Embrace Changing Times AND Timeless Principles

Do 'AND' well.

Go consistently to where real change happens and do what consistently needs to be done.

Evolution happens. Revolution is what we do with it.

We start with an idea, perhaps a great idea. And as we work on and in this endeavor, problems, challenges, and needs arise. Just like raising a family. 

Hopefully, we engage, solve, change, grow, and thrive. Of course this depends on our solution or better yet, our revolutions. Their effectiveness is determined by how well we adapt to change AND implement timeless principles.

It's critical that we do 'AND' well. We must engage our context meaningfully. But we also must implement unchanging wisdom. And this  'AND' depends on the condition of our souls. Without wellness, we default to fear based responses. With it, we operate from virtue and courage. And this health of the soul is determined by what we do and think on a regular basis and who and how we love consistently. 

When our soul is well, we're ready for change. Change is inevitable and unavoidable. We should welcome and embrace it. And as we do, we will benefit from transitions when we love and work according to eternal, immutable principles. 

Like what?

Knowing and understanding how people function, including ourselves. People (including ourselves) must always be our highest priority. Meaningful  alignment with this timeless principle is reflected in how we and those we care for are doing. And this is not simply about what we do for others. It's much more about the relationships we have with them. When  people are actually valued rather than just notionally, we will commit to figuring out relationship challenges so that it can do its job of maturing those in it. 

And what does that look like?

Improving our relationships with greater exploration and learning about our inner lives. 

And here is where we come to a life and death crux. Are we going to accept this timeless principle of taking 100% responsibility for ourselves or will we operate on something less? 

What does 100% entail?

It's our verbal, mental, emotional, spiritual dimensions, and our energy-filled responses leading us to do things that either grow or kill our souls and even those around us.

When something bad happens, something painful, shameful, and even traumatic, whether by our own doing or others, we are faced with the highly difficult awareness of choosing to accept or reject our needs and realities. Will we be honest, humble, brave, and compassionate?

If yes, our next choice will be what to do about our needs and realities. Will we reach out for help? Will we trust the power of vulnerability? Will we effectively treat injuries and brokenness? Will we root out toxic narratives and dysfunctional loyalties?

Why should we take time and energy to deal with these  intangible, abstract enigmatic, terrible feeling, messy, even horrifying troubles? It's the only way we will become what we can and must in order to fulfill our revolutionary purpose and answer the transformative call of a version of history that makes sense.

Jessi Kolhagan wisely points out, "Part of our human growth is recognizing that all the experiences of our lives are simply mirrored reflections of our own inner landscape." (Read more of her great insights here.) 

If we're not clear about this landscape, this prospect, how will we know where our treasures and resources lie in order to create highways of accessibility? How will we know what needs restoration and reconstruction so we can fortify them and experience their intended functionality? When we take our ownership to the next level, we will change our perceptions. When we change our perceptions, we transform our experiences. Transforming experiences alters direction. Altering direction determines destination.

If we are not heading in a desirable direction, and we don't see ourselves ending up where we want to go, especially with our family, we need to increase our occupation and ownership of our inner potential.

Refuse to do this and expect perpetual frustration and futility. We will continue in dysfunctional cycles, destructive patterns that disintegrate our souls, our families, even our societies.

Every positive revolution we've benefitted from started with a single person's consistent and bold courage to consecutively think and act according to timeless principles while also embracing changing times and contextual trials.

"The personal revolution is far more difficult, and is the first step in any revolution." Michael Franti
  
Rosa Parks didn't run away from the racism all around her. She knew what was right. She was tired of giving in. She got on the bus. Sat in the 'wrong' seat. And the rest is history. What drove her? Desire for freedom and justice. Yes, timeless principles.

Have you responded to your evolutions with revolutions? If yes, awesome! What will be your next one? Let's chat about your current evolution and explore the revolution that will continue your forward maturation.

What is Your Central Value for Your Family?

What is Your Central Value for Your Family?

To investigate, download the new Family Connections Coaching primer on your family's central value now!

