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Find Your Wife’s “Crosses” & Keep Your Marriage Strong

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What you may think isn’t important may just be the one thing that your wife needs from you. Here is a personal story that I hope helps some guy realize he’s missing something, change his actions and perhaps save his marriage.

The things you own end up owning you. It’s not just a great line from Fight Club. I’ve always cared a lot about having nice things. Nice cars. Nice clothes. A nice house. Not that these things are inherently bad things but they are just things. I cared so much about keeping them nice that sometimes I put them in front of people in my life. In hind sight, it contributed to the demise of my marriage.

The House. We built a brand new house in the burbs. Great looking. Big. Shiny and new. A pristine thing. Way bigger than we needed at the time.  It had this really cool great room with like 30 foot ceilings in the entryway, where I put some really cool leather and wood Bernhardt furniture. I was about 4 years into my marriage to my high school sweetheart and things were pretty perfect. Just the way I liked them.

The Crosses. My wife had been collecting crosses for a bit – old ones, new ones, ugly ones and very, very few cool ones. I can’t remember exactly but I think there were 25 crosses of varying sizes and shapes. Then she drops it on me; she wants to put them front and center in the great room. She didn’t make a big deal about it, she just asked for me to put them up. I avoided it. I really didn’t want them there, it would totally mess up the room. I suggested another room. We must have had this same conversation 4 or 5 times, and then we stopped talking about it. Score. I win.

The Divorce. Fast forward several months later, we were in the throws of our divorce and I was fighting to save it in any way possible. She had moved into an apartment not far from our great big (now empty) house. I asked her to dinner in hopes to throw a hail mary and spark something that just may save it, although it was really to discuss dividing things up. I even convinced her to let me pick her up like a date.

The Two by Four to the Face. When I arrived to pick her up at the apartment, my heart was pounding as I knocked on the door. When she opened it, I noticed there wasn’t much furniture or anything in the entire place… except EVERY ONE of those CROSSES had been hung on the wall. They were everywhere. Then it hit me, I had totally missed it. She wasn’t upset that I didn’t hang the crosses, it was far deeper than that. I hadn’t paid attention to her desires. I missed understanding and paying attention to what was important to her. I wondered how many “crosses” I missed in our marriage? And at that moment I knew my hail mary attempt wasn’t going to cut it. I should have been paying attention before that moment.

The Lesson. Find out what your wife’s “crosses” are. It’s also a continual process – not just one day.  She changes just like you do, as do her dreams. Find out the little things and the huge dreams she has for you, for her, for your family. Find out the things you may be glossing over because you are letting something (your house, your car,  your job, your friends, your agenda) get in the way of really hearing. I can promise you it’s worth it.

My Redemption Story. God has rebuilt this broken life and in a big way. It started with being open to His plan for me instead of my own. When I say rebuilt, it’s no lie. I left my comfy corporate job several years ago, traveled to Haiti, started a business, and then life really took a turn for the stellar. I met my wife on my 5th trip to Haiti – we are so uniquely fitted for each other it’s crazy. She’s incredible and He renews our hearts if we will just allow Him. I have learned a lot and am still learning how to do marriage better each day I take a breath.

There’s no super secret sauce here, the truth is Jesus renews. How or if we let that happen is our choice.

An Army Major and a French Civilian Changing Afghanistan Through Relationships

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As I sat and listened to them sharing stories, remembering their time together in Afghanistan, it was like I could see the country through their tales of great people, challenges and the personalities they met there.

Although they were stationed there for different missions from different governments they shared coffee and connections freely. In preparation for finishing his deployment the Major had systematically shared many of his connections with his French buddy.  Leveraging his relationship to help another gain favor and begin much further ahead than he would have been if left on his own.

This exchange of contacts had a huge impact on the Major, his friend and I can only imagine even more on the Afghan people.

Connections matter. Sharing those connections freely matters more.

Living Ahead Means Losing Today

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When I was 25 years old, I was living more like how 45 year olds might live.

Brand new big house in the ‘burbs, two fancy cars in the drive, great job, married to my high school gal.  I even dressed the part.  Hey, you need to act as if, right?!  And I did, climbing that corporate ladder and always reaching for what was next.  I rarely was satisfied with where I was. I was always looking for the next move.

The problem was I was missing the ride. I focused so much on the future that I missed out on a lot of the present. Living ahead was causing me to lose today. I hear a lot of people talk about living in “the present” and I have to admit, it’s still really difficult for me.  I love to dream.  I don’t have a magic recipe that works and all of a sudden – boom! – you’re living contently with where you are today. But I have managed to eek out a few things that seem to help me.

  • Spend less than you make. Simple right?! You could stop here and your life would never be the same.  I’m not talking about being able to make the payments here folks, I mean own what you have.  Then you get to choose the work you do and you don’t have to do a job or extra things just to live. 
  • Journal. Something about writing things down that helps us appreciate what we have been given.
  • Quick breaks every 6 months. Taking a day to recoup and turn off the noise is crucial. I like to go for a night to Conception Abbey, or a quick night of camping.  Even late night walks around the city seem to help.

Focusing on tomorrow isn’t evil, but it can keep you from being open to what today is all about.

The Cost of Doing Nothing is Too High (part 1)

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The only thing necessary for evil to triumph is for good men to do nothing. – Burke

Criticism is something we can avoid easily by saying nothing, doing nothing, and being nothing. – Aristotle

I love reading quotes like these because it seems doing nothing has become something of a badge of honor. Too many businesses hoping for a huge payday so they can go lay on a beach somewhere. Too many people playing the lottery and hoping for much of the same. Too few are doing things that matter.

