Tomorrow is tax day in the United States. For many years, Kim and I looked forward to a tax refund, dreaming about how big it might be and what we'd do with the windfall. It felt like a little present, which is weird, because if you buy a sandwich with a twenty dollar bill and the clerk gives you fifteen dollars back, you don’t thank him for the gift. Of course, it was really our money all along. We simply paid more taxes than we were required to over the course of the year, and the government sent us back the change. In the early days, the main reason we got such a good refund is because our business was not very successful. And by not very successful, I mean it lost money, which is the exact opposite of what you want your business to do. The interesting thing is what happened in my mind when the business finally started to thrive. The refunds got smaller, then stopped. We started having to pay more taxes. Because I liked the feeling of receiving a check rather than …
A Message for When You Feel Like a Failure
Grace is a tricky thing. It’s something we all need but are loathe to accept. Although we perhaps aren’t as generous with it as we could be, we’d still much rather give it than receive it. My son Ben is seven. He has been writing books, typing pages on the computer and printing them out, leaving plenty of space for illustrations. (As I have taught him. ;) His most recent version was about Ninjago, a weighty tome that was a full eight pages in length. Ben’s big sister Lucy served as editor, helping correct some misspellings and punctuation errors. Before her involvement, the sentences were choppy, missing some words, and as most of the copy was generated by sound-spelling, it was tainted by the common accent of childhood. For example: “Liybawey.” Can you figure it out? It’s one of our family’s favorite haunts. Also known as the “library." Now, do I look down on him for the missteps, for the obvious spelling errors, and the shallow, predictable plot? Of course not. Do …
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The Downside of Yes
"The difference between successful people and very successful people is that the very successful people say 'no' to almost everything." –Warren Buffet I love that quote. But I still hate saying no, especially when I feel like I'm disappointing someone. Saying "yes" to new experiences and difficult challenges is an important ingredient of a great life. But the reason so many people are overwhelmed, unfocused, and always on the verge of burnout is because they say 'yes' way too often. Sometimes we say "yes" because we are good people who want to help make the world better. But too often, fear is driving the decision... We say "yes" to invitations to social gatherings that we'd rather not attend, requests to serve on boards we don’t care that much about, and calls to volunteer for groups we don’t have time for, because we're afraid of hurting someone's feelings. We say "yes" to signing up our kids to an insane amount of extracurricular activities because we're afraid that …
Family First. Really?
My dad used to work at a lumberyard. He would bring estimating projects home and work on them at night at the dining room table. The overtime pay he earned helped my parents pay ahead on their mortgage. I’m sure there were about a million other things he would have rather been doing, but he spent many evenings at that dining room table, after long days at work, earning a little bit extra. Family first. I will never forget the little watch he kept close at hand, logging his hours. If one of his sons wandered into the dining room, hoping to chat, he’d stop what he was doing, turn off the timer on his watch, and become completely attentive to the person in front of him. Not once did he ever shoo us away or urge us to wrap it up so he could get back to his work. Family first. I remember one of those dining room chats with my dad when I was a teenager. Things were not going well at all with a girl I was infatuated with. I was sure she was "the one," and yet my efforts to win her …
Cristy Ward, March 2019 Adultitis Fighter of the Month
An Adultitis Fighter is someone who rallies against rules that don't exist and engages in ruthless, senseless acts of silliness that undermine Adultitis and its unadventurous version of adulthood. Once a month, we shine a light upon the most remarkable among us, holding them up as a dazzling example of what we should strive for in this epic battle against a formidable enemy. Cristy Ward has been hanging around the Escape Adulthood Universe for the long haul! Working with sherpas (kiddos) on a daily basis, she is privy to the secrets of fighting Adultitis more than the average adult, and she uses this knowledge to shine a wonderful light in the world. We had the good fortune of seeing her and meeting her daughter at one of our book stops in Minnesota a few years ago, which was a real hoot. Another thing you need to know about Cristy is that she is a Yarn Wizard, as you can see from her amazing creations shared in this post. She even surprised us a fabulous Marty (actually two …
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Damascus Moments
