There is a paradox in my life that I do not think I have ever articulated. I went into independent education because I could not believe how complicated it was to help a child learn in the public system when I was interviewing in 1989. I wanted to teach children directly without jumping through the hoops of imposed protocols. I refused to teach to a test where knowledge is reduced to multiple-choice option, and success is measured by filling in a correct bubble. I wanted to be part of developing creative and critical thinkers capable of solving real-world problems. I wanted to make an authentic connection with one child at a time. But…I wanted to help all children, not just the ones who could afford a private education or the ones who could easily comply in the classroom. Therein lies the paradox that never fully sat right in my spirit for 35 years. 

Without realizing it, I find myself drawn to walk with people who made similar choices – like Dr. Jeff Hoepfner.

Liz: I went into independent education as I came out of college because I didn’t like the red tape I found when I was interviewing for public schools back in 1989. And so I’ve been fascinated throughout my educational career with people who see their industry or their field as one patient at a time, and that was what I knew about you from the very first time I visited you.

Dr. Jeff: Yeah, that’s the art part in medicine. I was actually shocked today because one of my patients earlier this morning told me how there’s these little fatty tumors called lipomas that are often down here to your low back, right by your belt. They’re really obvious to me, but then when I send patients to their family docs, so they can get an ultrasound of it to get an idea of the size or get an MRI, the docs don’t touch anybody. They’re 100 % dependent upon special studies.

Liz: Scans, blood work, other tests, ultrasounds…

Dr. Jeff: Yeah, There’s very little clinical decisions made anymore with functional stuff and palpation.

Jeff Hoepfner is a chiropractor. His is literally the practice of hands-on medicine. It always amazes me when he knows exactly where my pain point is. It amazes him that I’m in awe of it. After a high school sports injury of his own, he was drawn to the chiropractic practice that saved him. His work focuses on the musculoskeletal system and the nervous system. I like to think of it this way – it is the infrastructure to my life. If the scaffolding isn’t right, how can I expect to build on all the other systems in a healthy way? I’ve been treated by other chiropractors, but Dr. Jeff’s practice seems different to me. I think it comes from his authenticity and his genuine approach to serving others. I loved the story of his early practice at the art of touch.

Liz: You said to me, I feel things differently with my hands than most people.

Dr. Jeff: In school I was advised to get a phone book, pull out some hair, and start with one page. Work way down into the phone book to where you can still feel the hair. We would do little challenges amongst us in our group of friends, who could go the deepest to hone that sense of feeling? And it’s just…

Magic. He certainly doesn’t finish the thought that way, but I will. As the patient, it can feel like magic.  Maybe that’s because there is something magical that happens when we embrace our authentic selves and the curious and distinct gifts that lie within us. That moment when we stop apologizing for our passions, our quirks and the things that make us uniquely us—it’s like breathing fresh air after being underwater. When we let our freak flag fly, we discover a joy that cannot be replicated. I used to lovingly say that I worked in the land of misfit toys. 

When you step away from conformity, you courageously enter a space of beautiful uncertainty. Without the rigid guardrails of social or (medical in this case) expectations, you’re free to explore the full spectrum of your capabilities. Dr. Jeff did this by taking the risk to become a private pay practitioner exclusively.

Dr. Jeff: Oh, man. That was my favorite year in practice… the year that I got out of doing third party payer systems. It was just all the restrictions left. I actually spent longer with my patients, I spent more time. My decisions were mine and my patients. They weren’t like, well, let’s see what your insurance says we can do, like what their flow chart, which box is next. And it’s really, really nice. 

My fee schedule is very, very low. I’m very old school with the way I do it, because I’ve been self-employed for so long and I have paid for my own health insurance for years. I know what that feels like with high deductibles and copays and things like that. I guess I’m probably too empathetic to the point where I would probably tell you that I’m a bad businessman. I leave a lot of money on the table. I give services away for free like crazy. That’s one of the reasons why I always have to work for myself, because I don’t mind asking for earned capital, but I’m also empathetic to when you’ve got someone in with a hot disk and they’re at 15 visits and you know Christmas is a month away. It feels really good to be that.

Liz: Well, that is what medicine was when I was a child and my parents practiced. I can’t remember the details, but I remember getting a chicken once from a family that couldn’t pay their medical bills.

Dr. Jeff: I’ve received canned food. I’ve received fish from their freezer. In all honesty, those are probably my favorite payments, favorite stories, because they’re equally proud of the fish they caught and the mustard that they made from their Hungarian wax peppers. And I loved that stuff growing up in rural Iowa the way I did. I guess I’m an old soul that way. I don’t know. And I have a good wife who is on the same page with me with this. 

Liz: When you put profit or policy in front of people, it doesn’t take long to fall apart.

Dr. Jeff: It really doesn’t. And it shows its backside every time, eventually.

Exhausted by the assembly-line approach to patient care that insurance companies demanded, Dr. Jeff made the calculated decision to ultimately stop accepting insurance altogether. The depth of care he can now provide has attracted patients willing to pay out-of-pocket for someone who truly listens. When some cannot pay at a given time, he prioritized the person over the profit.

It was a risk he found to be more than worthwhile.

Dr. Jeff: I was really happy to get rid of any of the HMOs just because of the amount of paperwork and then asking for just even six visits, twelve visits. And they’ll say, well, you can have two. And you’re like, well, what are you supposed to get done with two visits?

Now, he could take the time with his patients. The art and science of chiropractic medicine also has a therapeutic element in Dr. Jeff’s office. People share with him. They tell him about financial concerns, family crises, personal joys. Maybe there is something about trusting him to manipulate your spine that affords a level of trust to understand your worries and carry your heart. 

It hasn’t been long enough for me to forget, but I do. I am not sure if I met Dr. Jeff because I was a patient or if I met Dr. Jeff because he was a dad. Both endeared him and his family to me. He has two older children and a younger daughter whom I met when she was just four years old. She could light up a room, but she didn’t easily conform to social norms or the seemingly random benchmarks we sometimes blindly accept and expect in child development.

Dr. Jeff: She wouldn’t sleep. She didn’t sleep or meaningfully talk until she was four. And that was a really bad time.

Liz: Didn’t sleep?

Dr. Jeff: She would sleep for maybe two hours and then wake up. One of us would sleep up there in the other room because there’s three bedrooms up there and would get up with her, soothe her, comfort her, do whatever needed, and then try to get her back to sleep.

Liz: So it was years of sleepless nights. What was the moment that pushed you to ask, we’ve got to see what’s up?

Dr. Jeff: Oh, wow. It was that and the lack of conversation. She would say words, but she would say water, and not because she wanted it, whatever. It’s just because that word popped into her head, not because it was related to something she was seeing or doing.

Liz: Or necessarily wanted.

Dr. Jeff: Correct. So that’s what they… Meaningful language. The language didn’t have meaning. It was just random words that she knew. So we did a lot of sign language in the beginning just because that was the stuff that was meaningful. It was easier. My wife raised the question to our pediatrician, and he was more akin to thinking that it was just her being stubborn. So we had probably another six months, and then we went up to Pittsburgh to Children’s Hospital. And within 20 minutes of Julie being in the office, he’s like, your child has a spectrum issue. You know how it is when you get confirmation and stuff like that. It’s just a kick in the stomach.

Nothing prepares you for that moment. Even if you suspected something was different about your child’s development, hearing an official diagnosis feels like having the air knocked out of your lungs. In the days and weeks that follow, I have sat with parents as they go through stages of grief – disbelief, anger, sorrow, bargaining, and others. I think it is comparable to grief because there is a shift in the life imagined for their child. The truth is, receiving an autism diagnosis for your child changes everything – including you.

