I didn’t know that my kids would be like other people’s kids. My eldest two are in or approaching their teen years and motherfudrucker are they ever doing what teens do. It’s a nasty stage to parent through yet such an important one for them because this is where they either grow grit or not, and then they suffer the consequences of not knowing how to pick themselves up out of the mud later in life.
And as we know, there’s a lot of mud to come.
Here’s a snippet of what happened in my family this morning. I wrote it for my ‘downline’ (network marketing jargon for team) because I recognized how insanely similar this is to the lessons we’re called on to learn in our business. I hope it speaks to you as it seems to have spoken to my team.
Very interesting experience with my teenage son this morning. It made me think of our business and what it takes to design, get, and live a life we love. Here’s what happened:
We have a rule in our house, ‘as soon as it gets too hard to get up for hockey, hockey goes away’ – and right off the hop, since the boys were 7/8yrs old, they’ve been able to get up, sometimes as early as 4:30am to get on a 5:30am boat for a 6am practice. No kidding. Cold, tired and hungry… Yet off they would go.
So flash ahead 6 years and my eldest is now 14yrs and is in high school. He is often home later after his games, like 10pm and then the next morning he’s up for school at 6:30am to catch the bus at 7:05am. This morning (and multiple others this year) he had refused to get up saying ‘I’m too tired’. He’s 6’2 and 180lbs with his own mind, his own convictions, and his own chutzpah. I don’t believe in ‘making kids do anything’ anyway (unless the issue is human decency), but the truth is, I couldn’t make him get up now even if I tried.
Soooooo… I realized, this kid CAN get up, he does it all the time. He has a TRACK RECORD of doing what is challenging, he’s simply choosing not too because he doesn’t WANT TO. The REWARD or the REASON isn’t compelling enough. So… Given all of our ‘What’s your WHY?’ training, I decided to up the ante on his ‘why’. On my 5th attempt to get him out of bed, I said, ‘Mister, this has to stop. Here’s the deal, for every morning that you are like this, you lose a practice. You have two minutes to get up or there’s no hockey tomorrow.’
He didn’t get up.
What the Truck?
I go back in and do the thing I would NEVER DO in a coaching conversation. I implore with him: ‘Why would you do that? Why would you choose being tired over playing hockey? It’s worth so much to you. Why would you choose to be right about how stupid it is to go to school when what you’ve worked so hard for over the last six years hangs in the balance? Why would you do that??? Help me to understand because I don’t LOVE hockey, I love you.
He says to me: because I’m tired.
Classic.
In our business, the response is different but the same, it sounds like this: ‘Because it doesn’t seem to work for me’
Also Classic.
His dad has now been texted in because he’s on his way to work already (now 6:55am). He sends this: No school, no Maple Ridge on Friday (Game).
I walk back in to his room (which I often do in our our biz too… I walk back in) and tell him the news. – An exasperated GROAN comes from under the covers as he knows he really has no choice now. Well he does have a choice, just not one he’s willing to make. He’s backed into a corner because IT JUST GOT REAL.
The phone rings. It’s his dad. I hand him the phone.
‘I don’t want to talk to dad, he’s just going to yell at me’.
I say: ‘Listen dude… You made this bed, you don’t get to opt out of respecting your father. You don’t have to like what he has to say, or even agree with it, but you do have to listen.’
I leave the room.
He listens, hangs up, gets up and in 9 minutes gets himself dressed, packed and fed and out the door.
No he’s not talking to me.
No he’s not happy.
Yes he is honouring his CONVICTION to play hockey by doing what is least pleasant to him.
Here’s what I see, some of us are pleasers, others avoiders, some are team players, others loners, we do what we do for personal reasons and we choose to get back into the ring to go another round FOR WHAT MATTERS TO US, but only and I mean only WHEN IT GETS REAL and unfortunately, as is the way with the human experience, the magic only happens when our backs are against the wall. Oh boy.
Sooooo back to business… What we have is the brass ring. There is NOTHING and I mean NOTHING else out there like this that MOST PEOPLE can do to get the kind of return that comes with this biz model.
High pay for low time
High freedom for low responsibility
High friendship, lifetime friendships, deep meaningful walk through fire kinds of friendships without having to give up who you are.
A life first job without having to give your own life up in the process.
No education needed
Low investment needed
So when it feels hard for you to ‘do the do’, ask yourself, ‘what would have to happen before I was willing to REALLY do it? When would I cross the line into true LIFE LEADERSHIP and be willing to be the last person standing to make this business a success?
Unless of course you don’t really want what you said you came for… But I doubt it.
I said to Todd when it all blew over, this lesson were in with our son right now has NOTHING to do with HOCKEY, and everything to do with building the GRIT it takes to DO THE DO in order to LIVE YOUR LIFE on YOUR TERMS and not the terms of others.
Sometimes you have to get in to the ring with yourself in order to win.
Thinking of you.
Thinking of your grit.
Seeing your magnitude.
And holding you accountable to your WHY.
And the same with me.
Me too.
I’m just like you.
Some days I’d rather just say I’m too tired. But where will that get me?
It’s okay to be tired when you are. It’s not ok to be tired when there’s still life and will and Fire and a want inside of you. Some days you just gotta dig a little deeper.
Xxxt
So, I ask you. Do you have grit? Are you willing to be the last one standing to have what really matters to you? What is it going to take?
xxT