To find out, download the new Family Connections Coaching primer on failure now!
Being radically candid and caring.
How do we and our kids become people who can highly challenge and deeply care for ourselves and others?
Integration
Effective parents, like great managers, are capable of radical candor and meaningful concern for those they care for. It's being able to empathize as well as enforce limits, being demanding but also supportive. This 'both-and' is what creates liberating cultures. And the source is integration.
I want to share with you 2 primary integrations that will take your presence and productivity to the next level.
First, heart-brain.
When our brain and heart are on the same page, we'll have balance. The various areas of our lives (health, work, relationships, environment, possessions, rest) will receive what they need to thrive so we and our loved ones can live in sustainable ways, achieving long term goals and benefits.
This is especially important for parents and basically anyone who is responsible for managing others. We can't effectively care for and challenge others if we're sacrificing ourselves with imbalance. Usually this is the brain killing off the heart.
Chronic imbalance is an indicator that we are not managing certain areas well; likely areas (possibly subconsciously unaware) of default beliefs and rules acquired from youth.
Why did this happen? The young, malleable mind will dissociate if faced with chronic distress. Here are some examples:
When these developments go unchecked, they stop us from becoming our unique selves as we are living with hand-me-down values and expectations.
Without introspection and mature evaluation, we continue living without the integration we and our families need. If our mind and heart are not one, we will not be able to show up with our whole selves, our best self, our truest self. And we need this to effectively overcome the problems that show up in the area of life that matters most—relationships. Without healthy, successful relationships, we will never achieve our most meaningful goals, whether at home or at work.
Integration is what will empower us to be radically candid and deeply compassionate. In other words, wisdom to choose what is genuinely right and benevolent; courage to do what is truly loving.
Second integration is work-life.
This is a derivative of the first. If our core is cohesive, we will come to understand that the various areas of life are all connected. What we do in one affects the others. So we develop a way to think and act that enables us to show up at home and work with our whole self, our best self, our true self.
When we're at work, we give our best. But we put appropriate limits so we can prioritize healthy habits. Sleep. Diet and exercise. Family time. Fun. Personal interests.
When we're integrated, we realize we will not do the good we ought if we don't protect our personal wellness from work and even our defaults that want to give work free reign.
When working on Toy Story 2, a couple working for Pixar left their infant strapped in the car and almost lost their child to the heat. They had worked 6 months, working long nights 7 days a week, giving everything they had. Fortunately the wife asked the husband about the day care drop off. They rushed out to the car to find the baby unconscious but in time to revive their precious one. After completion of that film, Catmull (CEO) realized a third of the staff suffered some kind of repetitive stress injury. He vowed never to make a movie that way again. "...a motivated, workaholic workforce pulling together to make a deadline—could destroy itself if left unchecked. It was management's job to take the long view to intervene and protect our people from their willingness to pursue excellence at all costs. Not to do so would be irresponsible." Catmull goes on to say, "If we are in this for the long haul, we have to take care of ourselves, support healthy habits, and encourage our employees to have fulfilling lives outside of work."
Without attention and commitment to integration, we can lose sight of essentials and compromise our capacities and abilities to live and work well for decades to come.
Integration is oneness; it's a philosophy of life that stems from 'both-and', not 'either-or'. And it happens when our souls are well. Our soul is the most important part of us; it is the integrator of body, mind, and heart with real, sustainable, benevolent life.
Elevate your commitment to your soul, your integration, your family, your organization, your future and that of all those you touch.
What positively sustains families to thrive?
A Holistic, Transformative Strategy
Is your strategy, system, approach, or design/blueprint helping everyone in your family grow towards greater maturity and levels of thriving? Is it unifying and organizing your family culture to sustain health, happiness and hope?
Depends on your center.
Every family has some sort of center: children/family, education, work and finances, social activities, extracurriculars, religious commitments, God, etc. Yet, often times, the most important things that help everyone thrive and mature gets overlooked and lost in the shuffle. Fall out shows up as the children enter adolescence and parents become middle aged. No one wants to end up with broken families and dysfunction but it is not uncommon.
The reason why some centers aren't beneficial is that they do not effectively manage fear, anxiety, worry, and insecurity. Too often, our understanding is too simplistic and lack the truth and accuracy to see the changes needed. There are actions we must start or stop to decrease their control over us. It is their prevalence that prevents us from greater levels of wisdom and flourishing. I hope to decrease this commonality and that you feel the same.
