Familius

Seek First To Understand

The seminal business teacher Stephen R. Covey said, “Seek first to understand then to be understood.”

In a family relationship, we often care so much about making sure that everyone is doing the right thing and understanding what we believe is the right thing, we often forget that each family member is an individual and has their own agenda. Taking personal time with each other to listen helps us understand. And by understanding, we are better able to help when called upon to do so.

What are you doing each day to understand your spouse or your children?

Honesty is the Only Policy

My grandfather repeatedly said to me, “Honesty isn’t the best policy. It’s the only policy.”

The famous retailer Nordstrom created a unique employee handbook. It said this:

Nordstrom Rules: Rule #1: Use best judgment in all situations. There will be no additional rules.

When considering your own life handbook, think about honesty and how all positive situations and relationships depend on being honest.

Life rules: Rule #1: Be honest.

“To tell the truth is not merely to state the facts but to convey true intent.”

Belief and a Happy Family

Someone once shared with me how discouraged they were about their family—that their marriage was crumbling, that their children were ungrateful, that their family life was miserable. They said, “I used to believe that my life would be happy and now I’m not so sure.”

Belief is a precious thing. When we are encompassed by significant challenges, when our family is struggling, our marriage is not what we wish it to be, and our children are not perfect, remember that to believe is a verb that creates tremendous opportunity. If you believe that your marriage can be better, if you believe your children can be more grateful and respectful, if you believe your family life can be more happy and meaningful, you are ninety percent there.

Take that belief and create a vision of a loving marriage, a happy family, wonderful children, and then nurture this belief through your own actions. Be a loving spouse, be an example of a loving family by loving your family, and be a loving parent.  The only person we can ever change is our self.

If we focus on becoming what a family needs, our ability to see the good in others increases and the result is often that people become what we hoped for. Is this because they changed or we changed? I believe that other people’s improvement is more often the result of our own change—the ability to appreciate them for who they are and recognize all the good qualities that they really have.

“Be the change you wish to see in the world.” --Gandhi

Consider Family Ever After by Michelle H. Packard for ideas on how to improve your family relationships. 

Women are Beautiful

I heard the other day from a very wise man that every woman should be told she’s beautiful. For the next two months I’ll be away from my wife, Michele. I missed her the moment I drove away on this transition to California. Michele is beautiful on the outside and on the inside. She’s beautiful and is so because she’s kind, compassionate, patient, tolerant, and loving.

Another wise man once said to some older men, “If you look at your wife after forty years of marriage and she doesn’t look like the young bride you married so long ago, all I can say is who would look like that after living with you for forty years?”

Consider the women in your life and ask yourself if you tell them they are beautiful and treat them that way. If not, commit to do so. Every woman should be told and treated in a way that confirms her inner and outer beauty. 

Consider A Couple's Guide to Happy Retirement: For Better or for Worse but Never for Lunch, available May 1, 2013 from Familius. 

People are like Raisins, kind of. . .

Yes, I am in the raisin capital of the world. This part of California’s central valley provides more raisins than any other place on earth. Children are amazed to learn that raisins are just shriveled grapes. You pick them, lay them out on wood planks, and wait for the sun to dry them. It’s a natural process. And almost every little red box of grapes originated here, where I am now working.

We like raisins because the heat of the sun evaporates the water in the grape and concentrates the fructose, the sugar that makes the raisin so sweet. The longer the raisin dries the more concentrated the sugars become and the sweeter it eventually is (provided it doesn’t get so hard and dry no one will eat it.). Of course, bad raisins are thrown out.

Experience is like this also. The more experience we gain with our families, whether with our spouse, our in-laws, our children, etc, the more concentrated we can become. We can become sweeter because we can be more compassionate, patient, and tolerant. If experience doesn’t make you sweeter, then you too can be emotionally tossed out.

Enjoyed or tossed out. Learn from the raisin. Be sweet.

Zombies!

My older children tell me that the zombie apocalypse is coming. With shows like Walking Dead, books like How to Speak Zombie, and films like World War Z, it’s no wonder my boys run through our house practicing their zombie survival guide skills.

According to my children who’ve studied zombieism, zombies are zombies because a virus has attacked their system and destroyed the part of their brain that allows for higher thought and action. They are just alive enough to physically function. They are brain dead but have a disgustingly insatiable appetite for brains.