Dr. Jeff: It’s been the hardest thing I’ve ever been through. And I’m speaking from the dad’s perspective. I can’t imagine what it was like being a mom in that situation. Tough, very, very tough. Services are not great in Ohio as a whole, let alone in the Ohio Valley, as far as what we needed, because we looked around for stuff. Autism is such a vast spectrum. Not all of the hallmark therapies would be a good fit for our kid. You know what I mean? So we ended up traveling to the Boston area. Kelly did. Not me. Kelly did. And she did some training up there at the Sunrise Program, and that was a life changer. That brought her from moderate autism to more of a mild autism, more functional, much, much more functional.

Liz: And that’s the way that program works. They train a parent? 

Dr. Jeff: And you do home-based therapy there. You create a room specifically for the therapy, and you get volunteers to come in that you also train so that you can have someone working with your child. And we were very blessed that way. We had a church that was really helpful and some good friends who came in and helped a lot. And we just had huge jumps during that time. 

And the other thing was up in Wexford, it’s called Brain Balance. In that time period, she actually learned to advocate for herself, to understand what that was and start to do it. 

I guess I’m lucky I had a really good wife who was in education and was just super passionate.

In my years in education I have seen parents, like Kelly, become an autism treatment expert overnight. Special diets, sensory integration therapy, speech therapy, ABA, etc – you name it, they research it. Their calendars fill with appointments, and their credit cards max out with specialists and promised success. As if sheer willpower could change the diagnosis, they do all they can. Each child is unique. It is a spectrum afterall. There is no perfect intervention combination. As a Head of School, I felt helpless at times. I cannot imagine what it would be like to be a parent.

Liz: I think what you and Kelly did with Julie is really great advice that you could give your former self. Pick the thing that’s important. “We want Julie to have friends.”

Dr. Jeff: It’s funny that I’m glad that you’re describing that because Julie just turned 14 and we went out bowling. They had the lights down and they had all these flashing lights on, which Julie doesn’t really struggle with. And they had music playing. It was pretty loud, but it was like dance music. And she doesn’t really get too upset about that. And we, I mean, she brings that out in us. Because it’s always been there, my wife and I both like to dance and be goofy. We did that Saturday night and it was a ball. I always say, “Did you let your freak flag fly?” 

… she always feels best when she can do that, when she doesn’t feel the imposed filters that we as society put on. 

Liz: I feel best when I can let my freak flag fly. I mean, that’s just… I think who Julie is is more authentic than… any of us.

When you step away from social expectations, something remarkable happens. You realize how wonderful it feels to be authentically YOU. It reveals how much of our anxiety stems from trying to fit predetermined molds… or have our children fit into them. The energy previously spent on maintaining appearances, fitting in, fixing things, chasing profit becomes available for genuine creativity and connection.

The most profound benefit is discovering that your peculiar perspective, your unusual combination of interests, your distinctive voice—these don’t need to be suppressed but rather to be celebrated in an impromptu dance party at the bowling alley.

Dr. Jeff: I guess one of the hard things for our walk in autism was there’s not a lot of genuine cheerleaders. There’s not a lot of consistency. Because therapists come and go and things like that. I don’t know. Yeah, that’s a toughie. There are teachers, even during my time at Country Day, Julie could tell you who her best teachers were. And it’s not based on what she learned. It’s the ones who really tried to understand her and empathize with her. And she could also tell you the ones who didn’t. And so that’s a good lesson for us. I think as I’m saying this, it makes me think that maybe that’s what I gained watching that in the autism world, that’s what I gained in my practice life by going cash. Do you know what I mean? I could be that more connected, more empathetic chiro, as opposed to … well let me give you an example, I can see about 35, 40 a day max, and I am exhausted based on how I practice. And I have friends who see 70 to 100 a day, and they’re still up for going out for a sandwich after work.

You know what I mean? It’s got to be a stark contrast in how we’re talking with patients, how we just interact and all that stuff. 

Liz: But a patient has the choice to pick a different Chiro. Julie didn’t have that choice with any teacher …ever.

Dr. Jeff: Oh, man. Yeah, that’s the truth. I mean, there is open enrollment, but it’s roulette when it comes to… Because regressions are real, man, when it comes to autism, and that’s tough.

When we embrace our differences, our quirks, we create safe spaces for others to embrace us and to do the same in embracing their own. We silently give permission for authenticity to ripple outward, creating communities where genuine connection can flourish. So go ahead—geek out, laugh too loudly, dance off-beat, sing in the musical, drop the third party payer. The world needs you to be your authentic self more than it needs another complicit carbon copy. The rapturous joy you’ll discover in being unapologetically you is worth every moment of vulnerability it takes to get there.

Liz: Everybody should be forced to go back and just be somebody else on stage and let their freak flag fly. Well, that might very well have to be the title of this.

Dr. Jeff: Let your freak flag fly.

And when you do… you’ll dance …and if you are lucky… you’ll look at your remarkable child and your blessed life and you wouldn’t change a thing.

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Standing at walk 25, looking back at the distance covered and forward to the path ahead, I find myself both humbled and amazed by the evolution of this project and even more so by the expansion of my thinking.

This isn’t just about completing a goal or accumulating miles. The second 25 walks represent a deepening of everything I’ve learned so far. The first half taught me to show up, to put one foot in front of another even when I felt lost. Each story invited me to walk with greater awareness, to truly inhabit each step. When I offered trust, I found authenticity.

The art of listening has perhaps been my greatest teacher. Not just hearing stories, but absorbing the subtle meanings beneath them. Listening to others without the urgent need to respond, advise, warn or relate it back to myself. Listening to the world around me – the rhythmic conversation of footsteps, breath, wind and passing cars that provide a soundtrack of presence.

And through this listening comes the most transformative lesson: people just want to be seen and loved. Not the easy, conditional love that comes naturally, but the intentional love and seeing that requires practice. The kind that sees beyond differences, and extends grace when it’s difficult. I take the responsibility as an honor to carry their hearts as I write their stories. You would understand if I let you hear some of the responses I get when a walker approves the piece.  

Let’s be honest, there is a lot left on the cutting room floor. You don’t hear all of the stories or all of the cussing. You don’t have any idea how often I have to re-record because Finley is my not-always-so-calm constant companion. You don’t capture my anxiety at the start of almost every walk because the mics don’t work. You miss my ineptitude at taking selfies – or remembering to take the picture horizontally. You also might miss that I have started walking on different paths – place-based listening, as I like to call it. Of course, I walked in an airport for The Oxygen Mask …or the Celtics practice facility with Ashley Battle …or the streets of Bellaire, OH with Jeff Hoepfner …and the alligator path for Listen with Rick Poalina. Otherwise, I’d have a mental ranking of whose lawn needed intervention, who got a new dog, or who gets the most packages delivered. Instead it increases my presence as I walk in a place that matters to the story or the person telling it.  I love that this is an imperfect project from which we keep learning.

As I lace up for the next 25 walks, know that this second half isn’t just a repetition of the first. It’s an invitation to go deeper, to listen more intentionally, to love more completely. I hope you have realized that there is something to gain from every walk – a chance to learn something new – even if you do not know the person by my side. Every story matters.

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In the summer of 1993, a young man was working with children at a drop-in center in a troubled Pittsburgh public housing complex. He received advice from an extraordinary human being, Sister Lynn, who shaped his future when she said: 

Gregg: I know your heart’s in this, but you have a chance. You’re going to have an opportunity in this life to do more systemic things. And you’ve got to get up to the stratosphere so you can start to change systems that affect lives like the ones you’re witnessing here.

I’ve never forgotten that.

Liz: That’s amazing. That’s a huge gift. What was your reaction? Do you remember?

