Disney Leadership Keynote Speaker
Five daily blogs about life's 5 big choices on five interconnected sites.
Dear Son, it has been a privilege and an honor to be your teacher (along with your Mother) for nearly 15 years. Thank you for being receptive to the teachings.
A positive attitude is your biggest ally.
It is yours to nurture and grow.
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Yesterday (Sunday) morning was quiet and peaceful until we heard the Mockingbird’s screeching. A rare sighting of a Swallow-Tailed Kite as it attempted to rob the Mockingbird’s nest of it’s contents.
The iPhone captured the photo as they flew overhead…almost looks like the Mockingbird is riding on it’s wing.
Nature is lovely and brutal in the same breath.
Dear Son, reflecting on a Kentucky Derby party conversation only 36 hours old. With Bob, a Vietnam veteran. He’s on disability from Agent Orange. Just like our neighbor across the street.
Anyway, it started as an exceptionally casual, “How have you been? Please tell me your name again.”
It was a deep, dark, and sobering conversation in which i was mostly a listener.
It was a great reminder for what can happen to children who grow up to be adults. Hell can overrun a person’s life and rob them of hope.
When robbed of hope, drugs, alcohol, sex, crime, and other full-time evils overtake the person’s soul. Big time.
Hell is real.
The good news?
So is Heaven.
Expose children to both. Prepare them well. Really, really well.
Happy 15th birthday Chapin (been thinking about this for at least 100 days).
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(photo: The sun going down as the two-hour conversation reaches a good place to stop, for now.)
The walk yesterday afternoon was the last thing anyone could have seen coming.
Maybe two miles and two hours later they had finished the most important part.
Getting to, “Where do we go from here?”.
What looked like a simple father and son walk was actually a monumental conversation.
And so it goes.
They decided to give the next conversation a four-day deadline to happen – by New Year’s Eve.
The conversation yesterday had no deadline. But it did rely on a 14-year old’s courage to start an adult conversation. He didn’t initiate it, circumstances did.
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(photo: Middle Schoolers practicing their Fall International Parade performance, October 22, 2014)
Sometimes our second choice is better than the official choice.
Will miss tonight’s performance, but didn’t miss yesterday’s final practice session.
Mid Life Celebration is about making the most out of the hand we are dealt.
Always.
Insight: Unknowingly, to be the only parent at the final rehearsal was inspiring to the students.
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(photo: Last night during the Cartoon Network premier revealing of the Aunt Grandma character… a big deal to a 14-year old)
Conversations are endless. And everywhere. Short ones. Long ones. Happy ones. Not-so-happy ones.
Dad: Son, it’s not what happens to you, it’s how you respond to what happens to you. Bad things happen to everyone, and for their entire life.
Son: Silent, but obviously his mind is working overtime.
Dad: We are in control of our attitude and we create the habits that either favor us or don’t.
Bottom line, another in a long list of deposits into the mind of a future adult.
Today’s mental thought continues with a physical thought for the day at the Next Blog