Marriage is hard. Divorce is hard. Choose your hard. Raising kids is hard. Building loving relationships is hard. Choose your hard. Being in debt is hard. Being financially disciplined is hard. Choose your hard. Communication is hard. Not communicating is hard. Choose your hard. Life will never be easy. It will always be hard. But we can choose our hard. Picky wisely. Success in life and family is hard. Nothing worthwhile will ever be easy because success is never given. We have to earn it every day. The great thing about this life that can be hard is we get to choose our hard. Ultimately our success is up to one person, and that is the person in the Read more…
Skill and attitude are essential. Authority is not. In fact, authority can get in the way. – Seth Godin In most cases, we think that leadership and authority go hand in hand. If you are a leader, it is because you have a title of some sort. On the other side, if you are a leader, we think you automatically have authority. With authentic leadership, authority does not matter. As family leaders, we often rely too much on our title as a parent and not our attitude or skill. There is a phrase that I know I have used in my family too many times that is a sure sign that you are hiding behind authority. That is the phrase Read more…
Remember when you were young, and all you wanted to do was play. I would always try and get my chores done early in the day to go around the corner and play with my best friend. My day was all around doing whatever I could to go play. When is it when we lose this sense of play? With all the things on our to-do list, I am sure there is not one bullet on there that says go play. Take time to play today. It might be with your kids or some long-lost hobby you have not done in some time. Play keeps us young, and more importantly, it keeps us happy. Find something that stimulates your Read more…
Recently I was reading an article that said that 90% of people lack natural leadership skills. Does that mean we are lost as parent leaders? Only 10% of us were born to be good parent leaders. I had to read this statistic twice to let it sink in. Because to me, it does not mean that 90% of us don’t have a chance. It just means that 90% of us need to work on being good leaders. The dirty little secret is no matter who you are we all need to work on our leadership skills. Leadership is the most important skill that anyone can learn. No matter where you are in life when you get intentional about your leadership Read more…
A perfect family is not one that does not have any issues they are working on or trying to get better. It is a family that works with what they have and creates a culture where all involved feel loved. I started this site thanks to banana splits. Seems like a strange reason to start something around leadership and parenting but go with me on this. I like dessert. In my mind what is the point of having a meal if it is not the reason to get through it to have dessert? Think of what your favorite banana split would have. How would you make it? Would you have vanilla ice cream or maybe you are someone Read more…