Conversations With My Kids: Life Advice Vol 1

The tear-jerker moment in Harry Potter’s first adventure for me was when he found the mirror Erised. 

What did that mirror show him? Only what his heart desired the most: his dead parents. Night after night, Harry would don his invisibility cloak and sneak to see his family, the family he never really knew. 

But what did they leave Harry? 

Sure there was this fortune down at Gringotts that paid for all his school supplies and more. And at this moment in time, I have to confess not to have amazed a chamber filled with gold and silver. The only thing in terms of money is hopefully a life insurance payment, but that won’t go too far really. 

The true treasure that Harry’s parents left him were memories, stories and wisdom passed on by those who knew Lily and James Potter. They were stories of courage, of love, of friendship, but also of mistreatment of those less fortunate. It is those stories that in my eyes meant more to Harry than that treasure down in Gringotts. 

So when I die, what do I hope to have passed on to my children?

There is no denying that this is a scary question. But not asking it, is denying the value that my life experiences can have for the next generation. After all even some of the richest people on the planet have pledged to give away a lot of their fortune. 

But why would they do it?

Because there are keys to success and a happy life that are more important than wealth.

The most important insight is to understand that a life in pursuit of greatness will yield the rewards we are after. 

Following that insight, I came up with a set of 5 guiding principles. No matter what path they choose in life, no matter where they live or how they make their money, these 5 principles will give them a base to develop into real assets to the people around them. And hopefully these waypoints will help them find a life of meaning and fulfillment. 

Interconnectedness

Everything is connected, even though that reality may not always be apparent. It certainly wasn't in my childhood.
Take school for example. Traditionally we are taught subjects in isolation. There is biology, then there are the languages and history sits in its own little silo. 

But that is incorrect. 

Discoveries in sciences influenced decisions to go to war with another country, which influenced the spread of a certain religion and those still affect how we live our lives today. See the links between how humans evolved, how societies changed over time and how we live today.

But also understand that interconnectedness relates to your body. Nutrition, exercise, sleep as well as managing your mental and emotional wellbeing, they all play a massive role in who you will become. They will determine if you are a burden to the people around you or an asset to society.

So my advice is: see every second of time as an investment into the person that you want to become.

Sound investment strategies are always based on diversification. And so should it be with your time. Spend time watching episodes of your favourite show, but also spend time on getting stronger, healthier and smarter. Spend time with people that help you grow and that you can help. Spend time on becoming your best self.

If you don't understand the relationship between time investments and who you are as a person, you will never be who you want to become.

Balance

Linked to the understanding that all of life is connected is the recognition that we must seek and establish balance in our lives and in the world around us.

For example, if you exert yourself in the pursuit of a big goal in life, like passing your exams or training for a competition, you must be aware that your body and mind need some rest to balance out the stress you were under.

Balance is key for your finances, your relationships and most importantly the environment around you. Balance is key for how we humans live on this earth, how we treat nature and how we interact with the other species that are crucial to the health of this world.

But balance extends further than that. It also touches upon how much you limit yourself. If you only grow in one direction, you can never reach your fullest potential. Even super-athletes know that their mental game must be strong too, not just their physical bodies. 

I used to think that you had to choose between being creative or enjoying sports.

Back in school we seemed to have two camps: artistic and musical folk or the sporty ones. I was never a great athlete in any specific sport, but I always enjoyed exercise. And hence, I put myself in the box of not being artistic.

In hindsight, I cannot believe how narrow-minded and limiting that belief was.

Nevertheless, in recent years I have always felt an urge to foster a creative outlet. The first one was through writing a children's book. It was a great adventure as a friend of mine illustrated it and one other friend took care of the publishing side and got us successfully through our Kickstarter campaign.

Since then I have written many more, but just in my mind!

But I haven't put pen to paper yet. And one of the reasons is that I'm not entirely clear of where I want to go with the story, how can I make it work. Over the summer I picked up watercolor painting (why I cannot really tell you), and I am completely obsessed about it.

I found an activity that allows me to calm down, play with colours and let my creativity flow.

It is great to be a complete beginner, not feel any pressure and just enjoy the process. But the biggest payoff is that it allows me to actually draw the pictures and images that I conjured up when I was thinking about my next children's fiction story.

