Welcome to the Wild + Brave Blog
Make it Easier to Do Your Work
Make it Easier to Do Your Work (LIVE Replay) Join Coach @MorganHendrix LIVE to learn how to identify and escape the chaos that can arise when planning is interrupted by doing. We'll also leverage our brain’s "central executive" to help us prioritize and organize our workload. We'll use some practical techniques to make doing –…
May You Be Free to Focus on What matters
Happy October! I say we start out this new month — this final quarter of 2024 with a wild and brave wish: 💫 May You be Free to Focus on What Matters. Wherever we’re at, whatever is going on, we have things to do. Relationships, careers, passion projects — they all take…
Spotlight on Creativity
💡 Definition of the Character Strength of Creativity: ”Thinking of novel and productive ways to conceptualize and do things; includes artistic achievement but is not limited to it.” (From the VIA Institute on Character)
Spotlight on Love of Learning
💡 Definition of the Character Strength Love of Learning: ”Mastering new skills, topics, and bodies of knowledge, whether on one’s own or formally; related to the strength of curiosity but goes beyond it to describe the tendency to add systematically to what one knows.” (From the VIA Institute on Character)
Spotlight on Judgment
💡 Definition of the Character Strength of Judgment: ”Thinking things through and examining them from all sides; not jumping to conclusions; being able to change one’s mind in light of evidence; weighing all evidence fairly.” (From the VIA Institute on Character)
Spotlight on Curiosity
💡 Definition of the Character Strength of Curiosity: ”Taking an interest in ongoing experience for its own sake; finding subjects and topics fascinating; exploring and discovering.” (From the VIA Institute on Character) Intervention / Actions: Overuse & Balancing Strengths: Quotes that have to do with Curiosity:
Emotions are Temporary Messengers
Your emotions are like an iconic crime family. Full of colorful characters with quirks. They’re connected by gossip and often travel with a posse. How you deal with one of them impacts how all the rest of them treat you. Sadness visits and you leave them on the doorstep? Happiness will snub you after a…
4 Kinds of Hyperacusis
What is Hyperacusis? As someone living with hyperacusis, I’m vulnerable to seeing the condition through my own lens. So let’s start with the way The Hearing Health Foundation defines hyperacusis: 📖 Hyperacusis is a debilitating disorder of sound tolerance, where even ordinary, everyday sounds are perceived as abnormally loud and sometimes excruciatingly painful. In some…
Use Your Character Strengths to Feel Better
My head feels like a ball of raw meat, aching from a beating, oozing blood from my ears. You wouldn’t know it to look at me, but my brain feels like an open wound. Hyperacusis can be…unpleasant. I haven’t had a high sensory pain day like this for months. There is no convenient day to…
Hi my name is Morgan and I have a sensory disorder
Sudden onset hyperacusis changed almost everything about how I engage the world, use my brain, and experience relationships. When it started in 2020, this auditory suffering pulverized my ability to focus, to think, and to live a vibrant cognitive life. I was forced out of the zone of effortless thinking into the gym of mental…
Set Experience Goals
Set Experience Goals In order to leverage your brain’s power of competitive selection, let’s think about what we want to experience more of. Enjoying life more means different things to each of us, and can change based on what’s happening around us. I call the things you want to experience more of experience goals. A…
What is Competitive Selection?
The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly Life is never just one thing. Take today for example. I slept in, fixed a fancy homemade coconut latte, and sat down to work in my fuzzy clean slippers. (The Good) The sleep in was sponsored by a persistent ringing in my left ear, and a growing wave…
Wildly Mindful Podcast
Wildly Mindful Podcast Enjoy the latest resources offered by Wild + Brave to help you be Wildly Mindful in just a few minutes. Enjoy video guidance and printable worksheets to help you increase awareness, presence, and well being through mindfulness. Videos include Guided breathing, meditation, mindfulness, reflection, and journaling practices to help you think wild,…
Make the Choice You Can
Make the Choice You Can When I first started grappling with hyperacusis, a specialist explained that I was showing signs of what doctors call “loudness hyperacusis” and “pain hyperacusis.” He also warned me that patients often progress to experience more forms of hyperacusis, including what they call “annoyance hyperacusis” and “fear hyperacusis.” Understanding the differences,…
5-File Framework – Workflow Workshop Highlights
I had a lot of fun last week in our January Workflow Workshop, drinking coffee and looking at how to simplify the top-level organization in digital (and analog) files to make storing and using the information easier. We looked at a five-file framework to slim down how much stuff is visible when we start digging…
The First 5 Files
Your First Five Files What do you see when you open Google Drive? How about the Downloads on your computer? What most of us see is a mishmash of important documents and total trash. The file we’re actively working on is surrounded by documents we don’t recognize and projects from years ago. Maybe you’re more…
Think Wild Book – Free Excerpt
What are Mental Growth Tactics? It’s easy to know when you’re exercising your muscles. We grow the strength of our bodies by intelligent use and effective rest. The same goes for our mental faculties. Focus, clarity, joy, and wisdom are all fruit of mentally engaging the world around us. In Think Wild, coach Morgan Hendrix shares…