I'm currently in the final stages of completing my book, The Growth-Centered Family, and I'm hoping to publish it in September. In it, I share a holistic, transformative strategy for parents. Based on needs fulfillment and life development stages, with a Biblical perspective, I emphasize personal transformation and the importance of creating a loving, liberating culture that fosters the growth of not only the children but parents too. Here's the outline:
I believe this prioritization of growth and development is central to God's deepest desire for all people.
"Blessed is the one...whose delight is in the law of the Lord, and who meditates on his law day and night. That person is like a tree planted by streams of water, which yields its fruit in season and whose leaf does not wither—whatever they do prospers." Psalm 1:1-3
I'd be happy to discuss unifying, organizing centers further over the phone, video chat or email. Or if you know of a group that would be interested in hearing more about growth-centeredness, let's coordinate. Book us some time or message me.
Learn from Enron's failure. Enron had a culture of smarts and short term success.
In her book, Grit: The Power of Passion and Perseverance, Angela Duckworth recalled the Enron scandal and bankruptcy. It was one of the nation's largest corporate crimes and it was committed by very smart people, driven by short term success and show off performance. However, all that talent was undergirded with insecurity; they were good at short-term fixes but horrific with long-term success and sustainability. The culture discouraged long-term growth and learning.
We need to be careful we aren't raising our kids to conform to being that kind of adult. If we emphasize talent and smarts, we may be missing everything else.
Like what? The mundanity of excellence. It's the excellence that is the accumulation of many consistent common actions. Greatness is many, many individual feats and each feat is doable. Often times when we see perfection we may not realize how it came about. Rather than simply giving credence to talent and gifting, realize it's much more about consistently doing something over and over again. World-class excellence comes through long-term developed expertise that comes through passion and perseverance.
And passion and perseverance equals grit.
Grit is satisfied with being unsatisfied. It perpetuates the unceasing pursuit of passion. It fosters the ability to learn and get back up from failure.
Duckworth shares 4 elements of grit:
INTEREST: Grit involves passion which begins with interest.
PRACTICE: Next comes the development of daily focus; planning to get better and never becoming complacent. Keeping it up for days to weeks to months to years to achieve mastery.
PURPOSE: This may not be initially clear. But as passion and practice progress, purpose will show up and be integrally connected to the benefit of others.
HOPE: Hope is learned optimism as weaknesses are overcome by the mundane activities of achieving world class excellence in the passion and purpose to which you've given yourself.
I whole heartedly agree with Angela, "Let's get gritty about helping our kids get grittier." Let them struggle. Let them fail. Let them figure it out. Let them experience break throughs. This will require high levels of emotional health and maturity on our part. If we want grittier kids, we will need to centralize on cultivating an environment that supports this kind of long term development.
Hope you're not making them for them.
The older your kids get, the better they'll need to be.
This means they'll need plenty of practice. And one of the most important things for us is to help them develop the wisdom to discern what to think and do.
Here are 5 tips:
1. Be fair and clear:
This is a big reason for growing our interior lives—we need to get clearer about our own values, beliefs, and behaviors to see well. Our maturity is foundational for our kids’ development in becoming good decision makers. We help them define what is fair and what’s not and how to discern it. It’s essential that parameters are consistent but not statically simple. They don’t have to like our limits but as they get older and their thinking gets more developed, will our expectations and perspectives make sense? It’s absolutely essential that we aren’t simply setting limits blindly according to outdated rules and limiting beliefs
2. Use your voice and no’s effectively:
Our tone should be casual and comfortable. We want to make ourselves easy to talk to and easy to listen to. Extremes can compromise our relationships and kill desire to be with each other. We want our voices to cultivate love and belonging, esteem and friendship. Aim not to shout unless you’re warning them of danger. Use a serious tone to teach what ‘no’ means—firmly expressing the gravity of the limit with confidence and conviction.
3. Be proactive and intentional: Structure regular family meetings
4. Give Choices
Making choices, good and bad ones, is a very important part of growing wisdom for success and development. As time goes on, the weight of the decisions should increase; our children will need them to gain the practice and experience to be ready for life without us. This will also give them the confidence of a deep, healthy esteem for themselves.
As your kids become adolescents, give them choices concerning their growing responsibilities:
Some of you may be thinking that giving your children these choices will create more problems than peace. You’re absolutely right, they will; and that’s exactly what needs to happen. It’s the prevention of problems and the drive to control that snowballs into cultures of ineffective, dysfunctional parenting strategies. But when we embrace the messiness, ready to learn and change, it sets the stage for the creation of a growth-centered culture.