Gregg: I think probably a mix of emotions, right? I think it was probably incredibly affirming because I adored Sister Lynn and respected her so much, and I just thought she was salt of the Earth. Probably a little bit puzzled because I was still a young punk trying to figure out this world and my place in this world and my purpose. And probably some angst, too, right? Because I don’t know, it seems like a big thing to take on systems which seem amorphous and confusing. It’s much easier to work with Will and Wu and to know the kids and to be present in their lives.

Turning that advice into his life’s work, Gregg Behr, the Executive Director of The Grable Foundation has never forgotten what it means to work with a child.  Reminiscent of Mister Rogers himself, Gregg Behr’s smile reflects the profound power of being fully present and authentically yourself. He knows how much it feeds your soul to make a difference in a young life. It keeps you young at heart. As he says, “I am the luckiest kid in Pittsburgh.” He recalls a project that devised “ a way for kids to drive a submersible through the aquariums at the Pittsburgh Zoo. It was fascinating, and I loved it. I got to do it myself. There you are, driving this robotic device. It had cameras on it so you could zoom in on the shark that was right in front of and all other things. You and I laugh about it because you can think of the 100 reasons that went wrong. But actually, I think it sparked so many other things, including elevating the wonder and curiosity of someone today who’s now leading a space company.’

Liz: The fact that you got to drive one… I mean, forget that you don’t get to work with kids anymore. You get to do the things kids do.

Gregg: I told you I’m Pittsburgh’s luckiest kid.

So Sister Lynn was right, Gregg did end up in the stratosphere – in the world of philanthropy, but he maintains a grounded perspective with a heaping dose of wonder usually reserved for children: “I’m someone who believes deeply that genuine change actually happens in lots and lots of little things, being faithful to the little things. The compilation of those little things add up to something incredibly special.” 

This philosophy shapes his approach at the Grable Foundation, where success is measured by the ability “to support extraordinary people and their organizations who in some way are making life better and bringing goodness to kids, to families, to communities in this place that we call home.”

Gregg Behr galvanizes you to do what you can to make your corner of the world better for those around you – especially the children. Starting with something as simple as a pancake breakfast, he has a childlike enthusiasm for possibility that reminds us that the most transformative philanthropy often begins with wonder, curiosity, and the simple joy of asking “What if?” to a gathering of extraordinary people who are working with and for children everyday. 

Gregg: The best things in life happen over food and beverage of some sort, right? When I think back to the very first breakfast meeting at Pamela’s in the Strip District of Pittsburgh that was in so many ways the start of what became Remake Learning. It was a teacher and someone from a museum. It was a multimedia person and a technologist and a gamer. People I had met over the previous months who clearly cared about kids, cared about learning, and were thinking differently about learning. It was just one of those what-if breakfasts. I always figured it’s at least worth the price of admission: a cup of coffee and pancakes.

Bringing together people with a similar passion over pancakes turned into the Remake Learning network of more than 800 schools and organizations. The power of its network is the way it is connecting educators, researchers, and community organizations to fundamentally reimagine how children learn. Remake Learning amplifies the voices of those making a difference for children. Its grant making encourages us to think boldly – to imagine a future different from the one we know in an industry that has barely changed in the past 100 years. 

Gregg: I’m both blessed and cursed. Working in philanthropy, we’re always at 30,000 feet. We’re not the ones doing the work. And yet we have this great perch to see what’s going on, to meet extraordinary people, communities, places, projects, ideas. I don’t know. I think sometimes philanthropy at its best is when it’s simultaneously the R&D and also the connector of people who are doing things. And maybe that’s what I’ve tried to do.

For Gregg, philanthropy exists somewhere “on that continuum between egoism and altruism. It’s never, ever 100% of either.” This balance became profoundly transformed when he became a father.  The disparities he witnessed professionally now struck him at an emotional core he hadn’t experienced before. Each child in an underfunded school or struggling neighborhood was no longer just a beneficiary of the foundation’s work—they became someone’s daughter, deserving every opportunity he wanted for his own children.  It creates an urgency.

Gregg: Becoming a parent, I think you start to see your own kid in so many other kids. You visit communities, and you visit schools, and you visit libraries, and you think to yourself, this just isn’t fair. You start to imagine your own child faced with those conditions, faced with those circumstances, faced with those deficiencies. The work becomes incredibly personal. 

This is my experience too. I have said many times I worked on creating a school where my children would thrive. You could call me the most selfish mother in the community, I guess. I was asked to consider the position of Head of School two years before I accepted it. I turned it down at first because I was trying to adopt a baby and didn’t think I had the bandwidth for the responsibility of leading a school. Over the course of the following two years, I visited almost every elementary school in the tri-state area as a supervisor of student teachers. I would return home to pick up Grace from Universal Preschool and silently commit that school would be better for her than what I experienced that day. When I couldn’t find one, I knew I could lead one. 

Gregg: I remember When Catheryn was born, I had said, I hope she doesn’t graduate from a brick and mortar high school like I did. I wasn’t naive to think high schools were going away. I mean, schools are central in kids’ lives. But now, referring to Mister Rogers, Fred himself understood that schools were central in kids’ lives, but he also understood that there’s a great big neighborhood where kids can learn and have experiences.

Fred Rogers—Pittsburgh’s most beloved neighbor—emerges as a touchstone in our conversation and in Gregg’s life. “Being a Pittsburgh kid, I find relevant modern wisdom in the work of Mister Rogers, whom I loved as a kid and have come to love even more so as an adult.” A black and white photo of Mister Rogers sitting on the steps of his trolley hangs next to Gregg’s desk. Of course it does. In its simplicity it evokes innocence and hope and a way to be transported to a child’s world even as an adult. Fred’s legacy reminds Gregg that the most meaningful education happens when we honor children’s natural curiosity and connect them with diverse experiences and people who care deeply about their wellbeing. 

Gregg’s admiration for Fred Rogers’ educational philosophy ultimately inspired him to co-author with Ryan Rydzewski When You Wonder, You’re Learning: Mister Rogers’ Enduring Lessons for Raising Creative, Curious, Caring Kids. The book emerges from a series of lightning bolt moments that indicated the time had come to elevate and amplify the great work happening in schools and neighborhoods in and around Pittsburgh. These experiences manifest Mister Rogers’ seemingly simple messages as profound wisdom about child development and learning. By writing this book, Gregg and Ryan transformed their personal inspiration from Fred Rogers into a resource for parents and educators, demonstrating how the beloved TV host’s simple approach remains powerfully relevant in today’s complex educational landscape. The book reflects Ryan and Gregg’s commitment to “curating examples” rather than prescribing solutions—highlighting Mister Rogers as “a master educator whose work should inspire us in the things that we’re trying to do.”

When we push ourselves to notice and wonder about the people and the things right around us in our own backyard as Gregg puts it, “you start to notice that excellence and how you can be part of it, how you can cultivate it, how you can advance it.”  Excellence, in this view, is inextricably linked to acknowledging the full humanity—including the doubt and resilience—of everyone involved in the work, even ourselves.

Liz: I think the hard part for people in the work we’re in is you never feel like you can do enough because the problem is so big, the profession is so noble. How do you deal with that?

Gregg: I’m always feeling that “never enough.” Sometimes I notice that I’m trying to do too much and I pull myself back. Sometimes I notice I’m asking others to do too much. I think I’ve garnered at least a little wisdom over the years to know how to pull back. But I often quote Arthur Ashe, and I’m not sure that he originated this phrase, but in many places it’s attributed to him. Start where you are, use what you have, do what you can. I say that to myself a lot. I think it’s in part why I use phrases like “this corner of the world.” I’m just at this point in the world with whatever skill or privilege or luck or whatever it is that I have, what is it that I can do? Trying to know when that’s enough, I think it’s probably a continuous lesson.

Honestly, I feel like that’s a lesson I learn repeatedly. But I think that’s partly the challenge of being human, isn’t it?

