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The Five Tools to a Rewarding Life

11/26/2018

Busch Stadium In St. Louis

What makes someone very successful? What makes them stand apart? What can a parent do to help their child become successful? I’ll use the analogy of a baseball team/player.

I love baseball. I love that there is no clock. I love the strategy. I love how it brings people together who don’t even know each other. My favorite team since I was six years old is the St. Louis Cardinals. For my team to do well requires them to be successful in many areas. It’s apparent to anyone that pitching, fielding, and hitting are essential, but scouting, management, and player development are just as important to field a winning team. Whichever team succeeds in all these areas will usually be on top.

No baseball player succeeds to the Major Leagues without enormous talent, yet some are better at defense and others are better at offense. While some ballplayers run faster, others may have more instinct. Baseball fans are aware of what it takes for a player to be extraordinary, and that is the player who can do everything well. Today, a player who can be described that way is Mike Trout of the Anaheim Angels. Mike Trout is called a ‘Five-Tool-Player’ which means he can field, run, throw, hit for average, and hit for power. Few players have all these tools, but even being good at two or three can will make a player millions of dollars.

There are five tools for players in the game of life also. Being good at two or three of them may not bring in the earnings of a Major League ballplayer, but indeed success is within reach. Being proficient in all five tools of life and you can be an all-star.

What are the five areas or tools where one can be successful? The following is from The Power of Dadhood which explains that success is not measured in money but in balanced skills that will make one’s life rich and full.

Financial Success: Not necessarily having a lot of money, but knowing how to manage the money you do have.
Relationship Success: Having loving friends and family members who can be counted on in good times and bad, just as they count on you.
Intellectual Success: Maximizing your intellect by being open to others, their ideas, and their culture. Always being open to learning. Having confidence, patience, and empathy while understanding your strengths and weaknesses, and those of others.
Physical Success: Giving your body and mind the exercise, nutrients, and rest they need.
Spiritual Success: Being able to live outside the needs of your ego with love and understanding for people and all living things.

As fathers, giving our children these tools of success would be our own truest success. Look at each of your children. Which of these five tools does each of them need your help with? It will likely be different for each child. Spend time with each to teach, mentor, and encourage them as they make their way to success.

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Choices to Ponder

11/19/2018

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“Life is a matter of choices, and every choice you make makes you.”
John C. Maxwell

As a follow up to my last blog post regarding balance, I bring up choices. Choices are those decisions about things that can bring balance into your life. A question: How often does balance factor into your choices? Likely, not too often. When we choose what we choose it is likely highly influenced by what we want regarding that choice. For instance, if you’re a car nut, you might buy a Mercedes over a Volkswagen even though you live in a third floor flat in a crappy neighborhood. That might be ‘balance’ for you, but it’s not a balanced lifestyle. But it is your choice.

Let us play a 'what-if' game. Would you rather have a below average IQ and be rich, or an above average IQ and be poor? Which choice would give more balance in your life? Lets forget at the moment that if you already have a low IQ that you would choose to be rich. No one is that stupid!

Let's set a scene.

You haven't been blessed intellectually, but on a billion to one shot you may have won the lottery! Or a rich relative, knowing you didn’t have much going for you, left you a fortune in a will (not something I would have done).

So the first thing you decide to do after coming into money is to take a vacation to the Philippines, ignoring all the State Department warnings of terrorism. Or maybe you crave the best cheesesteak sandwiches in the world and thought you booked a flight to Philadelphia? Regardless, the fact that you are stupid is why you are in an ugly situation because you have been flashing money while looking for a cheesesteak joint in Manila and have been kidnapped by the terrorist group, Abu Sayyaf. But hey, we’re past that now.

You need mucho greenbacks to be released and, fortunately, you have the money to do it! Besides, Abu Sayyaf quickly realizes money is the only thing you have to offer. Being rich is now better than being smart, and you are released having electronically transferred your entire fortune to the terrorists. The only problem is now that you are free, you are both stupid and not-rich while wandering homeless in the streets of Manila - hoping someone will donate a cheesesteak sandwich to fend off starvation.

In this what-if game, I would choose to be 'poor but smart' over 'rich but stupid'. If you are poor but have intelligence, you can escape being poor with good choices. Rich people who make bad choices won't keep their money very long.

