly, well, as importantly, they don't have peace. And so when I talk about health, what I'm talking about is peace. I'm talking about the whole thing. If someone is, if a client is in front of me and they haven't slept right in three or four months, like I really don't care whether their next deal makes them 50 million or 150 million. They're not sleeping. That's what I care about. So people who come to me come to me because I start from there.

Because I also know that the someone who was at 200 million who got to 2 billion and 2 billion got to 20 billion, how are they doing? What's their relationship like with their wife? What's the or are they on their fourth wife on their way to divorce? What's the relationship like with their kids? Most importantly, can they sit still? Really still for 15 minutes? Does that make them crawl out of their skin? And so when I think about health and longevity, I'm not necessarily thinking ice bath.

I do love saunas because but I love the whole Swedish Norwegian thing like saunas. There's a lot of science behind it and it's not so extreme. Do I think that we need to go into hyperbolic chambers and like train our lungs for oxygen? Yeah, if that floats your boat, dude, but like, have you gone for a walk today outside? Have you listened to the birds? Have you stared at a ladybug? Have you gone outside when the sun is setting and looked at the fireflies? Have you gotten still within yourself so that

you know, maybe you have a practice in God or maybe you don't, but so that you can hear what you need to hear. And a lot of times, like just speaking about God, because I do believe in God, I think God and source or universe, whatever you want to call it, they're trying to give you guidance. But if you're running around listening to the noise or looking at the news or you just you can't hear it. Yes.

Arthur Andrew Bavelas (31:40.156)
The universe is sending us messages all the time and it's the radar that you have. This is just me saying this doesn't mean anything except that I'm saying it. I have nothing to promote or support what I'm saying except my experience. Is that the better, just like any other muscle memory, the more you train yourself to listen to that.

dawn mari la monica (31:48.144)
Yeah.

dawn mari la monica (32:04.122)
Yeah.

Arthur Andrew Bavelas (32:04.802)
vibration and message, the better the message gets through continually. And so it's really interesting. You know, it has never failed.

dawn mari la monica (32:09.804)
Yes. Yes. It hasn't. And so I know when everything and I had a call with a client like a couple of days ago and a lot of stuff was going on with her and I said when everything speeds up, slow it down. Slow it down. Come back here. Come back to center.

just slow down your breath, slow down the way you speak, because the world will move in this tornado. That is, whether it's family office world or not, a lot of times with ultra high net worth, like they're flying from Montana to Puerto Rico to Miami, and then they're going to do a skip through Zurich, and then they're going to go to Monaco, and then they're going to a house party in Provence. They're moving at the speed of light, but sometimes that velocity, although it's addictive, and it's a beautiful dopamine rush.

It's a way of avoiding feeling something that candidly needs to be felt.

Arthur Andrew Bavelas (33:04.802)
That's true. So I have a story. I don't have any skin in the game except we did do a webinar for Family Office Insights for a company called Newcom. Have you heard of Newcom?

dawn mari la monica (33:17.656)
N-E-W-K-C-A-L-M, right?

Arthur Andrew Bavelas (33:22.197)
N-U-C-A-L-M. So everybody's heard of calm because it's on your Apple TV. So the reason I bring it up is because you talked about jet setting around. 15 years ago, scientists figured out how to basically take your megahertz in your brain to certain levels by putting certain vibration noise into your headphones. And so they actually

dawn mari la monica (33:23.055)
Okay.

Arthur Andrew Bavelas (33:48.781)
have done over 2.8 million surgeries without anesthesia by using this methodology. So it was a medical device at the onset. Now it's an app on your phone. So the doctor that developed this and patented this, by the way,

Got a phone call from Anthony, Tony Robbins is a doctor saying Tony's like freaking out. He's got serious jet lag. He's got to go on the stage and perform for six hours. His wife just called. And so they called the new calm guy and they flew him out. And he said, here, put this on and basically changed the whole trajectory of the megahertz in his brain to settle it down.

dawn mari la monica (34:34.982)
Yep.

