I was building Legos with my daughter the other day, or more accurately, I was sipping lukewarm coffee watching her mind at work. Her tower of blocks fell over, and I instinctively said, “Oh no!” She picked up the pieces and said, “Rebuild.” This made me smile because it was an example of her taking in what I say when we are building together. Any time any of their creations fall or don’t fit quite like they want them to, I remind the kids to take a deep breath and rebuild. This started with my son because he is a very focused little person and loves to build with Legos, blocks, and especially magnetic tiles. He would get overly frustrated when something he made toppled over. I wanted him to understand that it was okay to be frustrated, but also understand that there is an opportunity to learn and rebuild when things don’t go your way. This lesson has been passed on to my little girl. Her announcement that it was time to rebuild got me thinking about the bigger picture. There are so many things that can happen throughout our days that could put us in a tailspin of negative thoughts or emotions. But what if we simply acknowledged the bummer, said our “oh no”, and then said to ourselves—"Ok, rebuild.”

Here is a perfect example from this week. I had a reading at an outdoor park. I have been super excited about it because it is my second time getting the opportunity to have storytime at this location. The first one had a couple of hiccups of its own. The weather seemed like it was going to be terrible—and not many families want to venture to an outdoor storytime with the threat of thunderstorms. We made it through somehow without any rain! But, fast forward to this week and my husband is out of town for work. I try not to bring my kids to my readings, which sounds silly because they love books, but bringing kids to work can be tricky. They don’t quite understand why they shouldn’t cuddle up right next to me while I read—I mean that’s what we do at home, why not here?! I was going to let them come and sit with my friend and her kids. She ended up not being able to attend, which I totally understand, and she helped me figure out childcare for the timeframe of the event, so it all worked out. However, her text came right after the text I got about the mic I was going to use not being able to be delivered in time. I have a handheld mic to use, but it’s tricky holding a mic and flipping pages to a story so the lapel mic would have been nice. After the two texts in a row, I could have done a deep dive into negative thoughts. I could have gone down a rabbit hole of situations changing and things falling through. But—I didn’t. I chose to “rebuild.”

You have to remember to talk to yourself, otherwise, you’ll start listening to yourself. I don’t know about you, but if I start listening to myself my negative voice chimes in, letting me know it’s going to be horrible. That imposter syndrome starts bubbling to the surface. Well, I didn’t listen. I said “Oh no” and moved on. I set my alarm for a bit earlier, packed the car the night before, loaded up the mic I did have, and said a prayer—grateful for another opportunity to read my books to kids. It’s about the ability to pivot and change our perspectives. What if we don’t view our failures as a negative thing, but view them as a learning opportunity? What if our lack of “success” – whatever that word means to you, is just invisible progress? I believe it was James Clear who said there are seeds being planted in a failure that leads to future success. So, I will keep trying new things, even if that means some failure and I’ll keep telling my kids to rebuild. I’ll keep talking to myself instead of listening to the negative voice in my head. And I hope you will too.

I hope you have an amazing weekend. Take some chances and say yes to an adventure.

Happy reading, my friends.