Kim and I were invited by American Family Insurance’s DreamBank to share our story about when we returned home from vacation with our three kids to find something we were not expecting. It led to an emotional roller coaster of fear, anger, and grief, but eventually evolved into an inspiring story of hope and the power of community.
In this vulnerable but uplifting program, we share our journey from darkness into light. We also touch on themes from Jason’s newly released book, “A Chance of Awesome: How Changing the Way You See Changes Everything,” giving tips and insight for finding the silver linings amidst the dark clouds that roll into our lives.
Making deposits: eating cheeseburgers, playing mini-golf, and engaging in man-to-man conversations with The Boy.
Try this: Starting today, stop making deposits into your checking account.
But continue writing checks to pay your bills.
Now, what happens when you write a check the day after your money runs out?
It’s pretty easy to see the financial lesson here. What’s interesting is that we can apply the same lesson to relationships.
So many parents tell me what a struggle it is to get their kids to do anything. They always have to get after them to get up and ready for school, do their homework, eat their vegetables, pick up after themselves, look presentable for church, etc.
It’s exhausting! Parenting is no joke, and continues to be the biggest challenge I’ve ever encountered.
I’d like to share an idea – it felt like a magic trick – I got from my wife when our kids were very young: You can’t expect to make withdrawals from your kids if you haven’t made any deposits.
Of course, all the feeding, changing diapers, sleepless nights, and providing a roof over their heads are a significant and emotionally expensive deposit. The problem is that kids don’t perceive or understand those efforts, not at that age. But there is something magical that happens when you sit on the floor with a three-year-old and let them run the show. You get on their level and let them dictate the play. You are not guiding things along to keep yourself interested, or sneaking glances at your phone as a respite from the intense boredom that develops in 17 seconds, but instead, are 100% present.
Time and time again, I was shocked at how amazingly valuable even 10 minutes spent in this way could be. There was always less pushback and more cooperation later on.
Yes, I still have to remind my kids about things from time to time. But I don’t experience the struggle many parents describe when I ask my kids to do something, and I don’t think it’s because I won the magical kid lottery. It’s because Kim and I are conscious of making deposits, not just always making withdrawals by demanding things from them. (Believe me, I have experienced the consequences when we slip.)
The thing is, this is not just a handy parenting hack. It works with every relationship the same way as it does with the bank down the street.
Toddlers. Twelve-year-olds. Teenagers. Spouses. Friends. God.
If your relationship seems dull, dying, or downright combative, it might be worth asking: when is the last time I actually made a deposit?
To be present. To ask a thoughtful question, actually listen to the answer, and then ask a follow-up question. To do something for that person that wasn’t at the top of your list of interests.
It’s the sports-agnostic wife watching a football game with her fanatical husband.
It’s the husband taking a few hours to help his wife set up her new scrapbooking room.
It’s the dad participating in a Barbie fashion show on the living room floor.
It’s the mom asking her son about the ins and outs of Minecraft.
It’s the parent sitting on the floor with a toddler, willing to be the one taking orders for a change.
If you want relationships with many happy returns, you need to make deposits first.
I’ve had people tell me that they love what they do, but they hate where they work.
When you operate in an environment where it’s difficult to find and keep good people, your culture — and an environment that supports it — matters. A lot.
The artwork I use in my presentations does more than just serve as a pretty picture to illustrate a story. It creates a mental anchor in the mind of the participant, establishing a visual shorthand for the principle I’ve shared. Since we all think in pictures – not words – this is an extraordinarily effective way to help provide a long term impact that goes far beyond a single speech.
I’m thrilled that a number of smart organizations, from school districts to financial institutions, have utilized my artwork to enhance their environment and support the positive, dynamic culture they have built.
When Summit Credit Union built a new, state-of-the-art corporate office building, they were very intentional about the artwork they used to represent their culture. After speaking to their top level sales team, I was excited to be asked to collaborate with them on providing large canvas reproductions of my art that would be hung in a variety of their public and private workspaces and conference rooms.
Alongside each piece, we hung small frames that Illuminated the message behind the art. This enabled those who hadn’t heard me speak be able to connect with each piece on a deeper level, underscoring an important principle that supported the organization’s culture.
Jason’s art embodied the fun, creative and collaborative image and messages that we wanted to send to our employees. The way that Jason’s art communicates inspiring and empowering messages is how we want staff to feel when they work for Summit.”