Listen Like a Fish
Today, I’m celebrating Big Fish Day. It’s not exactly celebrating one year without alcohol, but rather the one year anniversary of realizing alcohol was hurting me. January 1st, 2023, I started a dry January. I planned to clear my head from all the whiskey nog and celebratory rum cocktails that were part of my life…
Book Publication Announcement: Think Wild
Coach Morgan Hendrix released her first book at the end of 2023, and it is now available for purchase on Amazon.com or directly from the team at WildAndBrave.com. The book is a first volume in the new Wild + Brave Growth Tactics Series, titled Think Wild: Mental Growth Tactics for Brave Humans. Purchase Think Wild Get a…
Stay In the Game on Your Goals
Keep Chasing Your Dreams If being a coach has taught me anything, it’s that chasing after wild and brave possibilities changes our lives for the better…but the chase can make life anything but easy. Personal growth, professional aspirations, and meaningful goals we have for making a positive impact on our world all require us…
3 Ways to Enjoy Your Life More
3 Ways to Enjoy Your Life More Be Aware Be Wowed Be Wild Maybe your life needs big changes. Or your workplace needs a personality replacement. But we can’t always wait for things to change before we enjoy our lives more. Whether you’re riding out a hurricane or tough quarter at work, enjoying your…
Catch Up Your Reading (in 1 Hour or Less)
Feeling Book Guilt? Had a great conversation the other day with a client. We were talking about all of the things that pile up and cause professional development guilt. We all know we need to keep growing so we don’t fall behind, but it isn’t easy to make time for all the things that…
Dealing with Grief
Holiday Nostalgia: Joy & Grief We celebrate most holidays to the tune of two “Eves” around my house. Birthday Eve Eve, New Year’s Eve Eve, and this week — Christmas Eve Eve. It’s like a tiny personal holiday to get some extra celebration in before the official day. But today’s eve-squared is salted with nostalgia…
Planning in 3D (20 Minute Planning Tactic)
How can we plan for success? And can we do it quickly, or do we have to become “serious planner-type people” in order to plan well? Most of the Wild + Brave humans I work with feel like they aren’t exactly “great planners.” They have busy lives, and constantly-changing priorities. They need a form of…
Deliberate Sanity – Life in Low Gear
Today it took me a good hour to make a snack. I didn’t get distracted with texting friends, or pause mid-prep to dance to music. A few years back, that would be the only reason a 20 minute activity would have tripled in duration. But today the work was silent, methodical, deliberate. No attempt to…
Dangerous Reflection (Growth Traps)
Reflection is essential to growth. If we don’t think into our lives, experiences, relationships, choices, and results, we’ll be at the mercy of chaos and entropy. Reflection is the fulcrum for seizing opportunity and influencing the path of our own lives. But there’s a sneaky, counterfeit form of reflection that can kill growth. It’s on…
Guided Gratitude Reflection – 5 Minute Journaling Exercise
Guided Gratitude Reflection Welcome to Wild + Brave, I’m coach Morgan. Today we’re doing a guided gratitude reflection. I’ll share some journaling prompts to prime your brain for noticing and savoring the things in your life that have made you stronger, healthier, happier, and more connected. Even writing down one answer to each…
Self-Dismissive Labeling (Growth Traps)
Sneaky Growth Traps This month I want to cover some of the growth traps that munch us. They’re habits, behaviors, and mindsets that sneak into our lives, and limit or prevent growth. They do this while giving us a false sense of permission, safety, stability, or truth. They’re tricky like that. One Growth Trap that…
Getting to the Other Side of Suffering
Before the “almost category 5” hurricane Ian made a direct hit on my home town, I was learning a lot about how great thinkers have handled suffering and trouble. In my reading, coaching conversations, and coffee walks with friends in the park I had been chewing through the more existential side of suffering. Does suffering…
After the Storm [Hurricane Ian 2022]
It’s been intimidating trying to capture the experiences of the storm we just weathered here in southwest Florida. The first hurricane I remember was Hurricane Andrew. My family lived in Fort Myers at the time, and our family businesses were on Sanibel Island. For Hurricane Andrew we closed up our little mom-and-pop style motels on…
Active Constructive Responding
I didn’t invent most of the communication techniques I have become “known” to my clients for helping them learn. ButResearch I’ve come to believe it’s a colossal waste of time to try to define things as “my process” or “my techniques.” In any thinking partnership, ownership of ideas is fuzzy at best, counterproductive at worst.…
Sharing Needles
Sharing Needles Today I’m laid back in a lazy boy, sharing needles with half a dozen other humans at my local community acupuncture clinic. Each of us in our butt palaces, drawn up around a circle, with a doctor of Chinese medicine floating counter clockwise to put needles into us. I will look like…
We Get Better at Asking for Help
Relationship Patterns Aren’t Fixed This week has taught me something that is quietly helpful; we get better at asking for help over time. I don’t know who my dad borrowed the wild idea from, but as a teenager I remember him telling me “Morgan, the quality of your life will be determined by the questions…
