AMAZING KIDS!

Ten Keys To Amazing Kids!

Lately, Penny and I have been getting lots of comments about how much people love our kids and the positive influence that they are having on the families of their friends and neighbors. That is something that is deeply gratifying to a parent and has caused me to try to share some of my thoughts on how this has come to be.

First of all, lest anyone should think that I am assuming a "better than thou" attitude here, I hope that you will understand that we still have plenty of flaws and meltdowns! Just about the time when you think you are really something special, Heavenly Father has a way of gently reminding you that you're still not perfect!

Fortunately for us, most of our challenges happen within the walls of our own home where we can deal with them, hopefully, properly. We have found over the years that if we are willing to put up with the molding and shaping in the private moments of our own home, then when they go out into the world, they tend to actually perform in the way we have been trying to teach them. 

One thing that I will share about us is that we haven't just lucked out. We have been on a search from very early on in our marriage to find out if there really are some true principles that would govern raising great kids. Fortunately, over the years we have come across a piece here and a piece there and those ideas have all come together and born the kind of fruit that we were searching for.

So what are our Ten Keys To Amazing Kids?

I think you will notice quickly that we couldn't narrow the list down to just 10! The second thing that you will quickly note are that a huge percentage of these principles aren't really things to teach your kids to do, but instead, things that you need to work on becoming and doing yourself! Ouch!

Lastly, if you don't agree with something I say, think about this; if you are not getting the results that you want with what  you are already doing and someone else is, maybe it's time to really ponder why their thinking process is so different from yours? That could mean that maybe, it's time to let go of some long held paradigms of what we think is proper parenting. We have definitely had to do that ourselves on a couple of topics!

I promise you that very few of these principles were arrived at without some serious thought and searching and also some trial and error. Several of these ideas are even a vastly different direction from the one we started in. But we came up with them by trying one course of action and finding out that it didn't produce the results that we were looking for, so we changed... sometimes completely! 

So in no particular order and with very little explanation, (that would require a seminar!) these are some of the most important principles we have found.

First, get your priorities in the right order: God first, SPOUSE next, Kids third! Not kids before spouse except in very rare instances where the spouse is dangerous to the kids. In that case, find a new spouse! Be on the same team as your spouse!

Teach them Who and What God is, Who they are in relation to Him, and Why He went to all of the trouble to create this earth. Teach them what their ultimate potential to become is! If you don't know, find out! It's important! This one concept alone probably has more power to change the behaviors and outcomes of your family than any other single principle all by itself!

Understand your true relationship to your children. They are not your property, they are your spirit brothers and sisters and we have a stewardship to help them grow up learning how to become like our Father!

Get rid of all of your "Victim Mentality" thinking and teach them the same thing. Take total responsibility for all outcomes in your life. No matter who might do something else to you, the only positive solution is for you to own the problem and take responsibility for fixing it. No one else will ever fix it for you!

Examine your traditions and your paradigms about life and raising kids with a critical eye. Know WHY you do and believe WHAT you do and believe. Be willing to change when you find more truth.

Expect the best out of them, not the worst. They will rise to the level of your expectations. (Or Fall) Accept, Approve and Appreciate instead of Criticize, Condemn, and Complain! Be the Sunshine in their lives instead of the Rain-cloud! 

You can't teach self-discipline and obedience by teaching obedience and harshly disciplining them. What? The only way to truly teach them these things is by Inspiring, Teaching, Mentoring, Encouraging, Praising and Leading by Example. The way to teach obedience is to teach them WHY they would want to be obedient...to God! (It has an amazing upside!) They will obey you when they love and respect you and feel valued, not when they are taught to be obedient. Obedience is a gift that is given to one who has won your heart!

One of the most important chunks of parenting information that we have ever learned and applied has been "Personality Styles", "Love Languages" and "Love and Respect". These are vastly important! They are taught in 3 of our favorite books. ("Personality Plus", "5 Love Languages", "Love and Respect") Don't just read about them, STUDY them in detail! Repeatedly!

You can't have Quality Time without Quantity Time! Quality Time is and out growth of Quantity Time - Not a replacement for it!

Inspire curiosity in the world around them! Teach them to ask Why, What, How, Where types of questions about their surroundings.

Inspire them to READ, LISTEN, and ASSOCIATE to learn to grow. Read to them from inspiring stories not just entertainment books. Constantly read, learn and work on improving yourself! Consider paying them to read good books, (your list) instead of doing chores. Chores are a part of being a family not work.