Arthur Andrew Bavelas (34:35.598)
And so now you have it on your phone and we use it every day. We use it before we go to the gym. We use it when we just want to sit down and prepare ourselves for some deep thinking, know, prompting an AI, for example. And we use it all night long. There's a sleep.

you know, rain thing, embedded in that is the patented technology. And I will assure you that if you use it one night and listen to the rain on YouTube, on your TV, and then use this one, you'll feel, you can definitely tell the difference. And of course, yeah, frequency. And of course, sleep is you're going in the repair garage every night. That's what's happening, right?

dawn mari la monica (35:17.372)
frequency.

dawn mari la monica (35:23.354)
Yep. Yep. And you know that you're most susceptible to new thoughts or reprogramming your subconscious as you fall asleep that hour 45 minutes as you slip and your first time in the morning. And then after that, the prefrontal cortex and the ego just kind of take over. But you have this time. there is something. But I believe in frequency. Like I believe there's a beautiful small like journal book by Einstein that I have and what Tesla was saying. We're all frequency.

Arthur Andrew Bavelas (35:53.433)
yeah, we're just moving it. Our atoms are just moving and the electrons are moving at a different rate. That's all. Yeah.

dawn mari la monica (36:01.82)
And so I think that when people have a conversation, even this conversation, it's because the frequency was right. Like that's kind of how I think of it.

Arthur Andrew Bavelas (36:09.038)
So I can't help but bring this up and this I do have skin in the game. So there's this company that also has a patent. You put a 30 second voice note. Your phone and you send it to tone well T O N W E L L and it spits out a complete report and a score.

dawn mari la monica (36:15.91)
Tell me, tell me.

Arthur Andrew Bavelas (36:37.494)
on what you need to do next. Sleep, magnesium, B vitamins, whatever it is. And it's all in your voice for that 30 seconds. And it's absolutely incredible. And we use that all the

dawn mari la monica (36:54.041)
Have you studied how honey beekeepers or beekeepers, how much longer they live because of the vibration and the sound of bees?

Arthur Andrew Bavelas (37:02.154)
I have not, but I'm not surprised. that true? Yeah. Beekeepers live longer, healthier lives because of the vibration of the bees.

dawn mari la monica (37:06.064)
Yeah.

dawn mari la monica (37:11.024)
because of the sound in the humming of the bees.

In fact, in some wellness studios, so I study a lot, the families within my network have certain verticals probably because they love real estate, hospitality and wellness, longevity and functional medicine. Couple of them do AI, but more like AI for the good of humanity. And then like sports and media. But I study a lot on the wellness hospitality space. The wellness hospitality space is supposed to grow to, I think,

point, it's either 1.3 or 1.8 trillion by 2030. And so what I've been studying is what these new wellness hotels like what are they building out? Is it still cold plunges? Is it something different? And quite a few of them in addition to saunas that are outside like the traditional sauna and more natural pools that don't have chlorine but more fresh water. Some of them are building these honeybee huts. So it's the honey bees or the bees

are kind of within the lining of this hexagon and you go in and you sleep or you take a nap and it's the vibration because you're surrounded by these bees. Bees are just magical dude. Magical.

Arthur Andrew Bavelas (38:26.434)
Course, yeah. That sounds really interesting. I would do that.

dawn mari la monica (38:30.97)
Yeah, so would I. have a friend of mine, Omani Carson, he's got a big ranch in Utah, no, not Utah, Omaha. Omaha.

Arthur Andrew Bavelas (38:40.898)
Tennessee, Tennessee. Okay. Well, you just opened another wellness retreat in Tennessee. Yeah. So he financed a friend of mine and it's not Tennessee's Virginia, West Virginia. Shenandoah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

dawn mari la monica (38:47.344)
Did he? Are we talking about the same Omani Carson?

dawn mari la monica (38:56.156)
Yes, it's Shenandoah. Yes. So he's, I was very, very privileged to go out and do the Heartland Protocol at his ranch, which is the John Hopkins Protocol. I have not, I have only done one psychedelic medicine ever before, but at his ranch, he's got beautiful horses and he's got these cute little goats and...

