What Are You Creating?
What’s up everybody? It’s been a while since I’ve been on here. And one of those times where you just … You’re a little different season, you’re going through processing things, and going through things, and figuring some things out. I just had something that came up. I’m trying to get back. Going to be getting back in here and doing a few more posts. Something came up last night, one of those things that challenged me. That’s usually where I talk from, right? The things that are challenging me, and hopefully challenge you.
There’s a group that I belong to, and it’s a group, a leadership group. That leadership group is called Emerging Leaders. It’s with our church. But we were talking about insecure versus secure. We know those people. The people that are insecure. There’s people who are secure in who they are, what they do, their leadership, all of that stuff.
We started talking about what are we doing as fathers with our children, whether it’s boys or girls, it doesn’t really matter. What are we doing as fathers, and what are we doing as husbands to either speak, or influence security, or insecurity into those that are closest to us? In this case, our kids or our wives, our spouses. I mean, as men many times we have a big influence in that area. We have a big … Our opinion tends to carry weight. Not that anybody else’s opinion is any less valuable, but those who are closest to us and love us look to us many times for that piece.
It really got me thinking as far as with the kids, with the boys, what am I doing? I’m one of those guys who, when I spot something that needs to be fixed, and we had this very conversation last night, I’m going to fix it. I’m going to try and fix it as quick as I can. I want to be part of the solution to that problem.
We talked about with your kids, are you leading with something that is a compliment or something that is they’ve done well, and then coming in with a criticism, if you will, constructive criticism, but a criticism of something they could do better. Because those things that we do, how we speak those things, will determine whether or not that our children feel secure. Feel validated, feel … I’m not talking about raising a bunch of snowflakes where they have to feel validated at every single turn. I’m talking about when they do do something that’s appropriate, it’s complimenting the character. And I talk about this in the book a little bit. It’s not blowing smoke up their skirts and telling them that they’re perfect or that they’re the best kid in the world or that they could do no wrong. It’s complimenting they do well on a test. It’s not saying, “I’m so glad you got that A.” That’s not the piece that we’re supposed to do. The piece that we’re supposed to do is to say, “You know what, you studied hard. You worked your butt of for it and your got rewarded for the effort that you put in. I’m proud of you.”
So one of the suggestions, and I thought it was really interesting, and I started doing it. I started right away this morning because I know that I need to do that right away. I need to start something that I want to change immediately. One of the suggestions was to take a dry erase marker, and on a mirror … They’re talking mainly … That subject came up about our wives. To write something encouraging, something that would foster a secure feeling or security in the ones we love the most.
So that’s what I did this morning. Something really simple is I went up, for each of the boys-I’ve got three sons-and for each of them I wrote something that I was proud about on the bathroom mirror that they all share that they all can read. Again, I’m proud of a character piece of theirs. I’m not proud … Like I tell my boys, I don’t expect A’s, B’s, C’s. I don’t expect a certain grade. What I do expect is that they try their hardest. If their hardest, if their best is a C or even a D in that particular thing, well if I need to and if they want it, we’ll get them help to try and raise it if they can, but if that’s their best, then they’ve done their best, that’s all I ask. I’m not going to say that you have be an A student. I know plenty of people who weren’t A students that are very successful in life and have a great life.
But that piece of what are we doing on a daily basis to raise that secure feeling. The more secure people are and less insecure that people have, the more people are good people. The more people want to do good for other people. The more people foster that in other people. In this day and age, when we look at what’s happening around us, it can’t be a bad thing, right?
So I’m going to challenge all of you, dads, moms, whoever it is, whoever’s watching the video, to do this. Something simple. Literally, I timed it because I wanted to figure this out. So for me to go write a positive thing, something I was proud of for each of my sons on their bathroom mirror, and then to go downstairs and write something I was proud of my wife for on her bathroom mirror, and I’ll post a picture of what I did just to prove I’m just not blowing smoke up anybody’s butts. I’ll post a picture in the feed. It took me all of … So that’s two separate floors. 45-50 seconds, just under a minute to do that.
Now, I don’t know if I’m going to necessarily do it every single day. I’m going to leave it up there and see what they say. I mean, the expression on my wife’s face when she saw it, she’s like, “When did you do this?” I said, “I did this this morning.” She’s, “Really?” I said, “Yeah.” She says, “Well, thank you.” She said, “You know my love language is words of affirmation.” I said, “Yeah, I know that, and I’ve been terrible at it. So I’m going to change it.”
I want to foster that secure piece in those that I care about the most. We have this tendency for those we care about the most to be the comfortable the most with them, and they tend to see our worst side often. Whereas, a complete strangers tend to see our best side. I get it. I’m just as guilty as this as anybody else. But why do we do that? I think it boils back to comfort. We’re comfortable and everybody’s comfortable in their situation. I thought about that. Why do I want that? Why do I want my sons and my wife to see the worst side of me, and people I don’t have any idea who they are, probably will never, ever meet them again to see the best side of me? It’s just completely bass ackwards. You know?
So that’s my challenge, guys. Really simple. Nothing revolutionary. Nothing that is like, “Wow. This guy’s brilliant.” No, it’s just something I heard something that is just absolutely so simple. So the cost of a dry erase marker is all it’s going to cost you. In less than a minute a couple times a week or once a week. Think about this. If you did this once a week, that’s 52 times in a year that you’d have to take a piece of paper towel, wipe off a mirror of a dry erase marker and write something new that you’re proud of or you love about your wife or your kids. Think about what that’s going to do for their day moving forward. I thought it was a great idea.
So I’m going to challenge you. I’m doing it, and I’d love to see anybody that’s willing to post a picture of what they’re doing. You post a picture of it below in the comments. I’m going to send you a man up t-shirt just because I think it’s such a good idea and I want to get as many people doing this as I can. So I’ll post mine first to get it started, and then we’ll go from there.
So remember, think a little bit about what you’re doing to foster security or are you fostering insecurity in the lives of the people that you care about the most, especially your kids. Why would we as the parents who love them the most want to foster any kind of insecurity in our kids? We don’t. We want them to be the highest functioning people that they can be, exactly what they were destined to be. Destined for greatness. Ain’t a one of us that I believe is not destined for greatness. It’s just whether or not we take advantage of whatever opportunities we’re given.
All right, guys. That’s all I got. Just a simple one today. Y’all have a great rest of the day. Take care.