Tag: relationships

The Stories We Inherit

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“No legacy is as rich as honesty.” – William Shakespeare

My ex-husband used to describe me as independent, especially when we were arguing. But he’d say it in a way that would fill out all four syllables with disdain…in-de-PEN-dent! The first time he said it that way, I was shocked that something I thought was a core value could be interpreted so negatively.

So when my mom came to stay with us for four nights recently, I asked her why being independent was so important to her, especially growing up. She told me that it came from her father. He was the oldest of eight kids. They were farmers in north eastern Washington and had very little money.

By the time my grandfather was seven years old, he was responsible for many things on the farm including spending days and nights in the wild chasing down their high-spirited mare when she’d get loose and run with the wild horses.

As she told the story, I felt like I’d gotten a new piece to the puzzle of what shaped my upbringing and legacy. It was a fascinating conversation to have with my mom on the heels of the podcast I recorded with author, Jennifer Griffith. She inspires the question: How do the stories we inherit from our families shape who we become—and how can we rewrite those stories with more compassion, courage, and purpose?

In this episode of The Life of Try, I talk with Jennifer Griffith, author of Both Sides of Then and host of the podcast About Your Mother, about inherited family stories, hidden shame, resilience, motherhood, memoir writing, and the healing power of bringing secrets into the light.

Jennifer shares how learning her mother’s story changed the way she understood her own identity, why family history can influence the way we parent and see ourselves, and how her LENS framework helps people revisit old narratives, look at them from a new perspective, and use those stories for good.

Here are some key takeaways from our conversation:

  • We all inherit stories—and they shape how we see ourselves.
    Jennifer reminds us that family history, secrets, wounds, and even everyday phrases from our parents can quietly influence our identity, choices, and relationships.
  • Seeing our parents as people can create compassion and clarity.
    When we understand the experiences, pain, and resilience that shaped our parents, we can better understand ourselves—and begin to loosen the grip of old assumptions.
  • Shame loses power when it is brought into the light.
    Family secrets can create distance, but honest storytelling—shared with care and appropriate boundaries—can create healing, connection, and freedom.
  • A new lens can help us rewrite old narratives.
    Jennifer’s LENS framework encourages us to listen to the stories we repeat, engage with them, narrate them from multiple perspectives, and step out of them so we can use them for good.
  • Trying again often means slowing down and letting the work become ready.
    Jennifer’s story about being told “you’re not ready” became a powerful lesson in patience, humility, and the creative courage required to keep going.

This eye-opening conversation explores family secrets, legacy, forgiveness, generational stories, personal growth, writing a memoir, and what it means to keep trying when a story is still unfolding.

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

Links for this episode:

The Power of Looking at Your Life Through a New Lens transcript

Both Sides of Then: Finding Love After Abandonment by Jennifer Griffith on Amazon

Jennifer Griffith’s website: Jennifer Griffith – Author of Both Sides of Then – Podcast Host and Author

About Your Mother on Apple podcasts

 Other episodes you might enjoy

How to Tell Relatable Stories

The Quiet Mindset Shifts that Changes Everything | Mindfulness & Personal Growth with Joseph Schmidt

How to Embrace What Makes You Different | Finding Your Purpose with Kym Gordon Moore

(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

Roadside Assistance

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“We’re fools whether we dance or not, so we might as well dance.” – Japanese Proverb

My kids and I are visiting our happy place. The funny thing about happy places is that I think they are contagious.

There’s a backstory (isn’t there always?). We rented out our house again on AirBnB. I figured we should take advantage of all that work we did to get our house ready. Because there’s nothing like being displaced from your home to inspire an adventure.

So we are staying up at our friends’ place on Whidbey Island. Last week when I was updating the guest book instructions for our house at 10pm after finishing 10 loads of laundry and making up five beds, I couldn’t believe I had chosen to make our house guest ready again. But the expansive sense of beachside escapades made it all worth it the moment we arrived.

Unlike our previous travels to see friends this summer where we stayed in 10 different places in 19 days and spent more than 40 hours on planes and trains, getting here was really easy. Three hours door to door and that included waiting in the line for the ferry and stopping at the store to buy dinner.

After unpacking the cold items into the fridge, we piled back into the car to show my mom and my sister our favorite farmer’s market on the island before it ended at 2pm. My kids excitedly narrated every hot spot went by: the place where the hot chocolate tastes like coffee dregs, the corner shop where we used to buy donuts before they closed, the thrift store for random rainy day toys. And then we passed a guy fixing his bike tire by the side of the road.

I polled the carful of people to see if we should stop to help. My kids in their enthusiastic mood that accompanies being in a happy place said, “Sure! Can we get out?”

The puncture of his tire was done by a nail so big that even with a new tube, he was worried the tube would just balloon out the hole. Our tire repair kit or pump wasn’t going to help. So I told him there was a bike shop next to the farmer’s market and we’d be happy to drive him.

He and his bike piled in with us, probably reassured that we weren’t going to do him any harm given the messy state of the car or the enthusiastic kids. As we drove, we listened in on his call to his friend that he had been biking with reporting that he’d met some VERY friendly people and was being driven to a bike shop.

After we left him to go to the bike shop and we headed into the farmer’s market, I was amused by everyone’s interpretation of what just had happened.

My sister thought we were so friendly that we were scary.

My mom wondered if we’d ever get to where we were going if we stopped to help every human and animal along the way.

My kids thought the guy’s name – Harold – was funny.

And I thought happy places, real or metaphorical, make helpful people.

(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!

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!



I’m Not Broke, I’m Short of Cash: There’s a Difference

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“If we can be peaceful and happy not only we, but everyone, can profit from it.” – Thich Nhat Hanh

I recently discovered the difference between being broke and being short of cash. Coming home after our recent trip to Europe, I thought I was broke. I fell for a scam in processing a travel authorization for the UK that added hundreds of dollars of processing fees. And then there was the day that I had to re-buy the train tickets for a train because we got lost and missed our scheduled one.

So I came home and thought I was broke. However, I have a hard time remembering that. Because I feel rich when:

  • A friend came by and said, “I want to hear about your trip.” And then really listened to the stories my kids and I told her.
  • My mom volunteered to do yard work to get ready for the next round of guests. It happened to rain hard during a thunder and lightning storm while she was working so she came in for a cup of tea and soup and we talked.
  • My almost seven-year-old son kicked a football at the local wading pool and it nearly missed a squirrel which did a hilarious jump. His narrative after the fact made me feel warm from the inside out because of his love for family, “I feel bad for that squirrel. Because I think it comes from a small family. Doesn’t even have cousins.”
  • My almost 11-year-old daughter brushed by me at breakfast and said “I love you, Mom. You are the best Mom.” When I asked why she was compelled to say that right then, she just smiled and shrugged and said, “Because it’s true.”

That’s just a partial list from last week. Just naming these things makes me feel blessed all over again. I learned years ago to never go grocery shopping after meditation class. When I’m filled with the abundance and inner peace that comes from cultivating my connection to God, I forget I have a budget.

And so it is in this case. Since I am self-employed and do contract work, I don’t get paid when I’m traveling. But I’m not broke. I’m just short of cash.

(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!

Weaving Our Tapestries of Connection

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“Relations are like electric currents. Wrong connections will give you shocks throughout your life. But the right ones light up your life. ” – unknown

I didn’t realize that I was pulling a loose thread in my life until we landed in France on our recent trip. But I teared up when I was explaining to our friends there that I felt compelled to visit them so that Miss O could know a little bit about what their son’s life was in France. I continued on to say that I believed that it would be easier for their son to come home to start middle school if at least one other friend had seen where he’d been.

Miss O and their older son had been in every class together from ages three through seven when the family moved to France. And then we saw them every summer when they’d come to visit so Mr. D got to know their younger son too.

I didn’t take me long to puzzle out my tears. When my family moved back from the Philippines to the States I was almost seven-years-old. It wasn’t long into trying to make friends at Jefferson Elementary when I heard kids teasingly jeer, “In the Philippines…” I must have started many sentences that way and it got old – for them and for me. Because the two lives were so different.

I didn’t know it was a loose thread all these years later. But I had an inexplicable certainty that I needed to take my family to France to build a bridge for these kids. If my kids could at least see a bit of where these boys had spent four years, perhaps their shift back to school in Seattle could be a bit more integrated.

The parents of these boys told me that one of their sons’ teachers in France counseled them not to talk about their French experience at all with new friends. I understand that advice but also know that we suffer a cramping of spirit when we bottle ourselves up like that.

Then we traveled on from France to our friends in England. Five years ago, this English family moved from London to our street in the States. Our kids went to school together and traveled back and forth between houses in a constant rotation. After four years of life in America it was time for them to move back. They settled into a delightful little village in Southwest England.

We had so much fun visiting our English friends a year after they left Seattle. In one especially poignant moment, I found all the kids huddled around the school yearbook we’d brought for them. The kids were so interested in seeing how everyone looked and hearing stories of what had happened since they’d left. When it was time for us to leave after two nights, there were tears on all sides. The mom of the family told her kids, “See, I told you your American friends would come visit.”

When I heard that, the tears welled up in me again. A feeling overcame me that was similar to when I see stories of long-lost friends reuniting, or blogger friends meeting in person. We are all more connected than we think. And when we honor the threads that bind us, we help complete each other’s tapestries in a beautiful way.

(featured photo from Pexels))

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!

