Tag: growth mindset

Support Without Pressure: Why Effort Matters More Than Results

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“Give light and people will find the way.” – Ella Baker

The other day, my six-year-old son, Mr. D, announced that he wasn’t going back to finish out the last 12 days of first grade. After some delicate probing, I discovered he was worried about a math test.

It’s hard to know what to say to help in a situation like that, isn’t it? And what does real support actually look like—especially when someone is struggling, failing, or figuring things out?

So in this episode of The Life of Try, I explore how to support others without adding pressure, and why focusing on effort instead of outcome can make all the difference.

Whether you’re a parent, coach, friend, or teammate, it’s easy to unintentionally turn encouragement into expectations. But research—and stories from figures like basketball coach John Wooden and psychologist Carol Dweck—show that when we shift our focus to effort, persistence, and growth, we help people stay in the process longer and build real resilience.

This episode dives into:

  • Why it’s often harder to watch someone try than to try ourselves
  • How subtle signals can create pressure without us realizing it
  • The difference between encouragement and expectation
  • How to support kids, friends, and colleagues in a way that builds confidence and persistence
  • Practical ways to reinforce effort, not just results

And fortunately this research helped provide me a roadmap to help with Mr. D’s math test. I reminded him that he’d already done the work and practice and so the test was just like a baseball game. All he had to do was do his best.

If you’ve ever wondered how to truly support someone you care about—especially when things aren’t going well—this episode offers a powerful reframe. Because sometimes the best support isn’t helping someone succeed… …it’s helping them keep going.

Here are some other ways you can listen and watch this episode:

Barbara Nickless on A Voice In The Dark, Online Gaming and The Power of Story – The Life of Try: Personal growth, one try at a time.

In this episode of The Life of Try, host Wynne Leon talks with Wall Street Journal bestselling author Barbara Nickless about her new psychological suspense novel, A Voice in the Dark. Their conversation moves from the dark corners of online gaming and internet manipulation to the real-world vulnerabilities of teenagers, families, and people searching for belonging. Barbara shares how deep research, FBI consultants, and her own curiosity shape her fiction, especially as she writes about FBI profiler Helen Belle, criminal humanist Benedict Hoffman, addiction, trauma, and the question of what draws people toward danger.This thoughtful author interview explores how storytelling can help us understand complicated human experiences, including moral injury, PTSD, addiction, grief, law enforcement, cybercrime, and the healing power of writing. Barbara also reflects on teaching writing to military veterans and civilians, researching dangerous places and difficult subjects, and using narrative to “de-other” people we might otherwise misunderstand. Key Takeaways:→A Voice in the Dark explores the dangers young people can face in online communities, especially when vulnerable teens and young adults are targeted by manipulative influencers.→Storytelling can help us “de-other” people by taking us inside their motivations, histories, and struggles in ways that facts and news stories alone often cannot.→Curiosity is at the heart of Barbara Nickless’s writing process. Her research into online gaming, FBI investigations, addiction, trauma, and moral injury helps make her fiction vivid, compassionate, and grounded in real human experience.→Researching modern crime fiction requires balancing accuracy with readability, particularly when writing about cybercrime, AI, online manipulation, and evolving law enforcement tools.→The conversation highlights a core Life of Try theme: trying begins with curiosity, openness, and a willingness to enter unfamiliar worlds in order to understand ourselves and one another more deeply.If you love conversations about books, personal growth, curiosity, crime fiction, psychological thrillers, resilience, and what it means to keep trying, this episode offers a rich and compassionate look at the stories that help us make sense of ourselves and one another.📘 Order A Voice In the Dark: https://www.amazon.com/Voice-Benedict-Hoffman-Helen-Belle-ebook/dp/B0FTGGHSWL/🌐 Show notes and more inspiration: https://wynneleon.com🔔 Subscribe for more: Subscribe to The Life of Try for more conversations on: personal growth, creativity, reinvention, resilience, writing, and mindset.ABOUT MEHi, I’m Wynne Leon — host of The Life of Try, a personal growth and self-improvement podcast exploring resilience, reinvention, uncertainty, and the courage to keep trying.Through thoughtful interviews, reflective conversations, and real-life stories, I share insights to help you navigate change, get unstuck, and move forward with more intention.🌍 Website: https://wynneleon.com🎥 Watch Next➡️ Letting Go Of Outcomes: The Mindset That Keeps You Moving➡️ 48: How to Get Unstuck: Michael Yang on Saying Yes, Resilience and Coming Alive➡️ How to Finally Write That Book You've Been Dreaming About | Writing Motivation
  1. Barbara Nickless on A Voice In The Dark, Online Gaming and The Power of Story
  2. Embracing What Makes You Different | Kym Gordon Moore
  3. Motive + Means = Opportunity: A Life of Try Story
  4. How Writing Helps Us Survive Chronic Illness and Loss
  5. Near Death, Deep Faith, New Life | Liza Anderson’s Extraordinary Story