• Learn more about the different effects of bad central values
   
• 4 concise pages of research-backed explanation and tips
   
• Includes exclusive material from the forthcoming Family Connections Coaching book, "Growth Centered Family"

"Forgive us as we forgive others"

Why do it? How does it even work?

It's about self awareness that improves how we love others and empowers us to be our best even in the midst of fear.

We live in uncertain times, sometimes turbulent, sometimes devastating.

Tragedies like the one in Las Vegas this week are horrific and devastating. Depressing and painful. We grieve. How should we lead and manage ourselves, families, and communities  when faced with such challenges?

And it's not only the ones that make headline news. What about the chaos within our own homes around the conflict and isolation resulting from chronic  resentment and grudges; the emotional distances that creep into our relationships and steal our joy and sense of fulfillment.

"Forgive us our debts..."

A cry for mercy. We need freedom from our liabilities, character flaws, mistakes / failures, and dysfunctional habits that stop us from the love that overcomes all difficulties and stays intact till the end. 

If we continue indebted, we will be enslaved to unhealthy responses and patterns, destructive dances, toxic environments, systemic corruption, hopelessness.

This familiar phrase from the Lord's prayer is about ongoing, even growing self awareness of our buttons, triggers, baggage, fears, anxieties, and the deeply lodged narratives, choices and experiences that keep us in the dark, confused about why we're here, who we are, what we want, how to change, and where we're going in life. 

It's about getting clearer about our emotions and dissociative cycles so we can know how others feel and are stuck, even our spouses and kids.

And once aware and clear, invite God to heal, release, transform, even on a daily basis.

Without inner enlightenment, we will continually be victims of circumstances and events, injustices, and other people's treatment of us (perceived or actual). 

"...as we forgive our debtors."

And letting go of our own personal demand for payback and desires to return evil for evil is evidence of our own truthful and compassionate self-awareness. They go together hand in glove.

Jesus taught this practice in the context of a prayer stemming from finding one's identity in God as Father and aligning the will with His. Forgiveness was that which would sustain one's soul and spirit daily, like bread for the body. And this central, even identity-defining discipline and focus would decrease temptation's power and rescue from chaos and disintegration, the kind that divides households and divorces people who had promised to love till death.

This is our most urgent and profound need. Yes, often overlooked and forgotten. Nevertheless it is the key to life long, loving relationships, relationships that do what relationships are supposed to do—grow us up to be emotionally healthy, mature people. 

 When we don't do forgiveness well, we don't do relationships well. That is, our relationships will not be doing what they're supposed to do and we and our loved ones miss out on becoming our best selves. 

Are you ready to go to the next level of your personal and / or  professional development? Let's take your creativity, discipline, and productivity to new heights so that whatever happens, we're ready.

What do we men need to be men?

Yes, the 'real man' question.

Know the destination and the needs of the journey to develop an effective discipline.

Do you have a "20 mile march"?

Becoming a man is a lengthy, arduous, challenging adventure. Through the last century, what it means to be a man has evolved. But there are timeless qualities that most would agree constitute desirable masculinity. Here are 8 that I agree with:

A mature man ...

1. ...makes promises and keeps them.
2. ...is kind.
3. ...is passionate.
4. ...is fatherly.
5. ...is humorous.
6. ...is morally upright.
7. ...is wise.

How can we arrive at this amazing and lofty destination?

I think the first expedition leader to trek to the South Pole can offer some significant insight.

"I may say that this is the greatest factor—the way in which the expedition is equipped—the way in which every difficulty is foreseen, and precautions taken for meeting or avoiding it. Victory awaits him who has everything in order—luck, people call it. Defeat is certain for him who has neglected to take the necessary precautions in time; this is called bad luck."

— from The South Pole, by Roald Amundsen


Amundsen's contemporary and competitor was Robert Falcon Scott. He and his team lost the race to Amundsen's team and unfortunately perished on the return trip. Both teams had different ways to get to the destination but the marked difference was the daily discipline of what leadership guru Jim Collins calls "the 20 mile march". Through this simple but powerful routine, Amundsen's team uneventfully completed the journey. In good and inclement weather, they covered the set distance and used extra time to rest and were able to maintain needed levels of health and strength for themselves and their dogs. In contrast, Scott's team would push further on good days and hunker down on bad ones. Rather than responding to the weather, it appears that a sound internally driven discipline proved to be key.

So, thinking about the journey to authentic manhood...

• What are the difficulties?
• What precautions must we take?
• How do we organize ourselves for victory?
• What must we not neglect?
• What timely dangers must we be aware of before it's too late?

Well, here are some dangers many men encounter in the process of becoming adults:

• Blurred boundaries
• Low self worth
• Low self-awareness

These dangers are primarily caused by fathers who were either absent or emotionally unavailable. The results are anger and emotional voids filled with unhealthy/destructive habits. And the root of this is a lack of equipping to effectively overcome fear and anxiety.

These dangers can result in abuse of the body, depression of mind and soul, dysfunction in relationships, divorce of marriages, and disintegration of families. And worse of course.

What might be our 20 mile march for this South-Pole-trek-like journey? I love John Kim's insights (full article here):

• Respond rather than react.
• Look within first and bravely examine defects, deficits, weaknesses. Practice transparency and vulnerability. 
• Purpose to improve / build yourself to contribute meaningfully to your relationships and thus the world.

In a word, INTROSPECTION. No, not navel gazing but rather, COURAGE. Braving the shame and pains of insecurity, inadequacy and failure to become emotionally healthy and developing skill to maturely manage difficult intrapersonal landscape.

Doing this daily with lower and upper limits of introspective effort can move us towards our destination. We need to take action daily to stop/pause to notice inner life challenges (fears/anxieties caused by outdated code, ie. limiting beliefs and rules), bravely lean in to identify hurts, injuries, scars, and the codes that perpetuate them. Once identified, practice repeatedly letting them go, divorcing ourselves from them, even demolishing them to become and achieve what true love requires. 

Wisdom is understanding and acting to overcome the unseen, hidden, insidious forces and dynamics that steal our true identity, our authentic masculinity.

It's never too early or late to get on the path of deep, meaningful growth and development. Is your organizing principle prioritizing your maturation? If not, fear and anxiety are the likely drivers of what you think and do. This is most destructive in our homes. It also fosters havoc and degeneration in companies and nonprofits.

Let's chat to get clear and move forward with what matters most in being mature men.

The value of liberal arts in the long term

What will happen as technology progresses to the point of automation of automation, when machines can write better code than people?

There's a growing need for creative thinking.

Liberal arts becoming more in demand than coding, finances, and even engineering? No way right?

What will happen as machines get smarter and smarter, able to do more and more of what people can do—faster, more accurately, cheaper? 

Check out Mark Cuban's thoughts here.

Giant data is well on its way. But how will we process the data and apply it for greater benefits and sustainability? Who do we want doing it? What will be their organizing principle for interpreting all those terabytes?

We will need healthy, creative, courageous workers, leaders, managers, with deep relational abilities—the personal, human qualities that machines are not capable of. 

Cuban projects free, creative thinking will be the #1 job skill in 10 years. Thinking is not a luxury. We're not talking about fear-filled analysis. It's getting clearer on macro-issues, the bigger picture, the longview. It's being dedicated and disciplined to find solutions that help everyone become mature, fulfilled, successful. It's developing greater management of work-life integration for sustainable thriving families.

What keeps families from thriving? The drive for productivity to make more money to have a certain lifestyle. Many people work so much that there's nothing left for relationships, much less emotional hygiene and growing what matters most.

What happens when we neglect physical hygiene—the smell gets bad quick not to speak of overall health deterioration. Equally detrimental is not caring for the emotional quality of our minds. This is likely the root of poor self care.

Why do we (especially us guys) lack emotional maturity to lead with courage and compassion? Is it because action and adrenaline form our organizing principle for life? Or is it anxiety and worry over failure and humiliation? 

Why does management of intangibles like emotions and relationships consistently get marginalized? 

Creative thinking emerges as part of the top tiers of Maslow's hierarchy of needs. It occurs when the deficiency needs are effectively met—physiological, security, love and belonging, and self worth. The disconnect happens after security. We men think that's the primary extent of our role, provide a home and have a job to pay the bills. Then we use our job performance to give us our self worth rather than finding it in a deep sense of being loved apart from what we do. Rest, bonding and recreation with loved ones becomes perceived as a waste of time (time to make more money) or tolerable at best.

