Category Archives: Friends

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10 Ways to Create Margin in Your Life

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Are you running at full speed wondering at the end of the day where your day went and feeling stressed out? Are you going from one appointment to another being consistently late for your appointments? Do you get home feeling overwhelmed from your day only to find that you have a full schedule of car pooling to your kids events?

Today this is the new “normal”. It is not a healthy way to live. It is time to create some margin in your life.

I learned a lot about margin from Dr. Dick Swenson in his excellent book Margin: Restoring Emotional, Physical, Financial, and Time Reserves to Overloaded Lives . Dr Swenson does a great job of discussing how to get your life back.

10 Ways to Create Margin in Your Life

1. Review the family calendar on Sunday night

Take time on Sunday evenings to review the upcoming week of activities and plan your week with your spouse. Make sure you take time to plan family fun. I would highly recommend Patrick Lencioni’s book The Three Big Questions for a Frantic Family: A Leadership Fable About Restoring Sanity To The Most Important Organization In Your Life for families. Patrick takes business principles and applies them to the family. This is a good resource if you are feeling overwhelmed with family activities.

2. Put Church on your weekly family calendar

It is important to attend church weekly and to pray daily. This is a time to worship and praise God. One of our family rules as my kids grew up was that we did not take a vacation from God because He does not take a vacation from us. When we were traveling or on vacation we always found a church to attend. I know in today’s hectic world there are sports events on Sundays. You will need to decide what is more important.

3. Set a night for date night

Pick a night during the week for you and your spouse to go out or spend time together. This does not mean you have to spend a bunch of money. There are lots of things you can do inexpensively. It may mean just going for a walk at a park or going to a coffee shop. Pick an inexpensive restaurant you both like and have dinner together. Put the phones aside and take time to talk.

4. Reduce the events your kids participate in.

Today our kids are expected to be involved in everything. This can be a huge stress on the family. Consider limiting your kids’ activities. You might consider things like only allowing one sport per season and limiting their club activities and other lessons.

5. Set up ghost appointments at work.

If you have the ability to control your schedule at work make ghost appointments. The first time I heard of ghost appointments was at a dentists office. I overheard him speaking to the receptionist and he was asking about what times he had ghost appointments. I asked him what those were. He told me they were appointments that were scheduled that allowed for emergencies and for time for him to get caught up during the day. I found this a great concept and implemented it into my own day just by scheduling appointments with myself in my calendar during the day.

6. Set your clock or watch 10 minutes early

If you find that you are consistently late for appointments try setting your watch or clock in your car 10 – 15 minutes early.

7. Set aside 3 months living expenses in a savings account

Start by putting aside 1 month of living expenses in a savings account until you build up to 3 months. This may take some discipline and some time, but it is recommended by many financial experts. It will help to reduce financial stress.

8. Plan your workout times

Many people start their day by working out to insure that they take care of their fitness first thing. Lunch time can be a good time time to get a midday break and give yourself more energy for the rest of the day. Working out is a great way to reduce stress, stay healthy and have more energy.

9. Spend some time with friends

A great way to do this when you are on a tight schedule is to go out with another couple or invite another couple over to your home. Guys I have found that women need more time with friend than we do (this may just be me). Make sure you allow her time to bond with her friends.

10. Have dinner with the Family

I know this can be very challenging today. The family dinner table is a great place to learn about how the family is doing and what is going on at school. A fun game to play is high/low. What is the best thing that happened to you today? What did not go well today? If you absolutely can’t make dinner try family breakfast. It is very important to spend time together at meals.

Be Great!

“Relationships are more important than material things.”

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Give Your Best To Your Best

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We occupy most of our days at work. We spend a lot of time with the people we work with.  How do you treat the people you work with?  Do you treat them better than your husband, wife, significant other or kids?

Who are you giving your best to?  Are you leaving your best at work or are you giving it to those that are closest to you at home?

Many of you tend to work late.  Set a time to leave work by and stick to it. An example would be to be out the door by 5:30 p.m. If necessary have a plan that you have discussed with your spouse or significant other that you intend to work late one night a week and let them know when that night is planned.

Before you get home stop and clear email on your phone, return any calls that need to be made and check any websites you need to check.  Stop at a parking lot or a store near your home.  Better yet, do this before you leave work.

I have known and coached people that have a card on the dash of their car or visor that says “Give Your Best To Your Best.”

Give Your Best to Your Best

Here is what to do tonight when you get home. When you walk in the door to your house or apartment forget about work and give your best to your best. Be present.  Hug your spouse, play with your kids and have dinner together.

If you like this post please share it with somebody you think would benefit from it.

Be Great!

“It is all about the little things.”

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Your Kids Are Watching You

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Have you ever heard the song by Rodney Atkins entitled Watching You? In the song the dad is driving with his son in the truck and his son spills his fries and orange drink and says sh**. The dad wonders where he learned this and figures out it is what he says.

Leadership starts at home. Your children learn from you by watching you. They learn a lot more by doing as you do than doing as you say.

