Would You Find The Idea of Raising Free Future Adults Tempting?

Photo by JoelValve on Unsplash

The Kenyan Runner Abel Mutai was a few meters away from the finish line. For some reason, he was confused by the signals and stopped running, thinking he finished the race.

A Spanish Runner, Ivan Fernandez, who was behind him, noticed the confusion. He started screaming and asking the Kenyan Runner to continue the race.

Mutai doesn’t know Spanish; thus, he wasn’t able to understand what his fellow Runner was saying. Realizing it, Fernandez pushed him to win the race!

When a journalist asked Ivan “Why did you do this?”, his answer was:

I dream that one day, we could have some sort of communal living where we push and empower each other so that we could collectively win!

The journalist insisted “But hold on, why did you let the Kenyan Runner win the race?” Ivan simply answered “I didn’t let him win. He was already winning. The race was his.”

The journalist insisted again “But you could have won!” Ivan looked at him before adding:

And what would the merit of my victory be? What would the honor of this medal be? What would my mother think of it?

Moral of the story:

Pay attention to the story you’re telling your kids. Instead of discriminating against their intrinsic worth and pushing them to compete with others, break their hearts to accomplish what would make them deserve your love, be a responsible parent by keeping them connected to their original great being.

That being who was granted by the pure love divinity some wonderful common gifts:

• The Power of Choice,
• The Principles Center — namely respect, fairness, integrity & honesty, human dignity, abundance mentality, service, quality or excellence, potential, etc.
  
  

Principles are self-evident and can easily be validated by any individual. It is almost as if these principles or natural laws are part of the human condition, part of the human consciousness, part of the human conscience. They seem to exist in all human beings, regardless of social conditioning and loyalty to them, even though they might be submerged or numbed by conditions or disloyalty. ~ Stephen Covey 

• The four forms of intelligence / their manifestation: IQ (Mind)/ Vision, PQ (Body) / Self-discipline, EQ (Heart) / Passion & Emotional Maturity, and SQ (Spirit) / Principled Legacy.

The story above is all about “Integrity”, the “Abundance Mentality”, and the “Emotional Maturity”. In other words, the three main character attributes of a servant leader.

Should you be interested, I explored all the virtues of this servant leader here.

How can you do so?

You need to elevate them instead of criticizing them, guide them in discovering their inner talents from their very early age, and celebrate them instead of limiting them with the social lens of “success”.

By reminding them daily how much worthy of love and belonging they are, that their worth is intrinsic, and only depends on who they are as a person — not on what they’ll be accomplishing in life.

By assuring them they will never have to prove their worth to anybody. Still, they can aspire to grow and become better from day to day.

The only person they would need to compare themselves to would be the person they were yesterday. It is what we call the “Abundance Mentality”!

Think of it this way: When you compare yourself to others, no matter how talented you are, there will ALWAYS be someone better than you. When you compare yourself to the person you were yesterday knowing you are doing efforts to grow, YOU WILL ALWAYS BE BETTER.

This is called freedom!

Is it enough to tell your kids how to behave?

Educating your kids by telling them how to behave is something; modeling it is a different story.

“The problem is that the parents are looking for behaviors, emotions, and thinking patterns that their children have never seen modeled.” ~ Brené Brown

In the quality of caregivers, you need to engage in life in alignment with what you are saying. You need to be a role model for your children and principle-centered individuals.

You need to progressively learn how to live wholeheartedly. It includes making mistakes and losing your cool. The key is to catch yourself thanks to continuously practicing self-awareness, admit it, and quickly apologize to your 5-year-old kid. The apology also needs to be perceived as sincere. It is one of the main foundations of building trust!

Above all else, I want you to know that you are loved and lovable. You will learn this from my words and actions — the lessons on love are in how I treat you and how I treat myself. I want you to engage with the world from a place of worthiness. You will learn that you are worthy of love, belonging, and joy every time you see me practice self-compassion and embrace my imperfections. We will practice courage in our family by showing up, letting ourselves be seen, and honoring vulnerability. We will share our stories of struggle and strength. There will always be room in our home for both. We will teach you compassion by practicing compassion with ourselves first; then with each other. We will set and respect boundaries; we will honor hard work, hope, and perseverance. Rest and play will be family values, as well as family practices. You will learn accountability and respect by watching me make mistakes and make amends, and by watching how I ask for what I need and talk about how I feel. I want you to know joy, so together we will practice gratitude. I want you to feel joy, so together we will learn how to be vulnerable. When uncertainty and scarcity visit, you will be able to draw from the spirit that is a part of our everyday life. Together we will cry and face fear and grief. I will want to take away your pain, but instead, I will sit with you and teach you how to feel it. We will laugh and sing and dance and create. We will always have permission to be ourselves with each other. No matter what, you will always belong here. As you begin your Wholehearted journey, the greatest gift that I can give to you is to live and love with my whole heart and to dare greatly. I will not teach or love or show you anything perfectly, but I will let you see me, and I will always hold sacred the gift of seeing you. Truly, deeply, seeing you. ~ Brené Brown

What about the business world?