On the other hand, not everyone is smart in practical ways. I have a couple of distant relatives with very high IQs who wallow in self-destructive habits. Bad choices occur even if you are smart like these relatives of mine who devour science fiction books and score high playing video games. They revel and do well in the activities they enjoy. They also have very little money even with the intellectual talent to earn well. They would never confuse Philadelphia with the Philippines, but they may confuse being smart as having emotional intelligence, which would be wrong.

Seriously

We all make good and bad choices. My example of the stupid guy kidnapped by Abu Sayyaf may have been a bad one. Bad choices are not always apparent in advance. Sometimes, they are miscalculations with good intent. However, choices for the most important things in life should be clear - like the following.

When it is vital for balance in your life;

Choose family over work
Choose memories over things
Choose love over luxury
Choose independence over dependence
Choose travel over counting your money
Choose friends over contacts
Choose action over empathy
Choose strength over fear
Choose balance over extravagance
Choose investment over gambling
Choose Philadelphia over the Philippines until Abu Sayyaf is defeated.

Choose well, choose with factual information, choose long term goals over instant gratification. Choose a city for action and country for relaxation. Choose coffee in the morning and wine in the evening. But you don't have to - because you make your choices and your choices make you. Something you should definitely teach your children!

Now, I choose to end this blog and have some coffee and small talk with my wife this morning!

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Balance in Words and Action

11/12/2018

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One of the key principles in parenting is ‘balance.’ That’s one of the great treasures of having two parents. A child can see different reactions, beliefs, attitudes, personality, tone, sex, and other differences with two parents in their lives. One parent may be more or less correct than the other but a sneak at both sides, when there are differences, is likely a good thing. Some people call it diversity in viewpoints. Hearing the same thing all the time is more akin to brainwashing. I’m not a big fan of indoctrination! I like choices with reasoned opinions and enlightened options. Of course, I will be biased in my teaching while trying not to be dictatorial.

There also needs to be balance in words that describe your kids’ behavior and personal characteristics. For instance, I like hope - but with action. I believe in faith - but with sincere desire. Hope puts a pilot light in your head, but action comes when you turn on the gas. Having faith, which assumes that you can’t make it happen on your own, is worthless if your faith doesn’t come from deep within your heart.

The Bible, Matthew 5:5 says, “Blessed are the meek: for they shall inherit the earth.” I believe the meek should have a voice, but I never really understood how they would inherit the earth. That requires some aspect of strength. Then I heard a speaker note that ‘meek’ meant something different when that word was written or translated. The meek were those who ‘had swords but kept them in their sheath,’ assuming they would never be used for gain. I can see those that have ‘strength with temperance’ as those deserving of inheriting the earth.

No, I don’t expect everyone or anyone to accept this meaning of ‘meek,’ but the point is ‘having strength alone’ is not necessarily a good thing. Having strength, using it only for good, is balancing. It makes a strong person compassionate around those without strength.

Another example of balance with words is, ‘rules with flexibility.’ I state in my book on fatherhood, “In a family, a system (a plan or an agreement) can be a set of rules, beliefs, or standards. Most of the time these are never written down, but they should be clear.”

A child doesn’t know what to expect, or what’s expected of them, without rules. But rules must never be so rigid that exceptions can’t be made. Allowing your kids to stay up late to watch an expected meteor shower is more meaningful than sticking tightly to a rule, "In bed by 9."

Flexibility balances rules. Just as:

Accountability balances compassion
Humility balances competence
Guidance balances empathy
Encouragement balances sympathy
Responsibility balances love
Conviction balances promise
Planning balances action
Courage balances vulnerability

Maybe the words I use above to balance each other don’t make sense to you, and perhaps some do. I could explain my thoughts on each, but that’s not what is essential. I hope to convince you that there is never one word that can adequately describe or define a person or situation. It may be true that I was a demanding parent who was loving to his wife and a patriotic citizen - but indeed not the whole truth. For instance, I would say was demanding yet reasonable as a parent, loving but fallible as a husband, and patriotic but not blind as a citizen.

Summary

Balance is a place you always want to be leaning towards. Take time to think. Have I been too hard on my kids lately? Am I working too much and home too little? Have I been spending more time with my youngest child than my oldest? Did I call a child bad when I meant they did a bad thing? Actions matter. Words matter. Be sure the ear is hearing what the mouth is meaning. Nature is always leaning towards balance. In human nature, balance must more often be created.