And yeah, and what I said to him was like, buy some, make some these bee huts. Bees are really good for, honey is really good for us. And so I've been talking about, but yeah, he's building one retreat after, well, their facilities, their massive facility. He just built the dark caves. Yeah, really different, really different. And it's people like that that absolutely fascinate me because they've kind of had this.

Arthur Andrew Bavelas (39:39.434)
Arc caves, yeah, I saw that.

dawn mari la monica (39:49.052)
I don't know if you call it awakening or a journey or just a revelation.

Arthur Andrew Bavelas (39:53.803)
he's definitely and look, he had talent independent of his awakening or whatever you want to call it. But he realized that I don't know him. So I'm only speaking from what I see is that, you know, he's a much happier person now than he's ever been. Right. Yeah.

dawn mari la monica (39:58.801)
Yep. Yep.

dawn mari la monica (40:10.908)
is pure love. Like he is just the happiest person like and generous and loving and kind and very different than other people. Well, not I want to make big broad statements, but you're not like a lot of people have a lot of wealth and are just still miserable and they don't know why. Perfect client for me.

But he's like, he's just, he's, I always look at the family relationships, not from judgment, because I'm not a Buddhist monk, but I'm like, I'm very celibate and kind of like, it's me and God, and I'm pretty good with that. But I always look at people's relationships with their wives and their kids. And it just gives me joy when I see someone that in love.

with their children and with their wife and just to see that it gives me hope.

Arthur Andrew Bavelas (41:04.334)
It's a good barometer and also if you see how they treat staff, right? Big, big, big red flag. I've walked out on many dates based on how somebody treated the staff.

dawn mari la monica (41:09.756)
Correct.

dawn mari la monica (41:18.588)
As you know, I've I've a there was a woman that I was friends with in London and how she treat a waitress. She didn't know that when I graduated from law school, I was feeding myself by waitressing. But how she treated that waitress, I was just done. For me, that's like

Arthur Andrew Bavelas (41:32.399)
Yeah, it's a big red flag. I think people have to be fertile, and I'll say this out loud in public, and I've said it before. If you're of the mind and you're ready, I think plant-based medicine is a huge eye-opener. I've done it many, many times, and it's every time it is delivered something of huge value. So I think that people... Yeah. Yeah.

dawn mari la monica (41:34.126)
It's a big red flag.

dawn mari la monica (41:58.951)
I have a question. Ready? Can I ask it? when you get, so with this John Hopkins protocol, you get a recording of yourself, of everything that you speak, which is actually kind of trippy to go back and listen to. When you get downloads, who do you think you're getting them from?

Arthur Andrew Bavelas (42:16.44)
So I have to tell you, I'm anti-dogmatic just because of all the hypocrisy in religions. And I grew up Greek Orthodox, which essentially means nothing. It was just part of the family thing. So I really just look at it as the universe communicating with me. That's it. It's simple as that. And I also spent a year reading 136 books.

The first one was Paramahansa Yogananda, Autobiography of a Yogi. And that led me to another one, another one, another one, another one. And after all that, I came out with, it's all about loving kindness. I'm not quite afraid of death. And I don't need to know precisely what the universe is all about, but I know it's there. So that's how I ended up. Yeah. So I don't have to attach myself to Jesus or

dawn mari la monica (42:59.216)
Yep. Yep.

dawn mari la monica (43:07.162)
Yep. That's it. Right. It's

Arthur Andrew Bavelas (43:16.428)
Mohammed or whatever, right? Yeah. But I happen to think the Buddhists were onto something because, know, the, the, the idea of taking something, examining it and letting it go makes a lot of sense. Right. You're not burdened by something that you let get into your cell structure. I just think it makes sense. I'm not totally. Yeah. It's fear. Yeah. Yeah.

dawn mari la monica (43:18.256)
Buddha. Yeah.