Giving choices helps our kids learn from mistakes and successes but more importantly, they shape our culture. Healthily managing bad decisions with empathy and consequences—sincerely and patiently expressing belief in them to figure things out—will give them a greater sense of love and belonging and self-esteem. This substantially communicates unconditional love, the ultimate value in the culture we want for our homes.
5. Follow through with Consequences
Consequences, not incessant talk make our boundaries effective. But they are not about punishment; they aren’t intended to make our kids ‘learn their lessons’. They should serve the purpose of helping our kids think, clearly, deeply, authentically so they can figure out and decide what they want to do to change.
It's the pattern for greatness.
Do you know how true, sustainable excellence is achieved?
I believe bringing a child into the world—its purpose, process, and product—is a great example.
Its purpose: to lovingly procreate and usher in a new generation; to faithfully perpetuate the human race with hopes for a greater future.
The process: 2 people fall in love, developing an intimate, trustful relationship; they intimately, passionately, ecstatically become one; 9 months of discomfort, sickness, and anticipation. And it culminates with increasing pain that can last for hours, lots of hours.
The product: 5 to 9 pounds (on average) of cuteness and joy; totally dependent, vulnerable person with lots of needs.
With the birth of a child, we can get an idea of what is involved in creating something uniquely amazing—patience, courage, perseverance, compassion, humility, gratitude, joy, faith, and of course love. To be successful in this complex endeavor, we need to grow how we see ourselves, others, and what life is about. We must foster the things that help us thrive and protect against those that threaten, to overcome the hidden things that get in the way of true, long-term fulfillment and satisfaction. Things that are precious and new are usually weak and needy and they need to be loved, protected, cherished, and developed.
But if we haven't been liberated from fearful, anxious, and worrisome ways, if we haven't healed deep emotional wounds from the past, we will most likely be operating with an organizing principle of superficial securities and affinities that tend to focus on productivity, efficiency and short-term fixes.
What's wrong with this?
It's a beast. And it will eat little babies of inspiration, originality, non-status-quo aspirations, and seeds of innovation. Our ideology will be impotent against the invisible forces that steal our joy, erode our hope, and oppress our love. We would do well to wisely steer away from beast-run organizing.
Here's God's template for divine success:
Inspiration and passion of love
>>> growing deep trust
>>> decisions and actions to effectively create and collaborate
>>> birth of something new that is vulnerable and needy
>>> intentional, dynamic protection of the new
>>> authentic learning through trial and error
>>> ongoing development and revolution towards maturity.
Needed ingredients: love, humility, wisdom, joy, courage, perseverance, patience, forgiveness, faith, hope—to effectively deal with anything that causes fear to find the best possible solutions to the myriad of problems encountered at home and work.
This is the what and how of God's work. Too often, divine activity has been relegated to conventional ministry, evangelism, etc. But when anyone does things that incorporate healthy culture building principles, they are partnering with supernatural benevolence. Ed Catmull is doing it at Pixar and we too can do it in our pursuit of sustainable excellence.
I also see this with the Golden State Warriors, 2017 NBA champs! What a great example of what can happen when leadership prioritizes, embraces, collaborates, exemplifies and develops attitudes and culture that value every person on the team and the organization. The depth of their bench is a strong indicator; seeing how unselfish the top players are, even in tight situations is another. It's quite evident that the things needed to thrive as a team are core, and not simply given lip service. It's the very thing that drew Kevin Durant to sign on:
"...I am also at a point in my life where it is of equal importance to find an opportunity that encourages my evolution as a man: moving out of my comfort zone to a new city and community which offers the greatest potential for my contribution and personal growth. With this in mind, I have decided that I am going to join the Golden State Warriors."
~ K.Durant, July 2016
Achieving true, sustainable excellence is what a growth-centered family is all about. Healthy parenting is what healthy leaders do in healthy organizations (whether a family, corporation, or nonprofit). When we engage it, surrender to it, we experience its power. But without faithful commitment to embrace and overcome all that is involved, we will miss out on the greatest blessings and outcomes of genuine love and inspiration.
When we are in this spiritual, relational, transformative process, we can move beyond a life controlled by insecurities, freed from unhealthy ties to culture and family of origin. Our heads become more and more one with our hearts. We find deeper and more meaningful collaboration with others at home and work. We're on our way to fulfill our highest purpose in the world.
Cost-saving, efficiency, productivity all have their place. But they must never be allowed to trump the baby; the tangible, easily observable never make anything truly great. It's only what comes through inspiration and lovingly dealing with the uncomfortable, messy part of the creative process. This means not always trying to eliminate errors but rather willingness to embrace failure, making space and time to effectively learn and change from it.
