With the Major League Baseball season heading into the All-Star break, a quick glance at the statistical leaders reveals that I am not leading the National League (or the American League, for that matter) in home runs. Truthfully, I’m not even close. Of course, there is one important detail that probably matters somewhat: I don’t actually play professional baseball. I’m sure you’ll agree that it’s pretty ridiculous to beat myself up for not leading the league in home runs if I’m not a professional baseball player. And yet we regularly feel bad about ourselves for being lousy at games we’re not even playing. Weird. Just because we don’t think of them as "games" in the same way we think of baseball as a game, doesn't mean we haven't devised ways to keep score at the activities in which we participate. Rather than tracking home runs, we measure things like money, body weight, square footage, degrees, status, accolades, connections, sales, prestige, and fame. For instance, …
An A-Z Guide for Summer Memory Making
Well, it happened. The longest day of the year has come and gone. It’s always a bit depressing for me, because I know that now the days will only get shorter and shorter. (And it feels like summer only just arrived!) I can’t help but wonder if I’m taking full advantage of the warmer weather. After all, a good summer is one that’s jammed with good memories. If you can relate, here are a couple thoughts… First, it doesn’t have to be overly organized. We asked a bunch of people on Facebook for their favorite thing to do outside as a kid, and not one person mentioned anything about an organized sport. Which was interesting to me, as organized sports are often are the biggest culprit in creating summer clutter and busyness. Secondly, money isn’t a major factor either. Although one might consider a trip to Disney World a slam dunk memory machine, it just isn’t so. Dave Ramsey asked his community about their best summertime memories, and Disney World wasn’t mentioned once. In …
Why You Shouldn’t Accept That Promotion
What idiot says no to a raise? Chip Gaines, co-star of the hit TV show Fixer Upper, writes this about his dad in the book Capital Gaines: "When I lived at home, he was willing to forego promotions and advancements at work just to have more time to throw a baseball with me in the evenings. He was teaching me the game, but on another level, he was showing me how to be a man and a father. He taught me the value of investing in one’s family above anything else.” We almost always consider promotions and advancements at work to be the best thing for ourselves and our families. And they might very well be. But more impressive titles, bigger paychecks, and better offices are also good for our pride. Sometimes a promotion serves no one but ourself. Look, struggling to make ends meet is never fun. Growing into an opportunity that gives us some financial breathing room and provides our family more options can be a real blessing. But we should never lose sight of the fact that the …
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How to Not Ruin Your Next Vacation
Ever have one of those vacations that, when it was over, you said, “I need another vacation!”? Sometimes we spend all our time lounging around and feel disappointed that we didn’t see more. But more often, we rush around trying to see and do everything, and wind up returning to work depleted, wishing for a re-do. You’ve taken time off work. You’ve probably invested no small amount of money. Don’t be the reason your vacation fails. It almost just happened to us. Last summer, we got passports for all the kids so we could take a road trip into Canada. Kim and I asked our favorite question, “Now that we have this (passports for the whole family), what does it make possible?” We thought a foray into Mexico was a great next step to stretch our family’s travel comfort zone, before moving on to other places on our bucket list, like London, Australia, and South Africa. The way I see it, vacations can fall anywhere on a spectrum with “Adventure” one end and “Relaxation” on the other. …
What if You Knew The Numbers?
