From Divorce and Heartbreak to Empowering Women

I would say broken, and had to rebuild myself.

“And out of that, struggles, and those turmoil,”

and, you know, I managed to get out. Maria Tabrawi is a resilient, dynamic, and purpose-driven life coach. Co-president of the zoological wildlife foundation, and the founder of Queen and the jungle. Drawing from her journey of personal transformation,

she empowers women to navigate change, rebuild with confidence, and lead with purpose. I need to help other women. I need to help other women come out of that. Some get stuck in some don't know how.

And they get lost. So through that, I say, OK, why not? Through my experiences, through my challenges, all those experiences, now I can write about them. And I can teach women, and learn that,

even though it's something breaks, you can be rebuilt yourself. [MUSIC PLAYING] It spans the globe. Like a super high school, internet Elvis. [MUSIC PLAYING]

Today, Apple is going to reinvent the globe. It's not over. I'm telling how we're-- The living your legacy podcast for those who live, to leave a legacy.

[MUSIC PLAYING] Welcome back to an episode of the Living Your Legacy podcast that women in power addition. Joining me today is Maria Ebradi.

You can see in front of us that she is quite a powerful woman,

a woman of many, many trades.

“Can we begin down the list of how amazing you are, Maria?”

Who are you? Welcome to the show. Well, I'm just a Cuban, an immigrant I came. Had a dream, had a vision, was able to have the-- I was able to be thankful to bring come to America, actually.

And be able to have thanks to my parents to have the availability to race, be race here, during the English language. And I had a dream and a vision. And eventually, you know, work myself to where I'm here today.

Where I have, I created my own career, my own business, logical life foundation, where we had to write the worst life coach, and part of women every day. Right. And my magazine today in Power Man.

And I hope to be a legacy. Well, you are a legacy.

You are a powerful woman.

As a fellow Miami, and I'm very aware of some of your history, is some of your reputation here. As a fellow Miami, and one thing I have to open up with, a lot of folks that come and visit us in our studios are quite surprised that I myself am bored and raised

in Miami, and I'm also Cuban. Can you talk about how rare it is to be a Cuban, living in Miami these days? And they're like, wait, what? You're actually raising Miami?

How does-- can you explain to folks that that is actually a real thing? Well, it is a real thing. I mean, I walk the walk here in Miami from a young girl, and I enjoy Miami so far that when even South Beach,

where there was nothing, I would call it the old beach. Because that's what it was, you know? Well, Lincoln Road. And now it's just a blooming city where people want to come here and just for the life, for the restaurants,

for the beach, hotels, and all the experiences we have to offer here in Miami. And one of my experiences, my experience, of course, my park, that everybody knows. A lot of people know my park.

Even I'm aware, even I broke it and I'm like, wait, what, you're the co-founder? Can we talk about-- first, I want to talk about this park.

“And why it's so important for such a my generation”

to grow up and such a well-known area? Well, the park was built out of love, I would say, it was built out of a vision, a dream, a passion that we both had, my partner was into, he's 12 years younger than me.

So he had the experience in the knowledge of exotic wildlife. And I had the experience of running a corporation, from the background. So it blended in because we were not stepping in each other's toes. And I had the passion for animals.

So I learned with him how to work with animals. Take care of them. And we both had a mission. I had a mission that I was wanted to have my own business.

I felt always like, when I worked for someone,

I felt that I didn't fit in. Why I didn't fit in because I had to build my own brand, I had to build my own career. So that's why there was a difference.

And someone told me, he goes, you need to build your own business

because you're never going to be happy where you're at.

You're not happy doing what you're doing. Why because there's something out there. And that was a stepping stone to get to little by little to where I'm actually sitting here talking about my story. So we met, we built this beautiful park.

And I started designing the park and my conversation earlier today is my children told me one day, I said, I want to build a park where you're going to go to Africa. The atmosphere will be here and talks for sure. And one of my children said, what are you smoking?

And I said, okay, you want to challenge me. I'll challenge, I'll show you. And in 2013, you were able to open that park. That's awesome. And a group of people came and fell in love with it.

And it just bloomed. And I started my space and I acquire volunteers. And I couldn't pay them at the time because we were starting. I used to play multiple roles, cleaning and bathing animals, feeding them,

working the operations of the office, answering phones, getting sales. So I said, it is time now to be able to recruit people. And see because we have to, we have to see if they fit for us. So I was able to recruit young people.

They found love with a place. And it was a word of mouth. And by the time we were known in a matter of three months, we had people coming from a little bit of the world. For sure.

But we had a problem. People in South Florida getting to know us.

“That's why we were working on the market in the strategy.”

How do we were working? We can get those people to come. Yeah, for sure. It's funny because I have such an affinity for wildlife and growing up in Miami.

And then even when I parked on the street, I see the big bright green parrots. I'm like, well, all those parrots were escaped from Miami Zoo because of Andrew.

And there's always a history of like, well,

there's a, there's where the flamingos are that way because so and so that there's one thing on South Beach. There's always this weird divine Miami twist to it. But your story, given it is just a tip of the iceberg, you're actually born in Cuba.

I was born in Cuba. Correct. Tell me about that. I mean, I was born in Cuba and I left when I was four. So there's very knowledge.

But I remember living in this little home, you know, spelling the aroma of coffee in the morning, you know, waking up with a smile on my parents' face. And just enjoying the simple things.

“The humble, the humbleness of the way we were, you know?”

And I mean, the light will go off at certain times. Sure. It's difficult. And my father always says, we need to, we need, we can't raise our children here for the rest of our life.

We need more. And that's what he started working. He was able to leave and left us, left my mom and my brother in Cuba. As made a promise that he was going to take us out.

But he had it to do this. He had it to leave, go to Spain, raise money with a help of his family. And, you know, at some point, take us. But in that time, I saw my mom, I saw my mom, her,

her struggles having to cook flung at home, to be able to help racism and to maintain the house. And those struggles, what made me, you know, gave me that push that resilience, absolutely. You know, the resilient is the push to get to where I need it to get.

And, and I mean, I've never went back to Cuba.

But I know that when there's a common, you know, when everything settles, I will go and I will build a business there. Sure. At some point in my life. Yeah, I was raised by my grandmother, and then my father was

through the whole saga. Yeah. And then very much there, when Ellen Gonzalez went through his thing. And, but his ladies, his cousin, was actually a school teacher, Mammy Senior High.

So, I spent my junior senior year, Mammy Senior High, and Ellen Gonzalez was being kidnapped by Janet Reno. So, I saw the eye. It was crazy. I was there.

That was a big promotion. That was quite, that was, yeah.

“I think he had met a new thing in the streets.”

Yeah, I was there. That was a big, I don't know. We, we, we, we, we rioted. And I was actually doing exactly what I'm doing right now. Back then, in front of a camera, reporting it,

going, oh, look, and yeah, I was quite, quite funny. Seeing 27th Avenue in Flagler on fire. Yes. So, that was what three decades ago. So, when I see it on TV now, go, ah, been there, done that.

And I'm just like, you know what? I'm Cuban, Borden raised in Miami. I know, pain. I've seen it. So, when I flip through the channels and doomskroll,

look, it's happening every world. Can we talk about that? Where it's like, we, we'd lead with fire. We, and we, we were raised a certain way. We were raised with values.

For reasons that are very apparent today. We, I, I, I lead with fire.

“And I see a lot of, a lot of Cubans were there.”

More by the way, that lead with fire because absolutely necessary. They, they had to lead their country, their country that they loved. That they had, that they wanted to build their dream. Oh, like, I building my dream, but I wish I had, I wish I could have built it there. But I didn't have no choice.

My parents didn't have no choice. They wanted a better life for all of us, for themselves, for us, and for our children, for our children to come. So, we had to make that change. And there's a part of us, even when we hear Hispanic music,

we have this thing that is, we're, we're missing. There was this men and colleague part of us that wish that we were there. Even when I go to the Dominican Republic, even when I go to Puerto Rico, I hear that it's so much like Cuba. So, I get nostalgic, my eyes get watery because I wish that I was there.

But I refuse to go doing the system that they have right now. Sure, sure, sure. Uh, yeah, I, I was, my grandmother passed away in my arms.

She never got to see the Cuba that she thought that was going to be liberated.

