0:00
/
0:00
Transcript

Hope Lives.

GoFundMe for my cousins who lost their home in Palisades Fire & Lessons from the Ashes. Watch Video above.

It’s crappy really. When you realize that everything you’ve ever fought for, worked for, lived for, dreamed about - is gone. And that happened to my cousin Elizabeth last week, and her husband and son (aged 12). Their house got completely obliterated by the Palisades Fire in Los Angeles. Nothing was left.

With permission from my cousins, I have set up a GoFunMe fundraiser to help them for their immediate needs and recent devastating loss: their home is gone.

Feel free to watch the video above too

They are currently staying with a friend and have the bare minimum with them, that they were able to escape with during evacuation. Lucas' school was almost burned, everything he has, except his iPad, is destroyed. All of Mike and Elizabeth's personal belongings, clothes, household items, furniture, some antiques, art, beloved items, all gone in the fire.

They will re-build their lives over time, but right now they have immediate needs to get them back on their feet, that help with real, day-to-day survival.

How to help

This GoFundMe fundraiser is to assist in that effort, and hopes to cover basic essentials. Feel free to donate, or share on please 🙏🏼

Donate or Share

Here’s what sucks.

Elizabeth is SUCH an amazing EntreprenHER. I mean, amazing. She has built her own business (BARU Advertising) for the last 15 yrs, and became a leader in her field. Blood, sweat and tears. Literally. She did this from nothing. And she put everything into this home.

I remember when she and I rented a 2 bedroom apartment in West LA, off the 405, in ‘97. We were young, ambitious and neither of us really knew what we were going to do long term. I was here for the music industry and everything Hollywood was enticing, and she wanted to be an actress! Two young women, ready for anything.

A true EntreprenHER

Instead of waiting for hopes and dreams from the Hollywood machine, Elizabeth took the right call at the right time. She got a job at Focus Media in the marketing insights world, and worked her way up. Then a few hop, skips and jumps and all of a sudden she was out on her own with her own boutique advertising agency. What a risk taker: a true entreprenHER. By 2007, she was running a business, as a woman, where no woman dared to lead, capturing the attention of high flyer advertisers across all media channels, while everyone else was learning to create selfies on Facebook for fun. And she built that business up to where it is today, with many Hollywood and Media clients now calling her for her marketing help, where no actress would ever get those calls. Elizabeth is a self-made success story.

Elizabeth and I were chatting the other night, two days after her home burned down to the ground. It’s hard, because sadness is overwhelming. In between the hugs and tears, she shared something so profound that I felt I needed to share with you. It went something like this,

“Gilli, I worked so hard to get to a place where I could have a home I could just wake up in the morning in, and walk outside with my cup of coffee, and soak in the morning sun, look at the view and enjoy nature and feel like it was my paradise.

I loved that I could work out at home, and be close to my family, and then know I could come home from work to my oasis, my dream place. I loved my home so much. It was my dream and represented everything I worked hard for, and now I’ve lost it.”

This devastation from the fires has plagued Los Angeles this last week. Thousands and thousands of homes have burned to the ground. It’s absolutely awful and we’ve experienced so much loss here, including lives and livestock.

My parting words here people:

Life is fleeting. Success is fleeting. Things are fleeting.

But success remains even surrounded by the ashes you may have lost a house, or a fabulous job, or possessions and awards that represent your past successes, but that doesn’t take away the success itself.

Hug your loved ones, hug your own heart and yes, even your own ego (she needs hugging too), and know that inside YOU are enough, even without everything around you. Even without those awards or clothes or jewels that burned in the fire. Even without a job you may have been let got from. Even without those connections or opportunities that mysteriously may not be showing right now: you ARE still successful.

No one and nothing can take away your sense of self. We go through the ups and the downs, the wins and the losses. At the end of the day YOU ARE AMAZING.

Hope Lives.

Love you all, from LA today,

Gilli

Discussion about this podcast