BBC News just posted an article from a complex database analysis revealing the 10 most irritating cliches. Unfortunately, I am so guilty of using many of these - particularly in business situations!
Here’s the top 10 from the Oxford study: 1 - At the end of the day 2 - Fairly unique 3 - I personally 4 - At this moment in time 5 - With all due respect 6 - Absolutely 7 - It’s a nightmare 8 - Shouldn’t of 9 - 24/7 10 - It’s not rocket science
So, BBC Magazine did an online survey that revealed some more:
1. Basically 2. To be fair 3. To be honest 4. Going forward 5. The fact of the matter is 6. Let’s face it 7. Touch base 8. 110% 9. In the pipeline 10. Reason being 11. I’m not being funny but 12. You know 13. By the end of play today 14. Singing from the same hymn sheet 15. Can’t get my head around it 16. Raft of proposals 17. To roll out 18. Don’t just talk the talk, you got to walk the talk 19. Lesson to be learned
I had an audiobook of Dale Carnegie’s “How to Win Friends and Influence People” that I’ve wanted to listen to for a long time. I wound up with a long drive to and from Birmingham, AL - about 14 hours on the road. Perfect timing! So I hooked up my iPod and gave it a listen. Great book! In one part Dale relates this letter published by W. Livingston Larned in 1956 and since republished in hundreds of different venues. If you haven’t read this as a father then I suggest you do - print it out and put in on your mirror or someplace where you won’t forget.
FATHER FORGETS W. Livingston Larned condensed as in “Readers Digest”
Listen, son: I am saying this as you lie asleep, one little paw crumpled under your cheek and the blond curls stickily wet on your damp forehead. I have stolen into your room alone. Just a few minutes ago, as I sat reading my paper in the library, a stifling wave of remorse swept over me. Guiltily I came to your bedside.
There are the things I was thinking, son: I had been cross to you. I scolded you as you were dressing for school because you gave your face merely a dab with a towel. I took you to task for not cleaning your shoes. I called out angrily when you threw some of your things on the floor.
At breakfast I found fault, too. You spilled things. You gulped down your food. You put your elbows on the table. You spread butter too thick on your bread. And as you started off to play and I made for my train, you turned and waved a hand and called, “Goodbye, Daddy!” and I frowned, and said in reply, “Hold your shoulders back!”
Then it began all over again in the late afternoon. As I came up the road I spied you, down on your knees, playing marbles. There were holes in your stockings. I humiliated you before your boyfriends by marching you ahead of me to the house. Stockings were expensive-and if you had to buy them you would be more careful! Imagine that, son, from a father!
Do you remember, later, when I was reading in the library, how you came in timidly, with a sort of hurt look in your eyes? When I glanced up over my paper, impatient at the interruption, you hesitated at the door. “What is it you want?” I snapped. You said nothing, but ran across in one tempestuous plunge, and threw your arms around my neck and kissed me, and your small arms tightened with an affection that God had set blooming in your heart and which even neglect could not wither. And then you were gone, pattering up the stairs.
Well, son, it was shortly afterwards that my paper slipped from my hands and a terrible sickening fear came over me. What has habit been doing to me? The habit of finding fault, of reprimanding-this was my reward to you for being a boy. It was not that I did not love you; it was that I expected too much of youth. I was measuring you by the yardstick of my own years.
And there was so much that was good and fine and true in your character. The little heart of you was as big as the dawn itself over the wide hills. This was shown by your spontaneous impulse to rush in and kiss me good night. Nothing else matters tonight, son. I have come to your bedside in the darkness, and I have knelt there, ashamed! It is feeble atonement; I know you would not understand these things if I told them to you during your waking hours. But tomorrow I will be a real daddy! I will chum with you, and suffer when you suffer, and laugh when you laugh. I will bite my tongue when impatient words come. I will keep saying as if it were a ritual: “He is nothing but a boy-a little boy!”
