Many of us have felt it: being trapped, stuck, uninterested, desolate, anxious, unloved, useless, weak, idle, panicky, scared, doubtful, pathetic, directionless…

Despite her successful career in global communications and tech PR, her thriving literary Salons in NYC, her two great kids and a supportive husband, Vica the writer and the mother has slipped on most of the Sad Slopes of Self-Doubt at some point. However, she was a New Yorker from St. Petersburg, Russia, and she was determined to climb out of the Self-Doubt Swamp. By herself.

Surfing at Encuentro Beach (Cabarete, Dominican Republic) - thanks to the COVID pandemic - while pursuing her second graduate degree in Social Psychology at Harvard University ES, she met Jerry. Jerry’s joyful spirit gave her an idea, and she offered him a partnership in the new business of making people happy. He delightfully accepted.

Jerry never slipped on any of the Sad Slopes of Self-Doubt: perhaps because of his Abuela, the medicine-woman, who helped hundreds of local women get pregnant and hundreds of men get healthy, or maybe because he had the charisma of his Abuelo, the strong man who wasn’t sad a day in his life, had fathered four kids – Jerry the jolliest of them all – and kept his wife happy until his last breath, despite his chronic illness.

• Vica developed the vision, created the structure, found partners and advisors;

• Jerry sourced service providers and arranged local logistics.

• Together, they became the initial Una Vida team.