Help them to associate with people who are pursuing excellence in their lives.

They need to see you pursuing a passion instead of arm-chair quarterbacking the world around you and them. Include them in a family goal and vision instead of just being the "soccer mom" to their every whim. It's okay for them to understand that the whole world doesn't revolve around them. (Nicely)

Find ways to work together on projects and make work fun and rewarding instead of drudgery. Teach them the joy of creating and becoming!

Make sure that their goals are really THEIR goals! Not just yours for them.

Teach them how to choose, set, pursue and accomplish goals. Start small. Teach them to be a finisher. Sometimes a goal requires course correction, but adjust and push through to the finish. Teach them to chase passion and purpose and let things be rewards instead of the main issue. What you become is more important than what you get. 

Teach them to be active, healthy and physically fit whether they do a sport or not.

As teenagers, teach them that great privileges come when they choose to Teach You To Trust Them.

When looking for more great parenting principles, only look to and listen to those who have fruit on the tree AND KNOW EXACTLY WHY they do! Choose to learn principles over strategies!

Like I said earlier, this subject could require a full seminar to really even begin discussing this subject adequately. Actually we could arrange to do that if it was important to you! Most importantly, don't take any piece of new info at face value until you have examined it carefully to see if it really is a true principle instead of just someone's pet theory!

Have an awesome day and Happy Parenting!

WHAT IS YOUR FAMILY'S LEGACY?

Within the last year I have attended the funerals of two of my Dad's brothers. Both of these have been wonderful men who, with their wives, have raised great families. Because we have lived several states away for nearly 30 years, our contact with the family has been rather sporadic. However, every time I get the opportunity to be with my cousins, (there are 24 of us) I am deeply impressed with the caliber of people who God has sent to this family!

All of us can trace our roots back to Edmund and Lucille Tapp and their ranch out north of Boise City, Oklahoma. Our memories of those times spent together as kids getting to know each other and forming lifelong friendships almost always go back to "The Ranch".  It is such a powerful memory that it seems like anytime we gather in Boise City, it almost always involves a trip back out to the ranch. It's like a time machine for us.

Why?

 Many of us, especially the older ones can remember many Christmases, Thanksgivings and summers spent there with Grandad, Grandma and each other. We rode horses, hiked the hills, and went on "cattle inspection" tours with Grandad in his trusty Scout to see the sights on this wonderful corner of our little world.

What was it about our experiences there that had such a lasting impact on so many of us?

While Grandad and Grandma might have had a few minor flaws, they were special people who did everything they could to create the foundations of something wonderful, and I believe potentially, very powerful there. They raised a family of 8 sons who have each turned out to be truly amazing men in their own rights. They also inspired in their 24 grandchildren a love for the land we live in and a driving sense of character that has created some truly amazing people as a personal legacy.

 Over the years, as I have visited with these cousins at various family functions, I never leave without feeling a deep sense of connection with them. In the last several years, this has grown within me to the point that I frequently ask myself the question, what amazing things could this family accomplish if we could all come together in a common purpose? The more I ponder that question, the more incredible that potential becomes!

That thinking process has inspired me to try to lead my own family in such a way so that we might build upon the foundation of the legacy that was handed to us and create something even greater with our generation. I have heard it described as having been born on third base and all that is left for us to do is to run home to accomplish something great!

All too often I see people who place no value on the legacy that they have been given. They live their lives without any real sense of purpose and when their lives are done they have either camped out on third base or even slipped backwards to second, first or even all the way back to the dugout!  They ultimately waste the legacy that was passed to them.

One of the driving, fundamental motivations in my life is to take this foundation that I have been given and to build upon it. I want to get better myself, to raise a great generation of offspring who are prepared to take this legacy to an even higher level, and to influence other people to begin to do the same with themselves and their families. I want to leave this world a better place for my having been here.

Almost our entire world seems to be so caught up in the struggle of just existing, that by far the largest percentage of us, end up settling for mediocrity in most areas of our lives, when, if we could just see it, excellence is actually available to us.

Over the last year I have begun having this discussion with some of my extended family and I am finding that I am not the only one sensing this. I am going to go out on a limb here and suggest that I believe that God put our family together here on this earth, at this time, for a purpose! He has laid a foundation through our ancestors that would raise up a generation of people with the character and faith to go out and have such a positive impact on this world that this legacy will resonate throughout the next several hundred years!

