Tag: motivation

Why We Remember Stories More than Advice

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“Just because they are a story doesn’t mean they’re not real.” – H.M. Bouwman

My dad used to tell the story of the bully who used to make him give him a piggy back home from school in 6th grade. One day my dad had enough. As he was carrying him, he leaned his head down and flipped him over his back. The bully never asked for a ride again.

I can’t think of any specific words or phrases my gentle dad taught me about standing up for myself or setting boundaries – but I do remember that story. And research shows that when we become immersed in a story, it shapes attention, persuasion and emotion. Which is why it sticks.

So, what makes a story truly relatable?

In this episode of The Life of Try, I explore how the smallest moments in life can become the most powerful stories — from a beloved Seattle raccoon named Jimothy to a little boy celebrating soccer goals with his grandmother.

Through humor, heart, and the idea of narrative transportation, this episode looks at why specific, human stories help us feel seen, connected, and inspired to keep trying.

Key takeaways:

  • Relatable stories often begin with small, specific moments rather than big life lessons.
  • Details help listeners see, feel, and remember a story.
  • Everyday stories can reveal courage, connection, confidence, and support.
  • The most powerful stories do not need to be perfect — they need to be honest and human.
  • Living The Life of Try means celebrating small wins, showing up for each other, and trying again from wherever we are.

If you’ve ever wondered how to tell better stories about everyday life, how to make your experiences more meaningful, or why small moments can carry big emotional truth, this episode is for you.

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

Links for this episode:

How To Tell Relatable Stories transcript

Storytelling and Narrative Persuasion from Green and Brock

 Other episodes you might enjoy

➡️ How to Overcome Burnout & Build an Upward Spiral of Growth, Fun & Resilience Video Link: https://youtu.be/xw1IpgL4uhg

➡️ Near-Death Experience with Jesus | Liza Anderson on Faith, Healing and Recovery Video Link: https://youtu.be/tR-EP6D0Q1E

➡️ How to Embrace What Makes You Different | Finding Your Purpose with Kym Gordon Moore Video Link: https://youtu.be/XzUMCHy3zuU

(featured photo from Pexels)

If my work has encouraged, inspired, or helped you try something new, consider supporting it with a small “cup of coffee” donation. Your support helps me keep creating conversations, stories, and resources that cheer people on as they do brave, meaningful work.

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

Things About Parenting That I Think I’ve Learned So Far, Part 3

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“The role of a leader is not to come up with all the great ideas. The role of a leader is to create an environment in which great ideas can happen.” – Simon Sinek

I don’t expect any great applause for this but I’ve solved the sock problem I’ve been complaining about since Things About Parenting That I Think I’ve Learned So Far Part 1. Let’s be clear — the socks still go missing, get tucked in between coach cushions and get carried around by Cooper the dog. But I’ve figured out a brilliant strategy: they don’t need socks when they wear Crocs. <ba dum tss!>

So it’s time to update my Things About Parenting That I Think I’ve Learned. My kids are 11 and 7 years old so I still have a ways to go. But I believe we’ve turned the corner. Parenting now is more psychological than physical. It looks a lot like leadership.

So here are the things I’ve learned so far:

It’s a great responsibility being responsible for someone else; pack treats for yourself…and them
Knowing what you are and are not responsible for will save your sanity

Teaching values is done one small act at a time
They are always watching… like when you
– Wave when someone lets you in
– Say “hi” or smile to strangers
– Admit you don’t know it all
– Call the homeless people by their name
– Bow to a Higher Power

There is a time when you just have to say “yes” to the McDonald’s drive-thru

Rarely will the three of us all see something the same way
But we can still exchange stories of what we see while looking in the same direction

Melt downs and spin outs happen
You will be judged by strangers and your kids alike by how you react
Digging deep to respond from your inner calmness usually works better

This generation will never not know life without Amazon and smart phones
That doesn’t mean that they need to get everything instantly or always be connected
But it does mean we will need to let them navigate the world differently than we did

Wear Crocs…without socks!