I am afraid I have visualized you as a man. Yet as I see you now, son, crumpled and weary in your cot, I see that you are still a baby. Yesterday you were in your mother’s arms, your head on her shoulder. I have asked too much, too much, yet given too little of myself. Promise me, as I teach you to have the manners of a man, that you will remind me how to have the loving spirit of a child.
It is easy to lose sight of the important things in life, especially in times of economic turmoil and uncertainty. All too often I find myself consumed with my own fate or condition and I fail to put things in the right perspective. There are moments however, when all of that is brought into stark clarity and I shake my head with chagrin, acknowledging how petty and self-absorbed I can be. Today was one of those days…
It started with being reminded by my wife that her cousin was waking up to his first day of R&R back in the United States having just returned from Iraq where he has been posted as an MP for the past 6 months. As joyful as that may seem, there is the sadness that his return departure date is already set - this is just a respite from the war. My heart was heavy for him.
Then, as I sat in my office on a conference call a good friend of mine stuck his head in the door to tell me that his Army Reserve unit (which I had served with for 4 years) had just been called back up to return to Iraq - this would be their second tour. He is a father of 4 with his 5th child on the way. I could tell his heart was grieved, but there was determination and acceptance in his eyes. My heart was heavy for him.
And if that weren’t enough, my business partner Dan emailed me this story sent to him by Sal Molinare (www.salmolinare.com). There are so many lives affected by the war, yet it is so easy to lose sight of that fact. There are men and women - many of them young and full life - that are serving with honor, dignity and pride. They don’t ask for much in return because they serve out of duty and love of country rather than for money and fame. What they deserve though, is our gratitude, support and love. My heart is heavy for them.
I’m thankful for these moments that bring me back to the right perspective…thank you to all who serve!
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The Sack Lunches
I put my carry-on in the luggage compartment and sat down in my assigned seat. It was going to be a long flight.
‘I’m glad I have a good book to read Perhaps I will get a short nap,’ I thought.
Just before take-off, a line of soldiers came down the aisle and filled all the vacant seats, totally surrounding me. I decided to start a conversation. ‘Where are you headed?’ I asked the soldier seated nearest to me. ’Petawawa. We’ll be there for two weeks for special training, an d then we’re being deployed to Afghanistan
After flying for about an hour, an announcement was made that sack lunches were available for five dollars. It would be several hours before we reached the east, and I quickly decided a lunch would help pass the time. As I reached for my wallet, I overheard soldier ask his buddy if he planned to buy lunch. ‘No, that seems like a lot of money for just a sack lunch. Probably wouldn’t be worth five bucks. I’ll wait till we get to base.’
His friend agreed. I looked around at the other soldiers. None were buying lunch. I walked to the back of the plane and handed the flight attendant a fifty dollar bill. ‘Take a lunch to all those soldiers.
‘ She grabbed my arms and squeezed tightly. Her eyes wet with tears, she thanked me. ‘My son was a soldier in Iraq; it’s almost like you are doing it for him.’ Picking up ten sacks, she headed up the aisle to where the soldiers were seated. She stopped at my seat and asked, ‘Which do you like best - beef or chicken?’ ‘Chicken,’ I replied, wondering why she asked. She turned and went to the front of plane, returning a minute later with a dinner plate from first class. ‘This is your thanks.’
After we finished eating, I went again to the back of the plane, heading for the rest room. A man stopped me. ‘I saw what you did. I want to be part of it. Here, take this.’ He handed me twenty-five dollars.
Soon after I returned to my seat, I saw the Flight Captain coming down the aisle, looking at the aisle numbers as he walked, I hoped he was not looking for me, but noticed he was looking at the numbers only on my side of the plane. When he got to my row he stopped, smiled, held out his hand, and said, ‘I want to shake your hand.’