And unfortunately, I don't think in our lifetime, wherever we're going to see the Cuba that are grandparents and their grandparents thrived in. It's long gone unfortunately. But that I ironically, the pinnacle of what podcast you listen to. I'm sure folks are in a good old America.

They're not in the United States, they thought that we're going to be in. The grass is always greener, isn't it? Correct, thank you.

“So, to keep it positive, what do we have in front of us?”

You are multifaceted brand creator. You are obviously the brand. Let's move on to who you are today and how you ascended. Well, I, like I said, I built my park and I've gone through the horses. And I struggle through them.

I, you know, I would say broken. I had to rebuild myself. And out of that struggles and in those turmoil and, you know, I was, I managed to get out. I managed to restructure my life. I would say we birth through that.

I said, I need to help other women. I need to help other women come out of that. Some, some get stuck and some don't know how. And they get lost. So, through that, I say, okay, why not?

Why not? We run myself and Maria to where the horse life coach. Through my experiences, through my challenges, all those experiences. Now I can write about it. Sure.

And I can teach women. And now they have this book. They will have my novel pretty soon.

I go who we were, my first marriage.

And, and learn that even though something breaks, you can be rebuilt yourself and you can find love again. Sure. And it's the way you approach things and you see life. And you become your own person and you can, you can have control of your life

and you can empower yourself and empower other women and build a community because I didn't have that opportunity when I was separated. The way I was raised, you were strong and you deal with it. Or you're staying married and I'm not that kind of girl. I could be not a years old, I'm with someone, I'm faithful, bye-bye.

So, I didn't have someone to hug me. I didn't have someone to tell me. It's okay, or listen to me because I was close minded at that point in my life. Through therapy, through healing, through finding myself. To doing the work that I needed to do.

Yeah. I, I said, okay, now it's time for me to get back. And now it's time for me to help other women. And that's all. The Maria Tabra, the worst life coach, my brand came into place.

That's amazing because you, especially with our background, folks who, and we're not raised with mental health, we're not raised with asking questions

“about how are you feeling, how can I do something to make you feel better?”

We don't get that a lot, especially as Latinos like I do. Oh, no, they teach you to be, oh, you know, you gotta do this and you gotta go for it.

Yeah, yeah, and it's funny, as a young age, you're always trained like,

don't party, don't get pregnant, don't do this and that, but you got pregnant a young age. And it, which is powerful nowadays, but that showed you resilience. And now you're far more advanced. Talk about what it's like to be our age, but still have a young heart and approach everything with this, with this new, found freedom because you've healed your constantly healing,

you've survived, not just one, but two divorcians? Oh, well, soon to be two divorcians. Separating. Separations. But I managed to be able to have the business as to run it.

But then, but those are required changes for you to continue to grow. If you can't grow without pain, there's gotta be some sort of, some sort of reset. So I feel like I've just captured you now in your new ascension. You know, I think I'm on my fourth or fifth ascension. I'm just 42, and I'm like, well, what's the next dream?

Talk about your philosophies of kind of experiencing life and being absorbing it,

or the opposite, taking full control of your life and knowing what you want, when you want it, how fast you want it?

“First of all, you have to be open-minded.”

And you have to be willing to change. Because we're changing, we're living in a fast pace, where we can be dinosaurs. We have to grow, we have to go with a flow. And we have to listen a lot. We have to listen to us internally, to our voice.

We have to listen to other people.

And then we have to figure it out along the way.

And my philosophy is, if it breaks, you gotta fix it. Are you fix it? You gotta sit down with yourself. You have to write. You have to ask questions to yourself. Questions that's on time is uncomfortable to ask, because when you ask those questions, you will find out things that you really don't want to find out.

Sure, sure. Who you truly are, sure.

“And then when you do ask those questions, then you have to put it into action.”

And you have to, you know, as you're writing, you have to express those feelings, why are those feelings coming on? How can I fix it? How can I fix it? How can I rebuild it? And look at yourself. Are you happy where you're at? What can you do to change? And where do you want to be at? And these are the steps that you do to become true self.

And love yourself. The idea is, you gotta love yourself. You gotta respect yourself. You have to admire yourself. You have to find love with who you are. And then that confidence that you have within you. Nothing else would affect you. And you learn to take life as an experience. That's what I do now. I take life as an experience. Absolutely.

