This one is personal. This is not a leadership framework episode. This is my story -- and I shared it because I think it belongs here.

Fifteen years of Memorial Days. Fifteen years of going back to DC with my kids. Walking the same halls. Watching new families walk in carrying that same fresh weight we carried the first time.

Someone asked me once how I am different from the families who have been coming for twenty-five years and are still standing in the same place emotionally. I told them -- I am not different. My choices are.

That is what this episode is about. Not the circumstances. What we do with them.

WHAT WE COVER

I take you inside what it felt like to walk into that space for the first time -- surrounded by hundreds of people who did not need an explanation, who understood exactly what it meant to carry this specific kind of loss.

I talk about what fifteen years of that same trip looks like now -- how the grief has changed, how my family has changed, and what I see when I walk through those halls today that I could not see in the beginning.

And I share the five words I heard the day my world collapsed that I did not understand then -- but I do now.

SOMETHING I WANT YOU TO CARRY

You are not defined by what happened to you. You are shaped by what you chose to do after. Those are not the same thing -- and the difference between them is the whole story.

The circumstances are not a choice. What we do with them always is.

Sit With This

Which hard are you carrying right now that was never yours to keep -- and which one is building something worth keeping?

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Thank you for being here, Friend. You are capable, you are seen, and you are ready to step into your calling. Choose joy until joy chooses you! 💛

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• For more information on the song:
• Guitalele's Happy Place by Stefan Kartenberg (c) copyright 2017 Licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution (3.0) license. https://dig.ccmixter.org/files/JeffSpeed68/56194 Ft: Kara Square (mindmapthat)
• Copyright Daily Choosing Joy LLC 2026