Liz: So when you say you have to learn it repeatedly, do you kick yourself? Oh, my gosh, I had to learn that lesson again. Or are you forgiving of yourself?

Gregg: That’s a hard question. Forgiveness is not my first instinct, but I think I do come to forgive myself.

Liz: There’s no timeline.

We walked for just over an hour through Gregg’s neighborhood. It rained the entire time. It was February. I was wet from my toes to my hips. Like another beloved neighbor, he invited me in.  “Hot tea?” he asked. 

The funny thing is I remember that afternoon as being warm, welcoming, and inspiring. I don’t remember it as the only walk I’ve taken in the rain.  The gentle patter of raindrops created a natural soundtrack to this walk. The rain made ordinary streets glisten. Trees appeared more vibrant. The local school took on a dreamlike quality as it was reflected in surrounding puddles. Or… maybe that is just what it is like when you are lucky enough to walk with Gregg Behr… the luckiest kid in Pittsburgh. 

Sister Lynn would find that to be true.

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AB: How are you doing? 

Maine Celtics Coach, Tyler Lashbrook: Livin’ the dream. 

AB: You know, when people actually say that, they don’t believe it.

Tyler: What do you mean?

AB: People don’t believe it. I’ve found in my experiences that people don’t believe when they say I’m living in a dream. 

Tyler: It’s like a Midwest hello.

Liz: That is true.

Tyler: That’s what everybody says over there. 

AB: Okay. On the East Coast, I’m like, You don’t believe that. I’ve worked at a few places where people would say that often and they were actually miserable.

So many people would look at Ashley Battle’s life and say she is living the dream. Her fifth grade self might agree given she is a three-time NCAA Division 1 Basketball Champion and currently working in the front office of the Boston Celtics, but for Ashley the dream shifts. In Ashley Battle’s world, excellence isn’t a destination but a constant pursuit. The dream, then, isn’t static—it evolves, challenges, and propels her forward. Perhaps that’s what makes her attitude not just impressive, but genuinely inspiring.

AB: My expectations of myself are just so high. It’s just one of those things. You just never reach it. You’re always just pushing forward. You’re just never – satisfied.

Liz: So that keeps you a little bit humble? Because you know there’s some place higher.

AB: There’s something more I could do. You’re just never satisfied. 

I’ve written about that nagging inner voice proclaiming, “You should be doing more,” but for Ashley Battle this thought emerges from a place of genuine inspiration and growth. She isn’t filling gaps or proving herself —she is expanding the possibilities that excite her, precisely because she already knows her worth. I’ve come to believe this is what healthy ambition looks like. It’s not the frantic energy of someone trying to outrun their insecurities, but the steady, grounded momentum of someone who knows their value and chooses to grow. This mindset is perhaps best illustrated by her reflections on a conversation that Ashley had with her former University of Connecticut coach, Geno Auriemma.

AB: I think we were having lunch or something like that. And he made this face. And I was like, I don’t really know what’s about to come out of his mouth right now. I don’t know if it’s going to be something super sarcastic or something profound. It could go either way. I don’t know. And he was just like… “You’ve never failed at anything in your life. Whenever you decide that there’s something that you want to do, you do it and you do it to the highest level.” Granted, I’ve had failures in my life, I like to call them learning and growth opportunities.

Liz: But he’s not wrong. I would say I know a couple of jobs you’ve been up for that you didn’t get. And my feeling when I talked to you afterwards is always not that I didn’t get it or I failed, but that it must not be the right opportunity. There must be something else coming.

AB: Right. I’ve always lived by the idea that God’s going to present opportunities to me, and it’s up to me to be prepared and step through them. 

Liz: You might misinterpret it and go hard after something that’s not meant for you?

AB: 100%. I will go hard for it and may not get it, but these are reps. Interviewing reps, reps with important people, decision makers, people with influence, who may down the road have a different opportunity that I had no clue was even an option.

When confronted with professional disappointments—jobs she didn’t get—Ashley doesn’t dwell in defeat. Her perspective is refreshingly optimistic: not that she failed, but that those must not be the right opportunities. Something else is coming. Not every opportunity that presents itself aligns with our true path. Learning to discern which opportunities to pursue—and which to let pass—may be one of life’s most valuable skills. This self-awareness informs Ashley Battle’s template for purposeful living: pursue excellence relentlessly, prepare diligently for opportunities coming, discern wisely, learn from setbacks, and maintain the anomaly of both confidence and humility simultaneously. 

This approach was apparent in elementary school. When she was in 5th grade – Ashley knew she was different. She had a coach that year that really focused on fundamentals. Throughout elementary school, she distinguished herself as the most talented player on the boys’ team. What came easily to her did not come as easily to anyone she played with, especially once in high school. ​​We’ve all seen it – that rare individual who stands head and shoulders above everyone else. The one who grasps skills immediately while others struggle. The natural talent who makes the difficult look effortless. But there’s a paradox of such exceptional talent: being the best doesn’t eliminate your need for a team. In fact, it transforms your responsibility within that team.

AB: I knew where I would want somebody to be, they just didn’t know where to be. And I had to teach them. So I had to teach my teammates like, Hey, if I’m going this way, go here. Even though I had moments where it was frustrating, it helped me grow as a leader, helped me grow in communication, and helped me grow in ways in which I didn’t really realize at the time being a 15-year-old girl trying to teach people how to play basketball.

I know this about myself. I’m a horrible loser. Back then, you could really see my frustration. I wore it on my sleeve. You could see it in my face. And that’s not necessarily the best way to get your point across. If you want somebody to follow you, you can’t just be mad at them all the time. You really have to teach and show empathy and try to meet them where they are to get them where you want them to go.

This simple realization, “I knew where I would want somebody to be,” is a mark of genuine leadership, but great leaders don’t just have a vision of the destination—they guide others along the path. As a high school basketball player, Ashley discovered that leadership isn’t about being ahead of everyone else; it’s about bringing everyone else along with you. With her exceptional talent, the greatest challenge was never proving her own capabilities – it was multiplying her impact through others.  She faced a choice: become limited by the capabilities of those around her or invest in elevating them to new levels. She chose to invest. What began as basketball lessons transcends the sport entirely. Leadership isn’t about demanding that others keep up with your pace. It’s about connecting with them where they are and guiding them toward a  vision of success. In the need to explain, demonstrate, and inspire rather than simply execute—she developed muscles she would need as a professional.

In the corporate environment, these principles become essential navigation tools in spaces where her race and gender are underrepresented.

AB: I’m often the only black female in a room full of white men. Sometimes I just don’t talk. I’ll have an opinion, and I won’t say anything.

Liz: And therein breeds imposter syndrome.

AB: And therein breeds imposter syndrome. And they’ll think, “Oh, you’ve been here a while. You should feel comfortable enough talking.” Yeah, not when you get talked over and there’s things happening within the room that you’re just like, I don’t agree with this. So sometimes you pick and choose when’s a good opportunity to go full throttle.

The basketball court teaches when to drive hard to the basket and when to pull back and reset the play. In corporate worlds, Ashley uses her skill of discernment to know when and how to use her voice. This isn’t about silencing herself —it’s about strategic deployment of influence.

The reality of being talked over or marginalized in meetings breeds what many misidentify as simply “imposter syndrome.” But what looks like self-doubt may just be sophisticated situational awareness. As a black woman leader, Ashley has learned to read rooms with exceptional precision, strategically choosing when to “go full throttle” and when to leverage other skills. The basketball player who knows when to take the shot and when to pass develops exactly this kind of strategic wisdom. Your worth doesn’t fluctuate with your race or gender any more than your influence should change with your shooting percentage. 

Having navigated spaces not designed with her in mind, Ashley has developed a natural expertise in creating environments where diverse perspectives can thrive. Her mindset converts obstacles into platforms for demonstrating leadership excellence.