And every challenge that come away, okay? I feel here, but I can make it better. I'll try again. And if not, it was a learning experience. And I move on. And I keep going.

What's the first most common thing you hear when you're on your journey with a client

and your coach them through the divorce process? Is it anger? Is it pain? Why me? How many characters are many profiles to you seek? Do you seek? Do you seek? They have, they feel desperate. They feel lost. They don't know if they're going and coming. They don't even know the steps to take. A lot of them are not financially independent and they're struggling because now they see reality for what it is.

They see the, the bigger picture of the black and white. Okay? And they don't know. And I get to know them. I'm not an attorney. I'm not a therapist. I'm not a psychologist. But I can guide you. I'm here to listen to you. I can give you the tools to guide you.

“And I, like I have a workbook that I'm, that I'm creating the workbook. And that's what I do.”

Through my experiences, I help them. I help them. I help them. I guide them. Great. And I make them find their words because I do the steps. The steps that I did. I help them do those steps too. So the idea of these figuring who you are, for them to figure who they are, for them to find themselves again and for them to realize what is it that they're going to, what they want to do, where they want to be. Are you happy in your life right now? Are you happy in

the job that you have? Are you happy in the home that you have? If you can add a four-thousand home, how can you do? What can you do? Sure. To, you know, financially, the steps to go. Do you or know that a divorce lawyer, I can help you find one. The restructure, your financials. That's, that's what I'm here for. Because I had to do all those things. Doing my process of my, my divorce, my separation. And you know sometimes it, you have to move. You have to move from where you live.

You have to escape that. You know, or you have to remuner your home. Some people can add a four-thousand we model your home, but they can downsize. And they can have their place. And now they feel like, okay, I own this place. If it's a rental, I get to home. It begins at the start. And you began again, planting your flag. In my, in my case, I had to move from my home. Sure. And I had it to step away from there and we build myself. And that's what I tell them. You gotta do the things that you feel,

but you have to sit down with yourself and you have to ask the questions. If you have to cry, you have to scream, you scream. You have to throw things away. You throw things away. But you gotta do them. If you stay stuck on one emotion, you cannot process all the emotions that you go through that. Because of separation or divorce, it's like something dies. It's like losing someone, losing a family member because they become your family. And how do you move from back grief?

And those are the, you know, those these are, but it's like baby steps. But some of them took us

care that weight of shame with their relationship. Or that shame of now have a label on divorce. Yep. Or I'm separated. Or I'm a single mom. Try getting canceled. Yeah. And then they feel, no, you shouldn't be ashamed of anything. This is just a process that we're going for. And you have to feel confident about it. And you know, eventually, it's okay. Everything is okay. And if you build a support system, friends, the family, the therapists, if you don't want to speak to a friend,

because maybe they don't understand. Maybe they're not divorced. Maybe they're not going through the problem with them. But then you go to a coach like me or maybe you go to a therapist, depending on your needs. And then from there, you start opening up your start healing. And then you build a, you start a community. Because then you have this women that can support you. Women like me. Or you find your groups of women that are divorced, separated. Yeah. And

“you start doing the work. What are some key components folks that are watching or listening?”

That are very simple. Like, you know, sort of drinking go out to the gym, a sort of dating and sleeping around, focus on journaling. What are some key things that you find that are easy wins to get the ball rolling for someone to fight up power. It ain't healthy. Having a structural

life at first, like, you know, having a balance like exercising, walking, going outside and just

getting some sun, getting some sun, seeing nature, seeing somewhere, go to the beach for me. It was a beach. It was sitting, journaling in the beach, writing a book, just smelling the sand, the wave, getting into the water. For me, that was, I would say my way of healing in my rebirth. Finding myself. When I feel overwhelmed, I need to skate to the beach. These are the things that you got to do. And when you write, you're expressing yourself. You're putting your emotion and

“cry. You're putting your emotion on paper. And that's like a seal. And then you read and you go back”

to it. And then it's just making sense. Things are making sense for you. And it's not going to be easy because your body is craving this person. So this person's going to be living in your mind for for a while. You're going to be reliving moments. You're going to feel the good, the bad, it's, oh god, it hurts. But I can tell you that you're going to be angry. You're going to feel,

first of all, you're going to be looking for yourself because now I'm separated and now I have

a label. Then you're going to go through those emotions, the grief, the anger, the sadness of losing someone. But when you go through those emotions and you're going through them and it's processing, you start looking at things differently. Because you start realizing, well, he really wasn't a fault 100% because it is the key when people get separated. They try to blame the other part. But in reality, it takes to the tangles. Oh, yeah. So that means that it's not 100% as fault.

