When Heart Failure Is Funny!

"In 7 short years you'll have all 3 of our girls there for TYKTWD"

Today, April 26th, is National Take Your Kid To Work Day. Our company decided a month ago that we were going to totally blow this out this year. So we planned and coordinated what may just be one of the largest, and most organized Bring Your Kids To Work Day events for our employee's children today. Fully loaded with a meet & greet session for parents and children, a full breakfast, organized meetings, hands on construction training and even a group coaching session by our CEO with the kids. A local news station and our newspaper covered the event. The group coaching session was done during lunch, at which time a couple dozen cheese pizza's were served up for the kids and their parents. I brought my lunch today in an effort to avoid the hurt burn and extra calories. So fortunately, I got a lunch letter today. Unfortunately, It gave me a heart attack! Well... almost...

So here is the root of my heart sinking to my stomach...I only have 2 daughters!!! The note states I have 3...As I read this note to myself with all of our employees and their children around me I sunk into a state of complete shock. Immediately, the screams of the kids, and their laughter of their parents began to fade until all I could hear was a faint, high pitched ringing in my ears. 

Shock 1: My wife be pregnant! We just started working on this...

Shock 2: How could my wife tell me she is pregnant in a lunch note, on a napkin!

Shock 3: How am I going to get through the rest of this day knowing my wife is pregnant, and not be able to see her, or give her a hug and tell her how excited and scared I am all at the same time!!!

So in order to keep my sanity, and prevent myself from having a total melt down in front of our staff I sent a quick text to confirm the status of the lunch note. 

I'm such an idiot too! In the shock of thinking my wife was pregnant I couldn't even figure out the acronym for take your kid to work day...granted her penmanship is a bit off on her letters. 

Can you remember a misunderstanding of this magnitude in your relationship? Something funny that happened between you and your spouse that you still laugh about to this day? I really believe that when someone says "the good ole' days"....they are ultimately talking about the memories we are making in the prime of our lives. Times like right now. 

I want to challenge you to take just 5 minutes out of your day today. Turn your phone on silent, shut your door and REFLECT. Reflect on your relationship, and find a tiny memory. Find one that makes you smile from ear to ear. Make sure it is something you have not thought about in months...maybe even years. You can't imagine just how good it will feel to find a thought like that. And when your five minutes is up and you have your memory, open your pocket, stuff that memory in there and carry it with you all week. 

Swift kick in the pants!

“I packed you extra nuts today so you can stand up to the O.C. crowd.”

As the Chief Operating Officer of one of the country’s largest home building companies there is something about the spring time that just stresses me out to the max. When April hits it means it is time for me to meet with each of our many communities for their annual HOA meetings. For the most part all of our home owners are very happy, and wonderful to work with. However, for some reason there are always a few individuals in the crowed who find a real pleasure in raising their voices, and pointing fingers (and those fingers go straight at me).  Well…tonight is my first meeting of the year, and my anxiety has been particularly high at home.

After whining and complaining to my wife she finally told me last night in a stern voice “Babe…toughen up! It’s not like this is your first rodeo. You got this.” I was a little taken back, but as I thought about it more and more I realized she was right.

I know that most of my time on this blog has been spent detailing how a wife should back her husband, and be kind and so on…HOWEVER…there comes a time when the lady of the house needs to give her man a swift kick in the pants, and hit his reset button. While men are definitely built tough (at least we like to think we are) there are times where we doubt ourselves, and our ability to get a job done. And I can tell you first hand…this is a BAD feeling, and ALL men go through this a some point in their life.

Heather’s lunch letter today was sending me the message that I needed to man up, and take control of my situation. Without her “nudge” I would still be feeling sorry for myself, wondering if I would be able to pull tonight’s meeting off. But she is so right (as usual) about this.

The next time your husband seems like he is doubting himself or complaining, and you are confident he can get the job done, let him know it. Sure you should be careful how you choose your words, but as a man we are wired to be able to take a tough conversation and turn it into a motivating moment. Ladies, haven’t you ever watched a sports movie with your husband? Imagine how those coaches talk to their players. They get in their players faces, yell and scream and ride them until they get the play right. Famous athletes always thank their coaches after a big win for being so hard on them. That’s because their coaches believed in them more than they believed in themselves. And that is how you should handle the man in your life (this goes for your sons too)! Believe in him more than he believes in himself. Give him some tough love every now and then….Do this in a loving way, and you will watch him win more in life than you ever imagined. Best of all…guess who he will thank, and give the credit to when the game is over?

Room with a view



“I love you, and trust you enough to still let you join a running club.”

I have two favorite times of the day during the week, and they are equally special to me. One is that every evening we eat dinner as a family at the breakfast table (FYI – Our dining room table has seen 3 meals in 2 ½ years – I’ll save that one for another blog), and the other is that my wife and I wake up early, and while I’m getting ready for work we have about 20 minutes to talk, and catch each other up on the days events. It’s kind of like a debriefing of the day, and this time keeps us on the same page for the most part. So last night I had the craziest dream about joining a running club. In the running club there was an attractive girl that kept chasing me. Eventually I wound up in the middle of a break in at a house where a friend of mine was trying to steal this girls huge flat screen TV. I know…it was crazy! While I’m in the shower I tell my wife the entire dream…ever last embarrassing detail. She was laughing, shaking her head, and at one point seemed a little concerned about how the dream could be interpreted.

On my drive into the office I was thinking about my wife’s reaction to the dream, and now that I see her note for today there is a very important point I want to drive home. This is my point…Ladies…give your husband room to be honest. Here is what I mean…Imagine if my wife reacted in a way that she was really upset about my dream…Truthfully, in some ways she did have the right to be concerned about the dreams content. She could have taken a totally negative approach, grilled me about who the girl was, and give me the 3^rd degree. You can probably guess what would happen the next time I had a dream and wanted to tell her about it.

I would certainly think twice about doing so.

Instead, my wife chose to take this dream, and use the conversation to show me how much she trusts me. As a husband, to know my wife trusts me, and has my back means more to me than anything in this world. Husbands need this type of confidence because it’s crucial to the role we play as a “guardian” to our family. With this lunch letter my wife single handedly showed me that she isn’t going to let something silly like a dream get in the way of our relationship. She gave me room to tell the truth! As a result, I will continue to open up, and share all of my feelings with her.

At the end of the day trust is all about confidence in another person. It is so fragile and delicate, and must be protected at all times. If you are in a relationship where trust and confidence are lacking it is something that must be addressed in order for a healthy relationship to exist. There is no room for anything less than the truth, even if someone has good intentions by trying to "protect someones feelings." I understand there are relationships where someone is actually afraid to be honest, because their partner would read so far into something that the truth would cause more damage than a little white lie. If you are on either side of this situation you need to realize this is a major relationship emergency. Check your marriage into rehab, and fix this immediately. Everyone needs “room to tell the truth.” Don’t be quick to react, give your partner the benefit of the doubt and ALWAYS HAVE YOUR SPOUSES BACK.