Great Story. Gotta Figure Out How tell it!
ThOne Soul, Three Hearts
Whenever you’re telling a story. It’s a good idea to have three main characters.
For a long time, I thought I was telling one story.
In fact, they were three — threads that kept crossing until they finally braided into one:
A tiny rescue dog learning to trust.
A midlife South American escape that became an awakening.
And an unbelievable love story — unlikely, star-crossed souls who defied the expectations surrounding them.
It began with Tom + Twinkles — a man and a trembling rescue dog, each trying to remember how to believe in gentleness. When I carried her out of that abandoned apartment, she was shaking so hard it felt like she might disappear. Everyone said I’d saved her. The truth is, she was saving me — teaching patience when I chased progress, showing that confidence doesn’t bark or boast; it grows quietly, one small victory at a time. Her climb from trembling to fearless mirrored the one I didn’t yet know I needed to take myself.
Then the circle widened — Tom + Twinkles + a Colombiana.
She, too, had learned to defy expectations. She knew what it meant to start over, to carry both hope and heartbreak in the same heart. Where I was deliberate, she was instinctive; where I measured, she moved. And yet, somehow, it fit. Her laughter filled the quiet spaces I didn’t realize had gone silent. Twinkles watched us, a knowing witness — the little soul who’d taught us both that love isn’t found; it’s earned. That trust, like courage, grows only when it’s shared.
That’s when I realized: it was never about rescue — it was about reciprocity. The same truths that bound us together — patience, empathy, quiet strength — were the ones that had been waiting in me all along. We mistake noise for certainty, urgency for courage. But strength isn’t domination; it’s steadiness. Courage isn’t rescue; it’s responsibility.
Getting Unleashed grew from that realization.
It isn’t a brand — it’s a way of seeing. Of believing that small victories build belonging. That clarity is cultivated. That love, like leadership, is something you practice every day. From Cra 43 in Medellín to Main Street in Downers Grove, every story — Twinkles’ Rescue, The Yellow Shirt, Machu Impossible, Benedikta Arnold — reflects the same light: transformation that’s earned, connection that’s chosen, courage that’s lived.
I write and speak about that in-between space — the one between being rescued and being saved — because that’s where growth actually happens.
It’s where we learn to lead ourselves first.
The higher ground isn’t a place we find — it’s a discipline we choose.