The lessons learned while navigating team dynamics as a young athlete built precisely the skills needed to excel in professional environments, but she also had good role models who guided her early on her path. There’s something deeply moving about her gratitude toward them. Her mother first and foremost, but also her early coaches, and her Head of School, Reno DiOrio, all kept her on the right path. Those adults saw her potential – each one at a different time in her life played that role of “one caring adult,” the steady heartbeat when we are stepping outside our comfort zone.

AB: [Reno] knew the path, and he’s seen it. He knew the path could be screwed up, and he’s seen the path get screwed up. He knew where I lived in Pittsburgh. He knew it was a rough area. He knew that anything could happen. And so he was just really trying to make sure that I stayed on the path. And granted, do I think my path would have been drastically different if I didn’t go to Linsly? No. Linsly didn’t get me a scholarship to college. I did that with my AAU team and stuff like that. I knew the reasoning for me to go to Linsly wasn’t athletics. I knew that I needed to balance where I was athletically and where I needed to be academically. I knew I needed both of those to be at a high level.

Liz: If we were going to make a top five list of what the “one caring adult” needs to do or be, what list would we make?

AB: I think the first thing that would be on the list is respect. And the reason why I say respect is because no matter the age, you should respect that person. Even if they’re a kid, they have thoughts, they have feelings. You have to let them express themselves. Whether or not you agree with it, that’s one thing. But you have to have a dialogue. And I think that was the one thing I had with you, and that’s the one thing I for sure have with my mom. She is like, I don’t care what it is. We can talk about it. Whether or not I want to talk about it or not.

Liz: Number two, as the adult, I have to see myself as a guide and not a preacher. Because I have to recognize that you are going to be your own person, and you have to make your own mistakes to get there. I think sometimes the one caring adult thinks they see the best path for you.

AB: So this is funny that you bring that up. During the recruiting process, I was like…U Conn was becoming established. They had just come off of a national championship. Duke was on their way. They had a really good class coming in. And my mom’s like, “How can you turn down Duke?” A lot of people are just like, “It’s Duke. How can you turn down Duke?” And I’m like, I got to be there. I have to be there. You guys are not going to be there. And I could go to Duke and flunk out, or I could go to U Conn and win three national championships and double major in economics and marketing. My thought with school was like, it is what it is. School is what you make it out to be. I don’t care where you go. 

Ashley saw something in the path ahead that would best serve her. She knew she needed to find the right fit. The well-meaning adults were a little blinded by prestige. Myself included. I was her Humanities teacher at the time. It was years before Frank Bruni would write Where You Go Is Not Who You’ll Be, which reset my mindset to align with AB’s – school is what you make of it. Once again in her life, she knew her worth, and it wasn’t measured by the name of a college on her diploma.

Liz: All right, so we came up with two. And to be honest with you, maybe that’s all we need to put on that list. Maybe it really is listening and realizing your job is to let them be their own person.

AB: Yeah.

Liz: Show up.

AB: Yeah, you got to be there.

AB: We had an unfortunate death in my family. My grandmother died my senior year in high school during all of this recruiting process. And Geno was really the only person that expressed his condolences.

Liz: Wow. That’s what it comes down to?

AB: That’s what it comes down to. Who are you as a person.

Liz: Geno made the phone call.

AB: Yeah, you got to be there.

This is truly the pattern I hear over and over and over in these walks. The essence of success is about people – the genuine humanity of a leader. I said in an earlier walk that confidence is born in countless hours in empty gyms, but I was wrong. The gym is rarely empty. There is one caring adult who got you there, or sits in the empty stands, or leaves you the key to lock up. Confidence is born because someone you respect returns the favor.

Basketball was only the beginning. Former teammate, Jessica Moore, forecasted as much.

AB: When we both got done playing, she was like, You know what, AB? Basketball is not going to be what really defines us. She was like, “We’re going to do so many great things that being at U Conn is not going to be the most brilliant thing that’s ever happened to us.”

At age 42, Ashley has some big dreams still ahead.

AB: If I had to pinpoint two things, it would probably be being a GM, and I’d broadcast more. No. There are three things. I’d probably become a mother, too. I would do that for sure. The world needs a little bit more Ashleys.

Liz: I couldn’t agree more. And if I’ve learned anything from talking to a lot of great people, they thought they had the best empathy or the best compassionate view of the world until they had a child.

AB: I got good genes, Liz. They need to be passed down. I’m an only child. The bloodline can’t end with me.

Liz: That’s right. I have the name, and I gave my name to my girls, even though they have Mark’s name, too, because I’m the end of Hofreuters.

AB: That’s what I’m saying.

Liz: And I hope they’ll continue it, even if it’s in the middle name.

AB: That’s what I’m saying.

Liz: Because there’s something about not letting something die.

AB: You want to talk about pressure? That’s pressure.

Liz: There’s no doubt about it.

AB: If I had to do one thing all over again, I would have become a mother way sooner. I would have done that way sooner.

Liz: And someday you’ll see why you didn’t.

AB: I mean, I live a great life.

Liz: You do.

AB: I understand why I didn’t. But if there was one thing that you would say, Oh, you’re going to regret? Yeah, I would do that sooner. Ready or not ready, I would have done it sooner.

Liz: I adopted Ella at 41, almost turning 42.

AB: What a blessing Ella is, too.

Liz: Oh, what a blessing. It’s hard now. I’m grandma-age.

AB: That is what it is going to be for me. I’m going to be a fun grandma, though.

She’ll be a fun grandma just like I remain “sporty spice” – a name my niece gave me 21 years ago when she was afraid my having a baby would change the way I approached life and played with her. It hasn’t. Not on most days. At 58, I’m still “sporty spice.” And I see in Ashley something I know which is true for myself – we both have the heart of a child.  Not only do we see the potential in a child and respect that, but in interactions with adults, I can see the innocent child within them. I try to appeal to that. The heart of a child doesn’t mean childish leadership—it means bringing our most human qualities to our work and our life. It means connecting with others where they are. It means leading with wonder, authenticity, and empathy in the pursuit of excellence in every encounter. I think that just might be a good definition for living the dream.

—

Postscript

Ashley still teaches others with respect – not arrogance – just helping you see something in yourself or do something you didn’t know you had in you. As it was when she made sure I made a basket at the Celtics practice facility where we walked.

AB: So I’m going to just give you… Come closer. Give you a little bit of pointer. So when you’re going to shoot it… good angle… this is a great angle. You see the top of the box? Aim for right there. Just like that.

Liz: You have told me that before in this lifetime. It’s the way I hold the ball that sucks. Yeah, good.

AB: It’s just higher. Just higher.

AB: Boom. 

---

If there is a change in cabin pressure, oxygen masks will drop in front of you. Remove the mask and pull it firmly toward you to start the flow of oxygen. Place the mask over your nose and mouth. Pull the elastic band around your head and tighten. Even though the bag may not inflate, oxygen will be flowing. Be sure to put your mask on first before helping others.

Liz: Of everyone I think of when I think of this expression, you’re at the top of the list. What does it mean in your life right now to put your own oxygen mask on first?

Brean: See, I can’t start speechless. I guess it’s the advice I should be following, which isn’t to say that I’m succeeding on any given day. But I do realize more than I used to, and maybe I haven’t come around to just quite yet, the positive side, I think I realized more in the, “We can’t have me to go down. So whatever that takes and whatever that looks like.”  And sometimes that looks like things that are called self care that I never used to do. I have to do that.

As Brean Vaske and I talked, we were walking through Logan Airport, so the actual preflight safety instructions were imminent. Just like on an airplane, if we’re oxygen-deprived, we can’t show up fully for the people who matter to us. The oxygen mask is a powerful metaphor for self-care. It isn’t selfish – it’s practical. You can’t pour from an empty cup.