Alone, I see each of us impacting the lives of some of those around us in significant ways. That is why I believe that together, the compounded effects of our efforts could be exponentially greater.

What could be the Tapp Family Legacy of this generation? Could we, together, have an even more profound effect on this world around us? Could we become a powerful force for good by combining our talents, gifts and efforts in a common cause?

 Too often when we try to find companions for our causes we have to go out searching among the community and the world around us. Why not start with this group of people who already share a common foundational bond?

I would like to have this discussion with more members of my family. I believe that we have a mission here. If we would band together around the right principles, and gather the ability to influence more and more people around us, then the power of who we are and what we stand for could begin to radiate out from this core group to influence hundreds and even thousands of people in this world. I believe that we could ultimately reach literally millions! This world could be a much better place with the right influences. Why not us?

Every time I stand on that lonely, windswept hillside in northwestern Oklahoma at the Garrett Cemetery looking out at the amazing group of people gathered there to celebrate another great life, and I ponder the paths of those already laid to rest there, I can't help but ask myself the question...What If...? What could We Together accomplish?

Anybody up for a challenge?

I put that challenge out there to my own family, but what about yours? What legacy have you been given? Are you consciously looking to improve upon it? Maybe the legacy you have been handed is not one that you are proud of. Who's going to break the cycle and start something new and wonderful? Why not you?

Tell me what you think!

THE INSTITUTE FOR FAMILY LEADERSHIP

DO I NEED TO BE A LEADER IN MY FAMILY?

Most of us have invested a large portion of our lives and a considerable amount of money in learning how to be effective in a career or business.

Many of us have also spent thousands of dollars and untold hours on our children for sports programs, music training, dance, riding lessons, etc.

But, how much have we invested in learning the tried and proven principles that build successful marriages and family relationships? Are we hungry to learn what makes a great relationship work or are we just living by the seat of our pants?

Did you know that there are specific principles that you can apply that will make any relationship work more smoothly? It doesn't matter whether it is already good or bordering on disastrous, learning what makes each other tick and acting accordingly can change everything!

Remember the familiar saying; No other success can compensate for failure in the home.

Here is a timeless formula that governs every aspect of our lives:

Information -> Thinking -> Actions -> Results

Look at any area of your life.  Are you satisfied? If not the answer lies in working backwards through this formula and finding which piece is missing! Most of the time the answer is correct information.

Shouldn’t leadership in our families involve making sure that we learn, practice and pass on to our posterity a legacy of the solid principles required to have a great marriage and lead a family of their own?

Why does our society not do this? The answer is that while the principles are out there and have been for ages, very few people have taken the time to learn them and teach them to others.

We believe that just teaching correct principles could literally cut the divorce rate in half in our country as well as greatly improve most parent's  ability to interact with their children effectively. We do not have to find ourselves stuck in dysfunctional family situations. 

We were not meant to fail! But just like in a career or any other endeavor, we cannot succeed in ignorance! We need to know the rules of the game!

I invite you to come learn and apply the timeless principles that will build the foundation for a strong and successful family that you can pass on to generations yet to come.

 These principles are like having the correct set of tools to work on a project. 

Wrong Tools - Poor Results! Right Tools - Successful Outcome!

Invest in that which matters most in life, the people closest to you, your family!

Need some direction? Just ask!

Personality Styles - A Foundational Principle

As I read and listen to people teach about how to learn the skills of dealing with people in an optimum manner, I always end up coming back around to how foundational it is to understand that there are different personality styles.

Why is that so important?

Because no matter what other principle you are teaching or attempting to apply, if you don't understand that different personality styles react differently to different inputs, then you are constantly stuck in the mode of trying to fit round pegs into square holes!

Your new principle works great sometimes. At other times it seems to work fairly well, and at yet other times it doesn't seem to work at all. Why? I thought principles worked all of the time.

They do! But often the application of the principle requires a tweak here and there to apply it properly to the individual's personality.

I have a situation going on in my life right now where I am working on a project with a friend who doesn't understand this concept. I know his heart is in the right place and that he is a great person, but there is a lot of friction going on because this principle is being violated each time we sit down to work together.

If we want to get optimum results in anything that involves dealing with other people, we absolutely must understand that there are core, fundamental differences in the ways people think, act and perceive the world around them.

