You Inspire Me!

You inspire me with how you build your business, how you work to be a good dad, husband, community member, uncle etc. You inspire me in the ways you volunteer and how you also pay attention to your mental, physical, spiritual health.

I need you and other guys in my life who aren't perfect, but who strive to live intentionally.  

Lately I've been quoting coach Rich Litvin a lot as I work with clients. Rich says "It isn't bragging if it's true." I believe this. Certainly we don't want to talk about certain high level experiences and things that we create if we are in a group of people who aren't doing those things..... but in a group of high performing and focused guys who are living Intentionally - it is helpful for you to share big things with me.

So, this week I want to share with you about how my 12 year old son and I created some "nobody exists in the world but you" time. My friend and Business Builder Jeff Large of Sevierville Tennessee came up with that name for a 1:1 trip with a child when he and I were texting before the trip and I love that. That is indeed what we are working to create.

I hope this inspires you AND....tell me about trips you've done like this!!!  

The photo above was taken on a 14 day road trip from Pennsylvania to Colorado and back. We packed up the truck with food, camping gear, and fishing rods then we hit the road. It is approximately 1700 miles from our farm to the Rocky Mountains of Colorado. We did the drive in 2 days and then spent the next 10 days just LIVING IT UP in the mountains. We didn't do anything extravagant... we tented, we stayed in little cabins I found on AirBnB, we played baseball on the town field in Buena Vista at 8000'.

If you want see more pictures.... this is the link to my facebook post: https://www.facebook.com/WayneHerringJr/posts/10221660149229681

And then, some people asked "how we did it" - so I wrote up some trip notes here: https://www.facebook.com/WayneHerringJr/posts/10221691807581120

My favorite part of the trip: It is a natural question for people to ask...  and my favorite was actually slowing down,really watching my son and really being with him. I've learned that what I think is important is NOT what matters to him. While I took some photos on our trip, I did not post them online. In fact, I used my phone very little. I only had one work related phone call the whole time. This trip was all about him.

It turns out - he doesn't care much about Blue Ribbon World Class trout fishing. He cares about building rafts from reeds on the shore.  He cares about catching catfish because it is a process that requires first catching little fish, cutting them up for bait, and then catching the catfish. He cares about gathering flowers and pressing them in a journal so he can look at them in the future. He cares about slow walks with a keen eye in the brush more than climbing to a scenic vista... because he loves finding things - big cow bones, cactus, cool rocks. 

I found out that he really likes to sleep in, even in a tent but then goes goes goes all day long without slowing down or stopping. 

Part way through the trip I started to worry that I wasn't doing a great job as a bold, leading dad... I thought that I should be making him get up early, climb some epic mountain that was hard etc. Then I remembered that John Eldredge has a model for raising boys into men and that there are approximate ages applied to each stage.

Check out John's article here: https://www.faithgateway.com/the-stages-of-the-masculine-journey (We plan to read John's books as part of our Business Builder Camp monthly book study)

So - my son is in the "beloved son" stage, where John says what matters most is that they know fully that their dad loves them unconditionally and also it is a stage where they should play and maintain innocence. "Nobody else exists in the world time" certainly applies. At that point, I took the pressure off of us to climb a mountain or scale a cliff. We did have a gnarly descent on a horse later on ... and he had never ridden a horse, so that was a bit of danger. AND...certainly just rolling around national forest and camping wherever the urge strikes you is more risk and adventure than many boys will ever experience.

So .... anyway - I encourage you to take 1:1 time and do some cool stuff with each of your children. From a business point of view...the way I did this is to simply tell clients I wanted to take half the month off and I charged them half the fee. There were a few clients where I wouldn't be missing any of our normal monthly work and so I made no changes in those cases.

For those of you that are solo... it is a MYTH that you need to scale and create online systems, etc. or you will never be free. You create savings and make sure you have extra cash flow each month (so either make more $, spend less, or both). 

If you have a company and employees, you can do this too. In fact, it is good practice and will force you to make sure you have the people and the systems to handle the work. You can set aside say 1 hour once a week to check in with a phone call instead of returning emails. Having just 1 hour to make some decisions and answer questions will force your team to REALLY make sure they bring what matters most.

Other Trips...  So what have you done with your children one on one to create experiences like this? I'd really love to hear about it!

Here are a few other things I've had the joy of experiencing:

1.) A 5 day trip to Chicago with my oldest daughter on Amtrak... including dinner in the dining car and lots of fun in Chi-town

2.) A 4 day trip to Chicago where we flew...my youngest daughter and I - because she couldn't remember being on a plane. It was amazing....we did the most normal stuff.... ate picnics in the park, she played on the large playground, and we spent 3 hours (no joke) at one station (the fire truck) in the children's museum and she was just so full of joy. I learned on that trip a lot about slowing down. When you watch your children and don't try to force your agenda or the best agenda for Facebook you'll be amazed at what shows up.

3.) A 7 day trip to east Tennessee with my 2nd daughter to do mission work in the afternoons and eat ice cream at night and stay in a loft apartment. It was just the 2 of us and we volunteered at the Love Kitchen in Knoxville for 4 hours each afternoon and then just lived and strolled in Knoxville. I remember listening to broadway musicals over and over on that trip and learned how much she loved them.

4.) A trip to New Mexico where I was speaking at the Stairbuilders conference... my oldest daughter went along and we spent 4 days prior to the event just exploring Albuquerque and Santa Fe. She loved finding AirBnBs on that trip.  

Ok... well that's my story for the day.  

It's not bragging if it's true.... I want to hear the epic stuff you are up to. Part of building mastermind groups in business builder camp is about me being inspired by other guys - your physical fitness achievements, your stories about up leveling your marriage game, stories about how you are dreaming of a new building/facility for your business, finding $, creating plans for cashflow, GETTIN IT DONE, etc.

I want to be pushed, I want to stretch, and I want to run with big dogs.  

You're one of them.

Have a great week.

Wayne