Kristen Wheeler's Blog

As the year winds to an end I wanted to say hello again.

One thing I’ve been thinking about this year is the difference between “trying hard” and “working hard.”

Once I heard a parent say about his kid, “She’s not trying hard enough at soccer.” At a party the kid told me, “I’m more of an indoor cat. I wish I could do choir instead of soccer.” It wasn’t that she didn’t want to work hard, it’s that she was...

The first really big client to hire me to teach strengths (the precursor to Native Genius) was Ebay back in 2010. How do you orchestrate something this lucky? I always thought breaks like this came through boring networking and jumping through hoops. But Ebay became a client by saying YES to my YES, which is a sure-fire strategy for activating your Native Genius. 

I do this weird kind of dancing called Contact Improvisation. Several years ago, one of my dancing buddies here in Boulder,...

When Jane Goodall went on her first archeological dig in Africa, she wrote home telling her mom how she and others talked late into the night under the stars about what they were finding. She was in heaven. She’d found her people. 

Jane put herself in the universe of what fascinated her. When we do this, one of the magical things that happens is finding our people. That’s important because finding your people is one of the biggest bridges to doing what you love. 

After...

...might not be what you think. 

It’s PERMISSION

Not from anyone else, but from you. 

Because permission starts with you (even though it may not end with you). 

Give yourself permission to do one thing that makes your eyes light up. 

What’s one tiny yes you’d like to let yourself say “yes” to? 

Catherine had just started working as my assistant. I asked her to do some research on a particular topic. When I checked in with her, there were other priorities that were pushing this research to the bottom of her to-do list. 

When I asked her about it, the conversation uncovered what was really driving her procrastination — an approach many of us default to that stifles our Native Genius. 

I was puzzled that Catherine hadn’t jumped on this task, because she was...

One night my husband, Paul, and I are watching a movie. He does something extraordinary that we all do, but most of us miss it. The movie is a coming-of-age story about a kid who starts a business buying nuts at Costco and reselling them. Some sales and cost numbers are mentioned in passing. Paul pauses the movie, as we often do, to add our personal commentaries. 

Within seconds, he’s done the math and tracked the character’s progress, “At that rate, he’ll make...

My client Kevin gulped when the number two person at his company asked, “Hey, we’d love your help with names for that new product. Will you send over your ideas?” Inside he wilted a little because he knew he would agonize and procrastinate on this. 

I used to think that success and fulfillment depended on making the big decisions right. After decades of doing this work, I now know that while the big yeses and nos matter, living our Native Genius is really about the...

A few nights ago my dad and I watched an interview* with the playwright of the new movie, In the Heights, talking about her success. A simple but pivotal element of Native Genius jumped out of the conversation.  

Quiara Alegría Hudes co-wrote the Broadway musicals Hamilton and In the Heights with Lin-Manuel Miranda before either was a movie.

Soon after In the Heights made it to Broadway, Hudes was standing in the theatre and someone asked her, “Now that it's a Broadway...

This week my husband Paul and I are getting a thingie installed in our house that circulates fresh air (an HRV for you HVAC geeks). We’ve looked at the diagram showing different ducting options many times because there were some strategic choices to be made. For the life of me, I cannot keep it all straight in my mind. Even though I understand it conceptually, I don’t retain it. I can finally remember the difference between the return and supply ducts, but that’s about it.

...

One day back in 2009, Glennon wrote a Facebook post called, “25 Things About Me.” She had seen other posts with the same title and was sick of her fake social life. While her baby took a nap, she let it rip. Her number six was, “I’m a recovering food and alcohol addict, but I still find myself missing food and booze in the same twisted way someone can still love a person who beats them and leaves them for dead.” Her friend’s number six was, “My...