As I speak with many different people about this concept of personality styles, I find that probably 75% of them have been exposed to the idea in one form or another. However, the more I learn about it and watch people try to apply it in their interactions, the more I become aware how important it is to delve into it more deeply.

Probably the most common mistake that I see is that we tend to view all of the other personalities from the perspective of our own style instead of trying to understand them from a more neutral perspective. That might sound complicated, but it is really at the core of applying this principle.

So where do we start? I always begin by recommending the book, "Personality Plus" by Florence Littauer. However this is such a deep subject that I believe it is important to dig into 2 or 3 other books to be able to learn more from different perspectives. Robert Rohm has another great one called "Positive Personality Profiles" that I really like.

Another great way to learn about it is to listen to as many audio recordings of people teaching about it as you can. They allow you to learn from yet another perspective of someone who is trying to apply the principle in their everyday life.

Dig into this concept and you will begin to see your interactions with other people in your life make a lot more sense!

Good luck and have an awesome day!

Fathers Day Fun!

Sometimes... yeah, sometimes you just gotta do it! Here's the quote of the day, stolen from my friend Mike who stole it from someone else! Are you ready? C'mon now this is serious! Here we go!

"Sometimes your knight in shining armor...is really just a retard in tin foil!"

Baaa Haaa Ha! I almost fell off of my chair laughing!  I had to share that one with Penny! Funny though, she didn't laugh quite so hard as I did...Hmmm? JK!

Just had another funny thought come up...what a great quote for Father's Day!

Sorry ladies, all too often, our horsey runs off and we find that our beautiful shining armor of bullet proof steel, turns out to be...well...tin foil! (or for some of us rednecks).... Camo!

Please... just be grateful it's not PINK!

We're working on it!

The problem is most of us are not master metal smiths, and when Old Nellie bucks us off, we get dents in our armor, wrinkles in our tinfoil, and rips in our Camo!

Please...just keep remembering it's not PINK...or mauve!!!

Since most of us aren't master metal smith's, we usually find ourselves out in the garage trying to beat it back into some semblance of shape, or we're down at the army surplus store trying to find a replacement!

The problem is that second hand steel shorts don't always fit as well as nice custom made stuff! Ever get a steel wedgie? (Or even a tinfoil one for that matter)

Please just keep remembering, we're working on it...and it's not PINK!

The neat thing is, that if our princesses are patient with us and will build us up instead of putting us down, mankind has a remarkable faculty for getting better with age! For some reason, maturity often takes much longer with males but...it can happen!


So finally one day, at some distant point in time, you will be able to look out your window and see your knight in shining armor come riding up to your castle, all gallant and fully polished! (We finally found a master metal smith who could mold us into the kind of man you've been dreaming of all these years!)

Please just remember, we're always working on it... it doesn't come easy...it's definitely not PINK, and the cool thing about Shining Armor... It's great for hiding bald heads, wrinkles, bifocals, sagging pecs, 6 paks full of jelly, skinny legs, Depends, iron wedgies, fallen arches, ingrown toe nails, all of the stuffing required to fill out that armor, and hide the training wheels on Old Nellie!

We're so grateful it's not PINK!!!

We love you princess, just the way you are!

Sorry for the digression! I just had to do that! I thought it was funny!

At least the tinfoil and iron wedgies part!

Have an awesome day!

Listening and Compliments

LISTENING

So here's my thought for today.

I've been reading about the power of being a great listener. You know the old saying, we have 2 ears and 1 mouth, we should use them in proportion.

The more I think about this, the more powerful of a principle it becomes.

In every relationship we have, whether it's family, friends, business, or even with God, do we do all of the talking or do we ask questions and listen?

The secret in sales and business is to find out what your customer wants and show them how to get it. How can you do that without listening to them?

Doesn't the same thing apply when dealing with your spouse or kids? How about your friends?

What's your position in the circle of your friends? The guy who's always talking about something or the wise quiet one who can always be counted on?

I love the Lincoln quote,"It's better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to open your mouth and remove all doubt!"

Finally what about your relationship with God? Do we monopolize the conversation or do we ask a question and listen(ponder)? Think about it!

 Have a great day!

COMPLIMENTS

I was reading this morning about the power of a sincere compliment!

That's a lesson that has been driven home to me very forcefully over the years.