Can you guess what raising kids to be competitive and to crave external “success” would give birth to in terms of the paradigm in which they would be scripted? Let me help you a little: Win-Lose.

Interestingly, when we are a person of integrity, emotionally mature, and diving into life with an abundance mentality, in which paradigm do you think we would be scripted? And you’ve just won the lottery! Win-Win indeed.

Win-Lose people are prone to use power, possessions, or manipulation to get their way. They are ego-driven. Their success means others’ loss. In the management style, the Win-Lose is the authoritarian approach.

Win-Win: Agreements or solutions are mutually beneficial. Based on the paradigm that there is plenty for everybody, that one person’s success is not achieved at the expense of others. It is not your way or my way; it’s a higher way. ~ Stephen Covey

 

Let’s explore together how those paradigms apply in the business world, shall we?

What is productivity? Doing what we need to do the right way. Why are people productive in the first place? They are tempted by material motivation. People can even be productive and collaborative whenever they are “manipulated” the right way. Ironic I know.

But let me give you an example to make my point clear. Please bear with me!

The first situation is a typical “bossy” Win-Lose culture: There is a dream trip to Bermuda, which could be won by the employee signing the highest number of contracts. In this scenario, there will be individual productivity, but no cooperation at all because of the competition. Result? Lose-Lose!

When 2 Win-Lose people get together, the result will be Lose-Lose. It is the philosophy of war. ~ Stephen Covey

 

The second situation is a “manipulative” Win-Lose culture: The cooperation compensation is 80% of the pie. It would be granted to each employee of the five in the form of “Gift tickets”. The remaining 20% would be distributed as a bonus depending on the individual contribution of each employee (how many contracts each one of them signed for instance).

That is, without cooperation, nobody would get anything. At the same time, personal plus-value is taken into consideration. It is, for sure, a good situation in the short-term. Everybody would win because of the combination of productivity and cooperation. Why is it still, to me, a shallow Win-Win?

Because it is fully driven by some superficial motivation: finances. It means that whenever there is an organization paying more, all the team members could quit. So, what is a real Win-Win situation?

It is when effectiveness replaces productivity. While productivity is doing what we need to do the right way, effectiveness is doing what we want to do — the right thing which makes us serve the humanity in a principled way and leave our legacy — the right way.

What can transform productivity into effectiveness? It is a foundation for all the thriving organizations, which I explored in this article.

We are talking about an organizational mission statement in which everybody is involved — following some visualization exercise we call “Start With The End In Mind” or “How Do You Want to Be Remembered?

A second option is a mission statement with which they can identify. It happens when the trust in other people’s vision is higher than our own. The consent in this case scenario needs to be expressed without any pressure, though. It should be the result of their free will.

An organizational mission statement — one that truly reflects the deep shared vision and values of everyone within the organization — creates a great unity.

It creates in people’s hearts & minds a frame of reference, a set of criteria and guidelines by which they will govern themselves. They don’t need someone else controlling and directing them. They have bought into the changeless core of what the company is about. ~ Stephen Covey

 

Most importantly, and in relation to our sample, would they quit and volunteer their minds & hearts for the employer who would pay them more? No, they wouldn’t. Why not? Because they would trade being treated as a “whole person” for being treated as a “thing”, and only securing their survival (body dimension). It’s not worth it…

“Use me creatively (mind), pay me fairly (body), treat me kindly (heart) in serving humanity in a principled way (spirit).”~ Stephen Covey

 

Last thoughts

I know how challenging it is to be a parent. I know how much goodness you have in your heart. I know you want your kids to live a meaningful and fulfilling life.

All that you need to always keep in mind is the following two ingredients:

• Paying attention to the story you are telling them.
• Engaging in life in alignment with what you are saying, and being gentle with yourself when screwing things up, because you will!

By doing so, you would raise a future servant leader who would contribute to uplifting the world daily. You would feel so proud of having made the privilege of raising kids an opportunity to create heaven on earth. Your adult children would be as free and wonderous as this exquisite baby: