3 Lessons Your Children Can Teach You About Success

If you are a parent, you no doubt have had to learn a lot in how you raise and manage your children.  Let's face it, kids are the best at exposing our weaknesses!  But, as parents, we learn this pretty quick and start to catch ourselves and learn how to "up our game" in raising and teaching our children.

Raising children may be one of the best teachers for success and personal growth we have.  From exposing our vulnerabilities, to learning how to handle every type of mood and attitude imaginable, to protecting and looking out for them - there is always something we are learning and working on as parents!

There are so many lessons we learn from this, but here are 3 important ones that can help you in your success

What You Say Matters

All parents can relate to this one.  How many times has your kid said something out of the blue, that you know you say, that makes you cringe?  Immediately, internally, you say "Oh crap, they learned that from me."  And from that day forward, you are more aware and conscious of what you say and how you say it around your children. (I just had to deal with this the other day, when my 4 year old daughter blurted out "That sucks!" in front of her school principle...)

It's the same in business and in life.  Successful people understand that what you say and how you say it makes a big difference.  Words matter, and they can be taken a whole host of ways by those receiving them.

The lesson here is to make sure you are saying what you truly mean in the best way possible for your audience to understand it.  Don't use too many words, when you only need a few.  Don't exclude emotion when it is needed to drive a point home.  And make sure you understand the personality types you are speaking with to maximize your message (for more on that, read this post).  Most importantly, choose your words carefully.

Get Comfortable with Being Tested

Kids will test you.  They will test every part of you.  They will test your nerve, your patience, your love, your habits, challenge your ways of thinking, and just about every other area of your life.

After some time as a parent, you learn to become a pro a being tested.  You learn how to respond and handle the all of the questions you get and the constant "why?" of everything.   You learn how to anticipate what they will say and how to handle it in conversation.  And you learn how to explain and teach the hardest things, such as death (or in our case, adoption discussions with a 4 year old), in a way that they can relate to and understand easily. 

Kids will test you.  They will test every part of you.  They will test your nerve, your patience, your love, your habits, challenge your ways of thinking, and just about every other area of your life.

The lesson here is simple.  To be successful, you will have to embrace being tested.  Like a parent, you have to get comfortable that every day you will be challenged and you have to condition yourself to be ready for it.  No matter what you do in life, this is a critical skill that will help you to grow and handle your biggest challenges successfully.  Embrace it and enjoy it!

Practice Restraint and Ingenuity

Yes, kids will TEST you and they will do it at the most in-appropriate times.  When do they throw a temper-tantrum?  When you are at the back of the store in the middle of shopping, so you have to hustle their screaming carcass all the way out of the store with everyone watching you the whole way!  When do they decide to have a meltdown or not listen?  When you are on a conference call with an important client from your home office and need them to be quiet, of course!  

Kids are the epitome of Murphy's Law and at least for me, I wouldn't have it any other way.  Overcoming these challenges makes me a better father, a better man, and a better entrepreneur.  

But, boy is is sure hard sometimes!  That is why kids are the ultimate teacher of restraint and ingenuity. We all reach our tipping points and that is typically when emotional reactions take over.  It could be screaming at the top of your lungs or throwing your hands up and telling your spouse, "I'm done, you handle it."  It's in these times that we learn to grow and become better people.  We use ingenuity to find things that work with our children so we don't get to these points.

Success is the same way.  There are times when you reach breaking points or you get super frustrated with co-workers or employees and you react, maybe in the wrong way.  It's here where we learn to practice restraint and ingenuity to 1.) Take a step back and look for the best way to deal with the situation for all parties and 2.) Find a better way of dealing with situations like this so we can get the desired outcome.

Restraint is a hard thing in a world that moves so fast and requires instant response, but it is an amazing skill that will help you to succeed where others fail and become a better leader.  

Children are a blessing in so many ways because they make us better people, whether we realize it or not. I'd love to hear your thoughts on lessons you've learned about success from your children and keep this post going.  Feel free to add them in the comments below or shoot me a note at dave@misfitentrepreneur.com