You can stall for time by time by responding, “That is a great question.” to a kid’s good question.”
If you don’t know the answer, just say, “I don’t know.”
They won’t hold space for not knowing if you don’t.

Good friends make the world go round
Your friends
Their friends
And if you are very lucky, siblings as friends.

Parenting is hard work
It’s okay to lie on the couch and let them paint your toenails now and then

Kids are different
They will likely not like the same foods
Not be calmed by the same things
Have unique capabilities
But still care about the same people, value each other, and respect differences

On the subject of chores — I frequently forget to enlist help for what would be really helpful to me
Overestimated what I need to teach and what they’ll eventually learn on their own
Miscalculated how long it will take
And have plenty more chances to get it right

You will screw up
They will learn more from how you react than if life had gone perfectly

Correction without judgment and anger is more effective
Use fewer words

Respect goes two ways

There is no substitute for being genuinely interested in and liking your kids
Listen to understand not evaluate

How you show up is as important as what you show up for

Life is not fair
We all want it to be… especially kids.
Demonstrate how to reach for hopes and dreams
And if you can, show how to navigate the messy middle.

(featured photo from Pexels)

If my work has encouraged, inspired, or helped you try something new, consider supporting it with a small “cup of coffee” donation. Your support helps me keep creating conversations, stories, and resources that cheer people on as they do brave, meaningful work.

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

Please check out the The Life of Try podcast Where trying becomes the spark for personal growth, discovery, and re-invention!



Taking the First Step

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“For some things we never feel ready.” – Moana 2

My kids and I watched Moana 2 this week when we were in Hawaii. It felt like another way to weave in the Island culture. But it turned into something more when I heard the quote above. Moana is getting ready for an expedition and her mom says to her, “For some things we never feel ready.”

That line hit me right in the heart. I always want to feel ready – and never do. My best adventures come from when I do it anyway. Like this summer as my kids and I travel from Seattle to Hawaii and then on to visit friends in Amsterdam, Paris and England. I’ve learned so much. Mostly about how not to get frozen in fear but instead have faith that I can follow the steps in front of me one at a time.

So in this episode of The Life of Try, I share the story about turning a long-held dream of visiting friends in France into a real-life adventure through courage, creativity, and community support. What began as an expensive and seemingly impossible trip became an opportunity to rent out my home, ask for help, and take the next step before the whole path was clear.

This episode explores what it means to stop waiting for perfect timing, listen to the quiet tug of what matters, and move forward even when life feels uncertain. Through stories about Airbnb, travel logistics, helpful neighbors, pet care, and unexpected solutions, I reflect on the powerful formula: Motive + Means = Opportunity.

Key Takeaways

  • Don’t wait for easy—move because it matters. The right time may never arrive, but meaningful goals often begin with one brave first step.
  • Pay attention to the sparks. A casual comment, a book passage, a flyer, or someone else’s story can become part of the solution once you start moving.
  • Say the dream out loud. People can’t support a goal they don’t know about, so communicate what you’re trying to do and be willing to accept help.
  • Use the formula: Motive + Means = Opportunity. When your why meets the resources, people, and ideas already around you, new possibilities begin to unfold.
  • Take the next step, not the whole staircase. You don’t need to solve every problem in advance; you only need to meet the next real step in front of you.

If you’re looking for encouragement to get unstuck, try something new, pursue a meaningful goal, or find courage in the messy middle, this episode offers inspiration, practical wisdom, and a reminder that you don’t need to see the whole staircase to begin.

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

How To Tell Relatable Stories About Life – The Life of Try: Personal growth, one try at a time.

