Kids, Rugrats, Curtain Climbers, Yard Apes, whatever you want to call them. Your progeny are yours. Now you may think they are awfully dumb ignorant or innocent, and they are, but you as an adult can learn a lot from your kids if you remove the diapered butt mentality, Us men can see that our kids have lots of life lessons we can learn.
There is a spirit about kids that men have. There is a reason we are often viewed as large kids. That is because we can tap into that spirit with our kids. This is when being a father becomes so damn fun.
So what can Men learn from their children?
Oh so much, and all of it is useful. Much of it helps you relax while others are so mind-blowingly insightful that you may wonder why we drive these thought skills out of our kids’ heads.
Do it scared
Have you ever watched a child try something new? Like ride a bike or climb a tree? Going to school for the first time? You can see the apprehension on their face and their body. They have all the same thoughts that adults have. What if…
Your brain does the same thing when you are trying something new. Have you wanted to start a business but the “What if’s” win out? Do you start to believe what if I can’t sell? What if I fail? What if money changes me? What if I lose my friends because of this? There are a lot of “What Ifs”.
Then our brain goes to work showing the answer to all those questions? What if you don’t succeed will you lose the house, your wife, and your kids? Will your kids think you are a joke? You believe the stories your brain tells you and so you give up on your dream because of the thoughts you had. It’s too hard. That will take up way too much time. Someone else has already thought of it. If you leave your brain unattended it will run rampant in the what-if department.
There are many different instances of kids doing stuff scary every day. They learn to walk and that is full of failures. The same goes for learning to ride a bike. Then the big one was mentioned earlier and that is attending the first day of kindergarten. You also have to learn to ride a halfpipe
The Half Pipe
You can be like my son when he was about 5 years old. He wanted to go to the skate park and try the big https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Half-pipe. Now if you don’t know what a halfpipe is it is a feature in a skate park that is a half-circle that people ride down on and are able to get air and do tricks. So he got his board and climbed up to the top of the half pipe. Sat his board on the edge. Put his foot on the tail, and he stood there. He looked down that slope and did nothing. He got off his board and kept looking. He tried again and still couldn’t make himself go down.
“Dad, Does it hurt when you fall?” Jayden asked with a little unease.
“Well, it’s not soft. So it won’t feel good when you fall but you aren’t going to die.” I replied
So he got back on his board and get trying to muster enough courage to lean into the half pipe. I was with my wife and daughters and I told him he keep trying we are going to swing his sisters. OK, that was dripping with trepidation came back from the small boy knowing what he wanted and wasn’t going to give it up.
As we were swinging and playing I would look over at Jayden from time to time and sometimes he was on the half-pipe looking down or watching other boys who could do it with ease, and others he was riding around on his board.
Finally, after about an hour, we came back and he was on the pipe again. Sizing the up the possibility of a broken neck or losing an arm. When he leaned forward and crash! Wipe out. He got back up and he realized it didn’t hurt that bad. So he clambered back up and immediately tried it again and crashed again. Yet now he had determined he was going to ride that board to the other side.
After about 5 tries he did it. He went up to the other side and crashed. He didn’t account for the shift of momentum. So up he went again and kept at it till eventually he road that board back and forth for the whole ride. The look of accomplishment and wonder is why that story of Jayden sticks in my mind.
He did it scared and saw how much fun it was to fail, and the exhilaration of actually making that goal.
So many times have we just not even tried because we wouldn’t try something because of fear? Will you lose your house trying to build this business? Possible, but what happens if we succeed? Yet so many small businesses fail. Yeah, and many more become bigger than they imagine. To be able to make it across to the other side of your halfpipe you have to do it scared and the air is the sweetest as you are going riding that board.
Yeah, you have uncertainty everywhere. Even at the “reliable” job. You don’t know, that business may close their doors suddenly. Then where will you be? That discomfort you dread really isn’t that uncomfortable. It’s weird and out of the ordinary but the chances of you being hurt are next to none. So why not? If you want a little assurance then add some pads and a helmet, or you can get the full rush but just do it and worry about the pads later.