I should have never put myself in the box of not being creative when I was younger. To think of how much more grounded I would have been through letting my creativity flow freely...

Growth

Never stop dreaming, never stop striving for greatness and never stop working hard on becoming a better version of yourself.

But sometimes we do end up getting too comfortable, what happens then?

For me the most obvious area that we can study our comfort zone is with sports. Whether you enjoy running, playing tennis or lifting weights. We will have a comfort zone for each of these activities.

The comfort zone is where the activity is done with relative ease and we enjoy participating.

Being in our comfort zone feels good. It often means that we are surrounded by people we know and trust. Often we worked hard to get to that place of enjoying an activity.

So what is wrong with that?

The key is that the comfort zone is a false friend. It invites us to participate in an activity, to feel comfort with the status quo. But staying within its boundaries means by definition that we won’t advance.

Interestingly, in order to reach a comfort zone in a new activity, you were required to grow. So don’t stop there!

What I found in sports is that when I started to just cruise along, I got complacent. I did not advance anymore and with no new achievements, I lost interest. So the sport I used to love became stale and I stopped playing.

Contrary, when I kept setting new goals that required me to go out of my existing comfort zone, I would keep progressing and keep enjoying the sport.

Enjoy what you are doing, but don’t let the “comfort-zone-feeling” trick you into complacency. 

Never forget that you must make a daily choice to grow into a stronger, healthier, tougher, kinder and more thoughtful version of yourself.

Now

The present is all there is. You can only control your thoughts and actions now.

The big kids and I went sailing under the bridges in the Firth of Forth in August this year. Here are two ways they could describe it to you:

A) “I was crammed on a small boat under grey skies and freezing winds this morning.”

B) “I enjoyed the wide space of the ocean on a boat today whilst the wind filled our sails and seals played in the waves.”

We tell our kids to be present, but what if the now that they experience is unpleasant in their eyes?

As a teenager, I would have benefitted from knowing about breath practice and mindfulness. But at the same time I am not sure that these would have solved the pain of an unfulfilled teenage romance, the drag of having to study for a test or the constant self-doubt about what to do with your life.

What I have found to be the magic ingredient to help me overcome hardships in my life is to invite adversity in.

When you have laced up your running shoes and spent 45mins running in freezing rain, any office related task seems easy in comparison. When you have spent months volunteering to help people less fortunate than yourself, self-pity seems to have been pushed out of your consciousness.

Like a good physical training regime leads to an increase in your physical work capacity. Inviting adversity into your life helps to expand your comfort zone and drown out the voice of negativity.

Spending many hours per day staring at a screen made me soak in the time on the boat today - I was practicing being in the Now. Regularly running in the freezing rain in the Scottish hills made me enjoy the chilly ocean breeze when we went sailing - I was well within my expanded comfort zone.

Legacy

This is a hard one to come to terms with. But you have to understand that life is defined by a beginning and an end. Legacy is about the impact you leave on the people around you once you are not there anymore.

However, there is no lasting legacy without a life of purpose. And in order to foster purpose in your life, you need to take ownership of it. 

It took me only around 30 years to understand that I own my life.

Maybe I am too much of a people-pleaser or maybe it is just a lack of intelligence. But for the largest part of my life, I did not take ownership of it. This might sound strange to you, but we are part of so many silos and confines in our lives and on top of that is that inherent need to be liked, that I ended up not grasping the responsibility that I have to shape my life to its fullest.

I have had many amazing experiences and my life has certainly been very blessed so far, but for a long time I have felt that I am always trying to please someone else.

As a parent, I can now see how foolish that point of view has been.

I want nothing more for my children than to live their lives. It is actually what I find so interesting about having a lot of kids, what will they all end up doing? And looking ahead, I obviously only want the best for them, but primarily I want them to find their own unique way.

I want my kids to take ownership of their lives and drive it in a direction that makes them happy.

What part do I as a parent play in it?

First of all is for them to realise that it is their life. Not their mum's, not their dad's or any other social construct that pushes them in one direction or another. It is ok to be lost and not knowing where you want to go. But it is not ok to fail to understand the gift of owning your life and making it your own.

No matter what my kids end up doing, I will be proud of them. If I found a way to stay connected to them and be a mentor on their journey, I will be proud of myself.