What makes a story truly relatable? In this episode of The Life of Try, Wynne Leon explores how the smallest moments in life can become the most powerful stories — from a beloved Seattle raccoon named Jimothy to a little boy celebrating soccer goals with his grandmother. Through humor, heart, and the idea of narrative transportation, this episode looks at why specific, human stories help us feel seen, connected, and inspired to keep trying.If you’ve ever wondered how to tell better stories about everyday life, how to make your experiences more meaningful, or why small moments can carry big emotional truth, this episode is for you.Key takeaways:• Relatable stories often begin with small, specific moments rather than big life lessons.• Details help listeners see, feel, and remember a story.• Everyday stories can reveal courage, connection, confidence, and support.• The most powerful stories do not need to be perfect — they need to be honest and human.• Living The Life of Try means celebrating small wins, showing up for each other, and trying again from wherever we are.🔔 Subscribe to The Life of Try for weekly conversations about resilience, courage, creativity, reinvention, mindset, and living with intention.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➡️ How to Overcome Burnout & Build an Upward Spiral of Growth, Fun & Resilience➡️ Near-Death Experience with Jesus | Liza Anderson on Faith, Healing and Recovery➡️ How to Embrace What Makes You Different | Finding Your Purpose with Kym Gordon Moore
  1. How To Tell Relatable Stories About Life
  2. Why Second Place Might Be Preparation, Not Failure
  3. When Your Plan Falls Apart | How to Stay Resilient and Keep Trying
  4. Barbara Nickless on A Voice In The Dark, Online Gaming and The Power of Story
  5. Embracing What Makes You Different | Kym Gordon Moore

Links for this Episode:

Motive + Means = Opportunity transcript

The Fun Habit by Mike Rucker, PhD

Other Episodes you Might Enjoy:

How to Let Go of Expectations & Keep Trying | Personal Growth Mindset

How to Find and Share Your Unique Superpower | Roger Kastner on Purpose & Personal Growth

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

Activity Bundling – The Fun of Cleaning Up

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“You can’t compete with someone who is having fun.” – unknown

Up until last week I had cobwebs in my kitchen. They were higher than I could reach without a ladder or tool. I’d notice them but always on my way to getting something else done so they persisted.

It was the same with rehanging the hooks in the hallway that pulled away from the wall, the fascia board in my bathroom that came off when the kids climbed on the counter one too many times, peeling off the stickers Mr D applied to the cabinets when he was three-years-old, replacing two of the six light bulbs in the bathroom that used non-standard light bulbs, and on and on.

Because we rented out our house as an AirBnB, we’ve been chipping away at this list of little projects that I constantly noticed but never got done. Our first booking is in mid-June.

The whole project started because we have friends that have lived in France for three years. We wanted to visit them before they move in August. But every time I went to book the airfare this spring, the price jumped because of oil prices and I couldn’t afford them.

I’d been entertaining the idea of listing my house on AirBnB during the World Cup games here in Seattle but it seemed like so much work. But then I read The Fun Habit by Mike Rucker, PhD and his concept of activity bundling brought it all together for me. By combining the adventure of getting to see our friends in Europe with the work of getting the house ready, we could make the whole thing fun. [If you haven’t yet listened to the podcast with Mike, I found our conversation to be as inspiring as his book.]

I figured it was worth a try. Even if we didn’t get any bookings, at least we’d get a fixed-up house.

But then we did get bookings. Now I’ve booked our tickets because we have to be gone and we are madly finishing all these little projects. Michelle from the BoomerEcoCrusader blog is 100% right – decluttering feels great. Mr. D wants to know why we go to the donation center every week with a car loads of clothes, toys and books. Because we’ve had all that stuff pile up too much over the years.

Every night I fall into bed exhausted. But I also feel lighter. Like all those little projects were weighing me down in a way that I didn’t even realize. We’re earning this adventure one step at a time – with the bonus of coming home to a house that has all (or most) of the little things done.

(featured photo is one of our bedrooms after an extensive decluttering!)

Quote is from EnlightenedMind622

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

Please check out the The Life of Try podcast Where trying becomes the spark for personal growth, discovery, and re-invention!