Life is about balance. Be kind, but don't let people abuse you. Trust, but don't be deceived. Be content, but never stop improving yourself.
Nishan Panwar

Be precise in your speech.
Jordan B. Petersen

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Why I Write About Fatherhood

11/5/2018

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Like most people, my life can be described in stages. The first stage was chaos. The second stage was escaping chaos. The third stage was raising my family hoping I was successful in the second stage. Now I'm in the fourth stage, trying to give back using what I have learned through the first three stages.

My retired adult life, the fourth stage, has given me the time to reflect on my life and the lives of my siblings living with and without a severe alcoholic. A man who, when he was sober, was charming, fascinating, and well-liked. But when he drank he was slovenly, reckless, and often a near-monster. Since he was under the influence of alcohol in varying degrees 90% of the time he was with us, my family was happier and less tense when he was missing, which was most of the time. Where he was, we seldom knew. He would show up for a period of time and disappear again. I loved him because of the amazing person I saw in him when sober. But I despised that he never took care of his family.

The things I learned from my father were through the lens of contradiction. In other words, I didn’t want to be like his drunken self. My three brothers, two sisters and I reacted in different ways to the rough lifestyle of being raised by a kind, loving, but uneducated mother. We had little or no money. We moved two to four times a year for an inability to pay rent. Only one of us graduated from high school while truancy, alcohol, minor scrapes with the law, and pregnancy were issues my mother could not keep up with as she worked as a waitress to support us all.

While I had and still have introversion and self-confidence issues, I was able to break out of that chaotic and depressing environment and became relatively successful in my career and family life. My three children are all loving people and have great careers. Upon seeing how I lived as a child and how my children were raised to succeed, I decided to write down my thoughts on being a father, intended for my extended family, many of whom are still struggling. I spent many years writing on and researching this topic to the point I decided maybe this can be a book to share with all fathers. To my surprise, I found a wonderful family-friendly publisher (Familius LLC) who published “The Power of Dadhood: How to Become the Father Your Child Needs.”

The Message

My book and blog articles discuss the challenges and joys of fatherhood. I know that without a father’s guidance, a boy may have either no confidence or the wrong kind of confidence. He may not know how to treat or interact with the opposite sex. He may withdraw from social situations or throw himself into the wrong social situations. He may not learn what it means to be a man or how to act like one properly. He may be rebellious, lacking the stern eye of a father. He may just be lonely for man to look up to. Of course, there is the strong possibility that he will not have most of these issues - but it is not likely he will be free from all.

Without a father’s guidance, a girl may not feel she is safe from harm, lacking the protection available from her father. She may not know how she should be treated by men, and lack confidence in herself when around men or boys. She is much more likely to become pregnant in her teens and to be abandoned by the father of her child. She may have a hole in her heart that cannot be filled. It would be doubtful that any young girl could avoid all the downfalls of a missing father.

I know these things not just by research, but by seeing them first hand. While a mother has parenting instincts greater than most fathers, fathers fill significant roles in the lives of their children. As a child, simply having two people who love you unconditionally, two people that see life in different ways, who teach you different things, who also love the people you love, and care for you in their own way is not only a gift, but something all children need to have the balance necessary in their lives.

Of the six children born to my father and mother, we are faring well for the most part, but not entirely- and certainly our children and their children have taken many paths, some good, some still in a cycle of dysfunction. My mother had such a difficult life, but now she lives in relative calmness still worrying about her family, but the worries are much less immediate. Never did my father have a roof over his head that he paid for himself, save a few short months here and there. He lived on the high seas as a merchant marine, in the homes of friends and relatives who would temporarily put up with him, under bridges, in shelters, you name it. My father passed away in 1997 of cirrhosis of the liver – alcohol literally killed him, but his toughness kept him alive to the age of 73.

To put the value of fatherhood into the simplest form I can think of, a simple symbol of connection and caring between a man and his son, I say this. I regret, even today as a grandfather, never having played catch with my dad. That’s not a call for sympathy; it’s a call for action!

Summary

If any dad out there thinks he is unappreciated, unimportant, not relevant, or even in shame, or full of guilt regarding his parenting, or he just wants to be the best dad possible, he should read my book. If nothing else, it will make you think, and no doubt you can relate to the challenges or learn something to help you in your role as a father. Your children are the most important result of your life! Help them - don’t hold them back!

One last thought: When the children of our families are taken care of and nurtured, then the children of our society will contribute to it's betterment, and not take away from it.

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The Five Tools to a Rewarding Life

​Choices to Ponder

Balance in Words and Action

​Why I Write About Fatherhood

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