Above The Hand, I write my word of the year. For 2026, that’s ‘animal,’ a reminder that I’m not a head on a stick.

Below the hand, I write something else I don’t want to forget. It could be a quote, or an intention, or anything at all. This year, it’s things I want to allow myself because they make life softer.

I’ve been calling this model The Hand, but that’s incorrect. It’s My Hand, Jule’s Hand.

Maybe this will work and maybe it won’t, but I want to offer an invitation: Would you like to share Your Hand?

Examples are helpful when learning something new, but so far, we’ve seen only mine. I’m curious to see what Other Hands look like, especially how people handled those first two fingers. I separated ‘Work’ into ‘Create’ and ‘Contribute.’ Did you stay with that or do something different?

Send in Your Hand, and next week we’ll see all The Hands that were shared. Feel free to put your name on it or leave it off.

May we see Your Hand?

PS: So excited!

Chewing the Cud of Good

Thankful for time.

The post 16. The Hand: Flourishes & An Invitation appeared first on Jule Kucera.

Play is whatever is play for you, things you love to do so much that when you do them, time is meaningless.

For me, two of those playthings are working with clay and taking photos. Another is having adventures.

Adventures don’t have to be big (Patagonia!). They can be smaller, like exploring a new-to-me coffee shop, city park, or bookstore. One of my favorite play adventures is looking at rocks. Seriously.

Play may look silly—or stupid—to someone else. No matter. Play is a delightful thing that makes our whole-self sing. Let’s play!

*New here? Welcome! The series on the Human Compass and the Hand begins here.

Chewing the Cud of Good

Thankful for places that nourish my soul, and for the double adventure of rocks in Patagonia.

The post 15. The Fourth-Pinky Finger appeared first on Jule Kucera.

Love

Is there really a blood vessel that runs directly from the ring finger to the heart? I guess it doesn’t matter—our culture has made that connection.

Originally, and for a long time, I listed family and friends at the tip of the third finger. Then I realized I was leaving out someone essential: Roxie.

And then, when I showed my Hand to my friend Teresa, she asked where I was on the Hand (since Jule was missing). She thought my name should go with the ring finger, but I explained it fit with the thumb, under Be Well.

Until I realized she was right and I was wrong.

‘Jule’ belongs with Roxie and family and friends. I can’t love others if I don’t love myself.

*New here? Welcome! The series on the Human Compass and the Hand begins here.

Chewing the Cud of Good

Thankful for my home and being home.

The post 14. The Third-Ring Finger appeared first on Jule Kucera.

If the first finger is Create, the work I do for pure joy, the second is the work I do for other reasons.

Over the years, the actions I’ve associated with this finger have changed more than any other. Teach at UC. Serve on a board. Volunteer formally at the library and informally at my condo building. Teach writers about StoryJoules.

I see both Create and Contribute as work, but different. Contribute is work that matters, but it has motivations beyond personal creativity.

As for your Hand, label your index and middle fingers with whatever terms best serve your life.

Next up: the fourth finger, less complex to label but just as complex to live.

Chewing the Cud of Good

Thankful that my mom is safely moved into assisted living, and that it was easier than it could have been (even though it was still hard).

The post 13. The Second-Middle Finger appeared first on Jule Kucera.

Burnett and Evans identified four areas of life:

• Work
• Health
• Love
• Play

The Work area stymied me, until I saw my work falling in two areas: the work I did for the pure joy of it (writing, such as writing these posts), and the work I did for other reasons (teaching at UC, or special projects for my condo building). So, I split them apart, and that’s what led to my 5-item list and then to the 5-digit Hand.

My first finger is ‘Create.’

This is where I most fully and joyfully express my true self. It’s where I find myself in Flow, as described by Csikszentmihalyi. It’s where encodings thrive, as described by Jim Collins, in What to Make of a Life.

Collins says encodings are deeper and more powerful than strengths. My interpretation of encodings is that they are a  unique combination of inherent strengths that become most powerful when they work together.

I know I’m in my encodings when doing something that uses my superpower, my unique combo, as identified by a former boss. My superpower is to assimilate and simplify complex information to create a tool others can use to accomplish something critically important to them.

The first time I did this was in grade school, when I created an illustrated book out of construction paper. The book was a tool to encourage me out of illness.*

It happened at Arthur Andersen, when I was sent to Atlanta to spend time with Reuben Bolling, the best analyst in his division, to learn how he thought so we could train others to think like Bolling. Thanks to Reuben (and his deep Southern accent), we created a model that included as Step 5: “Waller in the Data.”

This process of analyze-synthesize-create happened multiple times in my instructional design and talent development roles: learning something from experts, simplifying it, then creating something so others could learn how to do it. It happened again with StoryJoules.