The Power of Small Wins

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“One of the secrets of a happy life is continuous small treats.” – Iris Murdoch

I learned this reflective practice from my meditation teacher, Deirdre: before stepping out of a space at the end of the day (the office, a studio, the kitchen), pause for a moment to think about what you did, who you saw, any breakthroughs (or breakdowns, for that matter) you had. It’s a chance to absorb the day before you turn out the lights and leave.

I’m not very consistent in remembering to do this practice. But when I do, I find that it helps me to savor the day as well as to honor the small steps that mark progress. It counterbalances my inclination to be focused on the next thing and helps to answer a question that I struggle with: when should we celebrate progress—only at the finish line, or all along the way?

In this episode of The Life of Try, I explore the power of small wins, tiny habits, and incremental progress. Drawing from a personal story about preparing my home for an Airbnb experiment during the World Cup in Seattle, I reflect on what it means to keep going when growth is messy, nonlinear, and full of setbacks.

I offer some insights from Director of Stanford’s Behavior Design Lab, BJ Fogg, PhD, plus the long-term philosophy of Toyota’s Kaizen culture, where small daily improvements add up over time, and the practical courage found in the checklist mindset associated with Captain Sullenberger.

This episode is about personal growth, habit formation, celebrating small victories, and learning to recognize that progress doesn’t have to be dramatic to matter.

Here are some takeaways:

  • Why celebrating small wins can help you stay motivated even when progress feels slow or messy
  • How BJ Fogg’s Tiny Habits approach shows that tiny celebrations can reinforce lasting behavior change
  • What Toyota’s Kaizen philosophy teaches about the long-term power of small, consistent improvements
  • How checklists and small-step courage can help you keep going when you feel overwhelmed or stuck
  • Why growth often looks nonlinear, and how to recognize progress before the final result arrives
  • How honoring effort along the way can help you build resilience, confidence, and momentum

If you’ve ever felt stuck, overlooked your own progress, or wondered whether the little steps count, this episode will remind you that they do. Small wins matter. Tiny steps matter. And trying counts, even before the big outcome arrives.

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

How To Tell Relatable Stories About Life – The Life of Try: Personal growth, one try at a time.

What makes a story truly relatable? In this episode of The Life of Try, Wynne Leon explores how the smallest moments in life can become the most powerful stories — from a beloved Seattle raccoon named Jimothy to a little boy celebrating soccer goals with his grandmother. Through humor, heart, and the idea of narrative transportation, this episode looks at why specific, human stories help us feel seen, connected, and inspired to keep trying.If you’ve ever wondered how to tell better stories about everyday life, how to make your experiences more meaningful, or why small moments can carry big emotional truth, this episode is for you.Key takeaways:• Relatable stories often begin with small, specific moments rather than big life lessons.• Details help listeners see, feel, and remember a story.• Everyday stories can reveal courage, connection, confidence, and support.• The most powerful stories do not need to be perfect — they need to be honest and human.• Living The Life of Try means celebrating small wins, showing up for each other, and trying again from wherever we are.🔔 Subscribe to The Life of Try for weekly conversations about resilience, courage, creativity, reinvention, mindset, and living with intention.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➡️ How to Overcome Burnout & Build an Upward Spiral of Growth, Fun & Resilience➡️ Near-Death Experience with Jesus | Liza Anderson on Faith, Healing and Recovery➡️ How to Embrace What Makes You Different | Finding Your Purpose with Kym Gordon Moore
  1. How To Tell Relatable Stories About Life
  2. Why Second Place Might Be Preparation, Not Failure
  3. When Your Plan Falls Apart | How to Stay Resilient and Keep Trying
  4. Barbara Nickless on A Voice In The Dark, Online Gaming and The Power of Story
  5. Embracing What Makes You Different | Kym Gordon Moore

Links for this episode:

Tiny Habits by BJ Fogg, PhD on Amazon

The Tiny Habits Toolkit from BJ Fogg, PhD

How I recovered from a bout of anxiety-induced paralysis by Dan Harris

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)

The Mindset to Write a Book: Gratitude, Risk, and the Courage to Try

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“Self-consciousness is the enemy of all art, be it acting, writing, painting, or living itself, which is the greatest art of all.” – Ray Bradbury

Writing is hard. But that’s not news on WordPress because you all are the ones that are doing to the work to write and post content on a regular basis. But sometimes we forget to pat ourselves on the back for actually doing the work – especially when we are part of a community like this of like-minded others who are doing the same.