dawn mari la monica (43:37.742)
It makes, well, we hold on like this, right?

fear and the letting go is soul that's love because knowing that whatever you let go of you're enough like it's

Arthur Andrew Bavelas (43:51.343)
There was a guy in the West Village and my son was going through some very difficult times and someone had suggested that I go see him. He was a medium.

a professor of film or something in NYU, chubby gay guy in the West Village, right? And so I said, all right, can't hurt, let me go. And the reason I bring it up is we recorded all three sessions and I listened to them, of course, but he has now become, has written six books, super famous, like he's, you know, a super famous guy.

dawn mari la monica (44:11.099)
Yup.

Arthur Andrew Bavelas (44:34.274)
and doesn't even matter whether it's true or not is that during those sessions, the way he looked at it is he was hearing from the ascended masters delivering it through him as a medium. And I will tell you that it doesn't even matter whether that's too woo woo. You don't believe it, but all it mattered is that I benefited and so did my son. That's all it matters. Right. Yeah.

dawn mari la monica (45:01.862)
That's it. And it's, there's something to the things that we cannot see and that we cannot explain. And I, yeah.

Arthur Andrew Bavelas (45:10.264)
Yeah. And like I said, I don't need to know. And I totally honor people who have faith in a particular religion or dogma. Go for it. Doesn't matter to me. Yeah.

dawn mari la monica (45:18.15)
Yeah.

dawn mari la monica (45:22.404)
Yeah, no, it is. It is definitely, well, I'm in the integration. You're more experienced in this, but I'm still in the integration part because it was like two weeks ago. like the drop-ins and the epiphanies still come and, but more than anything, and what I loved about it is it just reminds you of how loved you are and that you're never alone. And it made me think about if more people in this world, especially in positions of power,

Arthur Andrew Bavelas (45:44.174)
Yeah.

dawn mari la monica (45:52.003)
remember but they felt it they felt loved if they felt that support and that deep love how different things would be

Arthur Andrew Bavelas (46:02.158)
Yeah. And look, there's lots of ways to address this. I've been doing meditation since I was 17. I met the Maharishi Meshi Yogi as a lark. know, friend of mine says, I'm going to get my mantra. You want to come with me? I said, yeah, sure. Let's go smoke a joint after. Right. And so it was totally random, but it has served me well for a long time. It's just another tool. Right.

dawn mari la monica (46:29.084)
It's enough.

Arthur Andrew Bavelas (46:31.116)
And I don't have to sit there and do this. I can be in an Uber and I'm gone, right?

dawn mari la monica (46:36.378)
Yeah, yeah. mean, what works for one person may not work for the other. And I think that's also really cool. Like one of the things that came through during this, I don't know how else to say it during this trip was like my use of music. I was really nervous about, you know, doing a pop up for investors and, you know, in Whitefish, Montana. But the thing is, I believe in frequency and energy and music.

And I love, I personally freaking love music, like there's certain, there's something to be said about how music, I wrote it not on my recent LinkedIn post, but on a couple of LinkedIn posts, like how moments of awe when you see beauty, like you see it all the time in Utah, but like, you know, do we see these epic visions of beauty in nature? How that transforms your brain, but also how music can...

Arthur Andrew Bavelas (47:04.088)
Muse.

dawn mari la monica (47:32.356)
transform your state and that sometimes we just get so serious like it wasn't life is not meant to be this serious we're supposed to laugh like

Arthur Andrew Bavelas (47:42.927)
Lighten up. Yeah. It's kind of like all this nonsense that happened during COVID and then the woke business and the comedians couldn't even tell jokes because they were off color. That's what comedians do. They tell jokes that are off color. And people were getting canceled left and right for just because, you know, one half of 1 % of the population was offended. Go fuck yourself. Right?

dawn mari la monica (47:54.542)
Nope.

Yup.

dawn mari la monica (48:01.289)
Correct. And they say that.

dawn mari la monica (48:09.414)
for us.

