Kristen Wheeler's Blog

“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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

Katherine Johnson remembers how she felt about math growing up, “I counted everything. I counted the steps to the road, the steps up to church, the number of dishes and silverware I washed… anything that could be counted, I did.”

Katherine Johnson's Native Genius was insistent. So is yours.

Katherine worked as one of the first human computers in the early 1960s in the still segregated South. The presence of Black people, and certainly Black women, was rare in the sciences....

A few years ago, my best friend’s dad had a stroke. She, her husband, and daughter happened to be visiting him in Hawaii at the time. It was the worst kind of roller coaster ride where they didn’t know if he was going to make it.

Gretchen was exhausted being at the hospital day and night, meeting with doctors, one day thinking he was going to make it, another day his condition looking pretty grim. What was supposed to be a two week trip turned into two months.

I was at home in...

When my dad was a toddler, my grandmother used to do tricks to make him left-handed. Her dad was left-handed and as a result, she had this notion that left-handedness was the grand marker of creativity. She wanted my dad to be left-handed.

When we have a fixed idea of good and try to make others or ourselves into that good, we can make a bit of a mess — in our relationships, our work, and in our hearts.

My grandmother did all manner of gyrations to get my dad to use his left hand. For...