Liz: What does the oxygen mask really look like?

Brean: Maybe it looks like going to Boston for a weekend and not crying until you are at the airport on the way home.

Liz: That’s a win.

Brean: I don’t know, because when people talk in terms of self-care, I always think that’s a great phrase. But what does it actually mean? And I never really could figure it out because it’s not like I’m going to go spend weekends at spas. 

Liz: I took you to your spa. I took you to a Celtics game.

Brean: Exactly. 

Our conversation begins with our take on the metaphorical “oxygen mask” — the notion that to be effective caregivers and leaders, we must first take care of ourselves. This theme is particularly significant in this story, as her husband’s unexpected illness thrust their family into a whirlwind of medical and emotional challenges. What follows is an inexplicable story of multi-system failure and recovery.

Brean: I found him in the bathroom throwing up. And I said, “Are you all right?” And he said, “I don’t feel good”. And I said, “Oh, okay.” And the next morning (Friday), I went up and he was still in bed. I think in the 30 years we’ve been together, he’s not gone to work, maybe twice. And I said, “What are you doing?” And he said, “I was up all night. I can’t do it. I called off,’ and I said, “Okay.” And I closed the door, and I brought him all the liquids and went about my business.

Saturday morning, he came downstairs and he tried. He said, “I’m going to go to Lacrosse with you guys.” And I said, “You don’t even look like you can keep your head up. You’re going to stay home.” I got a text about noon that said, “I’m going to go to the hospital and get a bag of fluids. I don’t feel good. I’ll be home by dinner.” And 30 minutes later, I got a text from the neighbor that said, Why is there an ambulance in your yard? 

I got to the hospital that night, and they seemed to have it under control. And they said, “We’re just going to watch him overnight.” And I went home. They called 2 hours later, and just kept saying, You need to come. They started saying all of these medical terms because at this point, he was in multisystems failure and it was way above my head, and I didn’t understand what they were saying. So I called Dr. Matt Metz and said, “Matt, what are they saying?” And he said, “They’re saying Kelly will be there, and I’m going to your house.” And I said, Oh, And then I called Dr. Mary Hammond, and those two women came, and they both have medical knowledge that I don’t have. The looks on their faces were like, “Okay, this isn’t good. We’re done.” Apparently, Brian had asked to be intubated. So he had said, “It’s time.”

And then he told them “no ECMO.”  I didn’t know what ECMO was. The doctor comes over to me and says, “We need to fly him to Ruby right now.” I said, “Okay, why are we having this conversation? Then fly him to Ruby.” He said, “Well, Ruby won’t take him unless you agree to ECMO.” I said, “Okay, do that.” And he said, “But he said, No.” I said, “Well, he can’t talk now.  Do you see the little boy in the corner? He’s going home to that boy.”

There is not much commentary I can offer on the unexpected upheaval surrounding the Vaskes. There’s something surreal about those moments when everything hangs in the balance. One second, life is moving along its predictable path. The next, you’re thrust into a whirlwind of chaos where nothing feels certain—especially not tomorrow.

I’ve been there. That space where time both freezes and accelerates. Where your mind races through a thousand scenarios while your body seems trapped in molasses. These life-or-death moments don’t just challenge our survival instincts; they fundamentally alter how we see everything that follows. We are left shaken with only our faith in what we believe.

Brean: To be honest, at that point, if he was going to die, it mattered more to go see Miles’ science experiment than to stand in Brian’s room. Miles and I talked Monday on the way to school, and I said, “You know how we can believe in things we can’t see?” And he said, “Yeah.” And he quickly corrected me, “But dad doesn’t. Dad believes in science.” I said, “He does. But the two of us are going to believe in the things we can’t see. And dad’s going to believe in science, and dad’s going to come home.” And at that point, Miles and I, I think, we were the only two people in the world who believed that. We knew he was going to come home.

Liz: You know, I’m a really big believer in generational trauma and generational continuation. And the woman whose father died when she was eight was facing her son’s father dying. And you didn’t let that happen.

Brean: I told them, I don’t know anything about this, but I know how to make decisions. So if the question is something that gets him closer to home, the answer is yes. And at one point, they wanted to cut him open and see if he had a perforated wall, and I knew we would never get him closed. And that’s a rabbit hole we’re not going to go down. That’s farther from coming home. So that’s a no. And that’s how we made all decisions. And you’re right. Part of it was my father actually died of multi-systems failure, and that’s what Brian was in. And I said, “We’re not doing this again.”

He spent two and a half weeks on full life support. They fully believed when they pulled that, he would die. They pulled it. He spent another month and a half, I think, at Ruby, followed by three weeks in Weirton and three weeks in Sewickley. I decided that I was going to take Miles on our annual trip. We go to the same beach with anywhere from 50 to 100 of my family members, all of those family members who had kept us afloat for all of those months. And I decided we were going to go. Brian was no longer going to die. He just needed to get stronger. 

They called while we were at the beach and said, We want to send him home. And I said, “Well, there’s no one there.”

Liz: This is my favorite part of the story. The woman who had one goal, which was to get him home and made every decision accordingly, when it was time to get him home, said, “No, I’m at the beach. Give me a sec.”

The aftermath is where the real work begins. Brian survived, yes, but survival and returning home to the life they once knew are different creatures entirely. Brian is blind as a result of his harrowing experience. The ground beneath them feels unstable, as if the earth itself has forgotten how gravity works. Routines that once provided structure now seem impossible. 

Liz: But the pain lasts. And in your case, you still need your oxygen mask. But now they brought him home and you got nothing. There were no services for your now-blind husband who could no longer do his job as a pediatrician.

Brean: Correct.

Liz: I’m not saying the services don’t exist, but you don’t know what you don’t know.

Brean: On my days of some energy… which I’m going to get back to full strength, but I’m not there yet… I wonder, because I like to fix problems, what I could do to change that – the things we still don’t know. We are still waiting to hear from the Department of Whoever to chase down the paperwork alone and apply for the things and deal with the…

Liz: What I hear and what you just said is you like to fix things. You like to be in control. You’re used to making all the decisions. And so when you don’t know about something, do you beat yourself up that you didn’t know?

Brean: Not that I didn’t know, but occasionally that I don’t have the hours or the energy to do the research that he deserves. But my kids fed. The homework is done. So that’s the part I struggle with. I wish I could fix it and dive into it the way he deserves.

Liz: Maybe this month’s oxygen mask is just getting to the end of the day and saying, what I did today was enough. That would be a good oxygen mask for you right now.

Brean: I had to tell myself very early on because I was making dumb mistakes that I don’t usually make. And not in terms of serious things, in terms of, Miles needed that last Tuesday, not this one. Dumb mistakes. And I had to remind myself that I’m actually not dropping any more balls percentage-wise, it’s just the number of balls in the air has increased.

I love that the former college basketball coach still uses the lens of her shooting percentage to gauge her success. Getting back on your feet isn’t a linear process. Some days you’ll feel almost normal,  but your nervous system remembers even when your conscious mind tries to move forward. What nobody tells you is that it’s okay to wobble. It’s okay to take tentative steps. It’s okay to rest when the weight of it all becomes too much. Finding your footing after brushing against mortality isn’t about “getting over it” but about learning to carry it differently. You will drop balls. Lots of them. Children inherently know this, so Miles gravitates to the practical silver lining.

Brean: He spent weeks and weekends and did all of these things that I know that 21-year-old Miles will be better for, 25-year-old Miles will be better for, husband Miles will be better for, because he went and stayed with my aunt, who’s a retired children’s librarian, and she took him to things that it wouldn’t dawn on me to take him to. And he has asked this summer to go back. She is, I don’t know, close to 70 years old, and he wants to go back and hang with her and do some things. So he has realized the benefits of the very large family.

