Danette Wolpert Holman

At Miami Film Festival, I met somebody who sort of lived a certain way. And I was fascinated by the way she was living. And I was like, teach me. I told her, teach me what it is you're doing. And she's like, I can't. You have to go find it yourself. And she was a spiritual person, not religious, but spiritual. And there was this magic about her, like she knew things, you know, about herself, about other people, about what was about to happen. Sure enough, that night at the Miami Film Festival, a volunteer snags his shirt on the sconces in this old historic theater and it's all ripped. And of course, anyone have a t-shirt? And then the flashlight goes out because the batteries are dead. And this is when I started to learn about connection and about intuition, and that our brains are doing a very small percent of what they're capable of.

Sometimes I think it's more about listening. Sure, we could be searching, but I think in terms of searching for your purpose, the ultimate step is going to be listening. And it's going to be finding where your highest frequency is, finding where your joy is, finding where, when you start asking yourself why you do things, and then just listening. Number two is do the inner work. I know that could be super scary, and people are really nervous to lift the hood because I'm not really sure they want to see what's under there. But I'm going to tell you right now that what's under there is a being of love. If you are truly doing that work, you are opening yourself up to the connection that is going to guide you, and it's going to guide you into a place of purpose and certainty.

When I came to Sedona, I took part in a million different things. I mean, I went to Reiki sessions and I did yoga and I went to Korean drumming and I went to Kirtan. It was this really incredibly spiritually resourced place where I could be in what I call my highest frequency. And from there one day was just a download.

Back even in my college days and in my young professional days, in my early 20s, I used to watch programs like Oprah, and I used to watch Remembering Your Spirit, which was a sort of a segment on Oprah. And I remember thinking, well, this is really all about understanding your own human potential. And I used to see her guests, and her guests had really found their purpose, and they were doing something magnificent in the world. And I thought this regularly, when am I going to be the one to take that leap and do what they're really meant to be doing?

I left my job at the Miami Film Festival and I decided I would give myself a year to travel and find the answers. And that whole year I went all through South America and South Africa. I mean all over. And it led me to Sedona, which is where I live now. And it led me to get some clarity on what my purpose truly was and how it was going to manifest, because I knew I wanted to be of service. And I now knew that there were ways to empower people and their lives that were like, it was almost like these secrets, like the secret of intuition, like the secret of feeling connected to all things.

I discovered my purpose to be elevating consciousness and inspiring lasting personal transformation and social and planetary transformation through media and film. I really felt like my purpose had a doing component and a being component. And so my purpose is also to evolve into my highest form, which is really just a remembering of the true self. I am intending to be an instrument, an instrument of elevating consciousness in the world. I really truly believe that purpose is something you hear. And if you're truly listening and in connection with the universe, you will be selected to be the vehicle, the instrument, the channel for whatever is supposed to manifest.

And at the end of that year, after having done three things that I really enjoyed, film just called me. And film called me because, next to having an actual physical experience somewhere, film is the next best way to create that experience. And I could see how that story was impacting its audience. And I could see the tears. I could see the laughs. I could see people's expressions that to me meant that was profoundly resonating with somebody. I could see that it was bringing people joy. I could see the power of film. And I thought, well, if I could curate the right collection of storytelling, how powerful that could be. Once you feel the guidance in your life, bring enough of that alignment and joy into your life so that your frequency remains as high as possible. If we are having fun and if we are in our joy, then we stay in the realm of magical possibilities.

And so I made a decision and I jumped ship with the intention that I was going to give myself one year to dabble in three potential careers that called to me. After five years there, I jumped ship again, but this time I didn't have a plan. For those who are still searching, I would recommend number one, have courage to take a leap. If you are still holding on to the safety of other things, it doesn't leave a lot of space for you to really be in discovery. You have to have enough faith to let go a little and make the space for the leap, even if you don't even know what you're leaping to.

When I came to Sedona, I took part in a million different things. I went to Reiki sessions and I did yoga and I went to Korean drumming and I went to Kirtan. It was this really incredibly spiritually resourced place where I could be in what I call my highest frequency. And from there one day was just a download. I was in a session and the practitioner was doing a meditation. It was sort of a ceremony, right? He had some sound vibration going on. And a download came to me. It was this vision of a whole team working together to produce something. It wasn't immediately clear what it was, but it was a scheduled event of some sort. And the most critical part about the vision was that as we were creating something that was going to elevate consciousness in the world, we ourselves were elevating consciousness within. And at that point, it wasn't even clear that it was a film festival, but it became clear very soon after that.

Experience transformative cinema at ILLUMINATE Film Festival 2026, October 2–4 in Santa Barbara, CA. Join the world's premier conscious film festival featuring groundbreaking documentaries and features.

And then, boom, came to me, download Illuminate. Illuminate is the name, and it's a film festival, and we're going to do this in nine months. And so I had magically met nine people who all had what I saw to be really valuable skills. Only one of those nine people had ever attended a film festival. But I trained those nine people to do the nine jobs necessary to launch a film festival in nine months. We didn't put 500 people in seats. We put 2,700 people. We didn't just attract five people from across state lines. We attracted an audience with our $1,000 marketing budget from like 27 states and 11 countries. And we didn't just hope for a world premiere in year three. We had four world premieres in year one, including a film called Death Makes Life Possible, which was executive produced by Dr. Marilyn Schlitz and Deepak Chopra. And there was, you could hear a pin drop in that room because it was resonating with so many people, and that's when I knew, that's when I knew I had really truly found my purpose and that I was an instrument.

There were years that life had some hard lessons to teach me, and even one that led to a brain tumor and brain surgery, and having to actually just turn the whole festival over to my managing director for almost a year, and really taking a look at why there was illness in my life. And I will tell you this though, that I was fortunate enough to have a miraculous recovery from that brain tumor and that condition. And I know that the universe came in to co-create that miracle with me. I also know that I had a part in that. And that healing journey could have only happened, and it did only happen, because I had programmed five years of the most powerful, paradigm shifting, empowering films about health, about healing, about the mind-body connection, about nutrition, about energy, about self-awareness, about inner inquiry, about emotional release, about the connection between all of that. And that's when I realized, right, that I didn't just start Illuminate to help everybody else. Apparently, all of that was for me too.

One day, at a major client in Chicago, I was engaged in my business process re-engineering when I looked over to a table next to me and there was a magazine open, and it was actually an image of this woman kind of living her own dream. And it looked like, obviously her passion was unparalleled. I mean, she was actually scaling a mountain, right? There was, if she fell, it was like a thousand-foot fall. And I thought to myself, am I there? Is what I'm doing right now compelling me? Is it calling me? Is it a soulful call? And I realized that the answer was no. And that was despite the fact that I had worked my whole early life. I was that straight-A kid. I was the president of the student council. I did all the things I was supposed to do to arrive at where I actually was. I was a senior consultant now. I was highly respected. I was traveling all over the world consulting with Fortune 500 companies as to how they should do this or that. And the answer was no. And so I made a decision and I jumped ship with the intention that I was going to give myself one year to dabble in three potential careers that called to me.