–Heidi Duss | Manager, Wellness & Community Engagement | Summit Credit Union
In a similar way, Unity School District in Wisconsin purchased a number of pieces for their high school, middle school, elementary school, and district offices and library to enhance a recent renovation project. It brings me great joy to think about the positive influence my art is able to have on the students and faculty every single day.
If you want to change your culture, start by changing your environment.
If you are interested in acquiring artwork to take your space to the next level, I invite you to explore the range of images available and email Kim to discuss the many options we have available.
Eating lobster used to be a punishment reserved for prisoners.
I was reminded of this during a recent trip to New England. I had a speaking engagement in Connecticut, and took my oldest daughter with me. I had three different lobster dishes on the trip (in between samplings of clam chowd-ah).
The fact that the inclusion of lobster makes any dish more expensive is quite a turn of events from its humble beginnings. A few hundred years ago, lobsters were plentiful, washing up on shore by the hundreds. The so-called “cockroach of the sea” was eaten only by the poor and prisoners, who considered it a cruel and unusual punishment. It was commonly used as livestock feed and fertilizer. Said essayist John J. Rowan in 1876, “Lobster shells about a house are looked upon as signs of poverty and degradation.”
But in the late 19th century, canning became a viable way to get food rations to soldiers in the Civil War. Enterprising railway companies rebranded the lobster as an exotic dish to travelers in fine dining cars far from the coast. Soon, fresh lobster became more desirable. The newfound popularity increased demand, reducing supply and driving prices higher.
That’s how lobster went from prison food to pricey delicacy.
It’s also an example of how changing the way you see changes everything. A more modern, crustacean-free example comes via an email I received from a reader named Melissa. She and her family have been going through a turbulent time, between unexpected repairs popping up in their vehicles, to some unwanted pests taking up residence in their home. It’s been stressful, to say the least. She wrote:
“What I learned by watching my husband’s example, was to intentionally have fun in the midst of all this. I’ve been saying YES to more little requests than usual in order to combat the stress: yes, let’s get ice cream; yes let’s go to the park; yes let’s play with water balloons; yes let’s go on that unplanned weekend away with the cousins; yes, we can bake cookies again. I think my children may think having pests in the house has been one of funnest times of their childhood… and thinking back on this time I wonder if I will remember the pests or only the fun we had.”
I think we all know the answer to that.
You can’t wish away stress or prevent difficult challenges from invading your everyday, but you can control how you frame it. Melissa and her husband reframed their trials into treasured memories for their kids.
This ability to reframe is not some Pollyanna technique for making you feel good. As the examples above demonstrate, it can literally create money out of thin air and produce happiness from frustration.
This is the entire premise of my new book, A Chance of Awesome: How Changing the Way You See Changes Everything. If you’d like to get better at this skill, you might want to pick up a copy for yourself.
The important thing is to keep in mind that if you’re looking for a new way to grow your business, solve a tricky puzzle, or overcome a hardship, you might want to try looking at it from a different perspective.
In my book Penguins Can’t Fly, I wrote about the story of a young man I knew who had leukemia, and how his family and friends moved up Christmas a few months so he’d be able to celebrate his favorite holiday one more time.
Well, unbeknownst to me, one of my speaking colleagues was good friends with Kevin’s mom. One day, shortly after the book came out, my colleague read her the passage in my book.
Through the tears, Kevin’s mother expressed her great joy in finally having something new to share about her son. “My friends are always telling me new things about their kids,” she said. “How they graduated with honors, got married, and had their first child. I never had anything new to share. Now I do.”
The other thing this mother told my friend was how sad she was that no one ever brought up Kevin in conversation. Oh, she knew it was because they were being sensitive and didn’t want to upset her. “What they don’t realize,” she explained, “Is that I want to talk about my son. I want to remember him. I want this memory to be kept alive through stories.”
I’ll admit that I would tend to err on the side of silence, for fear of kicking up sad emotions. But after hearing her perspective, I knew she was certainly not alone.
This time of year can be hard for many people who are missing loved ones.
I’m hoping that sharing this little insight might be helpful to someone reading this. Maybe, just maybe, the best way to shine a little light into someone’s holiday season is by illuminating the life of a loved one who has passed away, through a simple story,a fun anecdote, or something new that happened that made you remember them and smile.
“Sometimes memories sneak out of my eyes and roll down my cheeks.”
Well, we’re here. Even though Christmas music has been playing in stores since Halloween, the passing of Thanksgiving officially puts us into the holiday season, ready or not. (How is it that companies can promote week-long Black “Friday” deals with a straight face?)
