Kristen Wheeler's Blog

When I was in tenth grade, something kinda funny happened when I went to the mall with my friend for the New Years sales.

After rummaging through racks for a few hours, we were standing in the check-out line and I bent over with my hands on my knees and started flexing and arching my lower back. My friend gave me the sideways look and whispery shouted, “What are you DOING!?” I whispery shouted back, “I’m stretching my lower back!” She rolled her eyes. We both...

One of my dance teachers, Patrick, who was also my boyfriend, showed me something really important.

We used to go to open dance events that had no set starting time or agenda. People would improvise by themselves or with a partner.

The first thing Patrick did when he arrived was lie on the beautiful wooden floor for as long as he wanted. I started doing this too, because I wanted to learn everything about dancing so I copied him a lot. While most people were moving around in the center, we...

“Who likes to cook?” is an apt question this time of year. Sometimes it’s an unequivocal “I do!” or it’s someone running out the back door as they shout “Not me!” But often that’s not the whole story. Cooking (like all activities) is a reflection of Native Genius and it comes out in different ways for different people.

• Claire likes to improvise when she cooks, but glazes over when she has to follow a recipe.
• Shana likes inviting people...

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...