When relationships take a back seat to productivity and exercising emotional labor is perceived as a waste of time, the general fall out is family dysfunction, disintegrated marriages, disconnected youth, disenfranchised adults.

The stuff that companies and organizations look for more and more are real people. Those who aren't afraid to listen to their hearts AND think with their brains, who don't think they don't have time for dealing with emotionally, laborious challenges, like the messiness of loving and leading adolescents or those who behave like one. We need to stop thinking that we're above it all. If we're a parent / manager / leader, dealing with the messy people problems IS OUR JOB. Administration must be secondary. Can there ever be true success without solid, healthy relationships? I say categorically NO.

What would you be willing to invest to grow and develop your heart and mind for greater creative thinking and courageous living?

$3000? Now there are some cool things you can do with that much money. Check these out:

Or you can invest it towards developing yourself for greater creative capacities and capabilities for grander vision and growth-centered execution. Dedicate thoughts and actions to bring more hope, joy, and love into the life of those your care for as well as your own. 

How to Use Failure to Grow - For You and Your Family

Do you even know how awesome failure can be?

To find out, download the new Family Connections Coaching primer on failure now!

• Learn more about what failure really means, what to do when it happens - and how to use it for your benefit
   
• 4 pages of research-backed explanation and tips
   
• Practical exercises to help you leverage failure right now

Your children need to learn this!

Being radically candid and caring.

How do we and our kids become people who can highly challenge and deeply care for ourselves and others?

Integration 

Effective parents, like great managers, are capable of radical candor and meaningful concern for those they care for. It's being able to empathize as well as enforce limits, being demanding but also supportive. This 'both-and' is what creates liberating cultures. And the source is integration.

I want to share with you 2 primary integrations that will take your presence and productivity to the next level.

First, heart-brain.

When our brain and heart are on the same page, we'll have balance. The various areas of our lives (health, work, relationships, environment, possessions, rest) will receive what they need to thrive so we and our loved ones can live in sustainable ways, achieving long term goals and benefits. 

This is especially important for parents and basically anyone who is responsible for managing others. We can't effectively care for and challenge others if we're sacrificing ourselves with imbalance. Usually this is the brain killing off the heart.

Chronic imbalance is an indicator that we are not managing certain areas well; likely areas (possibly subconsciously unaware) of default beliefs and rules acquired from youth.

Why did this happen? The young, malleable mind will dissociate if faced with chronic distress. Here are some examples:

• Certain thoughts, feelings, and / or actions were consistently disapproved by parents / highly esteemed people.
• Unhealthy, obsolete standards of those same people were adopted.

When these developments go unchecked, they stop us from becoming our unique selves as we are living with hand-me-down values and expectations.

Without introspection and mature evaluation, we continue living without the integration we and our families need. If our mind and heart are not one, we will not be able to show up with our whole selves, our best self, our truest self. And we need this to effectively overcome the problems that show up in the area of life that matters most—relationships. Without healthy, successful relationships, we will never achieve our most meaningful goals, whether at home or at work.

Integration is what will empower us to be radically candid and deeply compassionate. In other words, wisdom to choose what is genuinely right and benevolent; courage to do what is truly loving.

Second integration is work-life.

This is a derivative of the first. If our core is cohesive, we will come to understand that the various areas of life are all connected. What we do in one affects the others. So we develop a way to think and act that enables us to show up at home and work with our whole self, our best self, our true self.

When we're at work, we give our best. But we put appropriate limits so we can prioritize healthy habits. Sleep. Diet and exercise. Family time. Fun. Personal interests. 

When we're integrated, we realize we will not do the good we ought if we don't protect our personal wellness from work and even our defaults that want to give work free reign.