I have a secret to share with you. Every bit of advice I give, or moral behind a story I tell, is mostly for me. They help keep me accountable and on track in my own fight against Adultitis. And as a professional reminder-er, I’d like to take this time to share some reminders for all of us. I, for one, need this particular reminder every year around this time.
You may or may not be surprised to know that this is one of Adultitis’s favorite times of year (right up there with April 15th, aka Tax Day). Of course, the reason has nothing to do with holly jolly elves or goodwill toward men. No, it thrives on the frenzy we find ourselves in. It uses the busyness and obligations to stress us out, wear us down, and, most importantly, distract us from the things that really matter.
Yes, for many of us, there are trees to trim, decorations to put up, gifts to purchase, cards to send, office parties to attend, cookies to bake, crowds to navigate, presents to wrap, miles to be traversed, groceries to buy, meals to prepare, snow to shovel, rooms to clean, in-laws to suffer, and to-do lists to be tackled.
It’s prime feeding ground for Adultitis. It may seem impossible to avoid it.
But not if you remember that there are also memories to be made, cookies to be eaten, jokes to tell, ho ho hos to be hollered, bells to jingle, carols to be crooned, laughs to be shared, cardboard boxes to be transformed into castles, and (depending on where you live) snowflakes to catch on your tongue.
Spending at least as much time on the second list as you do on the first is the equivalent of rewarding Adultitis with a stocking filled with coal.
When I walk through a cemetery, I look for stories in the gravestones. Sometimes the markers are very large and ornate, and other times quite small and humble. I wonder how accurate they are in reflecting the greatness of the lives they represent. Sometimes there are bible verses, or a few descriptors, like “devoted husband, father, and friend.” Sometimes there are mentions of military service, and I imagine the horrors witnessed and the heroics performed. Sometimes the date span is much too short, a sad memorial to the life of a baby taken from our world too soon.
But something about gravestones like this one is extra poignant.
“Till death do us part.” This is a promise Lois and Albert made to one another a long time ago, on their wedding day.
Albert’s story is finished, in this world, at least. Something about the dates being carved in stone makes it so real and permanent.
But Lois, her life feels like it’s on pause. A cliffhanger. Like someone with a chisel is waiting in the wings, at the ready to stamp that second date under her name, completing the story of this gravestone.
Fifteen years have passed since Albert’s death and me taking this photograph. I don’t know either of them, but I can’t help but wonder what Lois is up to now. Is she happy? Still grieving? Or maybe both? Does she live alone, or with family, or perhaps in a nursing home? Has she made the most of this time she’s been given before reuniting with the love of her life?
I wonder what it would be like if, once we reached a certain age, acquiring our gravestones was mandatory, with the birthdate stamped in granite. Like when we get our driver’s license, or before we can vote.
It’s easy to pretend that death is something that happens to other people, or at the very least, to people much older than us. But just the idea of having a physical block of stone, with our name and birthdate on it – with the second date still unknown – would that change anything about how we live our lives today? Maybe not. But maybe…
Maybe it would be easier to put things in an eternal perspective and cast aside our trivial worries and concerns.
Maybe it would be easier to remember that buying that shiny new thing isn’t going to make us all that happier in the long run.
Maybe it would be more obvious to us that most of the things that clutter our to-do lists are pretty inconsequential, and that the neglected or damaged parts of our relationships are really where we should be spending our time.
Maybe it would be easier to give a little grace to our parents, spouse, or sibling, overlooking their annoying habits and forgiving the transgression that grieves us so.
Maybe it would crystallize what we’re put on this earth to do, rather than pretend we’re uncertain simply because we’re too afraid to decide or take the first step.
Maybe knowing that the final date could be stamped in at any moment would force us to really slow down, bringing into focus the beauty and blessings that too often fly by, unnoticed in our hurried existence.
For a whole host of reasons, it’s probably impractical to make people acquire their gravestones early. But you can imagine your own, right now: It’s hard, cold, and extremely heavy. Your name is chiseled on the top in big, capital letters. Below that, you can run your fingers across the four numbers that indicate the year you were born, feeling the sharp edges and deep indents in the stone where it is carved. But to the right of that date is nothing but smooth, polished granite.
For now.
You’re in the midst of life’s great cliffhanger. What will you do next?
We were thrilled to help Goodwill with a fundraising event they dubbed “Escape Adulthood Recess.” Designed to be a break from the workday, we worked with the fabulous folks at Hayes Marketing Services and the Goodwill Northern Illinois team to create a successful networking luncheon that raised a lot of money and created a lot of positive buzz.
