Happy Sunday Everyone:
This is longer than I wanted it to be, but useful for me.
With the coaching stuff, we use a document called “wheel of life”. I think I’ve mentioned it before. 7 boxes around money, work, love life, family, spirituality, friends, and self. Where are you today on those 7 topics, where do you want to be in the future. My team and I have them done, we go through them every Monday in our team meeting, pick one we’re each working on for the week. Just a way for it to stay in front of us. Before I did them with the team consistently, I’d fill it out in January as a coaching assignment and then never look at it again. I redid mine in July. Love life I put date night with Kim once a week and say yes to everything she asks of me. Kim doesn’t ask for much, she’s not asking for diamonds, cars, houses…she just wants some quality time with me so if she asks to go on a walk, yes, a hike, yes, (I HATE hikes), dinner, yes, small vacation, yes.
Fast forward 3 weeks ago, I’m in Dallas doing a talk on the wheel of life for 700 of our coaching students team members. Little dry to just talk about the wheel of life for 45 minutes so I’m giving examples of mine, including love life. The real “say yes to everything” came from 5 years ago when I decided to do the same thing with Thomas for a day, say yes to everything he wanted. Was one of the best days of our lives together. I’m explaining that story in detail and also Kim, caliber of the person she is. So now that you think I’m a great guy, fast forward to Wednesday Night of last week. I come home at 8:30 from a work event and Kim and I are still in a fight from some hurtful words I threw out to her on her parenting style Tuesday Night w/ Thomas, telling her she’s too soft, I believe the exact words were “you parent to a zero”. I meant on discipline, she heard “you’re a zero parent”. We’ re continuing to argue, she’s on the couch, I’m looking through mail, and there is a piece from Jane Floyd, dear friend, coach. I open it, and it’s her explaining how moved she was by my talk and how she’s taking the same lesson on love life to her husband, Hank. I’ve written about Jane/Hank before, he continues to defy the odds of cancer (they’re both absolute badasses). I’m reading her letter (silently), honoring me, and a big flash is going through my heart/brain, it’s screaming “FRAUD ALERT FRAUD ALERT”. I don’t even tell Kim about the letter, I just put it down, sit in my big chair, apologize, and start working through the issue. Jack/Thomas then come in, we end up talking as a family for 2.5 hours and go to bed at midnight, something that has literally never happened before with us. With Jack leaving here is 2 weeks, Kim and I woke up thinking “how did we go from an absolute sh#% night to one of our bests”….and I’m thinking, Jane Floyd.
Thursday Morning, my buddy Ian wants to meet with me at 7:00AM, he wants to bring his friend David, who lives in S. Cal. I’ve mentioned Ian before too, played prof basketball in Europe for 10 years, David played college/pro as well here. I talked to David about getting into the business 18 months ago and he ended up working with a friend I hooked him up with down south. They’re sitting across from me, all 6’7 and 6’10 of them, and I’m thinking “i can’t imagine how hard it is to be in this business for 18 months right now”. I’m talking that way, “how hard it is right now”. Ian, who I’m usually helping with advice basically calls me out, giving me a gut check on my own reality, David then starts talking about how he doesn’t know any different, he just focuses on the activities he needs to be doing to be successful day in and day out, and that he’s getting it done. These guys leave after an hour, and I’m thinking WOW. These guys got to their previous level as athletes because of their current attitude and mindset that was in my office on Thursday.
This is a long ass Sunday Thoughts and I know it’s all over the map. The point for me is to continue to hang around high quality, high caliber people who hold me accountable to be the best version of me. Jane didn’t need to write that note but it came at the absolute single most important time it could have, I’d go as far to call it divine. David/Ian, warriors. Great humans, competitive, appreciative, humble, smart, and hopeful. It’s not new news but holy cow does it pay to have the right people in your life!! I went from having a crap week to having a great week all because of the people I choose to have in my life.