Demonstrate Courage

00:00

Ah back again. And I am always excited to be here and share with you guys and always looking forward to hearing from people and connecting on social media or wherever it may be.

00:14

So, here again, I'm just going to be with myself again today and share some thoughts. Some of you might recognize this, the title of this, demonstrate courage, some of you will recognize that as one of Brendon Burchard, high performance habits. And it's, it's a really amazing experience and process to go through to, to learn about these things, to dive into things like courage, and to explore how these things fit with and apply in parenting. It's challenging, and that's what I said at the beginning of this, I said, I want this podcast to be something that's challenging, that really helps us to dig deeper, and not just get stuck on the surface of things. You know, how to be a dad how to be parent and, and build those relationships with our kids. But to really dig in, and challenge ourselves and challenge each other, to really go deeper. So even today, as I was thinking about what I would share here, I had some new understandings and revelations. And so that's what makes this, part of what makes it so exciting for me. So I really enjoy talking with other guests. And I really enjoy sharing with you the journey that I've been going through as well. And the coaching life, coaching business work that I do is no less challenging than just being a dad in general. So. So it's fun and exciting as well, once you get into the whole process of changing and growing, and you see the benefits of it, then you really start to actually enjoy it, and look forward to it. Some people say nobody likes change. I disagree. Very often I find the process of change can be uncomfortable, and I don't like that. But I've come to the point where first of all, I like some change, for sure. None of us wants everything to stay the same all the time. And so there's, there's this give and take in the growth, side of change, where inner growth and the personal development, that can be difficult and exciting at the same time. So, demonstrating courage. All right, in parenting.

02:47

First of all, let's define courage. I like to define words for a couple of reasons. One is, especially in today's day and age, people just decide a word means what they want it to mean. Doesn't matter what the dictionary says, I meant this. Well, okay, you're free to do that, I suppose. But it doesn't help with communication. The other thing is that the way we've been changing words lately, where we're just kind of throwing words away, and not replacing them with something that means the same thing that, that word used to mean. And so we lose some richness in our communication, and in our understanding of ourselves. So, defining courage. Courage, the word comes from the idea of your whole heart, being in something. We've come to think of it as bravery. But I'm going to suggest that you try thinking about it in a slightly different way, thinking of it as wholeheartedness. Bringing your whole being and whole self into whatever it is that you're doing. Now, in a way, living like that actually increases bravery. But these are different things. And I think it's very helpful to recognize the difference now, okay. I'm probably not going to change the whole world in terms of how they use the word courage and bravery. But at least for this moment, the next few minutes and encourage you to work with me on this and think of courage as a wholeheartedness, which is where the word originally comes from. So in order to be courageous, and to demonstrate this wholehearted courage, that would mean first of all, that we have to be in tune with our heart. Right?

04:55

How can you bring your whole heart to bear on a situation if you're not even aware out what's going on in your heart? Awareness is, as I've said many times in the past is the starting point for so many things. Any kind of change that you want to make, you first have to be aware that there's an issue that there's something that needs to be changed. And then learning about, you know, what has to change? How does it change, so on. So, in demonstrating courage, that's not too much different, we have to be aware of our heart. And that might be a conversation for another day, but assuming that you have a basic kind of sense of, of who you are, and what and your sense of your heart and what's what's what that is bringing to you. I'm gonna suggest that we look at it this way. If you want to know, if there's room for you to be more courageous, or wholehearted. One really good question is to ask yourself, "Is there anyone, or any situation in which getting an idea that I'm kind of guarding myself, or holding back something, hiding something from this person, or these people, not showing all of myself to them?" And if we explore why that is, sometimes this is where it touches on bravery, right? Bringing your whole self to somebody, even just as an individual. That does take some bravery. It takes vulnerability, and so on. So that's where we can get a little confused. But I want to think about how do we be dads, and moms with her whole heart? And what are some of the situations that arise? Where that's challenging? Well, for me, I think this podcast is one example. And my kids are listening to it. So it'll be interesting to have a conversation after this one. But I am, I'm really pouring myself into this, I'm being fully present, I'm bringing everything that I am to bear here. And, and exposing personal stories, and my struggles and thoughts and feelings, and encouraging others to do the same. And I'm really just trying to bring everything that I am on to this. And it's, it's challenging, and it takes, you know, within our family's life and circumstances it takes some work to, to figure out how to fit it in, and how to time things. I've been talking to the kids about being a part of this. And it looks like we're going to do that soon. That'll be fun. So what are some of the challenges?