Quickly unfastening my seatbelt I stood and took the Captain’s hand. With a booming voice he said, ‘I was a soldier and I was a military pilot. Once, someone bought me a lunch. It was an act of kindness I never forgot.’ I was embarrassed when applause was heard from all of the passengers.
Later I walked to the front of the plane so I could stretch my legs. A man who was seated about six rows in front of me reached out his hand, wanting to shake mine. He left another twenty-five dollars in my palm.
When we landed I gathered my belongings and started to deplane. Waiting just inside the airplane door was a man who stopped me, put something in my shirt pocket, turned, and walked away without saying a word. Another twenty-five dollars!
Upon entering the terminal, I saw the soldiers gathering for their trip to the base. I walked over to them and handed them seventy-five dollars. ‘It will take you some time to reach the base. It will be about time for a sandwich. God Bless You.’
Ten young men left that flight feeling the love and respect of their fellow travelers. As I walked briskly to my car, I whispered a prayer for their safe return. These soldiers were giving their all for our country. I could only give them a couple of meals. It seemed so little…
A veteran is someone who, at one point in his life, wrote a blank check made payable to “The United States of America” for an amount of up to and including my life. That is Honor, and there are way too many people in this country who no longer understand it.
A good friend of mine sent this to me. It’s really one of those chain letters you get that’s been passed through a million other people. I couldn’t find an attributable source so I’ll post it as anonymous unless someone corrects me. Anyway I did the math and I have 1,857 Saturdays left. Man…that sort of brings it home. Make ‘em count boyz!
Dan
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The older I get, the more I enjoy Saturday morning. Perhaps it’s the quiet solitude that comes with being the first to rise, or maybe it’s the unbounded joy of not having to be at work. Either way, the first few hours of a Saturday morning are most enjoyable.
A few weeks ago, I was shuffling toward the garage with a steaming cup of coffee in one hand and the morning paper in the other. What began as a typical Saturday morning turned into one of those lessons that life seems to hand you from time to time. Let me tell you about it:
I turned the dial up into the phone portion of the band on my ham radio in order to listen to a Saturday morning swap net. Along the way, I came across an older sounding chap, with a tremendous signal and a golden voice. You know the kind; he sounded like he should be in the broadcasting business. He was telling whomever he was talking with something about a thousand marbles. I was intrigued and stopped to listen to what he had to say.
Well, Tom, it sure sounds like you’re busy with your job. I’m sure they pay you well but it’s a shame you have to be away from home and your family so much. Hard to believe a young fellow should have to work sixty or seventy hours a week to make ends meet. It’s too bad you missed your daughters dance recital, he continued; Let me tell you something that has helped me keep my own priorities. And that’s when he began to explain his theory of a thousand marbles.
You see, I sat down one day and did a little arithmetic. The average person lives about seventy-five years. I know, some live more and some live less, but on average, folks live about seventy-five years.
Now then, I multiplied 75 times 52 and I came up with 3,900, which is the number of Saturdays that the average person has in their entire lifetime. Now, stick with me, Tom, I’m getting to the important part.
It took me until I was fifty-five years old to think about all this in any detail, he went on, and by that time I had lived through over twenty-eight hundred Saturdays. I got to thinking that if I lived to be seventy-five, I only had about a thousand of them left to enjoy. So I went to a toy store and bought every single marble they had. I ended up having to visit three toy stores to round up 1,000 marbles. I took them home and put them inside a large, clear plastic container right here in the shack next to my gear.
Every Saturday since then, I have taken one marble out and thrown it away. I found that by watching the marbles diminish, I focused more on the really important things in life.
There’s nothing like watching your time here on this earth run out to help get your priorities straight.
Now let me tell you one last thing before I sign off with you and take my lovely wife out for breakfast. This morning, I took the very last marble out of the container. I figure that if I make it until next Saturday then I have been given a little extra time. And the one thing we can all use is a little more time.