Now that StoryJoules is complete, I don’t know what will join ‘Blog’ at the tip of the index finger, but that’s okay. It’s nice to have some breathing room.

For you, I’d hold off on labeling your first two fingers until after we’ve covered the second, so you can decide the labels that best fit your life.

*Maybe TMI: When I was a kid, my mom showed me tenderness only when I was sick. I didn’t realize this until I went away to college, and found myself getting sick every time before I went home. Writing this post resulted in a more recent insight: “Jule, isn’t it interesting that you got bronchitis just before you were scheduled to visit your mother?”

***New here? Welcome! The series on the Human Compass and the Hand begins here.

Chewing the Cud of Good

Thankful for peonies and the ants that help them open.

The post 12. The First-Index Finger appeared first on Jule Kucera.

Money.*

To phrase it in alignment with Be Well, let’s call it Financial Wellness.

Sometimes models for designing your life omit financial wellness. Sometimes it’s included in the Work area. But we can decouple financial wealth from work.

I place finances with the thumb because Be Well focuses on the physical, spiritual, mental, and emotional energy needed to live our desired lives, and money is congealed energy.

I can spend my energy to clean my condo, or I can use some congealed energy (money) to pay someone else to do it.

To anyone who says money doesn’t matter, I say you’ve never not had enough.

As for wealth, money isn’t the only kind. In The Energy of Money, Maria Nemeth identifies six types of wealth:

• Creativity
• Enjoyment
• Money
• Physical Vitality
• Support of Friends
• Time

Using these six, I measured my wealth before and after retirement. I had more income before retirement but more wealth after (especially Time).

When we’ve got the whole Hand, you may want to align finances to a different digit, but we’ll leave it here for now. We need to make sure Financial Wellness is part of our Hand. Where exactly we put it is less important.

*Almost always Pink Floyd sings in my head when I say that word, thanks to someone in 1974 in the dorm room above ours. They put the song on continuous repeat until dawn. Not the album—the song!

Chewing the Cud of Good

Thankful for YNAB**, because it allows me to boss my money around, rather than be worried about having enough.

**Not an affiliate link, because I don’t believe in them.

? Missed the beginning of this series? It’s here.

The post 11. The Thumb, More Details appeared first on Jule Kucera.

It’s overwhelming to try to do everything I think I need to do for my wellness, and honestly, impossible. Can I really: make all my meals at home, from scratch with organic ingredients, get 30 minutes of aerobic exercise a day, do strength training at least three days a week, do back exercises, pelvic floor exercises, range of motion exercises, learn a new language, put together a jigsaw puzzle, have daily supportive interactions with other humans, follow a spiritual practice, improve my breathing, improve my balance, and get at least eight hours of sleep every night? (I’m sure there’s more—what’s on your list?)

It reminds of when I worked for McDonald’s. There was a 5-inch-thick red binder (in the olden days before it was online) with everything a McDonald’s manager was supposed to do to run a proper restaurant. If you added up the time required to do all the things, managers would need to work 26 hours a day.

What I do instead is look for weak links and do something to strengthen any weak link. It’s a bonus if an activity supports more than one area.

Right now, this is how I’d evaluate my compass:

Body:    Weak link = breathing.

Spirit:   Strong link (474-day streak of meditating every day).

Soul:     Thin link, continue to focus on a weekly 1:1 with a friend.

Mind:   Strong link (this used to be strong thanks to learning, but my need now is a calm mind, and meditation calms my mind).

If you were to evaluate your compass, what would you see?

Where there’s a weak link, it’s efficient (but not always best) to do activities that overlap, strengthening more than one area of the compass. When I walk Roxie, I get to be with the dog I love (soul), and we walk fast on the return trip (body), and I do a breathing exercise as we walk (body + mind).

This illness I’ve had (I’m much better now but still regaining my strength, thanks for asking) has been a gift. It’s made me realize two things:

1. I don’t currently get enough of a cardio workout in my life.
2. The way I breathe is shallow, shaped by my history of being fearful and hypervigilant.

Realizing that my thinking influences my breathing, I have a new mantra I say sometimes during breathing exercises:

In:       I fully and freely

Out:    dance with life.

In:       I am divinely protected

Out:    and completely loved.

There’s one more ingredient to Be Well. We’ll save that for next week.

*New to these here parts? The series on the Human Compass and the Hand begins here.

Chewing the Cud of Good

Thankful for the moon. And the astronauts who took us there.

The post 10. The Thumb: Details appeared first on Jule Kucera.

I placed 5^th in vault and 6^th in floor exercise. After my floor ex routine, my mom harshly critiqued my failure to smile. It was the only time she came to one of my meets.

What matters, relative to the Hand, is one boy on our team. He was famous because he was the first person in New Jersey to do a double back summy. This was in the olden days of two-inch thick mats on top of a basketball court, not the special spring floors they have now.