Somewhere our society has developed this totally screwed up idea that saying something nice to someone else is this personal weakness called "brown-nosing", and that becoming the King or Queen of the "put-down" is something to aspire to.

Why are we so gullible and foolish?

What I learned the hard way in my youth, is that every time I laid a great put-down on someone thinking to impress the others around me, not only did I not impress anyone, but I did immeasurable damage! Not only to the one whom I attacked but also to my own reputation!

Everyone else around me was wondering what I said about them when their back was turned or when I might think it was socially to my advantage.

Stupid-stupid-stupid!!!

Do you think people will respect you more if they always have to wonder if they will be your next victim, or if they know their name is sacred with you?

People trust those who they feel like "have their back"!

So take every opportunity you get today to give someone a sincere compliment! Watch how it affects them and ask yourself if that doesn't make you feel good or what?

Think 10 years down the road. Will you have more influence in your world if you have made it a practice passing out compliments every day or put-downs?

So have a great day today and help someone else do the same!!!

Family Priorities

As I was pondering what to share this morning and the saying, "No other success can compensate for failure in the home" keeps coming to mind!

Maybe someone needs to hear about this today! Don't feel condemned if you haven't exactly gotten an "A" in this class so far! You can always retake the class with some extra wisdom under your belt!

Most of us would say that our priorities stack up something like this; God, Family, Country, Work, etc...right?

But if we graphed out the way we spend our time everyday on a pie chart, I'll bet it wouldn't match up with what we just said our priorities were would it? Especially when we throw in things like electronic entertainment and sports right!

So here are a couple of hints that have blessed our lives!

Your relationship with your spouse is the single most important relationship in your life!

It's way too easy to let our kids take priority over our spouse.

Here are 3 books (besides mine!) that have had a major positive impact on Penny and my relationship:

Personality Plus by Florence Littauer, 5 Love Languages by Gary Chapman, Love and Respect by Emerson Eggerichs.

All of these come as highly, highly, highly recommended reading for every married couple in the world as well as those wanting to learn to deal with people better!

With the kids, this principle from the bible has helped us weather many storms: "Train up a child in the way he should go and when he is old he will not depart from it!"

In our society today, it seems like the standard is to send them to school and involve them in as many extracurricular activities as possible.

While neither of those things is bad in and of themselves, I believe what we miss way too often is taking time to teach our kids the true principles that this world operates under.

When they understand truth, they tend to choose truth as a lifestyle.

But when their perceived truth comes from a source that either ignorantly or purposefully teaches false ideas as truth they end up living a messed up life!

They never seem to figure out that you can not live a truly successful life based on false principles, no matter how much you want to believe them!

If we say our family is a priority in our lives, then lets let our actions prove it!

Have a great day!!!

3 Key Principles

Here are three of the key principles that we teach as vital to understand for a great relationship of any kind!

Principle #1

One  of the most powerful things that I have learned in all of my leadership training over the years is the concept of personality styles. I believe that not understanding this idea is at the core of 90% of our interpersonal relationship problems.

Most of us are aware of the concept but have never taken the time to understand it properly. Therein lies the problem. Understanding it is life changing!

I've got 4 friends who perfectly illustrate the challenge.

 #1 is the get it done at all costs, ready, fire, aim type. #2 is an organization is everything type. #3 is the if it's not fun and exciting why do it type. #4 is a peace maker.

Here's the problem. Each one views the others as having some character defects. The truth is that there is no one best personality type! All are important to accomplish anything worthwhile.

The take home principle is to allow others to magnify their own strengths instead of trying to make them become like you! (Round peg, square hole?)

The best leader is the person who works to understand all of the types and implement their strengths into their own personality!

Principle #2

A while back a friend of mine mentioned a book called "The 5 Love Languages". That book was a key turning point in improving our relationship. It helped me understand a strange experience that had happened to us a few years earlier. I'll bet many of you can relate to this!

Penny was having a rough day getting the house ready for company or something like that and she sent me to the store after something. While I was there I walked past the flower stand and in one of my rare moments of brilliance I decided to get her some flowers to tell her that I loved her and appreciated her!

Here's where it gets crazy. When I walked in the door, she took one look at me and my "stupid flowers", gave me the evil eye and told me if I didn't want them to rot, to take care of them myself! Yikes!

Now if you know her, that was totally out of character, so what did I do wrong?

I was trying to use the wrong love language to communicate my feelings to her!