It was nice to meet you Tom. I hope you spend more time with your family, and I hope to meet you again here on the band. This is a 75 year old man, K9NZQ, clear and going QRT, good morning!
You could have heard a pin drop on the band when this fellow signed off. I guess he gave us all a lot to think about. I had planned to work on the antenna that morning, and then I was going to meet up with a few hams to work on the next club newsletter.
Instead, I went upstairs and woke my wife up with a kiss. C’mon honey, I’m taking you and the kids to breakfast.
“What brought this on?” She asked with a smile.
Oh, nothing special, it’s just been a long time since we spent a Saturday together with the kids. And hey, can we stop at a toy store while were out? I need to buy some marbles.
You’ve heard it before. Men are from Mars, Women are from Venus. A friend of mine sent me this video, and I thought it was a hilarious example of the problems men and women have communicating.
The reason? We have different brains! Not sure how “empirical” this is but play these anyway and laugh out loud!
I was shocked and saddened to hear of Tim Russert’s sudden passing. I was in the front passenger seat of my friend Holt Condren’s truck. We were returning from a morning of rappelling and rock climbing with our oldest sons. It had been a beautiful morning with a light breeze and highlevel cloud overcast, temperatures hovering in the mid-80’s.
I always liked Tim. He seemed such an affable, energetic fellow, but there was a depth there than was unmistakable. The man was pretty incredible. He had a law degree, had worked on a congressional staff and single-handedly transformed the political pundit scene into respectable journalism. Though I’ve heard that his personal political beliefs were not exactly in line with my own, he brought a civility and professionalism to the political scene that you don’t get many other places. He once said that his job was to understand a politician’s positions and then to question and challenge the politician from the opposite viewpoint while never injecting his own personal agenda.
One of the hardest hitting thoughts about his passing was the fact that he had just returned from a trip to Italy celebrating his son’s graduation. His son is now without a father - and one who so obviously had a lot to give and teach. That prospect saddens me. But it goes deeper than that.
Some say that his sudden heart attack was from diabetes, heart disease and stress. One NBC insider said that it would take 4-5 men to do the work of Tim Russert. While that seems to be a noble legacy I can’t help but wonder how much time was lost investing in his own family and children. Undoubtedly they loved him, but was he so consumed by his work that he missed out on opportunities to pour himself into his children. I’ll probably never know that answer since I don’t really know the man or the family.
I do know myself and my family. This whole episode has caused me to pause and take stock in my own investing. Am I pouring into my children, and specifically my boys, all that I hope to? Life can be cut short at any moment and I don’t want to regret not having spent the quality time that I could have. Will it matter in eternity if I don’t get that one last promotion or if I miss one 30-minute conference call? It won’t. But it will matter that I failed to nuture my own sons in the way they should grow (see Proverbs).
So, don’t lose sight of the important things in life. Take the time to embrace your kids and tell them you love them, and then let your words turn into action. Spend a good quantity of quality time with them (no need to sacrifice one for the other). Have those hard conversations about the topics that really matter, and let your kids know that you care about them as people and that you want to help them grow into the men/women that God intended them to be.
I pray that Tim’s family will be comforted in their loss, and I hope that we can all take something from this unfortunate passing.
Okay, so that was a bit of a teaser title. My wife and I took our 7 kids to the movies on Sunday afternoon and we saw Kung-fu Panda. It was a really funny movie and the whole family had a blast. I don’t think I’ve laughed out loud in a theater like that in a long time. The story was fun and the animation was great. I couldn’t believe the amount of action and the “matrix-esque” slow motion scenes were perfect. The kids are already quoting lines and acting out different scenes…it’s pretty funny.
There were, however, some poignant scenes in the movie, and there were two of them that really stood out. The first scene that struck me was at the beginning of the movie when the Panda “Po” is having dreams of being a Kung-fu warrior when he is awakened by his father and told to get to work. The father is a noodle vendor and he asks Po what he was dreaming about. Po is embarrased to say Kung-fu so instead he says he was dreaming about noodles to appease his father.
