Legend has it that it started with a bet. Hemingway, over lunch, offered to write a full story in six words. He jotted them on a napkin: For sale: baby shoes, never worn. He won the wager.

Years later, Larry Smith posed a similar challenge to the readers of SMITH Magazine: tell your story in six words. By morning, 10,000 people had answered the call. Some were funny, others deeply moving. What they all shared was clarity. Raw and unexpected.

This is the paradox of constraint. Research shows that limits can fuel creativity, not stifle it. The six-word memoir offers just such a limit. A boundary that pushes us to the edge of language, clarity and emotion. With fewer words, we say more.

This kind of constraint does more than sharpen our storytelling. It can also help us uncover something deeper, our through line. The link between who we are and how we lead. That steady thread of purpose and direction that gives shape to our work, our leadership and our lives.

Your through line may come from experience or from vision. You do not need decades of hindsight to discover it. Sometimes all you need is a prompt. Six words. One story.

So what about yours?

If you want to look forward: What lights you up? What gets you out of bed without an alarm clock? What would you share if you could only say one thing?

If you want to look back: Sketch your life as a line. Mark the highs and lows. Stand back. Look for patterns. Then let those themes guide your six words.

Here’s mine: Catch and release, embrace the paradox.

Now it’s your turn.

Six words. One story. A glimpse at your through line. Share yours. And if you post online, tag me. I’d love to read them.