How to Reduce Summer Squabbles
It Happened Right In Front of Me… I was sitting at the clubhouse pool enjoying my book, when a family with three young children descended with bags, floats, and a cooler full of treats. Mom lathered the kids in sunblock, Dad blew up the floats and the beach ball, and they all jumped in. Everything…
Living Gamefully
Living Gamefully One of my best allies lately in my own personal growth journey has been Dr. Jane McGonigal. I was 34 when I suddenly acquired a sensory disorder. Something changed in my brain, and I have battled crippling auditory issues for what seems like no reason. In the 18 months since, I’ve had my…
Hard to Help
I’ve been hard to help lately. Has that ever happened to you? You don’t mean to be a martyr and hog all the hard stuff. It’s not that you’re a perfectionist (maybe), or that you have energy to spare (who does). Maybe it starts because you’re a helper. You’re not against receiving help so much…
Tools We Use (and Recommend)
We’re Not Big Affiliates One thing you’ll learn quickly about Wild + Brave is that we don’t use Amazon affiliate marketing as a part of our business model. We don’t like the idea that our recommendations and examples could become self-serving. We don’t want to profit from purchases you make for everyday items. We…
Why I’m Not an Amazon Affiliate Anymore
Why I’m Not an Amazon Affiliate Anymore Lots of coaches and consultants support their revenue model by getting a tiny percentage of the sales they refer over to Amazon. In fact there was a time when we did it too. But then it felt weird. If you know me as a friend,…
Automations + Tech Hacks for Better Sleep
Automations + Tech Hacks for Sleeping + Waking: This week I reflected on how much better my physical energy, mental clarity, and emotional flexibility is when I’m sleeping and waking on a steady schedule, directed by light. When I’m camping, I can get away with letting the sun schedule my sleep and wake times.…
Living by Light
Living by Light Whenever I’m camping, I fall into the rhythm of sunset and sunrise. The natural bedtime grows in the space allowed by putting my phone to bed and listening to the chatter of the wild. As sleep settles in a rhythm, the waking follows with ease, carried on the glow of sunrise. …
Dead Tired, Avoiding Sleep (Tinnitus Journal)
Dead Tired, Avoiding Sleep (Tinnitus at Bedtime) From Coach Morgan’s Tinnitus Journal, Written November 10, 2021 I don’t talk about my tinnitus a lot in this blog. Mostly because I’m still trying not to think about it. As my audiologist says, “if you think about your tinnitus, you’ve already lost.” (No really, he…
Finding Your Purpose for the Year
Figuring Out Your Purpose for the Year One of my favorite questions to ask friends this time of year is “what do you think next year is for?” To be fair, it’s a tough question to answer, rude of me to ask it. But just because it can feel like an impossible question to…
Selecting Your Next Goal
Selecting Next Year’s Goals As December arrives I always start interviewing new habits, goals, and skills to see what I will reach for in the new year. Some years I do it with angst, urgency, and desperation. Usually when that happens, I’m feeling behind, or worried that I’m not really getting anywhere in my life.…
Later Hunting
What We’ve Been Putting Off Even without pandemic pressures, “Laters” tend to pile up. Some laters are the usual… need to schedule the dentist, time to change the oil in the car, must get out to visit family members we haven’t seen in too long. But laters also include things like stopping at the farmer’s…
Don’t Let Your Year-End Review Get Heavy
I think it’s because reflection is so valuable that we often fail to do it. In our desperate need for fresh insights, new motivation, and a sense of accomplishment, the reflection process looms larger than life. And if asking questions about our recent past begins to feel heavy, we delay doing it until we can…
Go Get Your Silence
A Moment of Silence I had a second of silence this week. Lately my ears ring constantly, but for an instant, the roar of tinnitus blinked. It’s only happened twice in the last 358 days. But it wasn’t guaranteed to happen at all. The doctors don’t know why I’m suddenly super sensitive to sound, or…
Use Your Body To Clear Your Mind
A Body-First Approach to Responding to Stress This week I’ve been thinking about the mind/body connections of stress, anxiety, and negative emotions. When emotional triggers pop up in life, one of the most effective things we can do is to give ourselves space by interrupting our physical stress response. It’s nice when we can interrupt…
Use Your Body to Build a Resilient Mind
A Stress Reduction Technique from the Wild + Brave Coaching Archive This live coaching originally broadcast on June 11, 2020 and features Wild + Brave’s Coach Morgan Hendrix, and several Wild + Brave Humans (thank you to Johnna, Willian, and Anthony for contributing to the live conversation) who added their insights to the live coaching…
Defeat Distraction + Timewasters Using “Disinvestment”
Defeat Distraction + Time Wasting Using Disinvestment We all do things we know aren’t valuable. Whether we call them time wasters, downtime, or addictions; time we desperately need gets lost in predictable ways every week. My friends and I have noticed something called “phone time” has gobbled up our spare minutes. Things like scrolling…
4 Types of Coaches & When to Work With Them
4 Kinds of Coaches and When to Work With Them There are lots of coaches out there. So how do you know when you’re ready for a coach, and which kind of coach you need? Having been a professional coach for over a decade and having had many coaches over the years, here’s a lens…