So I love this Life of Try podcast conversation when I talk with professor, author, and my friend, Vicki Atkinson about the mindset, support, and creative courage it took to turn a long-held idea into a finished, soon-to-be-published novel.

Vicki’s new novel, Slivers, is set during a single week in the summer of 1973, when a quiet suburban neighborhood begins to crack under the weight of generational secrets—and an otherworldly presence that refuses to be ignored. Along the way, Vicki shares how unexpected family history research helped fuel the story, and why community feedback can be the difference between starting a draft and finishing a book.

  • How gratitude and loss can become creative fuel
  • What helps writers move from intention to action—and from draft to done
  • Why writing fiction requires a different “writer brain” than memoir or academic work
  • How genealogy and family stories can deepen your characters and plot
  • The role of community, readers, and a publisher in staying the course

Here’s a short clip of our conversation that highlights the stats of how hard it is to get a book to the finish line – and Vicki’s great answer:

Pre-order Slivers (link below), and if this episode resonates, share it with a friend who’s been carrying a book idea for far too long.

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

Pre-order Slivers (link below), and if this episode resonates, share it with a friend who’s been carrying a book idea for far too long.

How To Tell Relatable Stories About Life – The Life of Try: Personal growth, one try at a time.

What makes a story truly relatable? In this episode of The Life of Try, Wynne Leon explores how the smallest moments in life can become the most powerful stories — from a beloved Seattle raccoon named Jimothy to a little boy celebrating soccer goals with his grandmother. Through humor, heart, and the idea of narrative transportation, this episode looks at why specific, human stories help us feel seen, connected, and inspired to keep trying.If you’ve ever wondered how to tell better stories about everyday life, how to make your experiences more meaningful, or why small moments can carry big emotional truth, this episode is for you.Key takeaways:• Relatable stories often begin with small, specific moments rather than big life lessons.• Details help listeners see, feel, and remember a story.• Everyday stories can reveal courage, connection, confidence, and support.• The most powerful stories do not need to be perfect — they need to be honest and human.• Living The Life of Try means celebrating small wins, showing up for each other, and trying again from wherever we are.🔔 Subscribe to The Life of Try for weekly conversations about resilience, courage, creativity, reinvention, mindset, and living with intention.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➡️ How to Overcome Burnout & Build an Upward Spiral of Growth, Fun & Resilience➡️ Near-Death Experience with Jesus | Liza Anderson on Faith, Healing and Recovery➡️ How to Embrace What Makes You Different | Finding Your Purpose with Kym Gordon Moore
  1. How To Tell Relatable Stories About Life
  2. Why Second Place Might Be Preparation, Not Failure
  3. When Your Plan Falls Apart | How to Stay Resilient and Keep Trying
  4. Barbara Nickless on A Voice In The Dark, Online Gaming and The Power of Story
  5. Embracing What Makes You Different | Kym Gordon Moore

Links for this episode:

Slivers on Eckhartz Press – Order Now!

Vicki’s blog: Victoria Ponders

Transcript for How to Finally Write the Book You’ve Been Meaning to Write with Dr. Victoria Atkinson

The Game of Life

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“Strong people don’t put others down. They lift them up.” – Michael P. Watson

The other night at Mr D’s baseball practice, the 7 year old boy playing third base made a mistake. They were practicing forced outs versus tagged outs. The third baseman got the ball and instead of tagging third, he threw it to second base.