Yeah, Dave Chappelle is one of my favorite. Dave Chappelle, think he's a genius. I mean, if you look at as far as storytelling and how to speak and hold an audience. I mean, I study a lot of comedians and I love comedians because one, they make me laugh. But two, if you ever want to learn about communication, resonance and holding the attention of a crowd, you study really good comedians. And Dave Chappelle is like,

Arthur Andrew Bavelas (48:12.439)
Yeah.

Arthur Andrew Bavelas (48:37.048)
Totally, yeah.

dawn mari la monica (48:40.192)
one of the best. There was another guy from South Africa who used to be on The Daily Show. He is also hysterical. my

Arthur Andrew Bavelas (48:48.012)
I think I remember him. Yeah. How about Kill Tony? Kill Tony. Look at Kill Tony. Have you seen Kill Tony? so watch an episode of Kills Tony. He's got a. So he I've been to the mothership in Austin for Joe Rogan's Comedy Club a couple of times. And Kill Tony has started a show there once a week.

dawn mari la monica (48:58.172)
it's...

dawn mari la monica (49:06.263)
Okay

Arthur Andrew Bavelas (49:14.124)
where he has a bunch of people on the audience, and then he has a bunch of people on a panel that are comedians, and then they let somebody come up for five minutes or two minutes or something and do a shtick. And he's also the guy that told an off-color Puerto Rican joke at Trump's rally and got chastised for it. But anyway, he's totally irreverent.

totally doesn't give a shit and he's he's killing it. Kill Tony's killing it like his his show is just over the top.

dawn mari la monica (49:47.665)
Yeah, you need laughter. Like we all need laughter. Laughter is what boys us. It wasn't meant to be, I mean, we were kind of living through a bit of a chaotic moment in this country right now, but we were meant to have joy and laughter. And so one of the things that came through was like, just go and have fun. If five families show up, if 50 show up, if three show up, it doesn't really matter. If one shows up, go through the process of bringing this concept out.

And then also do it again. Like if this is where you find joy and fun, just keep on doing that. Because the dinners are fun and then the pop-ups are fun and then it's about doing family office retreats. But I'll never do it with more than like 29 people. I think that I'll probably like stick around the Fibonacci number of 21 for retreats that I do or like two night, three day retreats because...

Arthur Andrew Bavelas (50:41.122)
Hmm.

dawn mari la monica (50:45.476)
You get people opening up from their heart, but then also talking about deal flow. This world can change.

Arthur Andrew Bavelas (50:51.682)
This is why say what you want about like conferences. so people go back to conferences because they want to interact with people. And some of them go back to find their new job, you know, in a boondoggle sort of way. And, you know, that's why people go to the Opal conference in Newport every year is to reconvene with people that they haven't seen all year. Right. for example, and, I'm just not.

dawn mari la monica (51:05.02)
Correct.

Yep.

dawn mari la monica (51:16.177)
Correct.

Arthur Andrew Bavelas (51:20.714)
interested in doing conferences, although I did one at the UN right before COVID. Had 140 family offices and it was pretty awesome. But it was done selfishly for me because I was at the time I was deploying my own capital into impact investing. And I would go to the conferences and someone would stand up in front of the crowd and speak for a half hour and say, the world's coming to an end and then get off the stage. And I go, what good is that?

Tell me how to solve it. Don't come here and tell me the world's coming to an end and not have a solution, right? So I put 15 companies up on the stage who had real businesses, could demonstrate impact, and it was really, really, aside from the nightmare of doing a conference at the United Nations, which is, you never do that again. So the reason why I bring it up is that I'm often asked to do these,

dawn mari la monica (52:13.756)
Thanks.

Arthur Andrew Bavelas (52:20.056)
conferences and I'm just, I still have the bandwidth and I have so many other interests, et cetera, et cetera. and, but for example, we do, you know, what are you doing tomorrow? We're going to have a bunch of people over for cocktails and some more. And that's it. Right. Nope. No sponsor, no pitching, no come and hang out. Right. And so that's, you know, it was different when I was in New York city.

dawn mari la monica (52:33.018)
Yeah. Yeah.