I’m sure I’m reading into this far more than anyone should, but I can’t help but think that there is a simile in this zombie stuff. Is the zombie trend an artistic interpretation of current humanity? That many of us are walking around brain dead to the issues of the world yet have an insatiable appetite for brains, simply because we’re not adequately using our own and instead default to material things?

Like Godzilla and other post-war monster films were an exploration of the new nuclear world, perhaps zombie literature and films are an exploration of where our global culture currently is—infected, somewhat brain dead, and insatiably hungry.

I’m not sure, but as for me, I’m reading Max Brooks and preparing for this apocalypse while I also look to feed my own brain not some zombie’s.  In the meantime, Familius is working on A Family’s Guide to Surviving the Zombie Apocalypse.  Stay tuned.

Are You Carrying Too Much Stuff?

About the time you receive this blog post I’ll be somewhere between Las Vegas and Barstow, driving a 2008 blue Subaru Outback loaded with everything I think I need to transition my business life to California—clothes, business files, office chotskies, legal files, pictures of my family, fly fishing gear (absolutely necessary), and chocolate. Always chocolate.

Our lives are filled with stuff. Some of this stuff is important. Other stuff is just that—stuff. It doesn’t really improve our lives or beautify the world. The craftsman Elbert Hubbard once said, “If you don’t use it in six months or it isn’t beautiful get rid of it.” Good advice in a world addicted to stuff.

I’m taking this move as an opportunity to reduce my stuff. It’s therapeutic. It not only lightens our physical load but our emotional load as well.

Consider your stuff and toss out what  you don’t use and what doesn’t beautify the world.

Consider Global Mom: A Memoir by Melissa Bradford, a great book on a family who lived in carried their stuff in eight different countries, sixteen different addresses, and five different languages over the last twenty years.

National Dinner Day

Today is national dinner day. It’s not official. It’s a day recommended by a few bloggers to encourage families to sit down and break bread together.

In my experience, the family dinner table is the one place where you can bring a family together, where food acts as a balm and makes it possible to discuss any issue. It’s not always perfect (including the dinner) and friction can occur, but the dinner table is a metaphorical safe zone. The more frequently we visit it, the more apt we are to discover and fulfill each other’s needs.

Celebrate your family by dining together tonight.

A Patience App?

I lost my iPad and had no idea where to find it. After searching for four days, I decided to type into Google “how to find ipad.” Obviously I found that I was not the first person who had explored this topic. Having set my iPad up initially with an app called Find iPad. I logged on to iCloud, and asked it to find my iPad. It did. It used satellite tracking to let me know it was in my home. I then asked it to play a sound and quickly I discovered where it was, tucked behind some books on the third shelf of my study (I had put it there so that one of the twins wouldn’t keep stealing it).

This experience brought a couple of things to mind: First, that Apple and other tech companies we interact with know exactly where we are and what we are doing when we use their services. That’s a topic for a much longer blog as it raises so many questions about who Big Brother is and what we need to know about him.

Second, and perhaps more importantly, the experience triggered my thinking about how to find patience, love, understanding, confidence, faith, courage, and other attributes that we periodically lose during our challenging times.

I’m convinced that there is a Find Love metaphysical app out there, a Find Courage app, and a Find Tolerance app. Like anything they are only found when we need them, realize we need them, and want to take some action to find them.

So, while Big Brother is making your life easier, consider what apps you might want to download to help you in life and family beyond your tech needs. 

For additional information about family help consider Family Ever After: Simple Ways to Achieve Extraordinary Happiness with your Ordinary  Family by Michelle H. Packard. 

We Are All Toddlers

When each of my children took their first steps, they stumbled, tripped, and always fell. Time after time, we’d encourage them to try again, holding out our arms and calling for them to walk to us. They’d try again and again and again, each time because they knew they were improving and becasue they received constant and continued positive feedback from people who loved them.

As our children grow older, we often stop giving that positive feedback each time they try but fail. It’s as if we expect them to do it right the first time, even though they are but toddlers in each new challenge they face.

One principle of parenthood is to continue providing positive feedback even when our children fail at what we think is a simple task. We have to remember that once you know how to do something, it’s easy. And we’ve had years to practice overcoming challenges. Our children haven’t.

Instead of criticizing their failure, try complimenting their attempt and approximating the behavior both of you hope they will achieve. 

For more ideas on how to be a great parent, see Glad to Be Dad: A Call to Fatherhood by Tim J. Myers and Muddling Through: Perspectives on Parenting by Bil Lepp.