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Little Brothers, Family Ties, Fear and Making the Most of Today

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Family bonds are some of the strongest many of us will experience.

Brothers and sisters, mothers and sons, husbands and wives, you name it.  Families can be our greatest source of strength or one of our greatest challenges, sometimes both.

Today my younger, but not so little, brother is moving to Hawaii.  It’s causing reflection and emotions I wasn’t expecting.  It seems like just minutes ago we became friends.  With 11 years separating us, it wasn’t until his college years — my recently divorced time — that we connected and began what I now cherish.  My family is close; I am blessed for that.

So today I realize that good family ties are rare and strong. They cause you to grow and they keep you grounded. They give you the strength to punch fear in the face when the time is right. Fear is what keeps most of us from trying anything new. From writing that book, from moving to Hawaii, from taking the test, from being generous when the person looks different.

Fear isn’t what God intended for us. But making the most of today, is. He wants families, healthily and strong. He wants courage, in our actions and our words. He wants our connection to traverse across an ocean, a country or even down the street.

Selfishly, I’d love for my little brother to hang around for me to enjoy and do life with everyday. But I know that we will do life together in new and different ways . . . beginning today.

Give A Little, Take a Little

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Weddings are fun, such possibility.  Such hope, so much promise an inspired life.  That’s the easy part.

A long happy marriage isn’t easy.  It seems to be a rarity these days.

This past week I attended the 50th wedding anniversary of some distant family (whom I’d never met).

I asked Jack, who was celebrating 50 years of marriage, a few questions about his marriage; was he happy and how can anyone else accomplish such a feat?  Having been divorced, I am acutely aware that 50 years is no small task. And 50 years of being happy isn’t a real goal.  But how to weather those years and strive for happiness is worth exploration for us all.

Jack said this; “Let God lead” and “Give a little, take a little”. I mulled this over for more and journaled about it.  Here is what I managed to pull from someone who is bucking the trends;

  1. First, we need to have faith to make it. The stats show that almost as many Christians get divorced as anyone else.  We can’t let this stand guys. However, almost is a bit better than the same but let’s strive for a wider gap.
  2. Second, it takes real working together to make it. If you are counting on your spouse to make you happy, think again.  See #1 again and if that’s still not enough ask your self this question, what did your vows say? “Better or worse”? Why is that?
  3. We have to really set practices in place to help ourselves be successful in marriage just like we do for our business/career (i.e. yearly counseling checkups, doing activities together besides watching TV, reading books together, challenging each other to be better, etc..).  It won’t happen magically.

It’s not rocket science.  It’s methodic.  It’s intentionality. Working for 50 years takes effort on our part.

I’m working to “give a little and take a little” and letting “God lead” in my own marriage.

Mike & Kim
 
 photo credit: Photos Edge

 

 

The Power of 100 People

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It’s true: you really don’t need 10,000 or 1 million people to start. You just need 100.

100 passionate followers. In fact, you could start with 10, running for the first 100.

Think about it, you know 100 people. Combine your family with your friends.  Real friends mind you, not the 1300 people you may or may not really know that you call Facebook friends.  If you were passionate about starting something it only take 10 advocates and a run to the first 100 people to get something worthwhile rolling.

Jon Acuff talks about it in his book Start.

I told 100 friends about the site and started writing goofy paragraphs. On the eighth day of existence, 4,000 people from around the world showed up to read it. Turns out the 100 friends had passed the URL to 100 friends who had passed the URL to 100 friends who eventually told people in Singapore to read it.” (It’s now read by 4.5 million people. Just saying.)

Seth Godin on his blog and in several of his books:

I think the ability to find and organize 1,000 people is a breakthrough opportunity. One thousand people coordinating their actions is enough to change your world (and make a living.)

I’ve seen it first hand with many clients (churches, startups, businesses).  So many times they forget about the first 10 and run to 100 in lieu of the thousands of millions they want to serve.  You know, the BIG numbers. Oops. When it doesn’t work, they wonder what went wrong.

They missed the first 10 and run to 100 and sold out for something too hard to attain. There is power in passionate advocates; businesses and movements are built on it.

Even Jesus started with 12. Arguably, he has a lot more followers than that today. Worked for Him, I am betting it will work for the rest of us.

 

The Voice in Your Ear

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Today, I took my mom for physical therapy following her knee replacement. We were in the waiting room when I noticed to a son and his mother making their way into the facility. The mother had obviously had a stroke and was disabled on her left side severely. Her hand and arm hung loose. She slowly shuffled in as her son, probably 19 or 20, helped her into the rehab facility, holding her and whispering in her ear the whole way.