As I wrote about in Penguins Can't Fly, I am not a natural-born rule breaker. This may come as a surprise coming from someone who wrote a book about breaking rules. The obvious question is, "How did you go from being a shy boy who was afraid of new situations and spent an eternity in swimming lessons to a guy who makes a living speaking in public about breaking rules?” For years, I’ve tried to come up with a compelling answer. After all, it seems like some sort of magic was involved. I would often point to a moment when I imagined myself as an 80-year-old guy looking back on my life and wondering, "what if?" And yes, that was when I started to consider that the fear of regret might be more powerful than the fear of trying something new. Other times, I'd give credit to a retreat I attended after high school that had a profound impact on me. As monumental as that experience was, it doesn't fully explain the shy-kid-to-speaker transformation. The truth is, there wasn't …
Advice From an Astronaut
"It's Time To Dream Bigger" by Jason Kotecki. Digital. I recently got to see a real live astronaut. He showed us a video of what thunderstorms in Central Africa look like from above. (Answer: strobe lights at a night club.) Terry Virts is a former NASA astronaut and Space Station Commander who came to Madison to speak to schoolchildren about his experiences. My daughter Lucy and I had the opportunity to hear his stories and see his incredible snapshots from his 200-day tour of outer space. He told us that being in space doesn’t feel like floating, but rather like you're always falling. Because, in fact, you actually are. He showed us the little closet where he slept upright in a sleeping bag, and explained that because it costs thousands of dollars to transport a single bottle of water into space, it makes a lot of sense for them to recycle the water they use on board, including sweat and urine. (I wanted to ask him if this is how Mountain Dew was made, but never got the …
Building Sandcastles and the Meaning of Life
Why do we build sancastles on the beach? I mean, what’s the point? Eventually, the surf will swallow it whole and all the hard work will be for nothing. That’s what I was thinking as my kids were enthusiastically erecting a stronghold of sand on the edge of the Pacific Ocean. They worked fast. Built it high. And even added a moat for protection. That led to questions about life. If you’re lucky, you have eight or nine decades to work with, although most of us have much less than that. We busily build families, careers, and accomplishments to be proud of. It’s easy to wonder: What’s the point? Why bother? You know it won’t last. The surf will eventually win. It always does. So I started compiling a list of reasons: Maybe it’s exciting to see what you can accomplish before the clock runs out. Maybe it's to experience a feeling of pride in the little wins, no matter how fleeting, like when your makeshift moat holds off a surge of water. Maybe the enjoyment comes …
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Shelley Storhoff, February 2019 Adultitis Fighter of the Month
An Adultitis Fighter is someone who rallies against rules that don't exist and engages in ruthless, senseless acts of silliness that undermine Adultitis and its unadventurous version of adulthood. Once a month, we shine a light upon the most remarkable among us, holding them up as a dazzling example of what we should strive for in this epic battle against a formidable enemy. Shelley Storhoff is the Queen of Follow Through! In her email signature she has chosen the quote: "Life isn't about waiting for the storm to pass. . . it's about learning to dance in the rain.” It’s obvious through her stories and insights shared here that this is truly how she lives her life. What an model Adultitis Fighter! Shelley first heard Jason speak ten years ago and the amount of initiative she's taken since then is amazing. As you’ll read, she has taken the “Finding Marty/Pokey” game to a whole new level of awesome, one that she and her family will treasure for a lifetime. This May marks their 10th …
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What I Learned After an Eternity in Swimming Lessons
We went to Mexico recently. My youngest daughter spent the first hour in the pool at our condo on her tiptoes, bouncing around to various areas, repeatedly asking, “Can I touch?” When you’re little, and don’t know how to swim yet, that’s the only question that matters. “Can I touch?" It’s a simple yes or no question. The translation, of course, is “Can I survive here? Am I safe? Do I have anything to worry about?” Only Ginny was asking this question, as my other two kids know how to swim. Once you know how to swim, you don’t need to ask, because it doesn’t matter if you can touch or not. I can relate to this. It took me a long time to learn how to swim. Not because it was hard, because learning how to swim is actually not that difficult. (Especially when you define “learning how to swim” as “being able to float when you’re in water over your head.”) No, the reason I was in swimming lessons for what felt like decades was because I was afraid. I spent the longest …
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