Her Love Language has always been "Acts of Service" not "Gifts"! She really would have felt very loved if I would have helped her get the house ready instead!

Plus, it would have meant even more to her because she knows that I don't like to do that!

Reading that book has sure has saved me a lot of money on flowers since that time! LOL! And my sweetheart feels much more loved now-a-days!

Principle #3

Another turning point in our marriage came when we learned this simple truth. A woman's #1 need in her marriage is to hear and feel loved! A man's #1 need in his marriage is to hear and feel respected!

They are closely related but not the same. Love and Respect are Sister and Brother!

Remember guys, for the ladies, knowing they are respected is nice, but feeling loved makes their heart go Pitter-Patter!

For us men, it's nice to know you're loved, but feeling her respect is everything!!!

We just really want to "Be your Man!"

It really is the little things in life that make a difference. Here's the magic. All of these are easy to do...but they're also easy not to do!

If you just do that one little thing every day, how much farther ahead will you be after, say 10 years, than you would have been had you not?

What's your "Little Thing?"

For more info on all of these principles see our store front for the books and audios about them!

Love and Respect Whirlpool

Doing some prep work for our Marriage Mentoring seminar this weekend.

Rereading an absolutely great book called "Love and Respect".

I'm reminded that some of the most critical principles to success are some of the hardest for some of us to accept.

Loving your wife or showing respect to your husband at times when you feel like they may not deserve it, is one of the most difficult concepts to understand.

Yet it is one of the most powerful principles we can exercise if we hope to recieve the love or respect that we desire of our spouse!

But if they don't deserve it, I'm going to have a really difficult time giving it!

Fine, but it will drive a wedge between you that will be very difficult to overcome.

Do you ever feel like you're fighting a downward spiral in your relationship! This principle is most likely at the very core of what you are experiencing! Riding this roller coaster soon becomes more like riding a whirlpool down, down, down.

On the positive side, if your marriage is experiencing "technical difficulties" right now, one of the single greatest healing actions you can take is to put your own feelings to the side for a little longer and work at giving your spouse unconditional love or unconditional respect for an extended period of time.

Crazy as it sounds, men have a need to feel respected just like women feel a deep seated need to feel loved!

When either of us feels this need being filled, we tend to reciprocate automatically what our spouse needs!

Hope everyone,healthy marriage or disater, will take time to learn about this principle!

It's good for what ails you!!!

Building on Principles

Thanks for all the great feedback on my post yesterday!

When it comes to having a great marriage, it's pretty obvious that there are a lot of facets to deal with! But rule #1 is that it's not just going to happen with no effort!

One of the biggest lessons we've learned over the years is to try to learn the underlying principles that govern building a great relationship rather than to try to follow someone elses strategies.

There are some relatively simple things you can do that go a long way, but what I've learned is that if you don't understand the underlying principle, your "simple solution" may completely backfire!

If you want to have a truly great marriage, become an eager student! Be careful where you get your information though! Make sure you are learning from someone with "fruit on the tree" rather than from a marriage "expert" who has been divorced 8 times!

Don't be afraid to ask people who you believe have great marriages, what their secrets are and what they have read and are using in their lives!

I think most of us realize that we are all quite different from each other, but I don't think we very often find out why and what determines or defines the differences.

We need to understand that there are personality differences, differences between man and women, differences in the ways we express and feel loved, blueprints or paradigms from our past, and other factors that play into great relationships!

For instance, if we already have a great marriage, is it possible that it could even be a lot better?

Or what about the person who thinks they have a great marriage, then "all of a sudden" finds their spouse leaving them?

Did they really have a great marriage? Or was it that they were feeling totally fulfilled but their spouse wasn't? Hmmmm...think about it!

It happens often actually that one spouse may be feeling totally loved and fulfilled in a relationship while the other may be feeling completely ignored and empty.

Here's the secret. One spouse may have very real feelings of love towards the other and think they are showing it often and abundantly, but the other may not feel anything of the sort because it's not being shown in their "Love Language"! They just flat don't recognize it as love!

My encouragement is to never get complacent about the most important human relationship in your life! Keep asking yourself and your spouse if all of their emotional needs for love are being met.

You might feel you are bending over backwards to keep them happy, but from their perspective, they may not feel like you're doing anything important.

Remember, love is a gift we give to each other!

Avoid the trap of thinking that what love means is that we just end up having to tolerate each other for the rest of our lives.

