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In Lydia Dean’s newly released book, Jumping the Picket Fence, is now available on Amazon. A Woman’s Search for Meaning from the Suburbs to the Slums,” Lydia Dean finds herself at the top of her game professionally, yet on the verge of an emotional breakdown. Quitting her job and convincing her husband John to join her on a more meaningful path, the family takes a leap of faith, trading their American lifestyle for a more simple one nestled in a quiet village in the South of France. The reader will live alongside Lydia and John as they tend grape vines, renovate a stone house, build a villa rental business and raise a family in Provence. Neither knew at the time, that this would lead to so much more. Trading in a Life for One in Provence…and that was only the beginning of Lydia;s journey.
Reconnecting with Lydia’s early childhood dreams of humanitarian work, Lydia’s adventures then take her further from the comforts of home as the young family travels extensively to areas lacking access to education and opportunity.
The book describes Lydia’s fearless, inspirational path around the world—into shelters for children across India, through the jungles and back roads of Costa Rica, Southeast Asia and Venezuela, and to China where the Deans adopt their third child. Motivated by the simple ideal that small personal actions can make a difference, the family returns to the US where Lydia and a passionate team combine the best of travel and philanthropy by building a travel organization (and later non-profit)—GoPhilanthropic, offering guided philanthropic tours and engaging travelers with programs supporting vulnerable women and children.
From magical and entertaining to painfully raw and unsettling, this beautifully balanced mixture of travel memoir, soul searching, and motherhood shows us how to put fear aside, peel away all that insulates, and listen to inner voices.
“When asked Lydia stated, Jumping the Picket Fence isn’t as much about building a non profit as it is about following what is in your heart— about listening to an inner voice, to looking at life signs that get put in your path. The book is ultimately less about what I have done in my own life and more about what each of us can do to explore our own dreams and jump our own fences.”
Lydia Dean, Founder of GoPhilanthropic Foundation and co-founder of Only Provence villa rental company in Provence, currently resides in Los Angeles, California with her husband and three children and divides her time between the US, France and Asia.
Release ID: 81405