Confused? Let’s Ask The Magic Ate Ball

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“The single biggest problem in communication is the illusion that it has taken place.” – George Bernard Shaw

Thirty or more years ago, my friend’s mom successfully saved her friend from choking one night at a restaurant. Many times she’s proudly recounted the story of saving a life by using the Heineken remover technique.

It doesn’t matter the number of times her son has told her that it’s the Heimlich maneuver. She sticks to her version of the name because she likes it better. And no, her friend wasn’t choking on a Heineken at the time.

Hearing that story reminds me of the delightful things we get wrong. My son, six-year-old Mr. D calls the pamphlet included with products to show us how to assemble them constructions. And that makes a lot of sense.

He also likes it when we all cuzzle up on the couch. Since Cooper the dog is often involved, this combo of cuddle and nuzzle is pretty apt.

When ten-year-old Miss O was two or three, she called the colander the homey hokey. The Magic Eight Ball was the Magic Ate Ball and we didn’t even know we thinking about it as different things.

As I kid, I thought I heard my dad tell me that brown fuzzy creatures were called Mormons. That made it confusing the first time I met a kid that was a practicing Mormon because I wondered if they worshipped brown fuzzy creatures. Come to find out, those are marmots.

Communicating is hard. It’s amazing we ever get our point across.

Do you have some favorite words in your history or lexicon?

(featured photo is from Pexels)

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 Smell of Rain

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“It’s the closest thing we poor creatures have to magic, my dear – the ability to be transported through time by a waft of scent that unlocks a memory.” – Jason Fry

On a recent warm Spring Friday night, my kids and I walked up to a local burger joint. It’s six city blocks away and the walk held its own sense of nourishment as we looked at flowers, stopped to talk with neighbors, and chatted about some of our favorite memories that this route holds. Like the time when Miss O was three-years-old and got a Wonder Woman shaped balloon made for her by a balloon animal vendor at the farmer’s market. Then as we walked home, she rubbed it along a picket fence, popped one of Wonder Woman’s legs, and burst into tears for the rest of the way home.

The weather was in the high-60’s and we scored an outside table under the awning at the local burger place. As we sat there waiting for our food and watching the other people in line, ten-year-old Miss O noticed big splotches of rain dotting the pavement. She said, “I think it’s raining.” A surprise because it wasn’t in the forecast.

And then I was hit with the smell of rain, noticeable even amidst the odor of the bacon and burgers emanating from the restaurant. I replied, “Oh yes, I can smell it.”

Miss O questioned, “Rain doesn’t have a smell. What does it smell like?”

Her query launch a flood (pun intended) of sense memories. The sound of the wooden typhoon boards being slotted into place when we lived in the Philippines when I was a child. The electricity in the air when the weather shifts on a mountain. And from Eastern Washington where I went to high school, the smell of a crop field absorbing the first drops of rain.

As I contemplated the words to describe what rain smells like, she exclaimed, “I smell it!” And I smiled knowing that she was starting her own memory file named The Smell of Rain. The first entry is a warm Spring Friday night in the neighborhood she grew up in.

(featured photo is from Pexels)

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!

It’s Never Too Late to Begin Again | Personal Growth and Courage with Lindsey Goldstein

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“Things falling apart is a kind of testing and also a kind of healing. We think that the point is to pass the test or to overcome the problem, but the truth is that things don’t really get solved. They come together and they fall apart. Then they come together again and fall apart again. It’s just like that. The healing comes from letting there be room for all of this to happen: room for grief, for relief, for misery, for joy.” – Pema Chodron

The troubleshooting method that I’ve taught to new technology consultants is to change one thing at a time. But what happens when life goes sideways and you get a chance to change all the things keeping you rooted? Do you scramble trying to rebuild life as it was? Or lean in to the chance to rethink about where you want to be?

That’s the premise behind Lindsey Goldstein’s delightful novel, Gap Year. When in the span of a few days, Jane’s daughter leaves for a gap year, her husband informs her that he’s in love with someone else, and she’s forced to choose between a promotion or to quit at work, she decides to take her own gap year. She goes to Ecuador to climb the mountain she’s always wanted to, Cotopaxi.

There are many reasons I love this book. Climbing and Ecuador – two of my favorite topics. But also because walking alongside Jane in her adult gap year helps to put in perspective the choices that we’ve made that handcuff our ability to try.

I was lucky enough to sit down with Lindsey Goldstein, the author of Gap Year on The Life of Try podcast, for a conversation about personal growth, self-improvement, and finding the courage to try—even when the path ahead feels uncertain. From writing and running to parenting, failure, and fresh starts, we explore how confidence is built one brave step at a time. If you’ve ever wondered whether it’s too late to try something new, this uplifting episode is a reminder that growth often begins the moment we say “yes” to the challenge.

Key takeaways

  • When life falls apart, it can also become an opening.
  • Courage often starts before confidence.
  • Trying, failing, and learning are all part of growth.
  • Small steps lead to bigger transformations.
  • You do not always end up where you expected—but you still grow.
  • Practice changes what feels possible.
  • It is never too late to begin again.