When working on Toy Story 2, a couple working for Pixar left their infant strapped in the car and almost lost their child to the heat. They had worked 6 months, working long nights 7 days a week, giving everything they had. Fortunately the wife asked the husband about the day care drop off. They rushed out to the car to find the baby unconscious but in time to revive their precious one. After completion of that film, Catmull (CEO) realized a third of the staff suffered some kind of repetitive stress injury. He vowed never to make a movie that way again. "...a motivated, workaholic workforce pulling together to make a deadline—could destroy itself if left unchecked. It was management's job to take the long view to intervene and protect our people from their willingness to pursue excellence at all costs. Not to do so would be irresponsible." Catmull goes on to say, "If we are in this for the long haul, we have to take care of ourselves, support healthy habits, and encourage our employees to have fulfilling lives outside of work."

Without attention and commitment to integration, we can lose sight of essentials and compromise our capacities and abilities to live and work well for decades to come.

Integration is oneness; it's a philosophy of life that stems from 'both-and', not 'either-or'. And it happens when our souls are well. Our soul is the most important part of us; it is the integrator of body, mind, and heart with real, sustainable, benevolent life.

Elevate your commitment to your soul, your integration, your family, your organization, your future and that of all those you touch. 

Help me share my message!

What positively sustains families to thrive?

A Holistic, Transformative Strategy

Is your strategy, system, approach, or design/blueprint helping everyone in your family grow towards greater maturity and levels of thriving? Is it unifying and organizing your family culture to sustain health, happiness and hope?
 

Depends on your center.

Every family has some sort of center: children/family, education, work and finances, social activities, extracurriculars, religious commitments, God, etc. Yet, often times, the most important things that help everyone thrive and mature gets overlooked and lost in the shuffle. Fall out shows up as the children enter adolescence and parents become middle aged. No one wants to end up with broken families and dysfunction but it is not uncommon.

The reason why some centers aren't beneficial is that they do not effectively manage fear, anxiety, worry, and insecurity. Too often, our understanding is too simplistic and lack the truth and accuracy to see the changes needed. There are actions we must start or stop to decrease their control over us. It is their prevalence that prevents us from greater levels of wisdom and flourishing. I hope to decrease this commonality and that you feel the same.

I'm currently in the final stages of completing my book, The Growth-Centered Family, and I'm hoping to publish it in September. In it, I share a holistic, transformative strategy for parents. Based on needs fulfillment and life development stages, with a Biblical perspective, I emphasize personal transformation and the importance of creating a loving, liberating culture that fosters the growth of not only the children but parents too. Here's the outline:

• Why center on growth?
• What is a growth-centered family?
• Cultivating a growth-centered family

I believe this prioritization of growth and development is central to God's deepest desire for all people. 

"Blessed is the one...whose delight is in the law of the Lord, and who meditates on his law day and night. That person is like a tree planted by streams of water, which yields its fruit in season and whose leaf does not wither—whatever they do prospers." Psalm 1:1-3
 

I'd be happy to discuss unifying, organizing centers further over the phone, video chat or email. Or if you know of a group that would be interested in hearing more about growth-centeredness, let's coordinate. Book us some time or message me.

Are you cultivating a grit growing culture?

Learn from Enron's failure. Enron had a culture of smarts and short term success. 

In her book, Grit: The Power of Passion and Perseverance, Angela Duckworth recalled the Enron scandal and bankruptcy. It was one of the nation's largest corporate crimes and it was committed by very smart people, driven by short term success and show off performance. However, all that talent was undergirded with insecurity; they were good at short-term fixes but horrific with long-term success and sustainability. The culture discouraged long-term growth and learning.

We need to be careful we aren't raising our kids to conform to being that kind of adult. If we emphasize talent and smarts, we may be missing everything else. 

Like what? The mundanity of excellence. It's the excellence that is the accumulation of many consistent common actions. Greatness is many, many individual feats and each feat is doable. Often times when we see perfection we may not realize how it came about. Rather than simply giving credence to talent and gifting, realize it's much more about consistently doing something over and over again. World-class excellence comes through long-term developed expertise that comes through passion and perseverance. 

And passion and perseverance equals grit.

Grit is satisfied with being unsatisfied. It perpetuates the unceasing pursuit of passion. It fosters the ability to learn and get back up from failure.

Duckworth shares 4 elements of grit:

INTEREST: Grit involves passion which begins with interest.

