Hey Friend,
Happy freedom Friday!
Yesterday, after a long day of freedom crusading I got a phone call from my good wife, surprising me with the news that she had scored a KILLER deal on a brand new, beautiful, black range oven for our kitchen.
When I first heard the words, to be honest with you, my heart sank because it mean that instead of finishing some other important, time sensitive items on my list, I was instead going to be driving 30 miles with a dolly and straps, to pick up this new item, only to bring it home and spending the rest of the evening swapping it out for the old one we had.
🤦♂️
My good wife said, "Hey, this will be a chance for us to spend some time together."
I thought, "Yup, you're right." and my attitude changed.
This was a quick foreshadowing of the lesson that was destined to be further driven into my heart, later on that evening.
We made the trip, wrapped the range in blankets and straps, loaded it into the back of the truck and made the journey home.
I pulled up to our front porch, and sat in the cab for a few minutes answering some questions for a new team member on my phone.
When I finished, I walked out and saw, with horror, that my youngest son Kashton, had unstrapped the range and pulled off the blankets, as the range continued to sit in the back of my truck.
This was a MAJOR bummer for me, because it took some time to prep that thing so that we could move it around on the dolly without damaging it.
My first response was, frustration, annoyance and maybe even a little anger.
Right in the middle of my reaction, as I stared down at the innocent and confused face of my son, it hit me..
He was just trying to help.
I instantly stopped myself and said... "I'm sorry Kashton. I know you were just helping me and I appreciate that so much. Thank you for giving me such a great example of initiative and leadership. You saw something that needed to be done, and you did it. Well done son. Well done."
I strapped the range back up and it only took a few minutes. Before we knew it, the new range was in our kitchen and my wife was smiling.
The lesson for me here, is 2 fold.
1, the power of the reframe.
Oftentimes Friend, we can change the way we look at things, and the things we are looking at will change. (Wayne Dyer taught something like that).
The 2nd big lesson for me here is...
2, Always assume that people have the best of intentions, even if their actions cause us some sort of negative response.
That's a lesson I picked up in some of my studies of NLP, and it's been extremely useful to me, because, I have found that most of the time, it's 100% true.
People are usually doing the best they can with whatever knowledge and skills they are equipped with.
If we can acknowledge that, we can keep our emotions in check, and express love and encouragement for the intention behind the action and help them grow, right along side of us.
We went into some deeper detail on these things during today's mastermind call.
You can catch the replay by clicking here or by dialing 712-432-0990 Access 565762#.
My friend Marian was on the call today, and here's what she said about her experience.
