Great Story. Gotta Figure Out How tell it!
HOW cAN One Soul HAVE 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. Mine.
In fact, they were three — threads that kept crossing until they finally braided into one:
A tiny rescue dog learning to trust.
Ignites into a midlife South American escape (Amongst the most unlikely of trios).
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 Latina
A single-mother , at too much of a young age, she too had yearned to defy expectations. Just needed confidence, encouraragement.
Strong, didn’t ‘need a man.’ knew what it meant to start didn’t realize had gone silent.
Three broken souls resigned to a life of solitude,
Twinkles was 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. The same truths that bound us together — patience, empathy, quiet strength — that bound boy girl, dog, together were the ones that had been waiting all along.
Getting Unleashed grew from that realization.
What we opine about is a way 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.
Stanford ‘85