The careful attention to detail helped create a fun and approachable ambiance and tied the theme together wonderfully. Here are some photos we managed to snap to give you some food for thought for planning your own event.
After months of anticipation about our family’s first trip to Mexico and an escape from the Wisconsin winter, the weather report turned foreboding. All eight days were calling for rain. Kim and I were crushed. Our family had finally recovered from a three-week battle with the flu over the holidays, and we were looking forward to the time away to recharge in the sun and surf. Kim was especially fretful about the forecast of rain, incessantly checking the weather app on her phone.
On the plane, I read a section in a devotional about God being a “living God.” That struck me. I grew up thinking of God as some far-off historical figure who did a lot of neat things in olden times, forgetting that He lives in the present tense, active in the here and now.
In that moment, I felt totally at peace. Did I expect God to alter a weather system on account of li’l old us? To be honest, I guess I hoped He would, but more than that, I knew that the only way to really ruin the vacation was to spend all our time worried and anxious over the weather report. Even if it rained the whole trip, we would still have an opportunity to be together and to rest, away from the hustle and bustle of our daily lives.
We did pray for sunshine, but we also prayed for peace to melt away our fears, and for the perspective to make the best of whatever each day would bring.
No one knows with certainty what next year, next week, or even what tomorrow will bring. (Not me, not you, and certainly not weather forecasters!) But too often in life, we allow doubt and anxiety to dominate our perspective, and we live out our fears in advance. I knew that God knew how big of a deal this trip was to us, and He would give us what we needed from it, even if it didn’t look exactly how we imagined it.
So here’s what happened. Every single evening, the weather app on our phones indicated storms for the next day. And every single day, we woke up to sunny skies, while the thundercloud icon had vanished. The only rain we experienced was about a half-hour’s worth on our last day, and it came as a welcome relief during a hot walk at the Tulum ruins.
The abundant sunshine became a symbol to us of God’s goodness. As the trip was coming to an end, we searched for a sunshine-themed souvenir to bring home with us, something to remind ourselves of what felt like a mini-miracle and God’s active presence in our lives. We never did find anything just right.
We arrived home at about midnight. Our youngest child was asleep as we pulled into our driveway. A few police officers were canvassing the street with flashlights, clearly looking for something. We didn’t think much of it, figuring the neighbor kid was in trouble again.
As our tired bodies, carrying overfilled suitcases, stumbled into the house, our oldest daughter said, “Hey, what’s that on the ceiling?” I looked up and saw a gash in the drywall. The directional groove led my eye to the window, which had a bullet hole in it.
A bullet hole.
“Kim,” I said, “Hurry and go tell the cops that we have a bullet hole in our window!”
The rest of the evening was a blur. We found small bits of glass all over the carpet and on the piano across the room. The officers pulled a bullet fragment from the ceiling, but it was too mangled to be of any use. They had very little information for us, except for the reports from neighbors, who had heard multiple gunshots and a speeding car with a bad muffler. At first, I was annoyed that I had to postpone the date with my bed to deal with this after having had an awesome vacation, but eventually, it hit me. “Wait. What if we had been home? This could have hit one of my kids.”
The mood quickly turned from annoyance to anger and fear.
None of us got much sleep that night. (Except Ginny, who was already asleep and would ask about that taped-up cardboard patch on our window two whole days later.)
The next morning, our six-year-old son, Ben, brought a bullet to Kim that he found in the hallway. “Momma, what’s this?” he asked.
Another call to the police.
The next few weeks were a blur of logistics and emotion. Assurances from the police that our neighborhood was historically among the safest in the city didn’t seem to help. Calls to the insurance company and various vendors about replacing the window and fixing the damaged ceiling were interspersed with the feeling of being violated and wondering if we were still in danger. I’d never seen my wife cry so much in all of our eighteen years of marriage.
We heard stories from neighbors who’d been home. Three young girls next door were in the front room watching TV when the shooting happened. An elderly neighbor across the street told us the gunshots were so loud that she thought her house was the one under attack. A young mother in the home next to hers was nursing her two-month-old in her front room. She hit the deck when the shots rang out. Everyone was shaken. For days, we saw cars slow down in front of our house to gawk at the scene of the crime.
Eventually, amidst the haze of fear and confusion, we began to notice where God had been working in the situation.
