I had a yellow lab named Ruby. If you have a lab, you’ll know this story too.
Ruby’s whole reason for being on this earth, as far as Ruby was concerned, was tennis balls. If you held one in your hand, every cell in her body lit up. She would plant her front paws, drop her head, and lock onto the ball with the intensity of an animal who had finally found her purpose. The room would fall away. In that moment, you were simply a tennis ball delivery system.
She would chase that ball until her lungs gave out. Then she would come back, drop it (along with her drool) at your feet, and look up at you with a wagging tail and a long tongue saying: do it again.
She’d have done it again forever.
Something about this hit me 10 years ago after coming home from a long work trip delivering coaching experiences to executives. I was drained and feeling like something was just missing in my life.
Ruby came to me as I slid my feet out of my heels and propped them up on my unlit firepit. She slobbered on my toes as her favorite object in the world bounced down my foot and onto the ground. Her tennis ball. Between her and I, she was the only one having fun. And in that moment I realized: the tennis ball was just the way in.
We all have one. Maybe more than one. There’s something you encounter that makes every cell in your body light up the same way. A particular kind of work. A particular kind of conversation. A particular kind of room. A particular kind of problem to solve. You know the feeling. The locked focus. The way the whole room disappears. Your body becomes completely itself.
That’s your tennis ball.
I knew a decade ago my tennis ball was empowering women through fashion. It was around that time I started asking myself what would happen if I picked up and played with fashion like Ruby did with her tennis ball? (Here we are a decade later - never regretting one single day since then!).
There’s a lot of us who forgot our version of the tennis ball. We excused it away or told ourselves it wasn’t big enough, important enough, or mature enough.
If it’s running, put on the shoes. If it’s speaking, grab your microphone. If it’s laughing with friends, get dressed today and go meet your people.
Today, PUT ON the outfit that belongs to your tennis ball. The running shoes. The microphone. The going-out top for a night with your people. Then go throw the ball once. One run, one call, one room. Watch every cell light up.
