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 …
Family
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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Make Your Own Rules: a Lesson from the Best Vacation Responder Ever
"We'd like Jason to give the same 90-minute presentation three times in a row with a 29-second break between each. Oh, and can he do it wearing a chicken costume?" A veteran speaker friend taught Kim and I a great line to use whenever a client begins demanding things we are not able to or interested in accommodating. In these situations, he'd politely redirect the conversation by saying, "This is how I work..." and then outline the personal policies he'd established. It was his business, after all, and he had the right to run it as he saw fit. Of course, the client had the right to look elsewhere, which was fine by him because he didn't want to spend his time doing things he didn't want to do. As adults, we spend so much time following someone else's rules — especially the ones that don’t exist — that we forget that we have the power to make our own. You may not be a business, but this is your life, and you have the right to run it as you see fit. A perfect example is this …
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A Little Bit Crazy
Our family just completed a 17-day road trip that spanned 11 states and 3,800 miles. We traveled with three kids, aged 7, 5, and 2. And we did it in a Ford Edge that was packed with just two suitcases, one cooler, a diaper bag, two computer backpacks, two strollers, one tote filled with food and another filled with swimming paraphernalia and sunscreen. We did this because we are insane. Actually, that’s just a lie I repeated multiple times so people wouldn’t feel bad. It makes it easier for folks to justify why they could never do such a thing, especially if a deep-down part of them yearns to do something similar. If I emphasize how hard it is, it keeps them from feeling jealous of how much fun we had. There were so many highlights: We swooned over a baby gorilla, sampled the best of Kansas City barbecue, ascended 10,300 feet via the Sandia Peak Tramway, cooled off at Slide Rock State Park in Sedona, stood breathless at the Grand Canyon, marveled at the majesty of Arches …
Do You Care What Your Batting Average Is?
Whether it’s batting average, marathon time, or annual income, we humans love using numbers to measure our success. But what if we're focused on the wrong numbers? Here’s a list I made recently, charting my progress so far in 2016: • Meals shared with family: 280 • Lego pieces sorted: 1,376 • Daddy Daughter business trips taken: 2 • Strawberries picked: 173 • Tinker Crates assembled: 3 (with 3 boxes unopened) • Piggyback rides given: 37 • Bedtime tuck-ins: 134 • Bedtime stories read: 9 (Needs work!) • Holes of mini golf played: 18 • Little House on the Prairie episodes watched: 13 • Drive-in movies attended: 1 • Boo boos kissed: 17 • Water balloons tossed: 0 (Inexcusable!) Honestly, this is the first time I’m tabulating some of these numbers. I'd like a few to be higher, but I can't do that unless I identify what to measure in the first place. Yes, miles ran, dollars earned, sales closed, and overtime hours logged have value too. Just remember that you get …
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Leftover Scraps Aren’t Good Enough
I recently read an article about a celebrity chef. In it, he talked about his nightly ritual with his wife: “At around 11:30 or 12:00, we talk. Not just, 'How are you?’ I like to have a soulful conversation with her, a meaningful conversation. And then after that, I fall asleep within two seconds. I am just beat. I am beat." I couldn’t help but laugh out loud. Are you freaking kidding me? A soulful conversation? At midnight?! In which you are so "alert" that you fall asleep within two seconds of having it? Granted, I am not in the room with them, but I'd love to ask the wife just how meaningful these late-night conversations are for her. Look, everyone says they have their priorities in order. "Family first!" is the familiar cry. But Adultitis is eternally tempting us to let our focus slide to other things. Our pride and ambitions can drive us to chase wealth, status, and adulation, often at the expense of the people we care about the most, while we expertly rationalize …
