Hope Comes to Visit

Season 2 - Light, Audacity, and Showing Up- My Word (and Work) for 2026

• Danielle Elliott Smith • Season 2 • Episode 1

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This year, my word of the year is Audacity—not the loud kind, the tender kind that says: I’m still here, and I’m going to live like it.

If you are here right now and/or planning to press play today, thank you. You’ve taken a chance on me—and on this new season.

I’m choosing Audacity for its tiny brave steps, presence over perfection, and hope that shows up.

Season 2 starts officially starts here. Season one left us with FORTY-THREE episodes of hope and I am damn proud of that. 
Here and now, I have the AUDACITY to believe there are more extraordinary and epic, challenging and beautiful, inspired AND inspiring stories of hope yet to be shared and life that is worth showing up for.

So, in this first episode, I share my word of the year—Audacity—and why I'm choosing the tender, steady kind of bold: showing up, taking tiny consistent action, and letting hope light the way....as well as the AUDACITY framework that is lighting and igniting my path for 2026, as well as lessons from sobriety and, of course, a loving nudge to pick YOUR word for 2026.

Mentioned in the podcast: Atomic Habits by James Clear and Hell Yeah or No by Derek Sivers

 xo, Danielle

Thank you for listening to Hope Comes to Visit. If this conversation helps, follow the show, share it with someone who needs hope today, and leave a review - it helps others find their way to these conversations.

New episodes drop every Monday, so you can begin your week with a little light and a lot of hope.

For more stories, reflections, and ways to connect, visit www.DanielleElliottSmith.com or follow along on Instagram @daniellesmithtv and @HopeComestoVisit



SPEAKER_00:

I get to acknowledge what's true. I name the season that I'm in. And if this is something you're doing, what season are you in? Are you in a place where you can grow? Are you in a place where you need to set the foundation? Are you in a place where you are struggling and you have some work to do? Having audacity means that you need to acknowledge what's true. Hi friends. Welcome back to Hope Comes to Visit. I'm Danielle Elliott Smith. I'm so glad you're here. If you pressed play today, thank you. You've taken a chance on me this past year on my voice, on these conversations, on the hope that we have been trying to allow to visit for you. And I really don't take that lightly. Let's take a quick moment to thank the people that support and sponsor the podcast. When life takes an unexpected turn, you deserve someone who will stand beside you. St. Louis attorney Chris Duly offers experienced one-on-one legal defense. Call 314-384-4000 or 314-DUI help. Or you can visit Dulilawfirm.com. That's D-U-L-E lawfirm.com for a free consultation. I created this podcast, this community, because I firmly believe that everyone has a story of hope inside them somewhere that can inspire someone else. And you, by being here and by listening to these conversations, you have proven this to be true. You've shown up with your hearts, your stories of bravery and grief, your resilience and willingness to move through the hard, your commitment to seek joy, and the way you choose to live in big and small ways. The people we've had on the podcast and the way you have shared these stories are proving each and every day that example, hearing stories of your own life coming from someone else's mouth, it inspires us to keep going in ways that sometimes we don't recognize until we hear it happening. The space has continued to be a place for brave stories and soft landings. If you know me in person or you've followed me online in any capacity over the past number of years, you know one of the things I do in a new year, I choose a word of the year. And I've been doing this for gosh, going on a decade now, maybe a little bit longer. For example, and I don't just choose any old word. I the way I look at this, I almost feel as though words choose me. I start thinking about what words catch my attention or start showing up in things that I'm reading, in words that are being said to me, in words that feel as though they might resonate for the coming year. For example, it could be for better or for worse, and they often have um even more than a double entendre, if you can, if you can imagine. Uh, the year that I chose sobriety back in 2019, my word was anchor. And the funny thing about that was I didn't choose sobriety until July. But there was something in me that knew that I was intrinsically untethered. I knew that I needed to find something to anchor me to the right place, back to me, if you will. And when I chose sobriety, I found that anchor, anchored, just kept showing up. My first week in treatment, a woman looked at me and she said, This is going to be something you do and help other people. This is going to be a gift for you. But Danielle, do not allow your sobriety to be anchored to anyone else. And I thought, oh, okay, I'm hearing my word. And then I got my anchor tattoo. And um, it has the word anchored written in it in my friend's handwriting because she actually does on Etsy, she writes out words of the year for people each year. And I used her handwriting as a reminder that anchored is always going to be something that I need to anchor into what's true. And as I was having this done, the word hope is also in there too, because hope has always been one of my favorite words. As I was having this done, I was explaining to the tattoo artist down in Florida where I went to treatment. I was explaining word of the year. And he said, I've never heard of this before. Talk me through it. And I said, Well, interestingly enough, every time I choose a word, it will continue to show up for me. And I was giving him examples and he said, Do you want to know something really interesting? And I said, Absolutely. And he said, The name of the ink I'm using on you right now is anchored. So that's an example of how words sometimes choose me. My word last year was light. And to me, light for this particular past year was not only a word that I want in the title of the book that I'm writing, but I wanted to be a light for other people to show them that there is a way forward because I had in previous years spent some time feeling a bit hopeless, as many of you know. And so I liked the idea that I could try to help light the way forward. I also wanted to step into a new light of my own. So you can see that sometimes words manage to find different meanings, different meanings and different ways of showing up. So last year my word was light. In previous years, I've shown empowerment, I've chosen bloom. Um what I what I recommend when you're choosing a word is make a list of words that sound interesting to you, and then just allow them to sit and ruminate. And eventually some will fall off because they will sound either too common or they don't grab you enough, or they don't feel as though they can encompass everything you're wanting for your entire year. Well, this year, my light, if you will, is growing legs. And her name is Audacity. Not the loud, reckless kind when you think just audacity in a big, bold way, but the tender, steady kind that says, I'm still here and I'm going to live like it. Because, friends, there have been some really big and powerful lessons I have learned in this past year. As many of you know, um, I found love at the end of 2024, and that love, James, is big and bold and beautiful and strong, and I feel seen in a way that I've I've never been or felt seen before. And that has allowed me to settle in to so many pieces of my life in a way that that I always hoped I would be able to. So for me, some of the most fundamental lessons have been how important it is to show up, how important it is to show up for the people I love, and how important it is to choose people who show up for me. And so that is, you may have heard I did an episode on who gets to sit at your table. And your table