Something happened. Something shifted in that relationship that people fall separate, you know,

“that maybe you're not aligned. Because I have to be that connection, you have to be in the moment that”

happens, then there needs to be conversations. And I heard this from someone at one point. We were talking, like, we're talking here. And he would tell me, every year I will take a vacation. And I will ask my wife, the question, where are we at? Yeah, it's important. How do we feel for each other? And sometimes we don't do that. We just enjoy the moment, we're together. And maybe we're not getting along, but we are just enjoying the moment. The questions are not asked.

Yeah, it's important. And these questions need to be asked because maybe the person your partner is where he wants to be, but maybe you're not. And maybe you don't want to say that. You don't want to hear somebody's feeding. But you gotta be honest and true to yourself.

Yes, always because if you're not at some point in that relationship is going to crack and it's

going to break. Yeah. And then that's for the problem. But if you reevaluate that relationship every year and you discuss it. And then it's okay. If it doesn't work, then it's okay. Then we move on, but we stay friends. We need to do that because when you open your mind and you see things, from the outside looking in, you're realized. And then you look at life in a different perspective. And you look at the person that hurt you differently because then now you're thinking,

it was beautiful at the beginning. It didn't work out. But it only was an default. And then you understand too. You be considered and you appreciate. And that hatred will go away. Yep. Now you're compassionate. And you can build our relationship and be friends because I

that we had kids and we had to raise them. And I'm running a zoo with my partner. And it was

“too married and we're getting a divorce. So it's trial and trial relations. But you have to learn”

that we have to grow. You can't hold with them because we're cement. You can't. You can't because you won't move past it. Yeah. A funny enough the rock doing Johnson is his ex-wife is still like the CEO to most of his companies. And they're just kind of, they kind of just threw it on that. I was like, oh, we have a beautiful daughter of the beautiful family. But we essentially were together. We'd create all these brands together. But we're now we're veering off. But they got

each other's back. I feel like when you're operating at that level and you're really at that CEO level. You really can't. That when you, you are that level where you have that capacity that anything that comes any, anything that's thrown your way, you're able to catch it. You're able to control it and you're able to move. Yeah. It's just a matter of crafting that avatar and then placing that avatar where it needs to be. So you can thrive and, and hopefully have a very healthy experience that we call life.

“Yes. How can people find you and continue learning more about you before you wrap up?”

If you go to Maria to brawie, dlc.com, that's my landing page. If you go to Maria to brawie, you're gonna see all my stuff. Yeah. Did you just have to put Maria to brawie? If you go to Maria to brawie, I Instagram, you're gonna see Maria to brawie or zwf Miami or the body of zwf,

or empowering women every day or today, empowerment, those are all my brands. Amazing. What's next

for you now? The moment you walk out that door, what happens next? Besides dinner? I did it. No, but the moment that I, I walk out, I have another vision that I want to do. I have another project that I want to do and the project that I want to do is be able to have conferences to speak up, to help women and men that are going through any obstacles in their life, and the divorce separation, anything that you feel they've failed, I want to help. I want to be

able to speak up, have these conferences motivated. I want to be a motivator. And at the same time, I want to build in my, in my part. I want to be a safe haven that if women go through domestic violence,

“like a glampy or if you need to escape, you can do it right here in South Florida. And you have”

the yoga experience with the animals, you know, are we tweet and get away? I love it. It's

amazing that we've got Georgia of the jungle, but we've got Maria of the lioness of the jungle.

Maria, we know the jungle. We know the jungle. I love it so much. Thank you so much for your time and energy. It was a pleasure being here. I would be enjoyed here today. Rock and roll and it was a pleasure to host you. With that, that concludes another episode of the Living Your Legacy podcast that women and power audition for in-set success. I'm Regretiers.