The Story You Tell Matters. Until It Doesn't.

In March, I broke my foot.

Slipped in a puddle. Just... a puddle. Landed wrong, and that was that. No dramatic backstory. No good explanation. Just a completely avoidable moment on an otherwise unremarkable piece of ground. My foot was throbbing but my ego was even more bruised.

To add a little more fun to the mix, I had a cruise already booked for the following week. So I went. Boot, crutches, and eventually a scooter that turned out to be more of a conversation starter than I expected. Who knew that for the low price of $101.86 I could use the scooter to my advantage.

On a cruise, you meet a lot of people. And when you're scooting around in a boot, everyone asks the same question: "What happened?"

I noticed something about myself pretty quickly. When the conversation felt casual, low-stakes, two ships passing in the night, I would smile and say I got hurt kickboxing. I do kickboxing recreationally, so it felt adjacent to possible. Vacation Danielle just decided to let people's imaginations do the rest.

The reaction? A little awe. A little respect. "Oh wow, that's kind of badass."

But when I told people what actually happened, something different happened. They laughed. They told me about the time they tripped over a curb in front of a crowd, or walked into a glass door, or did something equally unglamorous in front of exactly the wrong people. The conversation got warmer, faster, and more real.

The kickboxing story got me admiration. The puddle got me connection.

I've been thinking about that ever since.

There's a version of professional life that looks like the kickboxing story. The polished bio. The carefully worded LinkedIn post. The meeting where you lead with everything that went right. It's not dishonest, exactly. But it creates distance. It puts you somewhere people have to look up at instead of just standing next to.

And then there's the puddle.

This blog has always been built on the puddle. Sharing what didn't go as planned, not to be self-deprecating, but because something happens when you're honest about the unglamorous parts of building something. People lean in. They recognize themselves. The conversation becomes a two-way street instead of a presentation.

I've seen this show up in my consulting work too. Leaders who are honest about what they don't know tend to build more trust than the ones who perform certainty. Teams that can actually name what isn't working are the ones that fix it. Vulnerability, when it's genuine, isn't a liability. It's an entry point.

Nobody relates to the kickboxing story. Everybody has slipped in a puddle.

Tell the puddle.

On to the next conversation.

— Danielle