The father is so excited and consumed with his own desire to have Po take over the “family business” that he fails to notice Po’s sadness. Even when Po attempts to tell his father that his dreams and ambitions line in other areas the father blindly pushes Po down the path of the family business.
How often do we as fathers do the same to our sons? We tend to think that our sons are just like us and that we share the same interests and dreams. Certainly there are instances where this is true, but more often than we would care to admit this is not the case. Every young man is unique and has his own “map” of Aptitudes, temperment, personality and strengths. Rather than projecting our interests and dreams onto our sons it is our responsibility to nurture them in their particular “bent” or Nature. This is most difficult when our son’s core Nature is strong in an area that we are low in.
If you find yourself struggling to “understand” your son, or you feel that he is resistant to your way of doing things (or seeing the world), then you should step back for a minute and try to understand where your son is coming from. One good way to do this is to have both your son and yourself take the 3:9 Principle survey. The personal Maps that are generated out of the survey will help you understand your son’s Core Nature and Core Aptitudes as well as your own. You can then find Aptitudes you have in common and where your differences lie. Believe me, this could be a life-changing event in your relationship.
The next scene that I found profound was a scene between the Master and his protege’ who has turned evil. There is a scene where the two are in a final showdown and the Master says that he has failed the protege’. It is at this time the protege’ reveals the depth of his anger and dissappointment - he says, “are you proud of me? All I ever wanted was for you to be proud of me”. For an instant you see the two empathize with each other and connect…then just as quickly the anger overwhelms the protege’ and he lashes out in violence.
Have you connected with your son and communicated to him how proud you are of him? Maybe you haven’t done that recently, or even ever. It is never to late to make that connection. Often our differences are what keep us from coming together.
Recently I had a friend go through the 3:9 Principle. After he had completed the survey and seen his Map he had a “eureka!” moment. He has two sons, one with whom he readily connects and one which he has struggled to develop a relationship with. After the survey he realized that he connected with the one some because they had very similar Maps, but the other son had a completely different Map result. He acknowledged that he had been trying to connect with both sons in the same manner - where his Core Aptitudes were the strongest.
The reality of the situation is that to connect with others we have to adjust our communication and our behavior to meet them in their Aptitudes. We must overcome our own fears and shortcomings and meet them in their comfort zone. Just as my friend realized that connecting with his sons meant approaching each in a unique way, so it is true with all our relationships.
The first step is to take the 3:9 Principle survey and discover your own unique Map. From there you can then develop strategies and plans for connecting to those around you - be it at work, home or in the community.
Probably not as much as this guy who was trapped in the McGraw-Hill Building in NYC for more than 40 hours! That’s almost 2 days without food, water, shower, restroom, clean clothes. No bed, no blankets, no pillow. Light but no sun. Air but no breeze. It is a pretty good metaphor, don’t you think?
Where are you at in your life? Have you every thought about this scripture:
“I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through Me.” — John 14:6 (NKJV)
I don’t want to oversimplify anyone’s individual situation. I’ve empathized, watched, and been in some pretty rotten scenarios. A great friend of mine told me something in one of the rough times that has always stuck with me. He said, “Look, there’s a point A and a point B. You are at point A. Your job is to make it to point B.”
Sometimes, you know exactly what the next step is - and you haven’t taken it. Pray to Christ for the life, or the courage to move forward.
Sometimes, you are faced with multiple options - and you are confused. Pray to Christ for the truth the be revealed, the best path for you (not necessarily someone else’s).
Sometimes, you have no idea what to do, and no options. Pray to Christ to light the way, and help you find an answer or resolution.
Don’t be surprised if the answer is “wait” or “be patient”. Don’t be surprised if the answer doesn’t come as you expect. Don’t be surprised if the answer doesn’t come all at once. Don’t be surprised if the answer is better than you expect.