Here’s the YouTube video of our conversation:

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

The Power of Looking At Your Life Through a New Lens – The Life of Try: Personal growth, one try at a time.

How do the stories we inherit from our families shape who we become—and how can we rewrite those stories with more compassion, courage, and purpose?In this episode of The Life of Try, Wynne Leon talks with Jennifer Griffith, author of Both Sides of Then and host of the podcast About Your Mother, about inherited family stories, hidden shame, resilience, motherhood, memoir writing, and the healing power of bringing secrets into the light.Jennifer shares how learning her mother’s story changed the way she understood her own identity, why family history can influence the way we parent and see ourselves, and how her LENS framework helps people revisit old narratives, look at them from a new perspective, and use those stories for good.This thoughtful conversation explores family secrets, legacy, forgiveness, generational stories, personal growth, writing a memoir, and what it means to keep trying when a story is still unfolding.Key Takeaways:- We all inherit stories—and they shape how we see ourselves.Jennifer reminds us that family history, secrets, wounds, and even everyday phrases from our parents can quietly influence our identity, choices, and relationships.- Seeing our parents as people can create compassion and clarity.When we understand the experiences, pain, and resilience that shaped our parents, we can better understand ourselves—and begin to loosen the grip of old assumptions.- Shame loses power when it is brought into the light.Family secrets can create distance, but honest storytelling—shared with care and appropriate boundaries—can create healing, connection, and freedom.- A new lens can help us rewrite old narratives.Jennifer’s LENS framework encourages us to listen to the stories we repeat, engage with them, narrate them from multiple perspectives, and step out of them so we can use them for good.- Trying again often means slowing down and letting the work become ready.- Jennifer’s story about being told “you’re not ready” became a powerful lesson in patience, humility, and the creative courage required to keep going.📘 Order Both Sides of Then: Finding Love After Abandonment: 🌐 Show notes and more inspiration: https://wynneleon.com🔔 Subscribe to The Life of Try for more conversations on:personal growth, creativity, reinvention, resilience, writing, and mindset.📌 Subscribe to The Life of Try on YouTube & Stay Updated: → https://www.youtube.com/@thelifeoftry?sub_confirmation=1ABOUT 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 NextHow to Tell Relatable StoriesThe Quiet Mindset Shifts that Changes Everything | Mindfulness & Personal Growth with Joseph SchmidtHow to Embrace What Makes You Different | Finding Your Purpose with Kym Gordon Moore
  1. The Power of Looking At Your Life Through a New Lens
  2. How To Tell Relatable Stories About Life
  3. Why Second Place Might Be Preparation, Not Failure
  4. When Your Plan Falls Apart | How to Stay Resilient and Keep Trying
  5. Barbara Nickless on A Voice In The Dark, Online Gaming and The Power of Story

Links for this episode:

Reinvention, Resilience, and the Courage to Try | Gap Year with Lindsey Goldstein transcript

Gap Year on Amazon and Barnes & Noble

Lindsey Goldstein’s website

(featured photo from Pexels)

Lessons in Persistence: A Child’s Perspective

Posted in ParenthoodTagged , , , , , , , 75 Comments

“Children are great imitators, so give them something great to imitate.” – unknown

On any given sunny day, it’s not a question of if we’ll hit something over the fence, it’s a question of which fence. In fact, six-year-old Mr. D hits baseballs over the fence so often, we call them “neighbors” instead of “homers” because they are our opportunity to visit our neighbors.

So it was no surprise that on one of the many warm and lingering light evenings last week, Mr. D and I were playing in the back yard and lost a stomp rocket over the fence. But it went into our neighbor’s yard that is not next door but lives on the street behind us. Those retrievals mean we have to either walk around the block to knock on the door…or try to retrieve it without leaving our yard by leaning over the fence to grab it if it hasn’t fallen too far.

On this occasion, we looked over the fence and saw the stomp rocket was stuck in a tree and almost in reach. So Mr. D tried to use a rake to get it. It fell lower.

Then we got out the duct tape, created a sticky end of a pole and tried to grab it. It was two inches too short.

By this point our yard was strewn with the ladder, rake and every other tool we’d considered for the project. I decided to attempt one last thing by using the extendible branch trimmer. I touched the rocket, it shifted, but I didn’t get it.

So I said to Mr. D, “We should just walk around and get it from their yard.”

He looked at me and said, “We can’t give up now!”

I had to chuckle. Serves me right for teaching my kids to try and to not give up. Then they parrot it back to me at all the important moments.

I gave it one more try and bingo, we got it.

I’m still laughing. And am taking it as confirmation that I chose the right name for my podcast, The Life of Try. 🙂

(featured photo is Mr. D during the retrieval process)

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!