meaning your community, the people in your life. And you can have a tight, small table and then have a little bit of extra. But ultimately, your table is who you allow to be the closest to you. Who are the people who you trust? Who are the people who give the same energy in love and relationships and trust and friendship, the same quid pro quo that you give? I recognize that over the course of my life, there have been many relationships where I gave a lot and it was not necessarily reciprocated. Um, I've done a lot of work with therapists to recognize what is it in me that that tends to overgive. Um, and I'm now recognizing that it is, it's I I I've always wanted to make sure everybody's okay and that I quite honestly, I've always wanted to be liked. Um, but more than that, I want to make sure that people feel good, which is why I try so hard to smile all the time, even when I don't feel great. It's why when you ask me how I'm doing, I say outstanding or extraordinary or fabulous, because my hope is that I can just bring a little bit of a smile to someone else's face. That little bit of a lift can make such a huge difference when someone's having a hard day. My next lesson is presence over perfection. Um, I am a recovering perfectionist. Obviously, I'm in recovery for alcohol, also a recovering perfectionist. There were lots of times I would prevent myself from starting on a particular project because all of my cliche alert ducks weren't in a row. I would fear that I didn't have everything in place and so I couldn't start. Now I'm learning that it's better to get started. It's better to show up, it's better to be there rather than worrying about things being absolutely perfect. Uh, and that leads to another lesson I've learned, which is the importance of tiny, consistent action, um, which the book Atomic Habits was really instrumental for me in that. Um, recognizing that it isn't so much, you know, you constantly hear different phrases about how many days, how much repetition it takes to create a habit. And in reading that book, I recognized that you can break a habit as easily as you think you're starting it with a certain number of days. I mean, if you imagine that if you do something 25 days in a row and then the next day you stop, you have to commit to restarting. So the goal is consistency. And that was honestly one of the lessons I started to learn initially with sobriety, and where the phrase one day at a time comes, right? Um, I had always associated one day at a time with sobriety, but never understood its core meaning because so many things that we need to do in life require us to just do one day at a time, one minute at a time, one hour at a time. We make those tiny, consistent changes in order to move forward. So moving back to my word of the year, which is audacity, I've broken it down so that I can give you what I think the the core that I'm seeking in Audacity for this coming year, because being the word nerd that I am, audacity is just having the gumption, the strength, the boldness to do, to be, to feel. And the way I am defining audacity for this year is a bit deeper than that. Because, first of all, I love the word, but I do want to be bolder. I do want to be, I want to push myself to get out of the place I have been. And I have big dreams and big goals, and I'm in a good, happy, incredibly grateful place, and it feels as though I have laid some powerful foundations that will allow me to have the audacity. So let's take the A in audacity. So I get to acknowledge what's true. I name the season that I'm in. And if this is something you're doing, what season are you in? Are you in a place where you can grow? Are you in a place where you need to set the foundation? Are you in a place where you are struggling and you have some work to do? Having audacity means that you need to acknowledge what's true. The you. Unlearn what dims you. So get rid of the old rules and the old roles. Let go of the things that were binding you and holding you back. Let go of all of the things that people have told you you were supposed to be and you were supposed to do. All of the shoulds. The shoulds that that you've never wanted to define you. This is unlearning who you don't want to be and stepping into who you know you are, which leads us very much to the D, uh, which is dare to be seen. Uh this visibility that you're putting yourself out there, it's not vanity, it's service to you. We choose what we see, what we know, what we hear. Uh, there is a story that I may or may not have told on the podcast before, but it was told to me by my first co-author, Aliza Sherman. We wrote a book together about starting businesses in a family, like being in a family, and and uh it's called Mom Incorporated, A Guide to Business and Baby. So how to start a business while having a family. And at a time when Aliza and I were writing the book, there was a lot of attention coming our way. And some of it was positive and some of it was negative. And this was in those early days of being online, I was not used to some of the negativity that would come our way. And Aliza asked me if I was familiar with tall poppy syndrome. And at the time I was not, now I am, and I've I've written about it on the website. And tall poppy syndrome, if you think about it this way, if you were to walk up to a field of poppies, and I was to say to you, pick, pick a flower, pick whichever flower you see that draws you in, which one would you pick? Chances are pretty darn good that you're going to pick the tallest one. It's the one that's most visible, it's the one that you can see, it's going to be the one that catches your eye. When you are out there daring to be seen and doing the work and putting yourself in the public eye and showing up, sometimes people will pick you. They will pick on you. They will come after you. It doesn't necessarily mean you're doing anything wrong. It means that not everybody's going to love you. Not everyone is going to think you are my girl. And that's okay. So the next one is A, align before you act. So you need to choose what is your right kind of brave, which doesn't always mean being the loudest. And so this is where we go back to thinking about what that definition of audacity