When he started putting his glove over his face, pacing, and chewing himself out, the coach told him not to worry about it. He said, “Don’t worry about it. Baseball is hard. If it was easy, we wouldn’t play it!”

While the players were getting their stuff together in the dugout after practice, I told the coach later how much I liked his baseball is hard speech. He laughed. In his warm and engaging tone, he told me more about his coaching philosophy:

“Getting practice reps is key to developing the fine motor and gross motor physical skills. Then there is the mental aspect. Learning the rules so you can play without thinking too much.

“Then of course the hardest part, learning how to deal with your emotions when things don’t go well. It’s a lot but also why baseball is such a great sport for kids who like the game. We can not only learn the game but learn how to be a great teammate and learn how to manage ourselves. “

Getting the practice reps in, learning the rules so you don’t have to think too much, managing our emotions, and learning to be great teammates. Sounds like the game of life to me.

When the boy who got upset moved on to practicing catching fly balls, he made up a chant to encourage others. If someone missed, he’d yell, “Great try, [player name]!”

I think he’s going to do fine in baseball…and life.

(featured photo is mine)

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

Please check out the The Life of Try podcast Where trying becomes the spark for personal growth, discovery, and re-invention!

Preparing to Have Fun

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“It’s not the will to win that matters – everyone has that. It’s the will to prepare to win that matters.” – Paul “Bear” Bryant

I wasn’t a particularly athletic or outdoorsy kid. It wasn’t until my late 20’s that the climbing bug bit me. I was driving my car to work. I came around a corner, saw Mt. Rainier dominating the skyline and thought, “I should climb that.” From there climbing became not only one of my passions but also in many ways my metaphor for tackling the challenges of life.

Summits, blisters, carrying a pack, one step at a time, working as a rope team, objective versus subjective dangers – all of it gave me such great perspective on life.

Give me a pebble in my shoe and I’ll turn it into an essay about self-care. I’ve failed to take the time to stop to get rid of something little before it gets big enough times to have a lot to say about that lesson.

All of this to say that I came to hiking and climbing mountains as an adult. So when I proposed to my kids in mid-December that we climb Tiger Mountain on New Years Day and they enthusiastically said they wanted to, I had to think carefully about how to make it a good experience for them.

Go ahead and groan now because here comes the point cloaked in a climbing story. The first time that I tried to climb Mt. Rainier, it hurt like hell. We made it to our base camp at 10,000 feet and then a storm came in. We couldn’t leave for our summit bid at midnight as planned because it was still snowing so at 6am, the lead guide came in and said, “Whoever wants to try for the top can go ahead and gear up. But we’ll have to go twice as fast as our normal pace to get this done in half the time.”

My friends and I made it 11,000 feet before dropping out. Only 3 out of the 24 climbers made it to the top that day.

And I learned that the better shape you are in, the more fun you’ll have climbing. There are two levels of readiness – the first is to get yourself up (and down) a mountain. The second is to train enough to climb the mountain AND have some more in the tank in case you need to do a little more. It’s more likely to be fun if you’ve trained to the second level.

This applies to other things as well. Like getting ready for a presentation. The first level accounts for doing the preparation of putting together the slide deck. The second is doing that, practicing the presentation out loud, preparing the Q&A, and doing it well enough in advance to have a cup of tea to calm the nerves before starting. I’ve done that both ways as well and the second one is way more fun.

Circling back to inviting my kids along for a hike up Tiger Mountain, I wanted them not only to be able to do it but also to have fun. That meant that we all had to do the work to train to that second level. Working out on the stairs in our home, going to the Capital Hill stairs to train, walking the trail at Discovery Park, doing a pre-NY day hike up Little Mt. Si – I tried to vary it and make it fun. We had some bad moments along with the good but ten-year-old Miss O and six-year-old Mr. D were pretty good sports about it all.

I told my friend, Bill, that we’d done the hike and he sent me the Bear Bryant quote for this post. It matches what I’ve experienced. There are a lot of things we can white knuckle and get through. Having fun doing it requires some preparation.