Kim and I recently took the kids to their first Cubs game. It was a beautiful day, Wrigley Field was as friendly as usual, and we reveled in singing "Go Cubs, Go" after they sealed the win against the Giants. We often see first times coming. We prepare for them and anticipate them with the excitement of a little kid on Christmas Eve. The last times have a habit of sneaking up on us, though. We have a digital frame in our kitchen that rotates old family photographs. I find myself regularly spying an old snapshot of one of my kids and thinking to myself, "She was never that little, was she?" As of this writing, my oldest is only eight, but the pictures feel a century old. The other day, Kim commented on a photo of our son when we was an infant. "Some days," she said, "I'd give just about anything to hold that little baby one more time." I agreed. It occurred to me that although I held that little baby many times -- often in a sleep-deprived and grouchy state -- there was also a last …
What I Learned From Charles Ingalls (This Week)
Our family loves watching Little House on the Prairie. As a homeschoolers, it has been a great way to discuss some pretty big topics with our kids, like alcoholism, racism, bullying, and more. (Confession: I want to be Charles Ingalls when I grow up!) We just finished season four. In the final two episodes (which TV Guide put on its 100 Greatest Episodes of All Time list), the big railroad companies were flexing their muscle to gain more power, engaging in questionable tactics that were putting farmers in rural areas out of business. Walnut Grove, the town where the Ingalls family lived, was rapidly dying. It was a big deal. Livelihoods were drying up, businesses were closing, and desperate people had to abandon their homes in search of new opportunities. But Landon’s character, Charles — a farmer with a lot to lose — couldn't have cared less. He'd just found out his oldest daughter was going blind. Weeks earlier, the economic catastrophe would have rocked his world. But as …
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Saying Yes to Piggy Back Rides
One of Adultitis’ best tricks — and the one that trips me up the most — is getting us to believe that the most important things in life are merely distractions. My youngest daughter routinely asks me for piggy back rides. Most of the time I say yes. But sometimes I'm tired, or want to keep reading the book I just opened five seconds ago. And sometimes I’m too focused on the latest pet project that I'm convinced will deliver a windfall of profit and impact. The justification for brushing off this minor “distraction” of my daughter pestering me for a piggy back ride is that, in the end, this effort will bear fruit that will benefit us all. If I’m not careful, this so-called “drive” rockets me right by the stuff that really matters. Don’t get me wrong. Piggy back rides don’t pay the bills. Little worthwhile is accomplished without focus, hard work, and sacrifice. The challenge is how easy it is for this to become our default mode. Like a Ferrari flying down the highway, all …
The Thing About Easy
Building a business from scratch isn’t easy. Neither is homeschooling one’s kids. Or traveling across the country with them in a small SUV and two suitcases. Which brings me to fireplaces. Our basement has had a gas fireplace, but it’s in a really weird spot in the lower level and we spend most of our family time upstairs, so we’ve only used it maybe twice in the 8 years that we’ve owned the home. After this summer’s basement renovation, Kim and I created a little sitting area in front of the fireplace in the hopes of making it more usable. We also decided to convert it to wood burning. Now for some people, you would have thought that we were planning to permanently remove the roof from our house. To them, we are fools to ditch the ease and convenience of gas. We’ve been advised about how much more work is involved in a wood burning fireplace, as if we are aliens just settling in to this planet called Earth, unaware of a technology that allows you to start a fire by …
Mom Gives Adult Children Unusual Christmas Gifts
I met a fifty-something-year-old guy after my presentation at a conference in Minnesota earlier this year. He told me, "My mom believed that her kids should always get a toy from her for Christmas, no matter how..." I expected him to finish the sentence with, “...no matter how poor we were.” But he surprised me instead with, “...no matter how old we are.” To this day, along with other gifts, she still gets each of her adult children a toy for Christmas. I wish she would have been there, for I would have liked to give her a hug. It takes a wise woman to know that no matter how old a person gets, they carry all the ages they’ve ever been with them. The wide-eyed, fun-loving child inside lives forever. Although that childlike spirit can be neglected throughout the year, Christmas is the perfect time to reconnect with the hope, wonder, and joy we were filled with as children. I asked the gentleman what his mother got him last year. "A Lego set,” he …
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Why We Went to Chicago to Party with 5 Million Friends
It was Kim’s fault. Thank God for Kim. The Cubs, after 108 years, had finally won the World Series, and they won it in spectacular fashion. (I can't believe I just wrote that!) THE CUBS HAVE WON THE WORLD SERIES. For reals. I am still filled with joy and brimming with happiness. But the thought of driving to Chicago for the victory parade never crossed my mind. Kim floated the idea after reminding me that I had a speaking engagement in Chicago a few days later. "Why not go down earlier and make it a long weekend?” she teased. Thoughts of snarling traffic and being trampled to death by a raucous mob sprung forth. "Are you serious? That's insane!” I replied. When she got online to look for hotel rooms, I knew she was both. She found an unbelievable deal on a hotel room steps away from Grant Park, where the rally was to be held. The confident sparkle in her eye and the call for adventure was too strong. We packed up the kids and drove to Chicago a few hours …
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