Arthur Andrew Bavelas (52:45.292)
because we would intentionally do one or two a week where someone would come in and pitch. They paid us. They met 30 family offices and off they went. Right. And so it was easy to do that in New York City. Not interested in doing that. Now we do it on Zoom. Now is that's the business model for Family Office Insights. But, you know, I just don't have the interest in convening.

dawn mari la monica (52:54.619)
Yup.

Arthur Andrew Bavelas (53:13.291)
or the energy like you do to convene a bunch of people and not be just super casual about it, right? Yeah.

dawn mari la monica (53:21.852)
Yeah, yeah. The point is to make it less work. I mean, I really, it's nine to 21 people and I think even that will evolve. like my first, because I didn't work for a big family, like a Hunt family or the Crow family or any of those Johnson family, any of those big families when I first started. So that first year I did 45 family office conferences. Then I hated people and I hated myself and I just stopped.

And now, and.

Arthur Andrew Bavelas (53:52.953)
So why? Because people just didn't step up, they didn't participate, they didn't pay. bad idea.

dawn mari la monica (53:56.797)
It's the scarcity energy. the one in the question is on in some of these rooms. Are there any actual families there at all? Is it the people who work for the families? Is it the people who are performing? You know, anyone can call themselves anything. A real not a real family office, but a real investor has it's a different frequency. It's different abundance. It's very relaxed.

Arthur Andrew Bavelas (54:07.702)
You

dawn mari la monica (54:25.798)
So if you go into a room and people are like trying to size each other up and like, what do you do? Someone who has like 20, 50 million, they don't really don't care what you do. They might if they're like curious, but if you come at them. And so I think it's the etiquette that I see in some of these rooms where it's scarcity that is driving the interaction versus abundance, sadie, calmness, like just relax a little bit.

Arthur Andrew Bavelas (54:25.923)
Yeah.

dawn mari la monica (54:55.504)
get curious, like maybe don't try and collect 50 cards. And if it's a whole bunch of people that I know candidly, if I want to continue knowing them, I can call them on my phone or have like a Zoom. Like I don't necessarily need to know, need to go to a conference anymore. So I have definitely evolved in my process. There'll probably be another point, you know, I have a list that I maintain and I sell of 75 different family office conferences.

And then what I do is I say, can consult with you for an hour so that we can pick out the best ones, you know, for what you're looking to do. And then I prep them for it. But at the end of the day, it's just heavy networking. there comes a point where you reach this saturation point and you don't want to network. What you want to do is connect and you just want it to be really relaxed.

Arthur Andrew Bavelas (55:42.349)
Yeah.

dawn mari la monica (55:46.621)
and you don't want to be hounded by people and you don't want someone to come up and be like, what do you do? And then they're looking to see if you're a family office, if you're a service provider, of course, if you're a service provider, you're at the bottom of the barrel or they're trying to figure out how you can help them. And maybe they're trying to figure out how they can help you, but usually they're not. And I think people are looking to your point. There's a, there's a huge movement right now called the analog movement, the in real life movement or the offline community movement. kind of did a

Arthur Andrew Bavelas (56:04.962)
You're not.

dawn mari la monica (56:16.506)
I did some research on this and the numbers of it and why these event that industry has blown off because right now you and I both know there's a family office conference every freaking week. And my question is, why are people still spending money on all of this and aren't they sick of this? But there's this human need to try and connect with another human. But unless you've actually sat with yourself a bit and

have done a little bit meditation, you can be in a room full of other people but still feel lonely and still feel like you haven't been able to do that connection. And so I also pray before I go into any room, I pray to God source everyone show me who I'm supposed to be nine times out like 10 times out of 10 always because I let the frequency guide me and I you know, I hear the nudge of like don't go talk to this person and I do and then

All of a sudden, it's a room full of 75 people. I'm talking to someone who's a CIO of a single family office, who's been doing psychedelic medicine since he was 14 and now he's 45. And that is not a coincidence. That happened right after my journey, but I just kind of prayed on it. I sat there and I was like, really? This is kind of weird that we're having this conversation. it just kind of, right? So.

