Tag Archives: Family

My Kid Peed in the Backyard!

31 Aug

I asked my 8-year-old son to take the dog out to relieve itself. The dog, and the responsibility, is fairly new so I intended to go with him.  He had a head start, because I fumbled around for shoes.  Eventually, I strolled across the back of my house and turned left to head down the side. There it was a glorious stream, not from the dog, but from my son.

That’s right; my son was peeing with the dog. She’s squatting, and he’s standing with one hand on the leash and the other…you get the idea.

Just because the dog does it, doesn’t mean you get to do it.  Lesson #86 of gazillion he’s heard from me over the years, like:

  • because we take turns
  • because your teeth will fall out
  • because we have a penis
  • because you can’t fit under the bed
  • because it’s not going to make itself (bed)
  • because you’ll get sick if you eat it
  • because you have a fever
  • because if you don’t pick it up I keep it
  • because you can’t
  • because I said so

To be fair, Max has taught me a few things too:

  • There are no short cuts; you just have to do it.
  • Stop focusing on what everybody else is doing, and start focusing on what you’re doing.
  • Saying “Hi” can knock down a lot of walls.
  • Farting is still funny.

My radio station is not #1, I’m not out of debt, we don’t live near family, and when the toilet flushes on the second floor above my office at work, I can hear it. Life isn’t fair.

Say these words with me: “It is what it is”.

Now get on with doing what you do, as well as you can do it.

Blood, Kids, and Wal-Mart. What would you do?

22 Jul

A while back, I was buying a Blu-Ray player at Wal-Mart.  I was in the process of checking out when a frantic mom with a kid about 4 years old came running up to the register in electronics.  There I was with the cashier, the mom…and her bleeding 4-year-old son.

That’s right, he was bleeding.  I don’t mean, fell down cut your knee bleeding, I mean fell face first into a metal shelve and ripped open your chin, lips, and nose bleeding.

It was bad.

Mom was in panic mode and had simply run to the nearest employee and asked for help. To bad it was my man No-Action Jackson. This guy just froze.  She’s screaming for help and he picks up a phone and calls somebody else while the kid kept bleeding.

When he doesn’t get an answer from the manager, he tries calling another manager.  Of course, the kid keeps bleeding.

All of it unfolding before my eyes, he’s on the phone, she’s freaking out, and the kid’s screaming. I realized that what she really needed was a way to stop the bleeding, like maybe the paper towels sitting on the counter.

I grabbed them and handed to mom, you would have thought I gave that woman a hundred bucks.

Old man winter was still on the phone.

How come that guy had no idea what to do?  How come rather than dealing with the situation himself he avoided it?  Why was it not obvious to him that the paper towels would make some immediate sense until someone arrived?

Perhaps it’s just that I had the benefit of being a spectator, it was easy to remain calm and assess. He was expected to solve the problem and solve it immediately.   I’m guessing Wal-Mart doesn’t have a section in the training manual called “What to do when a kid starts bleeding buckets at your register”.

When things go wrong at work, what do you do? I don’t mean a bleeding kid, I mean when revenue is down? When there’s a typo in the 6 figure marketing campaign, when a customer is pissed about an experience, when you or someone on your staff has royally f’d up and you’re left holding the bag?  What you do matters. That reaction is the key difference between those who can lead organizations and those who can’t.  Know how to solve problems, it’s one of the best skills you can have.

STOP YELLING! The Kid Can’t Hear You.

30 Jun

Last week, I attended another one of my daughter’s swim meets.  I referenced the swim meet experience in a story last year. This time around, something struck me, or rather interrupted me. It was Moms and Dads screaming words of “encouragement” from the side of the pool

Hey parents….guess what. THEY CAN”T HEAR YOU!

They’re listening to their coaches, the kid next to them who farted, and oh by the way…

THEY’RE DIVING INTO A POOL AND GOING UNDERWATER!

