Be teachable.
If you walk around thinking you know it all, your career and relationships will suffer.
Consider how much you have to learn and welcome any opportunity to learn.
“Teach me” instead of “I don’t know.”
“In the middle of the pain you didn’t cause, the change you didn’t want, the reality you didn’t know was coming . . . your life can still be beautiful.” Lysa TerKeurst
Talk about how choices become habits. Habits can become addictions. Describe how pathways are literally dug into the brain and it's very hard to change them once those paths are made.
You can waste your time trying to get people to like you, or you can be yourself- follow your own interests, learn what you think about issues and events, music and faith and conscious- and just trust. Trust that the truer you are to yourself the happier you’ll be. Trust that you’ll have better friendships and relationships when you’re around people you don’t have to pretend around or perform for. Trust.
Maria Shriver has lots of great parenting advice. One of my favorites is (paraphrased): “Children need what you need: to be seen, to be talked to, to feel safe and loved.”
Okay algebra and geometry but other than that, spend time practicing addition and subtraction, multiplication and division. That’s 99% of the math you’ll need to know if you’re not going to be an engineer, etc.
We struggle so much when we don’t know ourselves. Are you a thinker (creative, big picture) or a doer (meticulous, task-oriented.) Both are great by the way.
Trust me when I tell you that one day you’ll look back and realize you judged people unfairly and you held strong to convictions only to end up changing your mind about in the light of life experience. Leave a little space open for second impressions or the possibility that you could be wrong.
Yes, you’re beautiful. But that’s not ALL you are. And it isn’t all that’s expected of you. Surely you could “get by” on your looks. Is that what you want for yourself?
On September 11th I was at work in Fairfax VA. News reports were saying a plane was headed to the Capitol, that the Whitehouse had been hit. In the immediate aftermath of a big event, news reports will be unreliable. Wait until the facts are in. Several of the nurses had husbands who worked at the Pentagon. One of the doctors was married to a U.S. Senator in her office on the Hill. It was surreal, but no one panicked. I remember we all burst into tears when my friend’s husband called saying he was safe. So relieved.
Your great-great grandmother was a seamstress at Marshall Fields. Her husband was a firefighter in Chicago. The immigrated from County Wexford in Ireland.
I heard a song today, “I love you to the bone” by Sammy Copley. It’s a beautiful story of a lifelong love. It’s my prayer for you that your spouse will have that song played at your funeral after you shared a 75 year- long happy marriage. It’s my prayer that your life is filled with love and laughter, and most importantly a partner who grows with you in all good things. And that you love each other to the bone.
Face it. Whatever it is, show up with your most powerful self. Make decisions from a point of power, not fear. Sometimes the answer is to retreat, care for the injured, mourn the losses. Strategize. Prepare and then attack.
Your spouse will be absolutely unbearable roughly 10% of the time. So will you be, by the way. Give grace. Receive it too. Also, physical distance helps, even for a few hours.
Remember your training and staying calm and kind is how you get through this. It’s all you need to excel. So do your homework, whatever it may be. Show up and have at it. Calm and kind, baby. You got this.