is, right? We think about audacity as being loud and bold and brave. But audacity is also smart, right? Audacity is recognition and it's truth and understanding. And so when you're paying attention to all of those things within you, you are recognizing what the right brave version of you is, which then takes us to see you're choosing tiny brave steps. You're making your audacity micro-sized and doable. You're making it possible for you to lesson from last year, take tiny, consistent action and move forward with your audacity. I invite support. Make it a community thing. Ask for help. A lesson that I didn't mention that I have talked about, but also one that sometimes I talk about and I'm not always as good about putting into action. The control and perfection in me sometimes wants to just get it all done myself. Whether it's wrapping holiday presents or doing this podcast, or I feel as though I need to do all the bits and pieces, but I have an incredible production team that does the things they do best. And so when you're inviting that support, you have a rising tide where all of the people who do the very best things they do well, everybody can rise collectively. T is tell the story. One of them, one of the many goals with this podcast, is to tell the stories that can be stepping stones, that can provide the light, that can show people the way, whether it's through grief or leading by example and blazing trails and going to school when no one in your family had ever gone to school, or creating businesses, or bursting through challenges in ways that you're sitting at home and you're thinking, I cannot accomplish creating music because my hearing is going on me. And then you listen to my friend Oliver's story, and you realize that he pushed through that and he's making music despite having a hearing disability. And you think, wait, Oliver did that. Maybe I can too. And the why is one of my favorites. Yes. Yes to joy. Joy isn't a reward, it's fuel. And when you're saying yes to happiness and love and joy and excitement, I think about how when my kids were little, I used to do a yes day. And the yes day is, of course, always within reason. I couldn't necessarily hop on a plane and go to Disney, but we would wake up and I would say to the kids, today is a yes day. You get to choose what we're doing today. Do you want breakfast for dinner or do you want dinner for breakfast? Do you want to make um pillow and blanket forts all throughout the house? Do you want to eat on the floor? Do you what do you want to do? I just want to see everybody smiling and saying yes when you can. Now, you know, and you've likely Heard me say before, if it's not a hell yeah, it's a no. So you need to understand your boundaries there. And that hell yeah and no comes from a light bulb moment I had many years ago. And it originates with a blog post by a guy by the name of Derek Sievers. So that's not my original quote, but it's one that I've continued to hang on to for years and years and years. And it's been so good to me recognizing that sometimes I start saying yes too often to the wrong things. So say yes to joy, but recognize that if you start to say yes to too many things, then you'll find yourself sitting at three o'clock in the morning and thinking, these are the things I didn't want to be doing. What can you expect in season two? Can you believe that we're heading into season two for Hope Comes to Visit? But that's what we're doing. We hit over 40 episodes in this first season. And I'm, as I mentioned, I'm so incredibly grateful that that you and this community have been here with me for this beginning, and you've given beautiful feedback and you've let me know what you love and and you've you've shared the episodes, and it's been such a joy to give a platform to extraordinary people living extraordinary lives in the day-to-day until they're given an opportunity to stand up and say, this is what I've been through, and this is how I made it, and this is what I'm doing, and maybe it can help you too. Sometimes people feel as though their story is average every day, but then one person listens to it and it changes everything for them. And if one person is changed by listening to one story, this is a success. This is this podcast is doing exactly what I hoped and dreamed and believed it would do. So, what can you expect for a season two? More of the same. I want to hear your word of the year. Not so much your what are your new year's resolutions, but how are you going to shape this year? What are you setting out as your hopes and wishes and dreams? And how are you hoping to share your story with other people? I'm always looking to talk to people just like you and hear what it is that moves you forward and how you think that you can help. I want you to take a deep breath with me for a minute because I'm so grateful that you're here. And I'm I'm always trying to sit in a place of gratitude. And I talked with my therapist about this recently because whenever I find myself in a place of overwhelming gratitude, and I can look around and say, There is so much that I am grateful for. Things are good. I get a little scared because something might come my way. But you in this community give me the opportunity to feel as though I have the tools to handle. Thank you for being here with me. Thank you for taking this time. I hope that you will share this episode. You will share your audacity, you will share your words, you will share, continue to share these episodes with the people that you know and love. And you will come back and spend time with me. And until I see you again, you will take very good care of you. Naturally, it's important to thank the people who support and sponsor the podcast. This episode is supported by Chris Dulley, a trusted criminal defense attorney and friend of mine here in St. Louis, who believes in second chances and solid representation. Whether you're facing a DWI, felony, or traffic issue, Chris handles your case personally with clarity, compassion, and over 15 years of experience. When things feel uncertain, it helps to have someone steady in your corner. Call 314 384 4000 or 314 DUI Help, or you can visit doublilawirm.com to schedule your free consultation.