Act like a child...

My niece is an interesting person. She's an 11 month old infant, but don't tell her that. She spends all of her time exploring her world and learning how to communicate with others. Everything is new and exciting; she's seeing the world with fresh eyes. She's rapidly learning how to navigate and discover the her edges and limits. When I watch her, I'm amazed at how many life skills she already has and I'm saddened by the thought of how quickly those skills will erode if we don't support and help them flourish.

Acting like a CHILD is the idea that embracing the natural skills we were born with and fostering their growth will help us evolve and develop a healthier lifestyle. Curiosity, Honesty, Incredibleness, Laughter, and Daring are some of the natural skills we possess when we're born. If we encourage these skills and allow them to thrive, our children will have a huge advantage as they enter the social world alongside their peers.

Curiosity, when was the last time you explored your world? My niece is always finding, something to touch and taste. Must taste everything! She spends a majority of her day finding things to stick in her mouth. Most of what she finds is safe. A toy, new foods, books etc. Occasionally she finds things that shouldn't be consumed, food wrappers, a baby wipe, and furniture. Just because it's not good for her doesn't mean that she won't try to taste it. Her level of curiosity is amazing. How do we train our brains to be more curious? I think it starts by challenging everything, not in a teenager vs authority way. Ask genuine questions about how things work, what makes a system work, what happens if we do things differently? If we don't ask questions we'll be trapped in an endless loop. Imagine if Steve Jobs hadn't questioned how he stored and consumed music; there'd be no ipod or iphone. Steve's mission was to challenge the status quo. How do you challenge the status quo? You ask questions. My niece doesn't have the language skills to ask questions because she's 11 months old. Her solution is more haptic, she touches, tastes, and tests everything in her path. It's her way of discovering how something works without the ability to ask questions. She's come up with a natural way to display her curiosity. As she gets older she'll naturally want to play every parents favorite game, why. It starts innocently enough when a child asks why... Children ask about 200-300 questions a day, compared to the average adult who asks around 20. Children aren't afraid to ask questions because they don't have the fear of being perceived as being dumb. Embrace the idea that it's better to ask about what you don't understand then it is to continue to pretend to know and ignore the possible solutions.

Honesty, kids say the darndest things. They're honest beyond what most adults would consider saying out loud. This one comes along with a warning. Brutal honesty is honesty disguised as hate. I feel as if that's a quote from someone like Simon Sinek. I did a quick google search and didn't find a connection. I still think it can be attributed to him. Don't be brutally honest. Be an honest and forthcoming person without hurting others. Children have a way of displaying genuine feelings and emotions. When they don't like food they'll let you know and if they love a song they'll make you aware too. My niece is honest about her feelings towards the little ducks going quack quack quack, she smiles ear to ear when she hears that song. When she's happy her legs kick, her happy feet are an honest indicator of her mood. When she's frustrated she lets out a cry, it's an angry cry. Not one from pain or hurt, this comes from a place of frustration. She's realizing that she's failing and that her body won't do what she wants it to do so she ROARS! Her emotions are all at the surface because she's beginning to harness them and learning how to articulate her needs. How can we apply this type of honesty without roaring at our friends and family? I think the key is in how we set our boundaries. If we're honest about our boundaries with others then we'll naturally be setting ourselves up for success. I have a open working schedule, if you want to speak to me on the phone the best time to catch me is between 10am-10pm. At 10pm my phone goes into "do not disturb" mode until 10am the next day. That's a boundary that I need in my life. It allows me to turn off my work and retire for the day. I wake up early each day around 5am. Between 5-10am my focus is on training. I reserve that time to train my mind, my body, and to learn new skills. My phone boundary allows me to be honest with my coworkers. You can reach me here at this time. If you need me outside of those times, be honest and ask. This is one example in my life; is there something in your life that you could use more honesty?