Tolerance and forgiveness are vastly important but they should be tools in our toolbox used to fix the occasional problem. If they are our everyday uniform, then we need to step up and fix the problem, whatever it is, starting with us!

When it comes to a great marriage - If it is to be, it's up to me! ...To begin searching for some true answers and some sincere communication!

Being in Love!

Here's a great marriage principle that gets more and more clear as I get older.

How many of us have based our entire married future on the feelings we had when "falling in love" with our spouse?

Get this...scientific research is showing those initial euphoric "being in love" feelings are a physiological emotion that is designed to bring us together and get us started down the path of building a family.

But scientifically it's proven that that feeling just naturally dissipates within about 2 years on average! No wonder that so many people who build their entire relationship around just "being in love" find their relationships meaningless after a very short while!

The reality is that this time period of being madly in love happens to give us time to discover what real love is really all about, that is, serving each other in a way that is meaningful to our spouse!

Some few couples luck out and just naturally fall into that pattern. Others get along well and some just stay together out of a sense of commitment but the closest they come to experiencing real love is more like a sense of tolerance and drudgery.

How sad, when really the only problem is that they never were exposed to the true principles about how personalities and relationships work.

It's not rocket science!

It's actually fairly simple to comprehend. I won't say it's easy!

I'll be teaching these principles that Penny and I have learned over the last several years. It's a great way to strengthen an already good marriage or to totally revitalize one that is slowly coming apart at the seams or even already virtually lifeless!

Living a Great Today!

Don't let your yesterdays screw up your todays! Here's a great quote from a book I'm reading -

"I am amazed by how many individuals mess up every new day with yesterday. They insist on bringing into today the failures of yesterday and in so doing, they pollute a potentially wonderful day...The best thing we can do with the failures of the past is to let them be history...We can choose to live today free from the failures of yesterday."

From - "The 5 Love Languages" by Gary Chapman

How often do we let our yesterdays rule our todays and even our tomorrows? We need to learn the true power of forgiveness.

When we forgive others and even ourselves it gives us the freedom to start each new day at zero or in the positive instead of the negative. It frees us from the burden of having to drag around our bag of misfortunes, hurt, injuries and failures with us from day to day.

Talk about getting a monkey off your back!!! Why don't we drop that bag like it was radioactive waste and get away from it instead of cuddling up to it like we can't live without it?

Unburden, clean house, start fresh, forgive, learn the necessary lessons and move on!

Think about how much better our marriages, our jobs and businesses, our families and so many other things in our lives could be if we would just practice this principle!

Have a great new day!

Are You Leading Yourself?

Here's a great thought that I heard recently. Guys, it applies particularly to us!

"Normally when a wife doesn't follow her husband, it's because she doesn't see him leading himself."

Ouch! Anybody else feel slapped upside the head by that one? OK so what does it mean to lead yourself?

The way I see it we have to be continually growing, progressing and going somewhere. It's way too easy to get settled into our rut of just living for the weekend. Why not be chasing a vision of something big in our lives?

All we have to do is look at the world around to realize that there is no such thing as staying where we are at. We are either growing or declining. Those are our only two choices. Declining and going backwards is not an option for me! What about you?

I'm learning more and more the value of living life with a purpose and a goal. There's always something worthwhile out there to pursue.

I've heard the idea before that it's not so much what you achieve in the pursuit of a goal as it is what you become in the pursuit of that goal!

Until recently my response was always yeah, yeah that sounds nice but I want the goal. I finally realized what they meant when they told me that.

If I focus on becoming the kind of person that it takes to accomplish my goal, then I will have taken myself to a whole new level where, if I had to, I could accomplish the same thing again much more easily!

It's called "Becoming".

Living your life on purpose. Growing!

So no more living for the weekend guys! Lets start leading ourselves and see who gets into line behind us!

If what we're doing all week isn't rewarding enough, hmmm...maybe it's time to give ourselves a checkup!

The Power of Self Respect

I've been doing some thinking about self-respect this morning.

In my opinion, there is way too much emphasis on self-esteem these days. Self-esteem ought to be a natural out-growth of self-respect instead of a cheap substitute for it. Self respect is far more valuble than self esteem.

Self esteem is artificial. It is the idea that you should feel confidence in yourself regardless of your behavior. It says you are special simply because you exist. It's a "don't judge me" concept.