Liz: But that’s a beautiful gift of reframing, because at one point, you were framing it that he’s being shuttled off to all these people. And what you are realizing is that that’s not the way he saw it. These were great opportunities. That he actually wants to repeat.

Brean: He feels a part of a community that helped us. So I know he will be better for it.

No Mud, No Lotus. 

I was given the book by that title years ago. Thich Nhat Hanh subtitled it, The Art of Transforming Suffering.  He writes, “Most people are afraid of suffering. But suffering is a kind of mud to help the lotus flower of happiness grow. There can be no lotus flower without the mud.” It requires us to reframe the storyline we write in our minds like Miles and his mom are doing.

Miles and I have been connected for nine years. He was a student, who at age four referred to  me as “Lunch Lady.” It makes perfect sense since he saw me most often during lunch. I was important in his orbit only because I opened things in his lunch box for him, not because I was the Head of School. Brean and I bonded over the humor.  Ironically, he interrupted by saying “You should probably go to the beach and have a break – a day off because you’ve been working so hard.” At four, Miles knew about the oxygen mask before the two of us did.

Miles’ mom and I have been connected since that night last May in 2024 when she called to talk about the possible regret of not taking Miles to see his dad… just in case. I listened. I offered advice, but mostly, I listened. In the weeks that followed Brian from being the sickest man in the hospital to his return home, we texted. We invoked attorney-client privilege that wasn’t actually the case …although she is a lawyer. We said aloud to each other the things you are sorry you are even thinking by invoking “Oklahoma” from the likes of Ted Lasso’s honesty.  Our conversations can still be raw. We made a pact to show up honestly even when it is unfamiliar or uncomfortable. I needed it as much as she did.

When Ashley Battle offered me a second ticket to the Celtics game that followed our walk, I called the former basketball player and coach who would see this trip as a pilgrimage to her Mecca.

Brean: Going to Boston for a weekend and not crying until you are at the airport on the way home was a big step. And to be honest, you did it in a way that it had to be done in. There wasn’t a lot of time to think it through. There wasn’t a lot of time to talk myself out of it. You dangled the appropriate carrot, with the appropriate time – not very long, two days. It was a Sunday to Monday. Sunday, if everybody sits on the couch and watches a movie and they eat pizza, it’s whatever. Monday, Brian goes to Seeing Hands all day, and somebody will play with Miles. Everybody has been great.

They say a caregiver holds your hand through the darkness. Brean did that literally.  She learned medical terms she never wanted to know. She advocated and made decisions when Brian had no voice. We need to do better by the caregivers: resources that extend beyond the patient to embrace those doing the daily work of supporting recovery. Spaces where they can speak their truths without fear of their seeming disloyal or ungrateful.

Because here’s what I’ve learned: no one recovers from any amount of suffering alone. The hands that help lift us back on our feet need support to get back on theirs too. 

I am confident Brean will get her footing. So is she.

Brean: I think the way that you build confidence is demonstrated performance. And for better or for worse, I have a lifetime of things that didn’t go as planned but we figured them out. So I do have a lot of faith in my ability to figure it out, even though I don’t know what it looks like yet. Give me some time. I mean, it’s the story of my life, but it was taught to me. When my dad died when we were little, my mother said, “We’ll figure it out, and we did.” It didn’t always look pretty, and it didn’t always follow the game plan, but we figured it out. And so I guess that’s a skill, maybe. A skill? Can I call it that, that we learned from her. And like I said, it didn’t always look like we were figuring it out, but we were.

Brean, you are more than figuring it out. And you are not alone. You know that now. Look to your side. See those walking with you. Recovery doesn’t happen in isolation—it happens in community, in the recognition that life’s most profound challenges are meant to be shared. We just need to remember to put our own oxygen mask on before helping others.

—

Upon finishing the piece, Brean texted, “As I read it, you make me sound like a superhero.” 

I responded, “I see your cape.”  

That is the thing about facing an unexpected challenge in life… it becomes our reality and we are just doing the very best that we can…sometimes barely breathing. To the outsider it seems you are performing feats only a superhero could …because we cannot imagine that same fate in our own lives. We cannot dream that we would have the same strength to face it. But we do. 

We may never see ourselves as the hero, so we need to walk with someone who sees us – even at our messy, authentic best.

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Years ago when I first started writing, I had an audience of one. As I finished every poem, personal essay, or assigned paper, I dialed my dad to read it aloud. He always picked up the phone. I knew I was calling him at work. I might have interrupted him when he was seeing a patient, or later when he was sitting behind the CEO’s desk at Wheeling Hospital, but he always took my call. He didn’t just answer. He made the time to listen to me read. I know I could have just read it aloud to myself. Walking around the room while reading to an imaginary audience, my ears might have caught what my eyes missed. It was different when I read it to my dad. Awkward phrasing, repetitive words, and convoluted sentences suddenly became obvious and unacceptable. Dad’s request for me to “repeat that last paragraph” would always reveal a confusing tangle of ideas ripe for an edit.

Reading to my dad forced me to slow down. Each word must be processed and pronounced, creating a more thorough examination of my work and revealing its natural rhythm and flow. Good writing has a cadence that feels right when spoken. My voice was my most powerful editing tool and my father my most ardent audience. I highly recommend it.

My writing and I were a little lost after Dad died… until I started writing these walks and reading them to Rick Paolina. 

I am blessed that he wants to hear each one. I guess you could say he gets the audio version before anyone else does. While he is easily moved to emotion, he tends to be brought to tears by the transcription of these walks. “It gets windy” as he puts it. If he doesn’t chuckle and cry, the piece isn’t ready yet. The thing we could all learn from him is that he doesn’t just hear me, he listens. He stops everything he is doing. He sits down and listens. He gives me his undivided attention. Sometimes he asks questions for clarity. Sometimes he asks, how can I help that person or that situation?

If you know Rick, you know how big his heart is. He has more stories of coaching a young man, helping a stranger or making someone’s day than you can imagine. One day a friend of his son’s stopped us. Now an adult, he said “Look Coach Paolina, my shoes are tied.” They laughed, shook hands and caught up on the years that had passed since Rick influenced his life as a soccer coach, who insisted on taking care of the details like a well-tied shoe. Just yesterday, he jumped out of the car as if ejected when he saw an elderly man stumble in the parking lot. He calmed him, made sure there was help and then directed parking traffic. When Luke produces the audio for this walk, he will hear more tangential greetings of “Hi. How is your day going?” than on any other walk. No matter how that passerby acknowledges him, Rick responds, “Just fine, thanks” as if everyone asks in return – expecting the best from others no matter what. Rick Paolina knows that this life is made up of the little moments, small gestures, and genuine kindnesses. If you ask him about it, he will shrug and tell you that he might be the only person who smiles or says a kind word to someone each day. He takes that responsibility seriously. If not him, who?

Rick: I’ve been in a few situations where I’ve said to myself that, jeez, I may be the only person this individual talks to today.

Liz: Can you remember a specific instance of that? Because you do say that to me a lot.

Rick: Yeah. The one that comes to my mind that I usually end up getting choked up a little bit about is when I volunteered with Bruno at Catholic Charities for Thanksgiving one year. In addition to serving the community at their establishment, they also deliver meals on wheels every day, seven days a week. Somehow, something got mixed up in one route that people didn’t show up. There were folks who were not going to get their food unless they could figure out a backup plan. We decided that we would take the meals and deliver them to those folks. I don’t know, we had probably 40 or 50 meals. A lot of them went to housing developments. Then we pulled to a really nice house. I took the meal, went up, knocked on the door, and this beautiful lady came to the door dressed like she was going to a ball.