This boy was missing most of the fourth finger on his left hand, from about where a ring would rest onward. I was impressed with his skill, but more fascinated by this finger that was mostly missing. I wondered:

How did that finger get chopped off when his father was chopping wood? It seems the pinky or thumb would be more accessible.

 

When he gets married, where will he wear his wedding ring?

 

Was he as glad as I was that the missing digit was his ring finger, not his thumb?

Back to the Hand…

We are agreed that of our five digits, the thumb matters most, yes?

This is why the thumb gets labeled with the area of life that allows all others: Be Well.

There’s more to say about this Be Well thumb, more detail. But I’m going to leave it until next week because my current condition proves the point. I’ve been sick with a hefty chest cold for almost three weeks. I’m feeling much better than I was, but I’m tired, so stopping here.

Chewing the Cud of Good

Thankful for my immune system. And a friend who recommended an incentive spirometer.

The post 9. The Thumb appeared first on Jule Kucera.

That question gnawed at me for years. I hunted for my purpose in the pages of books, ruminated on my nighttime dreams, observed my life like Sherlock looking for clues.

Marguerite Welter was one of my best bosses. She held a high standard and believed I could meet it. Never let me prevaricate an inch. Believed I could become the person I wanted to be.

Like all good bosses, she invested time and money in her people. We’d known each other for several years, as colleagues in one company, now as boss and direct report.

She stopped me in the hallway.

Marguerite: “Jule, I want to send you to a week-long workshop, but  I’m not sure which one.”

Me: “Oh?” (A week-long getaway! Yay!)

Marguerite: I’ve been to both. They’re excellent. Both are in California.

Me: (Waits expectantly, while thinking, California! California! California!)

Marguerite: Here’s my question: Do I send you to the one where you realize how fucked up you are, or to the one where you already know you’re fucked up and figure out what to do about it?

Me: Oh, I know I’m fucked up! (With probably more enthusiasm than the situation warranted, partly because I was embarrassed that it was so obvious and partly because: California.)

Marguerite: Good. You’re going to Will Schutz’s The Human Element workshop. I’ll get you the info.

At the workshop, toward the end—sitting on the floor because we’d previously abandoned our circle of chairs for a guided meditation—the facilitator, Will Schutz, took a chair at the front. He was older. We knew he didn’t lead workshops often anymore, and the rumor was this would be his last.

Schutz asked, “What’s the meaning of life?”

No one volunteered an answer, so he started calling on us. He’d heard a handful of answers by the time he called on me. I looked at his round, bald head and his sharp eyes, took a breath, and answered:

“The meaning of life is the meaning I give it.”

.       .       .

We each make our own decisions about how to lead our lives. My answer may not align with yours. That’s not only okay, it’s good. Imagine a world where the only flowers were red roses. Not just boring, but a real bummer for biodiversity.

My definition of meaning informs my decision about my purpose, which is the first thing that gets written on the Hand.

But first, you need a Hand!

Place your hand palm-down on a piece of plain white paper (8 ½” x 11” works well). With your other hand, use a pen to trace around it. Voilá! A Hand!

Then write your purpose in the flat of the Hand.

If you’re not sure what your purpose is, no worries, just write something that can be a placeholder for now. You’ll make many changes to your Hand as you go.

Next week, we’ll move on to the digits, probably taking them one at a time.

Chewing the Cud of Good

Thankful for spring flowering plants that smell so good.

The post 8. Building the Hand: Purpose Before Process appeared first on Jule Kucera.

The Human Compass is strategic. It sets direction. Its focus questions are what and why, supported by how much (quality, time, and resources).

For example: I want to take a short vacation, away from home, in a place where I’m not tending to someone else. Why? To give myself space to recover, re-center, and renew. I want the investment of time and money to be enough to give me a nice rest, but keep the investment smaller (especially after Patagonia!).

The Hand is tactical. Its focus question is how, supported by when, where, and who.

For example: I’ve been a football fan since I was 12, even though I lost my Super Bowl bet with my father, choosing Johnny Unitas and the Colts over Joe Namath and the Jets. (I still remember that I spotted him the betting line: 18 points.)

 

I’ve always had a mild desire to visit the Pro Football Hall of Fame (HOF) in Canton, Ohio, but have never been. Canton is just as close as Chicago. I can easily drive it in a day. Since I need to go to the Cleveland Clinic in April, I can tack the HOF onto that trip. Cleveland and Canton are only an hour apart, so it will be easy.

You’ve already established your Human Compass. Next week—pardon the pun—we’ll start to flesh out the Hand.

Chewing the Cud of Good

Thankful for good advice.

The post 7. The Human Compass vs. The Hand appeared first on Jule Kucera.