I couldn’t hear what they were saying until they were right in front of me. When I did, I was struck what he was saying:

“You can do it mom, you are doing great!”

“Keep going, keep striving, Mom! Look how far you have come.”

“I know it’s hard, but you remember when you couldn’t even walk?!”

It was apparent that he cared a great deal for his mother, it was also clear that he believed in her. I could tell it made a difference in her belief in her ability as well.

The voice in her ear was kind, strong, encouraging and no doubt contributing greatly to her recovery.

Of course, that kind of encouragement works for recovery. But it’s bigger than that. It works for your marriage, your business, your career, your parenting. If the voice in your ear says “Leave her, it’s too hard” or “You’re not gonna make it as a manager” or “It’s too risky to venture out on your own,” sooner or later you will begin to believe it.

The voice in your ear is an important one for more than recovery. The voice in your ear matters for growth too. What’s being whispered to you? Are you spurred on to action or are you told to run and hide?

Choose carefully those who are whispering to you.

Motion Creates Emotion

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We’ve heard it before…a body in motion tends to stay in motion and a body at rest tends to stay at rest.

This is not only true for exercise it is true for our lives in so many ways.

A marriage at rest tends to stay at rest.

A business at rest tends to stay at rest.

A book…

A blog post…

A new venture…

Although we need rest at times, that only comes after a period of moving, doing or creating.

It’s time to move.  Motion creates emotion. That gets us going, and once we are moving it’s so much easier to stay that way.

The Money Factor: Golden Handcuffs

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Golden Handcuff

It was early on in life that I discovered something.  Money.

It wasn’t until later that I discovered it’s power and the theory of Golden Handcuffs.

I was 10 years old when I got my first ever paying gig. I earned $10/week to weed-eat a neighbors yard. $10 bucks a week!  That was good money.   I could use it in so many ways – baseball cards, candy. You know the really important stuff.  As time passed, that one client turned into 34 yards a week and some commercial properties. If I counted, I probably made more profit my sophomore year of high school than I did until the middle of my career.

By that point money had dug it’s heels in. I liked being able to go out to dinner, entertain friends (especially girls), drive a car I liked, etc… However I didn’t realize that once I got a taste of the drug it took more to keep my appetite in check.  A bigger job, a bigger title….more money.  I hadn’t read Easterlin and didn’t really understand the correlation between money and happiness.

What I was beginning to notice was that my corporate buddies and I were working more for the paycheck than the love of the work we were doing. Much more.  We were willingly letting others continue to tighten the grip with each promotion or increased responsibility with Golden Handcuffs.  Alan Watts even shows us how students would choose something completely different than what they love doing, just for money.

The longer they (we, you and I) do something just for a paycheck the harder it is to break free of the Golden Handcuffs.

Now, I’m not advocating leaving your day job this instant. However I am asking you to consider your passion, what drives you and what you are great at. Do that, let the money (and Golden Handcuffs) fall into place after that.  Chances are, you will find happiness isn’t as tied to your paycheck nearly as much as you thought.

Making a living doing what you are great at is so much more inspiring and impactful.

 

The Good Foot (or the Right Foot)

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Not too long ago I felt like the first one to the office was going to be the most respected (and best paid).

So the morning routine would be fairly rushed; get up as early as possible (as a night owl that means not much sleep), get ready as quickly as possible and arrive to work (usually by 7am)….yes as quickly as possible. I have heard it said that starting your day off on the “right foot” was critical to being happy, never gave it much thought though. But I was already “happy”….wasn’t I, running & racing through my busy life?!

If you noticed there was a pretty large void in my routine , there was no conversation, no breakfast of any kind, no devotion time, no newspaper or book, no news ingested by any method, nothing really of any significance or more importantly no thought of mental or physical health. But I was climbing the corporate ladder….didn’t that count?!

Fast forward…. new routine( and life);  prayer time or devotion most mornings (I’m reading through Walking With God by Eldredge right now) followed shortly by healthy breakfast and some news (web or mobile mostly). My wife and I are fortunate enough to eat breakfast together most mornings, which if you can swing it, is THE way to kick off your day. I still manage to be working in whatever capacity most days before many people have even grabbed their morning Starbucks, although my office looks a lot less like a cube these days than it used to.

All I can offer is the old adage of starting your day off on the “right foot” could not be more true! The morning is where the tempo is set, your energy and focus have a hard time catching up if you aren’t getting them stretched out in the AM.

So tomorrow….get on your good foot (or the right foot).

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