Blog Posts
Stepping onto the cobblestone streets of Vilnius, I felt like I’d entered a storybook. This charming medieval city is the home to 500,000 Lithuanians, who bustle around the tangled streets in fashion-forward attire with a sense of purpose and belonging. Doug Carter (another speaker), Claire, and I settled into our hotel and met Diana Garlytska,…
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Choking back tears, I shoved my grade report into my backpack as I left my English professor’s office. I was bewildered that he had given me a C+ in freshman Composition and Literature. Was it a mistake? I’d always performed well in high school English classes and had worked hard in the course. He acknowledged…
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People frequently ask me about my last name, “Storlie,” and my company name, “Storlietelling.” I guess it starts in grade school . . . As I set off for school with my older sister, Cindy, I heard the neighborhood kids shouting, “There’s Cindy Big Meadow!” and chanting, “Jean Big Meadow!” I shrunk away, confused and…
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When I was finishing my master’s degree in adult fitness–cardiac rehabilitation in La Crosse, Wisconsin in the fall of 1981, I was struggling with how my dietetics degree would fit into the next chapter of my career. While I liked nutrition, the traditional “hair net” or “lab coat” (food service or clinical) jobs did not…
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Her nickname was “Switzerland,” which she earned by staying calm, rational, and neutral during conflict. These traits made her the perfect fit for her role in leading the department of consumer complaints. When “Dr. Divergent,” a senior PhD statistician, started working for her, she told him, “I’d like you to bring a typed agenda to…
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“Mom, are you coming?” Jackson called from the next plateau. I was sitting on a rock ledge trying to overcome the vertigo triggered by my fear of heights. Next to me sat a woman who’d confessed that she did not have the fitness to proceed. Observing her contented defeat, I knew I didn’t want to…
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The Chicago wind slapped my face as I stepped out of the dentist’s office on Valentine’s Day in 1989. My first root canal and no plans for a romantic evening … or any romantic prospects on the horizon … had me down. It was 3 pm and I felt lousy, so I decided to go…
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On a sunny winter day when I was about 10 years old, my two sisters and I begged to go ice skating at a city rink in a back slew of the Mississippi River. Our mom drove us across town, helped us into our skates, and left us to entertain ourselves. There was a big…
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I’ve always been an enthusiastic Halloween Mom, decorating the house for parties, sewing elaborate costumes, hosting my kids’ friends for pizza before trick-or-treating, and inviting all the “spirited souls” (young and old) to join the fun. Sometimes, I even go over-the-top! Halloween Night when my son was 11 years old, he was the last of…
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When my daughter, Jayme, was 12-years-old, one of her favorite shows was “Say Yes to the Dress.” My first reaction was total dismay that they actually made an entire TV series about shopping for wedding dresses. But once she started recording the episodes on our DVR, I figured rather than dismiss it, I should…
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