Take, for example, Pixar's attempt to streamline the production of "Finding Nemo". They had taken 5 years to make "Monsters Inc." Wanting to save on costs and time, they attempted to finalize the script before production. Didn't happen. They ran into all kinds of unforeseen problems and ended up making just as many adjustments as any other film. But the end result was a film they were entirely proud of that was 2nd highest grossing 2003 movie and the highest grossing animated film ever at that time. That's what can happen when the baby is protected from the beast.
Are you living, leading and working with a mindset aligned with the divine template? Yes, no or somewhere in between let's chat to explore what a greater culture of growth and development could do for your family and work.
Opposites?
Are you searching for better ways to see?
I recently listened to the audio version of Ed Catmull's book, Creativity Inc. and am totally stoked by the culture he and Pixar leadership have created to uncover hidden forces that get in the way of true inspiration.
Ed's thesis was this:
"...there are many blocks to creativity, but there are active steps we can take to protect the creative process
...the most compelling mechanisms.
..are those that deal with uncertainty, instability, lack of candor, and the things we cannot see
...the best managers acknowledge and make room for what they do not know—not just because humility is a virtue but because until one adopts that mindset, the most striking breakthroughs cannot occur
...managers must loosen the controls, not tighten them. They must accept risk; they must trust the people they work with and strive to clear the path for them; and always, they must pay attention to and engage with anything that creates fear.
Moreover, successful leaders embrace the reality that their models may be wrong or incomplete. Only when we admit what we don't know can we ever hope to learn it."
What Ed has described is the wisdom and courage needed for true collaboration. The environment creates lots of space for failure, learning, and improvement. It protects new ideas and originality from the demands of productivity (Ed calls it the beast). This is an awesome foundation on which to raise a family.
Why?
Because ultimately, creativity is not drawing and artistic expression. It's engagement with complex problems (of which we'll never have a shortage) and effectively seeing to find solutions. The best ones help meet people's needs and result in them moving forward to be and do their very best. And isn't this exactly what our loved ones need to grow and become mature? Raising children is a profound act of creation and it requires high levels of creativity.
What happens when people don't find better ways to see?
Here are some extreme examples from the past:
In each of these, there were people, in some instances lots of people, who knew something was wrong but chose to be blind. In her book Wilful Blindness, Margaret Heffernan traced several profound factors that contributed to groups of people evolving to horrific levels of neglect. She began with the default behavior of seeking out those similar to us. In addition, there is a lack of healthy conflict resolution skills; without a safe place for candor, status quo and conformity takes over. Now mix in financial incentives for 'just doing your job', high levels of stress, and chronic exhaustion from workaholism (and the bravado of sacrificing yourself), and you have the makings of a perfect storm where a lot of people will get hurt and possibly devastated.
Equation for Disaster:
Affinity driven by insecurity
+ Conflict Aversion
+ Homogeneity of Unhealthy, Extreme Views
+ Siloed Operations
+ Blind Organizational Structures
= Communities of Conformity
= Willful Blindness
How's your vision? What kind of culture are you creating in your family? Your organization?
Well, what else will positively sustain the human race?
The role of the family is to...
Bam, that's it.
How?
How are you doing in each of these?
What do you want to improve?
Parents who organize themselves in ways that empower them and their kids.
So how do we do that? Work harder? Work smarter? Work longer?
I chose this picture of the Avengers because even superheroes need to prioritize what it takes to effectively collaborate to overcome their challenges. "Civil War" was all about this.
United we stand; divided we fall. And there's no way we or our family members can be and do our best when we're divided. This is a profound, primary human challenge.
That which causes disintegration is brilliantly insidious. It commonly goes on right beneath our noses. Those who are naive and simple, think it's an external problem. "If people could just get it together, make the right choices..."
But the dilemma is not solved by blaming and judging others. It's mostly about dealing with the ongoing chatter in our heads and subterranean feelings in our hearts. Together they either dismantle our unity or liberate us to bond deeply.
Working at our jobs will not empower us in this area.
Financial success and material wealth won't either.
It's what you pay most attention to.
It's what you feel most often.
It's what you do with your time to grow integration.
What we know and how it makes us feel determine decisions and actions. The thoughts, feelings, and actions that fill up our time profoundly affect our relationships and our souls. This is what creates cultures and cultures sustain conditions that impact and shape long-term growth and wellness for everyone in it.
Because of all this, we need to develop and mature our organizing principle (o.p.). Whatever it is, it will determine how we manage these highly significant areas of life which result in the cultures we create.