I feel the tide is changing: from working towards the elusive carefree life, to working towards making an impact. People want to make a difference and are hungry for making and doing things that matter. Although I feel like we are more inclined than ever to waste time, it’s a trick. Wasting time doing something meaningless is still doing nothing; it just has a different flavor.

Games, TV, movies. What could you have made with that hour? What could you have created? How could you have made an impact?

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 Kid Behind the Counter

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On the way to a meeting I stopped by a local gas station to fill up and snag a drink.  Sam, the kid behind the counter, was probably 10 or 11 years old working with his dad.

Sam’s dad was coaching him on greeting customers, taking cash, credit and thanking us as we left. It was golden.

I’m not sure Sam knew how valuable a lesson he was getting behind that counter.  It reminded me of so many lessons I learned (sometimes I had no idea I was learning), at the hands of my dad.  The value of how to interact with others, handle money, open a bank account, ask for forgiveness for a job not well done.  I learned a lot behind my own “counter” with the steady hand of my dad behind me. Guiding me, coaching me, calling me out and telling me when I hit the mark.  It honed so many things that I continue to use today.

If you don’t have a “counter” for your kids to learn these things at, find one.

If you aren’t behind that “counter” with your kids, join them there.

If you still don’t have that steady hand or coach, you need to find it. Or rediscover an old steady hand.

It’s never too late to learn and hone the skills of human interaction, sometimes even manual labor or making change at a register is good for the soul.

WordPress Attack & What to Do

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My buddy Evan and I spend a lot of time working with clients who need help on their websites, we build stories online, with the help of along with some great web developer partners at Fervor.

We noticed that WordPress was under attack (yeah we are kinda geeks like that) and Evan spent some time writing out our thoughts on what’s going on…

Over the past couple of days, hackers have been attacking websites hosted on the WordPress platform. Now, we really like WordPress and use it for a lot of sites. It’s extremely robust, flexible, and well documented with a lot of free and inexpensive plugins that add custom features. Well, because of all of that, we aren’t the only ones that use it. In fact, it’s this popularity that has made it such an attractive target for hackers.

So what flaw in WordPress are these hackers exploiting? None. Instead, they are using a bunch of computers (approximately 90,000) to try a bunch of passwords with the username ‘admin’. It’s called a dictionary attack because they are effectively running through every word in the dictionary to see if they can find one that works as a password with the admin user.

In addition to the above, the massive scale of these attacks are resulting in a DDoS (Distributed Denial of Service) attack that is overwhelming servers and rendering websites unavailable. A few of our small, personal sites are currently M.I.A…

What can you do to protect your site? A bunch of things. Employ the following… or just contact us to take care of it for you (including hosting your website). If you’re wanting to change web hosts from WordPress to a separate hosting server, you might also want to look at migrating your site to a dedicated host like Hosti Server or others can provide.

Don’t use ‘admin’ as your username. In fact, remove the ‘admin’ user from your WordPress database.

Use complex passwords – preferably those that have been randomly generated. We are big fans of (and made the investment in) 1Password from AgileBits because it generates long non-sensical passwords and syncs them with all of our computers, iPhones, and iPads. We’ve also heard good things about LastPass. Pick one and use it for everything.

Install the Login Lockdown plugin for WordPress. This plugin can help prevent any one computer that is used as part of this attack from being effective for very long. It can block IP addresses of bad login attempts preventing them from continuing to try to login. Are settings are as follows.

  • Max Login Retires: 3
  • Retry Time Period Restriction (minutes): 5
  • Lockout Length (minutes): 6000
  • Lockout invalid usernames? YES (If you’ve removed the ‘admin’ user, then you’ve effectively made the change necessary that will protect your login from this specific attack.)
  • Mask Login Errors? YES (Why tell them what didn’t work?)

Install the Better WP Security plugin for WordPress. This plugin will let you make several changes away from the default install that will eliminate your exposure to this attack and subsequent ones.

  • This plugin helps you remove the ‘admin’ user.
  • Force longer, more secure, passwords.
  • Change the login URL from www.yourwebsite.com/wp-login.php to something else. This attack, specifically, is targeting the wp-login.php page. Thus, if you use Better WP Security to change it to something else, your site would not be targeted with this attack. For added bonus points, change it to something crazy, such as /LetMeIn or /OpenSaysMe

There are other steps that this plugin can help you take to secure your site. It’s got a pretty good dashboard that shows you what it feels are still vulnerable versus what needs to be secured. And, it will make those changes for you if you click a couple buttons.

Generally, you should also do the following to reduce any exposure you might have to future attacks.

Keep your WordPress install up-to-date. There are vulnerabilities removed and bug-fixes included in each update.

Remove unused plugins and themes. The less you have installed, the less possibility there is that you’ll have some vulnerability open to hackers.

Don’t use shared hosting. With shared hosting, you are also vulnerable should someone else get hacked. With a dedicated server – even virtual servers – you are more isolated from the laziness or ignorance of other website owners.

If you want help, just give us a ring.

Maple Syrup

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The call to come help make maple syrup came about 10 minutes after they started.

Just 3 guys, 3 beers, 2 cigars (yeah I was totally left out) and about 3 hours of what my friend Andy would say…”bro-in’ out” time.

It was good for my soul.  First, these guys speak truth to me no matter what. Second, we were outside  in the cold hauling wood into in the this little shack with a furnace cranking out 900 degrees, doing something that I have never done before. Learning something. Creating something. Talking and challenging each other.

It occurred to that in an era of specialization we forget how important the art of learning something new can be.  What might even be more important is the courage of letting those you know lead you in that.  How much knowledge must be stored in our relationships just waiting to be explored and shared.

I wonder.

For me, this was inspiring and just what I needed.  I’m so glad I dropped everything and went when the call came.  I needed the new experience  I needed the beer, but more importantly I needed to be challenged.

A few pictures from the experience:

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