Arthur Andrew Bavelas (57:22.476)
Mm-hmm.

Arthur Andrew Bavelas (57:33.058)
That's so weird. Yeah.

dawn mari la monica (57:37.521)
I think people are looking for community and real human connection, but because they're disconnected from themselves and maybe because they're disconnected from God or source, trying to connect with another is still difficult, but they're trying their best, like through these big events, whatever it is. And it's all about the person who leads the room or the person who facilitates the person who is the host because they set the energy and the intention for the room.

And they are the middle, not that they're like God or anything, they're the spokes.

Arthur Andrew Bavelas (58:10.274)
No, their leadership is just leadership, right? It's catalyst.

dawn mari la monica (58:13.468)
in an age where people have forgotten how to lead.

Arthur Andrew Bavelas (58:16.686)
And also when let's face it, when someone's in front of the room and they're seemingly got an agenda that they're executing on and they're nervous about it or not comfortable with it and they don't believe it, you know immediately, right? And so if they're there for authentic reasons and they're comfortable in their own skin, you know that immediately as well, right?

dawn mari la monica (58:33.948)
Correct. Correct.

dawn mari la monica (58:43.504)
You do. You feel it. It's a thing. can't believe you're Greek. So this is a necklace that I've worn that I got from, she's kind of a shaman in Mykonos in Greece. she knew what my life would be like. She got it told, but she's like, are you right? But it's interesting. So it has the D.

which was the D in Greek letters, which is a triangle, right? But then it's also for like Delta, for the Delta where the river flows out to the ocean, where the river flows back out to source.

Arthur Andrew Bavelas (59:16.12)
Very cool. Yeah.

dawn mari la monica (59:17.486)
And then my friend told me, like very super smart at this retreat, he was like, actually, Delta is also the word for change. Have you thought about that? And I was like, that's the third prong. was wondering what the, but there is something I've really gone into sacred geometry for a lot of different reasons. I do practice a lot with Fibonacci numbers. And then this is the Greek owl. So I always know what to,

Arthur Andrew Bavelas (59:43.264)
the whiskey.

dawn mari la monica (59:44.764)
what to say but I've been wearing this since I was like about 32. Yeah, I never take it off and it's on a it's on a just like a rope a string. Yeah.

Arthur Andrew Bavelas (59:53.917)
nice. Yeah. Super cool. Both Mary and I are Greek. It wasn't by design. And she still has family. Her parents were born here in Greece. My parents were born here, so she's first generation. And we both speak Greek. We go to Greece regularly. And her family still

dawn mari la monica (01:00:18.224)
Yeah.

Arthur Andrew Bavelas (01:00:22.862)
partially lives in this village that hasn't changed in hundreds and hundreds of years. And so we go there and we, know, it's just, it is exactly what you'd think a little village above the ocean in Greece would be. And it's miraculous. Yeah, just amazing.

dawn mari la monica (01:00:29.148)
8

dawn mari la monica (01:00:36.71)
heaven.

dawn mari la monica (01:00:42.148)
right? What's that place in Greece where it's like the tall monasteries but they're on like this? It's a national

Arthur Andrew Bavelas (01:00:50.53)
Yeah, I need to be talking about the cliff.

dawn mari la monica (01:00:53.208)
It's like a bunch of them. There's a whole bunch of monasteries that you have to across the bridge of like abyss.

Arthur Andrew Bavelas (01:00:55.939)
Yeah.

Arthur Andrew Bavelas (01:01:00.386)
Yeah, I know I've seen the picture. I haven't been there yet.

dawn mari la monica (01:01:02.94)
It's a national geographic, so I was there as well. And that had incredible, mean, Greece is really, that's a, it's a soul home for me. It just, I mean, to be outside, to have that water, to have the fish, the food, the culture. Yeah, I'm definitely European in my soul. But I'm doing pretty good for someone who's been in the States for as long as I have, but I would go back in a second. Yeah.