PRACTICE: Next comes the development of daily focus; planning to get better and never becoming complacent. Keeping it up for days to weeks to months to years to achieve mastery.

PURPOSE: This may not be initially clear. But as passion and practice progress, purpose will show up and be integrally connected to the benefit of others.

HOPE: Hope is learned optimism as weaknesses are overcome by the mundane activities of achieving world class excellence in the passion and purpose to which you've given yourself.

I whole heartedly agree with Angela, "Let's get gritty about helping our kids get grittier." Let them struggle. Let them fail. Let them figure it out. Let them experience break throughs. This will require high levels of emotional health and maturity on our part. If we want grittier kids, we will need to centralize on cultivating an environment that supports this kind of long term development. 

Help your kids become better decision makers

Hope you're not making them for them.

The older your kids get, the better they'll need to be.

This means they'll need plenty of practice. And one of the most important things for us is to help them develop the wisdom to discern what to think and do.

Here are 5 tips:

1. Be fair and clear:

This is a big reason for growing our interior lives—we need to get clearer about our own values, beliefs, and behaviors to see well. Our maturity is foundational for our kids’ development in becoming good decision makers. We help them define what is fair and what’s not and how to discern it. It’s essential that parameters are consistent but not statically simple. They don’t have to like our limits but as they get older and their thinking gets more developed, will our expectations and perspectives make sense? It’s absolutely essential that we aren’t simply setting limits blindly according to outdated rules and limiting beliefs

2. Use your voice and no’s effectively:

Our tone should be casual and comfortable. We want to make ourselves easy to talk to and easy to listen to. Extremes can compromise our relationships and kill desire to be with each other. We want our voices to cultivate love and belonging, esteem and friendship. Aim not to shout unless you’re warning them of danger. Use a serious tone to teach what ‘no’ means—firmly expressing the gravity of the limit with confidence and conviction.

3. Be proactive and intentional: Structure regular family meetings

• Talk about goals, challenges, and concerns.
• Encourage sharing with unloaded questions and nonjudgmental answers.
• Discuss concerns and rules to clear up expectations and consequences.
• Structuring in these times gives a platform for every member of the family to express and talk about whatever is on their minds and hearts. It also helps identify more explicitly, the direction and progress of each member. As you facilitate this ongoing discipline, you can gain a greater awareness of what your family is about. This should not be a stress-producing time. To make valuable and productive, you’ll need to work on the general climate of relationships. If the ‘air’ is good, family meetings will have a much greater chance of being useful and sustainable. If relationships aren’t healthy, then that needs to be prioritized. 

4. Give Choices

Making choices, good and bad ones, is a very important part of growing wisdom for success and development. As time goes on, the weight of the decisions should increase; our children will need them to gain the practice and experience to be ready for life without us. This will also give them the confidence of a deep, healthy esteem for themselves.

• Which 2 toys do you want to take?
• Do you want to go to the beach or the park?
• Do you want to have a snack first or after you finish your homework?

As your kids become adolescents, give them choices concerning their growing responsibilities:

• When are you going to pick up and switch the laundry?
• What will you do about your grades in math?When do you want to spend time with us?
• How do you want to better manage your time?

Some of you may be thinking that giving your children these choices will create more problems than peace. You’re absolutely right, they will; and that’s exactly what needs to happen. It’s the prevention of problems and the drive to control that snowballs into cultures of ineffective, dysfunctional parenting strategies. But when we embrace the messiness, ready to learn and change, it sets the stage for the creation of a growth-centered culture. 

Giving choices helps our kids learn from mistakes and successes but more importantly, they shape our culture. Healthily managing bad decisions with empathy and consequences—sincerely and patiently expressing belief in them to figure things out—will give them a greater sense of love and belonging and self-esteem. This substantially communicates unconditional love, the ultimate value in the culture we want for our homes.
 

5. Follow through with Consequences

Consequences, not incessant talk make our boundaries effective. But they are not about punishment; they aren’t intended to make our kids ‘learn their lessons’. They should serve the purpose of helping our kids think, clearly, deeply, authentically so they can figure out and decide what they want to do to change.