We realized that our house was the only one on the whole block that was empty when the shooting occurred. We figured out that it wouldn’t have been had we not been held up in Minneapolis so our plane could be de-iced. We felt His presence in the neighborhood meeting that was organized two days after the incident. Over fifty people crammed into a basement owned by a former police officer, bonding together to comfort one another and talk about practical ways to protect our neighborhood. It was neat to see connections get made and friendships deepen.
Finally, Kim and I got to a place where we could ask, “What does this terrible event make possible?”
Years earlier, we had stayed in a vacation home in Santa Barbara that featured some stained-glass windows. We’d always been smitten by their charm, so we wondered if we could replace the broken front window in our living room with a stained-glass work of art. The fact that the window in question was a decorative half-circle above the normal windows made it a perfect candidate. Maybe I could even design it. And maybe it would give hope to the rest of the neighborhood. We knew immediately what the design had to be.
A sun.
We got connected with Rick Findora, who just so happened to be the guy who did the stained glass windows at our church, and I gave him a sketch.
We got our sunshine souvenir after all—after we returned home and in a form we never anticipated. It now serves as a beacon of hope to the entire neighborhood.
We live in a dark world, where tragedy and pain are all too common. Sometimes vacations do get rained out. Sometimes bullets don’t miss. But I believe this: God is a living God. He gives us small signs—signs that don’t seem like much in the grand scheme of things—just to let us know He is there. I think the reason He does this is so that when the bad things happen, we’ll remember that He is still there, ready to bring good things out of terrible circumstances. He gives us the sunny days to recharge us, to fill our reserves with hope that lights the way during the dark times, reminding us that the sun will shine again.
It’s worth remembering that even on the darkest, cloudiest days, the sun doesn’t disappear. It’s still there; it’s just hidden. The people who see silver linings are the ones who look for them. If you are in a dark season right now, keep looking for the light. It’s coming.
Finally, I believe we are called to be a light for others. We do this by sharing our gifts and by being kind. When it comes to people who disagree with us, instead of calling them names, we can call them up for coffee. The smallest things can make the biggest difference. Our happiness increases when we help others, shining our own lights outward.
In the battle between light and darkness, the darkness doesn’t stand a chance.
It’s a common question we ask children. Comedian Paula Poundstone says it’s because we’re looking for ideas.
The key word in that question is “be.” Too often, we adults change that word to “do.” It’s the classic, tried and true opening line you’ll hear at every bar, party, and networking event: So, what do you do?
That one little word changes everything.
When we ask kids what they want to be, they respond with an answer that sounds a lot like what they want to do. But if you pay attention, that’s not the case at all. Sure, they might say “firefighter,” “astronaut,” or” ninja,” but what they want to be is brave, adventurous, helpful, and a person who spends time doing what they love.
We’ve lost the plot, and in so doing, have lost our spark.
Spoiler alert: We are human beings, not human doings.
What if we’re currently in between jobs, or trying to transition from new season to the next? Does that mean we are nothing? If you’ve ever been in that situation, you know that’s often what it feels like. Meanwhile, waiting tables or cleaning bathrooms might be what we do, but that doesn’t fully represent who we are.
There is a lie that by the time you reach adulthood, you should have everything figured out. You have become who you are meant to be. And if you haven’t, it’s too late.
False.
We are all in the process of becoming something better. Always.
Judging by how college visits seem to be happening earlier and earlier in a high schooler’s career, the pressure for kids to figure out what they want to DO for the rest of their life continues to escalate.
As homeschooling parents, Kim and I have come to the conclusion that the being is more important than the doing. We asked the question, “When our kids are adults and out on their own, what do we want them to BE?”
For starters, we want them to BE… …kind. …confident. …curious. …resourceful. …honest. …passionate. …brave. …helpful. …adventurous.
If our kids end up being all of these things, I’m pretty sure they won’t have much trouble figuring out a way to do anything they want.
Yet here’s the thing. I want to be all of those things myself. Some days I am, other days I need a little work.
No one has it all figured out. We are always in a state of becoming.
So, what do you want to be when you grow up? Yes, I realize that you are already considered to be “grown up.” But what do you want to be when you turn 40? Or 50? Or 70? Or…100?
Perhaps you’d like to be more physically fit? Financially secure? Resilient? Handy? Forgiving? Adventurous? Brave? Kind? A more loving friend, parent, or spouse?
Whatever it is, good. Begin today. Be a little bit more of that than you were yesterday.
Figuring out what to do is simple.
First, decide what you want to be, and then spend your whole life becoming that.