They are swimming, focused, and determined. Thinking about the impending flip turn, or if their arms are in the right position.  I know you mean well, but rather than encouraging your kid, you’re making the rest of us crazy.  I won’t even get into how ridiculous you look cheering for a kid UNDERWATER!

Why do I mention this? It’s not because I think these parents are crazy, it’s because they are exactly like old school marketers.  Yelling about how great their products are through billboards, TV, radio, and worst of all print.

Nobody is listening…they’re busy.

Perhaps parents should be letting the coach’s coach, the swimmers swim, and try encouraging kids in those moments when they give you their attention…or as I like to call it: Permission.

Are you doing the same with your brand?  Are you yelling or engaging? There’s a difference.

Brave Max

15 Jun

This is the story of my sons attempt at playing hockey. Sometimes we fail at achieving what we’ve built up in our heads, sometimes it’s devastating.

A month ago, while the two of us were goofing off with hockey sticks in the garage, my son announced to me that he wanted to play hockey.  Skating only once in his life, he thought he’d be pretty good at it.  I did some homework and found a free introduction to skating class at the local rink and signed him up.

It was a month away; I thought Max might lose interest. He didn’t. Instead, there was quite the build up.  It was like anticipating a vacation.  Questions from the eight year-old kept coming:

  • What do I wear?
  • Do we get to wear the pads?
  • Can I be a goalie?
  • Do you wear hockey gloves or regular gloves?
  • Are there other kids?
  • Who’s teaching me?
  • Can I play out instead of being a goalie?
  • I’m like in training right?

Last week, we drove to the rink, still excited, he put his sweatshirt, helmet and gloves on in the car before we left.  We live in Texas, it was 100 degrees, and he didn’t care. He wanted to be a hockey player.

We checked in, I laced up the skates; he waited and continued to tell me how excited he was to get started.  Everything was fine…until he stepped on the ice.

I was sitting behind the glass; waiting to watch my smiling son take what we both thought would be his first strides into the world of hockey.  He stumbled out there, lined up with 2 other kids, and then started to “skate”. Following the teachers instructions, he learned how to fall, turn, and push off.  I could only see the back of his head.  Tiny little guy out there next to a kid who was younger but a foot taller.  I watched Max drag his body to the blue line and then turn back to the boards.  When he got there, he looked up at me. All I saw was fear.  He was stunned.  This wasn’t easy. He didn’t know what he was doing.  He had already fallen three times.  My heart sank.

For the next 30 minutes, I watched his little body get pummeled by the frozen ice.  He fell on his ass, no joke… about 15 times, then his knees, hands, and a couple of times on his hips.  It was like watching your kid get beat up.  Towards the end, he couldn’t even stand on the skates.

He came off the ice and reached for my hand, we walked over to the bench, and I started unlacing his skates. He wouldn’t look at me. His eyes went left, right, up, and down, it was all he could do to not make eye contact.  I guess he felt like he had let me down, or he was embarrassed about not being any good.  I asked how it went, and all I got was a muttered “good”.

I don’t know that I’ve ever felt that bad for someone.  It was killing me.  I thought I was going to cry, certainly choked up a little.  Thirty minutes ago, he was confident, proud, determined, ready, and above all…happy. Now he was crushed.  It was awful.

We walked out to the car; I prepped my speech about how it was ok if he didn’t want to go back. I thought about how important it was for him to know that I didn’t care if he played hockey again, and that I was proud of him for trying.

We got to the car, I opened his door.  He pulled his sore little legs into the back seat.  Slid his sweatshirt off, and then turned his head to me and said this.

“Dad?”

“Yes Max?”

“Even though I fell down a lot, I think I’m gonna try again.”

That’s when I lost it.  I honestly cried the entire ride home.  That’s my brave son back there.  Quiet, sore, thinking about what he just went through and what would come of it. When we got to the house, he went to his room.  Moments later, I found him crying in his bed.  He let me know his short-lived hockey career was over.  He didn’t want to skate again.

Sometimes the hardest thing to do is try after you’ve failed.  It’s one thing to say you will, certainly another to actually do it.

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