Incredibleness, my niece finds everything to be incredible. We have a bucket of toys for her at our home. Any time she finds something that entertains her in our home it ends up in her toy bin. She finds the sound made by shaking a nearly empty water bottle to be incredible! It's in her toy bin now. The crinkling of an empty bundle of wipes, in the bin. The most hideous sea captain nutcracker, in the bin. I could go on. She's a blank slate looking at the world through fresh eyes and her excitement over the smallest trinkets is amazing. Where can we find a fresh point of view and a new perspective in our lives? When I practice my replies in a debate or a negotiation I try to assume the perspective of the other party. This helps me to look at problems from their point of view and I might find their perspective incredible. It also might help me to realize that my point of view is that much more incredible too. I was watching my niece discover her own fingers. She acknowledged them, she examined them, she tasted them, she kneaded them, she was testing them out. In short she was amazed by how they functioned and looked. She found something incredible that was hiding in plain sight. What's something in your life that someone else would find incredible? What's your reaction when you find something incredible in someone else's life? I feel like we should be celebrating how incredible these small seemingly minute elements of our lives. Dole out some high fives, air guitars, and kudos every chance you get. When we seek incredible things we find them. Open your eyes, ears, and heart to the idea that everything is incredible and celebrate it.

Laughter, imagine being overwhelmed by so much joy that your entire body commits itself to ridiculous amounts of laughter. You experience a total lack of control, smiling, and giggling, snorting and gasping for air. Can you imagine feeling this way? How awesome does it feel to be entirely consumed by joy? My niece has this super power, she never thinks about what others think about her laughter. She just goes for it, when she finds something funny, she crushes it with roaring laughter. It's completely uninhibited and goofy. Just the sight of seeing her burst from the seams with happiness is enough to make me smile. I think I get amazed, that somehow, I've been able to deliver her with an act that has inspired her to lose control and engage in exhausting giggles. Laughter is a two way street, it's given and received. I can laugh and I can make you laugh. It's also a moment when we're pretty vulnerable. We've trained ourselves to control how hard we laugh and to prepare for the proverbial "other shoe" to drop. Let my niece lead the way, commit to her beautiful gummy smile, let your nose get all skwrinkled up, laugh obnoxiously, and lean into those incredibly joyous life moments.

Daring, after my niece's afternoon nap I hold her while we share a recliner and she drinks her bottle. We watch a popular kids cartoon movie and ease our way into the afternoon. My niece gets wriggly after about 45-60 minutes and she wants to get back to playing. A few weeks ago she crawled to the edge of the recliner and was going overboard whether I cared or not. Thankfully, for her, I cared. I didn't stop her; I let the footrest down and she used a blanket to repel herself down to the floor. She was like a tiny Tom Cruise breaking into a Mission Impossible vault. It all worked out for her. She took a chance and went after what she wanted, she got it too. What could you accomplish if you were as daring as my niece? I'm not challenging you to go skydiving. I want you to be daring and take some risks that could pay off in big ways even if they might result in some bumps along the way. It takes a lot of courage to go into the unknown. Yes, failure is an option, take your lumps and get back up just like my niece. Think about the greatest successes that you've had, how did you feel when you took your first steps towards that goal? Scared, nervous, excited? It's a fear of the unknown and the excitement of what's to come. How did you feel when you accomplished your goals? Proud or perhaps empowered. As you stood on the top of the mountain celebrating your win, did your mind wander back to the tougher obstacles along the road to success? Fortune favors the bold as much as failure does. Taking those risks along the way gave way to learning experiences, losses, and victories. You can't achieve great things without a willingness to be daring.

After watching my niece explore and live so genuinely, I've become a student of hers. She holds nothing back and approaches life with impressive candor. She wears her emotions on her sleeve in concert with innocence and courage. This weekend my wife showed me a video of my niece clapping her hands and near the end she realizes that she has, HANDS, it's too cute to see her face light up as she sees them. In that moment she demonstrated her instinct to laugh, be daring, and discover something incredible about herself. Would you be a better person if you spent more time acting like a child?

As always I'm a human being and I make a lot of mistakes. I'm sure this post has a lot of spelling and grammatical errors. If you find any please message me privately and I'll work to correct them. Thank you for taking the time to read this article. If you found value in it please consider sharing it with your network.