Links for this episode:

Other Episodes you Might Enjoy:

⁠ Letting Go Of Outcomes: The Mindset That Keeps You Moving⁠

4⁠8: How to Get Unstuck: Michael Yang on Saying Yes, Resilience and Coming Alive⁠

⁠How to Reclaim Fun in Adult Life | Mike Rucker, PhD, on Joy, Burnout and the Fun Habit⁠

(featured photo from Pexels)

Motivated and Hopeful

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“Every sunrise is a blessing, it’s an opportunity to learn something new and to create something that can benefit others. It also gives a chance to make amends. Use it wisely before sunset.” – Eugenia Herlihy

Have you ever seen that math exercise where two people stand something like 20 feet apart? And with each move, they divide the distance between them in half so after the second move, they are 10 feet apart and after the third, five feet.

In the end, the point is that there is an endless number of moves because they’ll always be some distance, even if infinitesimal, between them.

There is no finish line.

It reminds me how I feel about my self-improvement. There’s always room for growth.  

Three recent things have inspired me to keep feeding a growth mindset. When Vicki and I talked with author Andrew Mayne, he described the year when he wanted to become an author. He set a goal to write ten books in a year. He’d write a book and then read a book on writing. I’ve been intrigued by the “feedback loop” as Andrew described it, even since that conversation.

Elizabeth from the Bleuwater blog took a photography course this Spring. As she shared her lessons on speed, aperture, focus, I realized how much I don’t know about photography, especially when I just grab a picture with my phone. You can see Elizabeth’s incredible photography that she submitted as her final here.

Vicki Atkinson wrote a fascinating post about editing last week, Learning to Rewrite. The conclusion that grabbed me? “Pack a punch with fewer words. Make every sentence count.”

The math exercise reminds me that we will never completely occupy the space of another person on this planet. These recent posts and conversations remind me that there are never ending ways to inspire each other and improve. Taken all together, it makes me feel so motivated and hopeful…and never bored.

(featured photo from Pexels)

You can find me on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/wynneleon/ and Instagram @wynneleon

I co-host a author, creator and storytelling podcast with the amazing Vicki Atkinson. To tune in, search for Sharing the Heart of the Matter on Spotify, Apple, Amazon Music or Pocketcasts (and subscribe) or click here. Or the YouTube channel features videos of our interviews. Please subscribe!

My other projects include work as a CEO (Chief Encouragement Officer), speaking about collaboration and AI through the Chicago Writer’s Association, and my book about my journey to find what fueled my dad’s indelible spark and twinkle can be found on Amazon: Finding My Father’s Faith.

Spring Training

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“Every strike brings me closer to the next home run.” – Babe Ruth

It’s Spring! I know because my five-year-old son, Mr. D, had his first Little League game.

My friend Eric quipped “Isn’t a Little League game at this level where a batter hits and then everything that happens next is an error?”

Well, he wasn’t far off. The games last for an hour. Each side bats their entire lineup and then they switch to the outfield. A batter gets four coach pitched balls. If a hit hasn’t happened by then, they bring in the tee for the child to hit off of. Each team got to bat twice.

In the outfield, the whole team of 10-12 players go out. Figuring out who to throw to is understandably confusing. Who’s on first? Practically EVERYONE.

In one play, a kid on the other team fielded the ball hit by his own team as he ran to second base. Eric laughed, “I wouldn’t even know how to score that. He gets a forced out and an assist? “

The teams practice getting outs but no one actually sits down on the bench as a result.

It struck me as a great lesson in low stakes learning. How to set up environments where hits and errors are all just scored as lessons. Even for adults, we can learn pickleball or improve our writing without going full-on into performance or competition mode.

So here’s to learning to pitch things and trust they’ll teach us something. To swing for the fences and be able to laugh when it all goes wrong and the ball ends up behind us. And maybe if we don’t want to consider sliding for home, we can at least pounce on the finish line when we find it.

 Because even if we’re not in the Spring of our lives, we’re still in training! Right?

(featured photo is mine)

You can find me on Instagram @wynneleon and LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/wynneleon/

I co-host a storytelling podcast featuring authors and artists with the amazing Vicki Atkinson. To tune in, search for Sharing the Heart of the Matter on Spotify, Apple, Amazon Music or Pocketcasts (and subscribe) or click here. Or the YouTube channel features videos of our interviews. Please subscribe!

My other projects include work as a CEO (Chief Encouragement Officer), speaking about collaboration and AI through the Chicago Writer’s Association, and my book about my journey to find what fueled my dad’s indelible spark and twinkle can be found on Amazon: Finding My Father’s Faith.