07:57

You know, let me take it back a second. In the last few years, especially since the collision that I mentioned in an earlier podcast. There's part of what happens during that trauma is that we as a family, pretty much all to some degree or other went into survival mode. I mean, literally, our lives were threatened. And at points, you know, there was some struggle with just covering the basic expenses and things like that, although we had a lot of help with that. So there was questions of survival, but even just the healing of trauma tends to put you in that space. And as I've looked back on this time, I've thought about, you know, I really felt like, I haven't been wholeheartedly present. I haven't been courageous in living. I've been surviving and guarded and concerned about the basics of life and stressed over, you know, my own trauma and healing, and trauma that my family members are working through. One of the things that that brings to mind is that, it seems to me that we cannot be courageous when we're stressed. Well, that could be a bit of a challenge, right? Some of us are dealing with a lot of stress, a lot of ongoing stress, maybe long periods of time, like I've been going through where this you know, many years of stress. So if I'm saying that we can't be courageous, we can't bring our whole heart to life if we're stressed, but what does that really mean? And what does that mean in terms of its impact on us and our lives and the people around us? Well, let's break it down a little bit. Here's what I was thinking about that. If, when, when I'm stressed, and thinking about different troubles, and I'm trying to be present with my wife, or my kids or my friends, my, my heart is divided, it's going in different directions, right? There's the various things that I'm thinking about that are troubling me and the people that are with me, and the things that we're doing. I'm divided. I don't have a singular focus. And this this amazing thing I've noticed. And this was just something I've been realizing today, as I was, as I was thinking through what I would share with you today. What if we could set aside our stresses, stressors and distractions for a moment, and bring our heart focused, fully, our whole self? I mean, just our whole self focused in on something for a moment. What would that do? Well, I can tell you. I can tell you what it does, because I've done it. And I never really realized it until today. And this was kind of exciting. As I was thinking through this and recognizing something that's been happening. Here's a great example for me from from my life.

11:36

The past few years, especially, there have been many times where I'm stressed. And so for example, I may be at the end of the day, my wife and I are sitting in the living room. And we're watching a TV show, and I'm watching the show, but I'm kind of stressed about life and things that are going on, whether it's business related or just personal stuff that I'm trying to work through. And so I'm not fully present with the TV that we're trying to use it as it, or I'm trying to use it as a distraction from the stresses and I'm not really fully present with my wife. And I'm not fully present with these stressors that are bugging me. And then one of my kids might come up from or from being in bed and say, "Dad, I need you for something.". And it might be they want to massage, or they want to talk about something. It doesn't matter too much what it is in in the moment. Here's what I've noticed myself doing. The first step is I do kind of do a quick evaluation. Does this seem like something that's important right now, that actually needs my attention. And the truth is, in those circumstances, you know, people don't generally ask for help, unless they really need it. And especially you know, where the kids are coming out of bed to come and interrupt our parent, our adult time. It's usually important, although it may seem like a small thing, like a back rub, or foot rub, or something like that. If we think about it, those are things where they're asking for love and care. And it might be very important in terms of helping them release a stress or helping them to settle emotionally and get to sleep, or just having your presence with them. So they're asking for love in some way. So that's important. And here's what's happened when I when I think about that, and I recognize, first of all, I look at their need and what they're asking. I've noticed that what I'm able to do in those times is to just quickly, my way of dealing with this is to pray. I give the stressors, things are going on, the things that I want to do, like just veg out in front of the TV, I give those things to God. I say, "God, hang on to this, help me to focus on my child, our child and what they need, and to give them what they need.". And in that process, I'm making a very quick shift from this distracted stressyness, where I'm going, going in multiple directions to suddenly being focused on one. One thing, one person, one process. Well, one of the fascinating things about that is that I find I suddenly have a bunch of energy. I mean, I was laying on the couch stress distracted and blah, blah and then and just feeling exhausted. And when I hear my child's footsteps on the stairs, coming around the corner. Oh, I think I don't know if I can handle this.