What kind of culture has your organizing principle produced? Abdication? Over-protection? Domination? Or does it liberate everyone in your family to be and do their best?
Does your o.p. foster inspiration, creativity, innovation, intimacy, rest, recreation, meaningful collaboration? These are essential to solving the toughest problems that disintegrate our families and organizations.
Is your o.p. even your own? Maybe you simply adopted whatever was given you by your culture or family of origin. It's not uncommon to have downloaded it in your youth and never have even realized it's been running things. I've never found these to produce thriving results. More often than not, they are root sources of dysfunction. As such, they definitely don't do much empowering.
If your o.p. is binding you to fear, leaving you with anxiety and insecurity, causing you chronic stress, giving you an unhealthy body, and compromising your will, maybe it's time to ditch it.
It's away from the 'temple'; it's where Gentiles lived; it's where the 'less devout Jews' lived; it's where Jesus called home.
‘He has risen from the dead and is going ahead of you into Galilee. There you will see Him.’
As I did some Easter reading this past weekend, the mentions of Galilee in Matthew and Mark's gospels caught my attention.
Why Galilee? I hadn't really thought about it much before. Then it hit me. It's where Jesus did most of His ministry - preaching, teaching, and healing. It was a place looked down upon by the powerful and wealthy of that time. Nobody who was anybody ever saw anything significant about this region. It was just plain, ole common.
A huge lake was associated with Galilee and it was known for its fishing trade. This body of water was also known for massive, turbulent waves when storms arose. And there were several miracles that happened on this lake during substantial storms, ie. Jesus walking on it and helping His disciple Peter step out of a boat to stand on the water as well.
But what might be a relevant understanding of this place for us?
Galilee reveals His heart and purposes. It provides a powerful element for our ideologies to help us see life with a transcendent perspective of hope and love. This region aptly reflects the thoughts expressed in this passage from Psalm 33:
10 The Lord foils the plans of the nations;
he thwarts the purposes of the peoples.
11 But the plans of the Lord stand firm forever,
the purposes of his heart through all generations.
12 Blessed is the nation whose God is the Lord,
the people he chose for his inheritance.
13 From heaven the Lord looks down
and sees all mankind;
14 from his dwelling place he watches
all who live on earth—
15 he who forms the hearts of all,
who considers everything they do.
16 No king is saved by the size of his army;
no warrior escapes by his great strength.
17 A horse is a vain hope for deliverance;
despite all its great strength it cannot save.
18 But the eyes of the Lord are on those who fear him,
on those whose hope is in his unfailing love,
19 to deliver them from death
and keep them alive in famine.
20 We wait in hope for the Lord;
he is our help and our shield.
21 In him our hearts rejoice,
for we trust in his holy name.
22 May your unfailing love be with us, Lord,
even as we put our hope in you.
It's promises like this that help our souls be open to learning and taking actions to move forward, especially when we feel powerless, rejected, impoverished, unsupported, marginalized, persecuted, abandoned, forgotten.
Galilee represents the often overlooked place of deep needs. The resurrected Christ meets us there and invites us to make our home there with Him, ie. to find what really matters most. For it is there with Him that we can be vulnerable and unafraid of what others think; unafraid of mistakes and failures; we can be free to love and be loved; we will grow in the mastery of our stories and be empowered to act according to our most positive core values.
Outside of this abode, there are roles we take on in the world to provide services and products. If we become 'Galileans', I believe we will find greater success and fulfillment as transformative, redemptive agents who find the creative, innovative solutions to live lives which prioritize what matters most. This includes the moral choices to prevent harmful corruptive actions which we have seen many times throughout history up to the present.
When we experience this kind of transformation, things take on new meaning and our existence makes real sense. We will find our responses and behaviors much more in line with what helps our souls and relationships thrive.
And this brings me to an underlying purpose to going to Galilee to see Jesus. Not going to church. Not becoming religious. Not any of the stereotypic things associated with following Christ.
Going to Galilee to make our home with the risen Son of God is forsaking all other voices and influences (culture, family of origin, our own reactive perceptions) in order to have true love become our ultimate resolve, the courage to choose life and not death, even when we feel like we have nothing left.
This is the vulnerability that empowers our mindset to have an insatiable desire to learn and a biased determination to act in order to redeem and improve whatever is dealt us, and not just for ourselves but for the blessing and betterment of others.
The place we call home and the spirit of that home is what fosters insatiable hunger for learning and bias towards powerful, positive action. These two things are required for success that is fulfilling and worth celebrating.