Studies have shown that many of the criminals in our prison system have a very high level of self esteem. It's easy to have a high opinion of yourself if you don't see that your actions and level of responsibility are important.

Self-respect is like a fortress you build around your inner self, one block at a time! That fortress gives you strength and protection when the world throws challenges your way!

The building blocks of your fortress come from proving to yourself that you are a person worthy of your own respect!

That only comes from proving to yourself that you can make wise choices and take responsible action.

For instance, there is no way that you can respect yourself for choosing to do something that you know is wrong.

On the other hand, standing up and defending what is right and good even when it's unpopular takes strength and adds more blocks to your fortress quickly!

Your fortress doesn't have to be perfect to have value to you. All of us have weak spots in our character, they are just there to show us what more we need to work on!

Even if your fortress of self-respect is a shambles today, you can start rebuilding it right now one block at a time by starting to make one good decision at a time!

Self-respect comes from hundreds of little good decisions and acts of character and self-discipline all added together!

Have you ever had a hole blown in your fortress wall? I have! When you make a mistake of character in your life, what do you do?

Instead of walking away from your damaged fortress and giving up on it, start building again and focus on making your self-respect even stronger by fixing the problems that created the original weakness.

Think of the power that comes from being able to say, I had the courage to overcome a major obstacle in my life!

If you don't feel much respect for yourself, start today!

Go do something good, preferably for someone else, and lay the first block in your fortress of self-respect.

Figure out how to put another block in that wall every day!

You will find that other people can't take your self-respect from you if you have built it on the right principles.

That's far more valuable than the perceived picture of yourself that is self-esteem. This is real!

So do something today that adds value to the world!

Go make it an awesome day!

Knight in Shining Tinfoil!

Hey friends! While I'm learning the how-to part of this blogging thing, I thought I'd repost one of my old favorites for a practice run!

Sometimes......Yeeaaahh...Sometimes you've just gotta do it!

Instead of being too serious, somebody's thought will get my mind to rolling in a totally off the wall direction!

Today it was this quote stolen from my friend Mike! Are you ready? C'mon now this is serious! Here we go!

"Sometimes your Knight in Shining Armor....Is really just a Retard in Tinfoil!"

Baaa Haaa Ha! I almost fell off my chair laughing! Had to share that one with Penny!

Funny, she didn't laugh quite so hard as I did...Hmmm? Just Kidding!

Could this be what goes through some of our ladies heads on Father's Day?

Sorry ladies!

All too often, our horsey runs off and we find that our beautiful shining armor of bullet-proof stainless steel, actually turns out to be...well, Tinfoil! (or for some of us rednecks...Camo!)

Please...just be grateful it's not PINK!

We're working on it! The problem is, most of us are not Master Metalsmiths and when Ole Nellie bucks us off, we get dents in our armor, wrinkles in our tinfoil, and rips in our camo!

Please...just keep remembering, It's not Pink...or Mauve!!!!

Since most of us aren't master metalsmiths we're either out in the garage trying to beat it back into some semblance of shape, or we're down in the second hand store or army surplus trying to find a replacement!

The problem is that second hand steel shorts don't always fit as well as the nice custom made stuff!

Ever get a steel wedgie? Or even a tinfoil one for that matter?

Please keep remembering, we're working on it...and it's not PINK!

The neat thing is, that if our princesses are patient with us, and will build us up instead of putting us down, mankind has a remarkable faculty for getting better with age!

For some unknown reason, maturity just takes longer with us males!

(But I'm sure you already know that!)

So finally at some distant point you will be able to look out your window and see your Knight in Shining Armor come riding up to your Castle, gallant and fully polished!

We've finally found a Master Metalsmith who could mold us into the kind of man you've been dreaming of all these years! (And believing that we could be)

Please remember, we're working on it, it doesn't come easy, it's not PINK, and the cool thing about Shining Armor...It's great for hiding bald heads, wrinkles, bi-focals, sagging pecs, 6-paks full of jelly, skinny legs, fallen arches, ingrown toenails, Depends, iron wedgies, all of the stuffing required to fill out that shining armor and...the training wheels on Ole Nellie!!!

At least it's not PINK...or Camo...or even Tinfoil anymore!!!

We love our Princesses, just the way you are!

Sorry for the digression! I just had to do that! I thought it was funny!

At least the tinfoil and the iron wedgies part!

Have an awesome day my friends!