She had her makeup on and her hair was done. She opened the door and I said, “Hi, I have your Thanksgiving meal.” She goes, “Oh, man, I’ve never seen you before.” I said, “No, there was a mix-up and we’re new.” She couldn’t thank me enough. I said,  “You have no idea how much it means to me to be able to do this for you.” I got in the car and I was teared up. Bruno asked me what was wrong, and I said, “That lady, I don’t know what her situation is, but she could not have been kinder. I just feel like I may be the only person that she sees today or talks to today.” And probably that’s my most memorable experience with that.

That story always reminds me of my mother. When she could no longer go out as easily as she once did, she welcomed the plumber, HVAC engineer or food delivery person well dressed and with open arms. She would text me and tell me about how nice the young man or woman was. She would also share some part of their life story as if she had had a visitor over for tea. I can just picture her sitting there, perfectly dressed for the cable guy, making him feel like the most important person of the day. I know he left there a little happier than when he arrived. She was always like that. While in practice with my father, my mom would barely see half of the patients in a day that my dad would. He paid attention to their symptoms and respected their schedules and his. She asked a myriad of questions and paid attention to all the details of a life, respecting their heart and spirit as well as her own. She practiced medicine with her whole heart, seeing each patient as a complete person with a story worth knowing. The healing probably started the moment they sat down with her. 

It is no wonder that my mom’s summary judgement on Rick was simply, “Now that’s a good man.”

When I said, “That story always reminds me of my mother” it also tells you that I hear Rick’s stories more than once – all of them – with the exception of a few, I am sure. I never tire of them. Not just because they are good tales, but because you can hear his heart in the lilt of his voice. He doesn’t take credit for his own generous spirit. He is grateful to his family for that.

Rick: I’ve been fortunate  to live the life that I’ve had, most of it due to my grandparents, my mom, and my brother and sister and I. But we were given an opportunity and I always feel like giving back, being kind is just a little small gesture to say thanks to people, even people you don’t know. Again, you never know what the other person’s circumstance is, and I just always like to feel like they deserve a touch of kindness.

Rick: I’m trying to do the right things, especially when it comes to the people around me. I’m trying to treat people the way I want to be treated. If there’s something that they have going that ‘s causing them to look differently on me, then that’s their issue or problem.

Liz: That’s damn healthy.

Rick: Yeah, it’s a little tougher to do from time to time, but again, at the end of the day I really do try to live every day and treat people kindly, try to make them feel a little better than maybe before they met me or saw me or talked to me. If I can do that, treat the people around me that I love and care about, you being the top of that list, all four of my sons, I’m going to sleep well at night.

Very much like Theresa Kowcheck, whom you met earlier, Rick Paolina never met a stranger. They can chat with anyone, anywhere, as if they’ve known them forever. There’s something magical about these two. They carry a spirit that transforms awkward Uber rides into meaningful connections and turns checkout lines into opportunities for genuine human contact.

What’s their secret? I’m not sure, but I believe it’s a combination of authentic curiosity, the absence of judgment, and a fundamental belief that everyone has something valuable to share. Every story matters.

Also like her, he has an army he is fighting in his mind at times. There is a voice that undermines his very nature. He refers to his army as the Big Fat Liar. 

Rick: The Big Fat Liar. I’ve had a lot of mental and emotional challenges throughout my years. Some were brought on my own. Some of them were a little bit deeper than that. A lot of the things that I feel I struggle with comes from the fact that I didn’t have a dad. My grandfather stepped in taking that place a little bit. Dad left when I was five and never tried to contact us as far as I know. I think I’ve had some abandonment issues that are buried deep down inside.

That said …a lot of the things that I think about my appearance, being overweight, maybe thinking people are judging me or whatever, it is comes from a place in my brain that I had a therapist call the Big Fat Liar.

I don’t know. The Big Fat Liar is a big problem for me because I let these negative thoughts, whether it’s about my dad or about maybe things that I’m doing in my life that I wish I could change, start to snowball. So I’m trying to do better with that.

That critical inner voice that whispers (or sometimes shouts) that we’re frauds, that we don’t belong, that it’s only a matter of time before everyone figures out we don’t deserve to be where we are. The imposter syndrome seems better identified with the more visceral label: The Big Fat Liar. The real danger, as Rick points out, is how quickly these thoughts compound. One negative thought leads to another. Soon, a single mistake becomes evidence of your entire unworthiness. A moment of uncertainty spirals into questioning every decision you’ve ever made. Who among us hasn’t been there? 

The very fact that you worry about not being good enough suggests you care deeply about your impact, your contribution, and your relationships – precisely the qualities that make a person like Rick authentic and worthy. Its universality doesn’t change the weight or the velocity of the snowball once it starts to form.

Before it becomes an avalanche, mindfulness teacher Tara Brach offers a powerful framework called RAIN that can help us accept our negative emotions.

• R – Recognize what’s happening. Simply notice when the “Big Fat Liar” has arrived. “Ah, there’s that feeling of being not enough again.”
• A – Allow the experience to be there. Instead of immediately pushing away the uncomfortable feelings, give them permission to exist. This doesn’t mean you agree with them—just that you’re creating space to see them more clearly.
• I – Investigate them with kindness. Be curious but give yourself grace. What emotion is this? Did something really happen? What is the story I’m telling myself about what’s happening?
• N – Nurture with self-compassion. Offer yourself the understanding, kindness, and reassurance you would give a dear friend or a child struggling with these same feelings. You could simply put your hand on your own heart or whisper, “It’s OK” aloud.

The final step, though not part of the acronym, is to Notice that you are not your thoughts or feelings. You are so much more than this temporary experience of inadequacy. You also share this emotion with all of humanity. As Rick concludes in his reflection, “I’m trying to do better with that.” Aren’t we all? And maybe that continuous effort to grow, to improve, to become more authentic and compassionate – even toward ourselves, especially toward ourselves – is exactly what makes us genuinely “enough” after all. 

After 53 years in his family-owned beer distributorship, Rick has some hard-earned wisdom about life, hard work and the way we treat each other.

Rick: I started working when I was probably 10. My grandfather had my brother and I sweeping floors, mopping floors and cleaning toilets. Jesus, we did everything that you could possibly imagine. But then you work through the next 10, 15, 20 years, and now you’re out selling, and then you’re in management and you’re going to meetings.

Liz: But you don’t forget what it’s like to push a broom.

Rick often says, “Never forget where you came from.” For him, home is Bellaire, Ohio, but the expression means more about humility than geography. Rick urges others to stay grounded, be grateful and to lead with kindness. Never think you are more than someone else. 

Rick: I used to be in my office back at Muxie’s, and somebody would come in and they’d just start like, Hey, did you know that… I’m like, Hold on a second. Take a minute. Take a breath. Good morning. How are you doing? How’s your day going? For me, it worked in a lot of good ways, whether it was dealing with customers or if it was dealing with my kids or just people in general. Again, be kind, be aware of who you’re working with and who you’re talking to. I think it slows things down. Be a good listener.

Liz: Well, it’s supposed to all come back around, right? Isn’t that what my whole project is turning out to be that it’s actually pretty simple. We make it so complicated, but it’s pretty simple.

In our hyper-connected world where everyone’s talking, posting, and sharing opinions, the simple act of listening has become something of a lost art. Real listening happens when we quiet our inner voice, so it has the value of silencing The Big Fat Liar too. The irony is that listening requires nothing but our attention—no special skills, no training, no equipment. And I have found time and again that true listening leaves both parties feeling better than we did at the start.  

Rick sits down across from me and lets me read these blogs aloud. If we are a thousand miles apart, he sets the phone in front of him, grabs his signature rolled-up paper towel in case “it gets windy” and listens. One couldn’t ask for more in this world. It’s that simple.

Liz: Thanks for walking with me. Wasn’t as bad as you expected, was it?

Rick: No, it was not. I’m very proud of you and what you’re doing. I’m just lucky that I’m along with you for the ride…the walk.

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