(featured photo is the kids and I on a training hike)

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

Please check out the How to Share podcast, a podcast celebrates the art of teaching, learning, giving, and growing!

The Feeling of a Fresh New Year

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“Be humble. Be teachable. The world is bigger than your view of the world. There’s always room for a new idea, a new step…a new beginning.” – marcandangel

There’s a noticeable expansiveness in the January 1st  entry in meditation books. Setting the tone. Regardless of the theology or philosophy, there seems to be a commonality in the approach to start with the most fresh, audacious, “let’s jump in” message that the author can summon.

I’m not a resolution person but I do like celebrating beginnings. Aren’t fresh starts great? They make me think of the feeling at the bottom of the mountain that encapsulates all the potential energy. Or the intentions at the start of the project, or new job, about how it’ll turn out. And the appeal of a new relationship when the shared history remains to be written. Also the appreciation for babies and children because of their innocence and freshness.

The beginning is before we’ve had to make decisions to change the scope, mitigate the pain, or slip into automatic responses in order to save energy. Before we’ve accepted that most endeavors come with their share of pain, healing, and learning. And that we sometimes fail to deliver even when we intend to do our best.

I have a bad habit of believing I know how things will play out. Especially when new people I meet elicit a reminder of someone else and it feels like I can see a preview of the relationship to come. That habit cuts me off from potential. So I love the fresh energy of messages like January 1st meditation essays that open me back up to uncertainty and a wider perspective.

It’s like new shoes. We don’t know where they’ll take us but we have to get them dirty to find out.

The beginning is important. For me it’s a reminder to stretch – to set our sights on the most expansive goals and being the best human/parent/partner/athlete we can. And to allow space for uncertainty.  Then when the messy middle comes, we have some room for scaling back while still getting somewhere worth going.

So here’s to a great 2026! Happy New Year!

(featured photo from Pexels)

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

Please check out the How to Share podcast, a podcast celebrates the art of teaching, learning, giving, and growing!

The Scarcity Loop

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“Enough is abundance to the wise.” – Euripides

Fair to say that Cooper the dog steals something in our house nearly every day. I think most of my photos of the week posts capture him with some contraband. It’s easy to do the math and figure out that he must be doing that a lot in order for me to have that many photographs.

I learned of some research this week that was a huge a-ha for me. It shed light not only on Cooper’s habits but also some of my own. On the Ten Percent Happier podcast, journalist and author Michael Easter (his most recent book is Scarcity Brain) was talking about how our ancient brain mechanisms loop us in to always wanting more.

He described a research project in which rats were given a choice. The first choice was one reward system that gave them food every other time they pushed a button. The other choice was a reward system that didn’t have predictable cadence but gave them slightly more food when it did pay off (like an average of every 5th time).

The rats were choosing the second choice withe the unpredictable payoff which was surprising to the researchers. Usually they will choose what gets them the most food. The payoff of the first choice, the predictable every other time system was much higher.

The rats were living in small, plain cages. Then they changed the rats’ environment so they were living amongst plants in an environment that mimicked a natural habitat for rats. Once they changed the habitat, the rats switched to picking the every other time reward system.

The conclusion was that when we don’t have enough stimuli, we’ll make odd choices in order to spice things up. Like doomscrolling through social media, thinking we’re hungry when we aren’t, or in Cooper’s case, stealing the Christmas gnome.  

And Michael Easter’s take away on that research and other studies about what one of the best ways to get more stimuli? Getting out of our climate controlled houses to spend time in nature.

It’s funny but when I took Cooper out for a hike last week, he didn’t steal anything after we got home. Not even a dirty, sweaty sock that smelled of the trail. And for that matter – neither did I.

(featured photo from Pexels)

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

I host the How to Share podcast, a podcast celebrates the art of teaching, learning, giving, and growing.

I also co-host the Sharing the Heart of the Matter podcast with the amazing Vicki Atkinson.