"Run faster" I told Alice.

Growing up Thanksgiving was everything, it was the one holiday that I looked forward to every year. How many times do you hear a kid say that? Take a poll of the kids around you and I would bet that they will overwhelmingly say Christmas is their favorite. Addisen is 3, and she calls Christmas her birthday because she gets presents and loves it so much.

So let me explain. When I was a kid, we would switch off holidays with my grandparents and Thanksgiving was the holiday that we spent every year with my Dad’s side in Beloit WI. My Dad is one of four kids and except for my Uncle Jim, none of them lived very close. Tony lived in Ohio and Mary lived in Iowa and Thanksgiving was the one day that we all got together to celebrate both Thanksgiving and Christmas all in one shot.

It has been a few years and may have been the last time we were able to get together with COVID and various other life events happening. It was Thanksgiving and most of the family was together. My grandparents have since passed but their great grandkids were now starting to run around and providing the entertainment during the football commercials. We were at my dad’s house as he has taken on the torch of hosting. Alice, our oldest, was 4 at the time and running around with my youngest sister who would have been 7 or so. Ali, my sister, was much taller than Alice, even though Alice has always been tall for her age. Ali was far more coordinated than Alice at the time and that was a hard thing for Alice to accept.

Alice has always been known to fall for no reason and just never really grew into her body until recently. I am not sure where she gets her long legs from but they have been a tripping hazard since she started to walk. The first few years of softball we would come back from practice with skinned knees from a random trip and fall that happened while on the field. I am still amazed watching her on the ski hill because Alice makes it look so effortless as she moves down the hill.

While the family was sitting around the bonfire enjoying the end of a fun day, the girls were playing tag and racing around the yard. The two of them would start from the edge of the playset and race to the garden. Then go from the pool back to the playset. From time to time a game of tag would break out seemingly out of nowhere. This was a parent’s dream, get the kids all worn out all but guaranteeing a good night’s sleep for everyone. Not long into the non-stop running Alice became upset and she headed over to where my dad and I were sitting.My dad is a man of very few words. This is not to speak to his intelligence; in fact, it is very much the opposite. A career long high school math teacher and coach, you always knew he had an opinion on what was going on around him, he just didn’t always share it.

As Alice came over, I had a good idea about why she was upset. She was having a very hard time keeping up with Ali and it was driving her nuts. Not wanting to make any assumptions, I asked Alice why she was upset. As expected, Alice said Ali was always winning and it was not fair and not fun to play with her because she never won any of the races. No doubt this would be frustrating to any one of us. If you go into a game knowing you are going to get beat, would you want to play? I am sure that is what was going through my dad’s head, after all he is the grandpa in this situation, his duty was to protect his granddaughter. What I said next about put my father right out of his chair and into the dew-soaked grass. I said “Puma (that is our nickname for Alice) if you don’t like Ali beating you, get faster.”After the shock and awe wore off my dad’s face, he and I talked about what I had told Alice. I explained to him that I am not here to make sure Alice succeeds, I am here to make sure I give her the tools to be successful.

This is the approach that I not only use with parenting, our ZYIA business as well as to my 9 to 5. You must detach your worth and success from that of others. It is never your obligation to make sure someone succeeds. If that is your goal you will find that you will prop them up, run their business, keep them from failing because if they fail that means you did something wrong. If you provide the tools and systems to allow them to be successful it is up to that individual to utilize the tools to determine their own success. Believe it or not, that is the easy part.

Flip the situation around. Think about the last time your mentor or your coach gave you feedback. How did you take it? Were you given all the tools but still struggled to find the success you were looking for? I will tell you what, that has happened to me more often than I would like to admit. You know who is responsible for me failing… me. It was not my teacher, or my coach, or my boss, it was me. At the same time, I was also the one in control to change my results. When we take control of our outcomes instead of passing blame, that is when we grow.Alice took it upon herself to find ways to get a little quicker that night. She came home and worked on her running and stopped assuming others were just going to slow down so she could catch up. Even more beautiful is that she is now teaching her little sister the same thing. Alice is coaching Addisen up on how to run a little faster and to never give up. In every situation, every time you are challenged or put to the test, you will always get the results you want or the lesson you needed.

If this blog resonates with you or reminds you of childhood lesson don't shy away from sharing that experience with us in the comments. After all this is more than just me sharing my thoughts- I want to know what you think too!

-Mike