It’s Perfectly Fine to Make a Mess
Ever watch your kid when they are playing? Do they ever do it neatly? No why? Because learning is actually a messy process. You try it one way and it doesn’t work. So you try it a different way. There are scraps and tools laying all over the place as you build your skills. As you become more proficient you learn how to do stuff in a more ordered for. Yet while learning let yourself make a mess. You can clean it up later
There are no rules when making your dreams come true. Be it traveling the world or having a business that makes 100 million a year. You have to allow yourself the opportunity to screw things up. You throw the stuff that didn’t work on a scrap pile and take what did work and refine it. Even the refining process is messy because you are still stripping away the stuff that doesn’t work.
Have you ever seen a diamond before the jeweler shapes it? It looks like a dirty hunk of glass. As he cuts parts of it away there are diamond chips laying all over the place. Then if the cutter hit the wrong spot it becomes useless. How many small inexpensive diamonds do you think a diamond cutter went through before he was able to start working on the famous Koh-i-Noor diamond. They believe this diamond may have started out at around 186 carets but was whittled down to 105 carets. Now, this wasn’t in one sitting but still, that is 81 carets of diamond lost to get it to the point it is now. There is a lot of work and then when you do that work you refine and reshape your dream till you get to what you are wanting.
Failure can be fun
Have you ever watched a kid play video games? They run and slash at enemies and eventually they get hit too many times and they have to try again. That death is a failure. So you can either decide oh well I guess I will never know how this story ends and you put the game away and never play it again. OR, you hit the continue button and you try again, and again, and again, and again till you are actually able to beat that boss and you go to the next level.
Now, these games can be frustratingly hard. I know I play games and there is more than one time I let loose a string of obscenities directed at the character I am playing. So basically I am cursing myself out. Why would I put that type of stress on myself? Well because it is fun. I like the sense of accomplishment when I do win. When I can sneak into a village and free it without alerting the enemies.
You can have the same attitude for your project. When starting or trying to get your dreams to really open up and start moving. You have times that you are messing it up. You are not sure how you are supposed to sell. You get mired down in indulgent emotions like confusion and perfection. You have to figure out how to manage all that and make money. That challenge is just like a video game. If you fail you have to try again. You have a choice is it going to be fun or are you just going to give up?
Hum a few Bars and Fake it.
When you are a new parent you quickly realize that parenting is the ultimate example of hum a few bars and I’ll fake it. Each kid is different and offers their own challenge. Some like loud ruckus play. While others like to draw. Some are needing to be right beside you to learn while others don’t bother with the instructions and build the model their way.
No matter what your dream or life purpose is it’s not like anybody else’s project. So you can try to do what everyone else does and more than likely you will fail. Yet if you can do it scared and just blaze your own path you will find more success doing whatever it is. You will also leave the experts scratching their heads because they didn’t think that would work yet you did it. When running your business there are no set rules. You can do it however you want.
Have a plan but don’t be married to it. Because your plans most likely not going to work so you will have to change and edit and try again. So it’s OK to fake it.
Take on the adventurous spirit
Men need adventure in their lives. That could be a hiking trip or finding that purpose that feeds your soul. When you watch your kids everything is a grand adventure. It could be discovering a cool rock or a cave that is under the bed. Kids don’t see challenges as something too big they see an adventure or quest that is laid before them.
How do you see this? Is it a drudge to go talk to clients? Or are you looking for that one man in the crowd who can help you on your way? This is the adventure of finding a client. Sure there is a lot of thought work to do but you can choose to be adventurous or you can decide it’s a chore and that will show up when you are finding clients. Your thoughts create your results.
Why is it important?
Having a means of feeding your soul is one of the great challenges for a man. When he has his purpose and he is seeking it out each and every day. You will not find a man with more abundance in his life. The man who sees life as an adventure is more fulfilled and content with the world than a man who just sits and hopes someone gives him a chance. Which man are you? Want to change? Reach out and see how I can help you find your purpose and fulfill it.
