Parenting is the most entrepreneurial thing we do- Wendy K Clark.
The Gift of Maturing
The reality is whether we are in our professional lives or personal lives, who we are is how we show up. We can take lessons from one sphere to apply to another. This month were the leadership lessons that I learned from taking my kids mini-golfing!
- Allow people room to learn where they are at. Ryn-Ryn is 4. She is internally motivated and is uncommitted to the idea of listening. She wants freedom to express herself, be a part of the family and play! So I offered to show her how to play but she wasn’t interested. We let her go first to release that extra energy. She hit the ball the way she wanted to. However- you could see the talent there. With zero great form, she got the basic concepts of mini golf and her balls actually went towards where they needed to go. She had fun and we could see her talent. She didn’t need to play our game for it to be an amazing evening.
- The gift of the little by little practice. Viktor has been on a baseball journey since he was hitting balloons with a whiffle ball at age 2. He loves to practice a few minutes here and there. He has had the gift of incremental development over time. It impacted his mini-golf swing. In the middle of the game, he got frustrated as he wasn’t doing “swell”. We talked through it and I said you can focus instead of frustrate- your choice. Try it. He did. He got a hole in one.
- The gift of coaching. I love having people around me that are different than me. A few months back, I was at a business event. A friend of mine asked if I wanted to improve my min-golf swing. He shared about my stance. Also about the little line on the putt (I had never seen it before) as a guide. I had my best mini-golf experience to date. Others see what we do not see no matter what it is.
- The gift of memories. I was EXHAUSTED that day. I would have rather watched tv and not get out of my pajamas. But we got to do something fun together, some fresh air, a beautiful sunset and just the gift of being present which is not always easy for me. I am glad we went!