14:56

But I can. And when I set aside all the other stuff, and just focus all my heart all myself, on one thing, one person, suddenly I have energy. Well, that energy that was being split up in 100 different ways, maybe four or five different ways, is now focused. And it energizes me. And so I can joyfully, wholeheartedly, courageously, go and work with my child and be with them, and address whatever it is that they need. I let go of all the other stuff. And so I don't feel bad, I'm not, I'm not with them thinking, Oh, I gotta get out of here and go do this, or I gotta leave, we hope this is over soon. Instead, because I choose to be courageously with them - wholeheartedly present - I have the energy and the love and the focus to be with them, and to share in what they need, and to help provide that. And it's an amazing thing. And I hadn't really thought it through before in terms of what that really means, and what I was doing there. But as I was thinking through this process of courage, and how stress distracts us, and so on. So that's really cool. It was really neat to recognize that and it's been a lifesaver in, I think in some ways for me and for my kids, that I've learned how to do that.

16:35

And so then I thought, well, what if we do this beyond the special moments? I mean, think about how this might change your life, if you're going through your day. And moment by moment. You're living courageously. Wholehearted focus, right? With each situation that comes up, you shift your attention. Bring all of yourself to this moment. Somebody's asking you for something, somebody wants to be with you somebody needs something. Or even you are going to somebody with something or to ask something. How would it change things, if your whole hearted whole self was focused on that moment, and you weren't distracted by other stressors, you weren't thinking in the back of your mind about something else that's going on, and then possibly even miss a moment altogether, because of it. Right? Think about how that would change the way you go through life. And as I said, when you do that, you actually have a lot of energy for those moments. And the things that other things that you're worrying about don't disappear. But you're able to set them aside. Now for me, I can do that because of my relationship to God, I can give him those things and say, Okay, I know that we'll deal with that. That's not over and gone. But for now, I can focus wholeheartedly on this moment.

18:08

And when it's time to deal with the stressor, I can focus wholeheartedly on that stressor. And here's the thing. When we take negative things that need to be addressed, and we truly focus on, we bring our whole selves to bear on those moments. It's less draining, because we're bringing all of our energy to it and we are more focused, it's, we can become more clear, and more aware. And we can walk through the process more creatively, because we're not being distracted and drawn out in other ways. So our creativity comes up, we are able to walk through these things much more effectively. And, dare I say more permanently, I guess, maybe. I mean, we often have to revisit some things that stress us or that have that traumatized us, whatever the case may be. But the part that we have dealt with is dealt with. And we can move on to the next layer of that if there is another layer.

19:12

So there's a challenge. Be courageous, and demonstrate courage in your family. Demonstrate courage in the way you are with your kids. Demonstrate a wholehearted presence in the moment. You can't be 100% fully present with your kids all the time every minute of the day, or with your spouse, or even necessarily with yourself. Just go moment by moment. Take each moment and bring your whole self there and focus on what's in front of you now.

19:47

Ah, thanks for listening in and for allowing me to share these thoughts with you. For me, as I say it's a lot of fun and exciting and once I get into learning and recognizing the benefits of growing, the more I look forward to it. And that's why I'm so excited about coaching and why I love working with dads and walking through these high performance principles and habits with them. Because this is going to revolutionize our world. When dads are fully courageously present with their families, and leaving, the legacy of that courage, the clarity and awareness and everything that comes with that, when they're leaving that for their kids, and for their grandchildren, and great grandchildren. This is where the world changes in families. Family is the foundation of society, and it needs a bit of fixing. So I really want to encourage you don't try to go it alone. Coaching is something that can really transform lives. We're able to get really deep with things. And it's not about me telling you how to live life. It's about helping you discover what you need to know the answers that are already inside you. Sometimes it's just a matter of finding the right question that will change your life, change your perspective, and move you in a new direction.

21:11

I encourage you to reach out. The links are in the show notes below. If you want to reach out to me and you can also anytime you can go to Kevin will speak.com Find episodes of the podcast there and find page under coaching to set up time to talk with me. And let's get on this journey together and really see what we can do to transform this world. Thank you everybody for listening. We'll talk to you soon.