Some Do’s and Don’ts

Show signs of affection to your wife or husband in front of your children

Your children want to know that you love your spouse. They want to see that you care for each other. This gives them assurances that you love each other.

Men – Open doors for wife and let them go before you

Real Men do this. You can tell by the picture above that this has been going on for a long time. You don’t see it as frequently today. This is being respectful of your wife.

Hold Hands

There is nothing more beautiful than seeing a couple in their 70’s or 80’s walking hand in hand. When you hold hands it shows your children you are together. You are bonded.

Do special things for your spouse that your kids are aware that you did

Buy something small for your spouse and give it to your spouse in front of your kids. Give your spouse a card that your kids see. Do an act of kindness for your spouse in the presence of your children.

Pray with your spouse and your kids

Like the song your kids will copy you. They will pray on their own and they will pray when they leave home.

Hug your kids and tell them you love them

Let your kids know you love them. Dads hug your boys too. Even the big boys like it.

Pay attention to who your children are spending their time with

It is said you are the average of the 5 people you are around the most. It is extremely important that you pay attention to who your kids friends are. One of the ways to do that is create an environment that kids want to hang out at your house. Have them invite their friends over to spend time at your house so you can see who they are spending time with.

Don’t yell or belittle your spouse in front of your children

This should be avoided. Belittling makes it ok for the kids to belittle mom or dad. If one of the kids is belittling their mom it should be stopped by dad right away. This only gets worse as kids turn in to teens if you let this go.

Don’t have a fight or argue in front of your kids

Take the argument behind closed doors. Kids feel insecure when their parents fight in front of them and feel that their parents don’t love each other. In todays world with the number of parents getting divorced the kids will think you are headed down that path.

Don’t use profanity in front of your children

If you have a favorite swear word or phrase your kids will copy it. There is nothing like a 4 year old letting a 4 letter word go at the wrong time. There are over 200,000 words in the dictionary. Choose a different word or phrase to say.

I have had the privilege with my wife of raising 4 children over the last 24 years. The do’s and don’ts above are things I have learned over the years. I have been fortunate enough to see some of the benefits of these.

We see our boys treating women with respect, holding doors, letting women go first and keeping their faith. We see our girls keeping their faith and knowing how a woman should be treated by a man. They also know how a wife should treat her husband and how they respect one another.

Remember your kids are watching what you do and what you say.

Be Great!

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8 Daily Disciplines

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Over the years I have learned to live life intentionally you have to be disciplined. I learned about creating daily disciplines from John Wooden in his book Wooden: A Lifetime of Observations and Reflections On and Off the Court and from John Maxwell in his book Today Matters.

These are my daily disciplines. I have these on my desk and in the notebook that I use for taking notes throughout the day. I review these disciplines every morning before starting the day.

Daily Disciplines

  • Today……………….I will pray and deepen my relationship with Christ
  • Today……………….I will strive to keep my attitude positive
  • Today……………….I will spend time with my wife and kids
  • Today……………….I will eat healthy and workout at least 30 minutes
  • Today……………….I will properly manage my finances
  • Today……………….I will be a friend
  • Today………………. I will create memories
  • Today………………. I will make good decisions based on my core convictions

One day these todays will be a lifetime of days well lived.

What are your disciplines? Make your list today. It will change the way you go through the rest of your day and it will lead to a life well lived!

“I am just a common man who is true to his beliefs.” — John Wooden

Be Great!

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Living Life Out of Balance

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One of the things I have strived to do over the years is to help myself and to help others become their best selves. I have found to be able to help others it all starts with me. I work to continuously improve in each area of my life. This includes my faith and spiritual life, my fitness and health, my relationship with my wife and my family, my finances, friendships and creating memories with fun.

There is a slogan that I picked up from a friend that says “Speed of the Leader, Speed of the Team”.  In order for you to lead and help others you have to help yourself first. This is similar to something that you hear on an airplane during the safety announcements. You are told in case of emergency place the air mask on yourself first. This is so you will have enough oxygen in order to help others to put their mask on. It all starts with you.

In our society most people determine “success” from a financial standpoint. Many times you will find that the financially successful people are not necessarily successful in some of the other 5 areas. To obtain a balance you have to strive to become proficient in all 6 areas of your life.

You will never live your life totally in balance. In fact, you need to learn how to live your life out of balance. What you have to be careful of is getting too far out of balance in any area of your life.

A great way to measure this is to take each of the 6 areas and rate them on how you are doing today on a scale of 1 – 10 with 10 being best. Picture a bicycle wheel and 10 is the tire and everything inside of 1 through 10 are along the spokes going towards the hub? How does your wheel look? Does it roll or is it lopsided?

This is a good exercise check to do on a monthly basis to see where you are getting too far out of balance. The key is to be aware of where you are too far out of balance and make corrections before you crash.

I finish many of my notes, birthday wishes or emails with the saying Be Great!. When I say Be Great! I am saying be the greatest person you can become. Be your best self.

Be Great!