Arthur Andrew Bavelas (01:01:28.918)
I have, have you gone to Columbia?

dawn mari la monica (01:01:31.876)
Well, to pick up my brother, so my brother is also adopted. So I've only gone back once, but I haven't gone back, gone back. I think with everything, because I'm Colombian and I was born in Colombia. I wasn't born here. So I have my American passport, my American citizenship and my English citizenship. But I was a little bit, I think since every... I think I did leave the country once in the last year, but I was like a little bit worried.

Arthur Andrew Bavelas (01:01:35.608)
Huh.

dawn mari la monica (01:02:01.269)
Candidly, you know, if I leave... Well, I'm a feisty little Colombian who's 47 and I have a law degree. Like, I've said a thing or two which could come back and bite me, but then I also think you can't live in fear. So I think if God wants me to go back either to Colombia or Europe, that's gonna happen.

Arthur Andrew Bavelas (01:02:04.246)
It profiled, it wouldn't come back in.

Arthur Andrew Bavelas (01:02:23.928)
There you go. Well, this has been amazing. Thanks for engaging in this conversation. I love talking to you about it.

dawn mari la monica (01:02:29.5)
I'm so grateful for your time and for your questions and just everything. I'm so glad that this conversation happened now.

Arthur Andrew Bavelas (01:02:40.046)
Yeah, and you're going to go into nature tomorrow and spend the next few days in a beautiful part of the country. I did send it to a couple people, by the way, and one of them knew you and I was already aware of it. So there, how about that? Yeah.

dawn mari la monica (01:02:43.29)
Mm-hmm.

dawn mari la monica (01:02:47.108)
Yup, it's a, I got a one way ticket.

dawn mari la monica (01:02:54.758)
Hey, isn't that surprising? So it must have gotten, I did hit Utah pretty hard within my email. The airport is shut half the week, right? So I mean, I picked a pretty challenging time, but also this is a sojourn. Like I'm going to fly into Spokane tomorrow. Then I do something in Washington, then I'm driving to Whitefish and then I haven't even bought my return ticket yet. So who knows?

Arthur Andrew Bavelas (01:03:19.906)
I always do that. One way ticket. Yeah, I do it at home.

dawn mari la monica (01:03:22.36)
one-way ticket because I'm going to leave a little bit to chance this time.

Arthur Andrew Bavelas (01:03:28.206)
So we went to Greece last year, one way ticket. And we said, all right, we've done all the people we wanted to visit and places we wanted to go. Said, let's just go to Sicily. So we went to Sicily and we just, I don't it was a month, something like that. Yeah, it was amazing. We went to Rome.

dawn mari la monica (01:03:47.504)
Yeah, yeah, the spaghetti with the pistachios on it. Did you get the spaghetti with the pistachios on it in Sicily? They only do it there. my God, it's so good. No one would think to put pistachios and anchovies with fresh spaghetti. Sicily.

Arthur Andrew Bavelas (01:03:55.486)
probably. Yeah. Yeah.

Arthur Andrew Bavelas (01:04:04.418)
Yeah, I think we probably had that. It was a big advantage because I have a friend that lives in Luxembourg who has a summer house in Sicily. And when I was in Greece, I said, I'm going to Sicily. You're going to be there? He goes, no, but here's the phone number of the housekeeper. Take my apartment. So we stayed in his place on the ocean for a week. It was amazing. Just serendipity.

dawn mari la monica (01:04:31.825)
Yeah.

Arthur Andrew Bavelas (01:04:32.495)
I'm not going to be there, but and then he finally came, which was nice. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, for sure. Mon, thank you for doing this. Thanks everybody for joining us today and till next time. Okay. Thank you.

dawn mari la monica (01:04:35.982)
those are good friends.

Thank you so much.

Okay, so I'm gonna...