Monday Motivation

Well, good morning, Cadre crew. Not exactly how I like to go live in the morning, you know, in my vehicle. But sometimes, you know, life has its obstacles and challenges, and you gotta roll with the punches. So it is what it is, as they like to say. Right? Just gonna give it a second here. Just make sure you all are on there. And there's the notification, which is amazing. So I wanted to share two things I learned this weekend. You know, one is, one of my goals through the duration of the year was to always shut off my phone from five to seven every night, be really present with my family, with dinner and whatnot.

My other goal was to never use my phone and be present during my kids sporting activities. Right? So, again, let me reiterate those two goals. Five to seven, my phone gets shut off, and then, which I'd say happens only as 50, 60% of the time. So that goal I haven't been too great on. Number two is that with my kids sporting events, that I am not on my phone. I'm nothing, right? I'm just present, 100% glued in to my kids events. So here's two stories from this weekend and things that I learned. Number one, my daughter is in cheer.

Her name is Ada, and she's eight. She has. She's just this amazingly gorgeous little girl that had a cheer competition this weekend. And the cheer competition, if you don't know how that works, it's basically all these different age groups and brackets, and they all get their opportunity in their two minute window or two and a half minute window, to perform their cheer routine, right? So you have this cheer routine, and all the kids cycle through from age groups, maybe six and seven to seven and eight to nine and ten, all the way up through varsity competition.

So, with that being said, ada was up, and their team was up, and their team was ready to go, and their whole team just had this amazing routine, and they nailed it, and they got first place. Yay. So I'm a cheer dad. Proud cheer dad. Go, bears, go. But. Excuse me. But when she was done, Ada came running up to me, gave me this big, massive hug, and she said, I was so worried that you were going to miss my competition that you'd have to take a work call. And it just kind of break my heart. It just broke my heart.

I was thinking, like, no matter how present you are, no matter how, you know, some of those things that may have happened, maybe it's six months ago, a year ago, two years ago, or I'm like, you know, Ada, sorry I got to take a call or Ada, sorry, I got to take this one. Hey, guys, can you be quiet? I got to do this or I got to step out and take this call. Changing your behaviors and changing your patterns and changing your routines. To see that that was what she was so worried about. She was so worried about that I would miss her two minute deal when she came right off the mat and said, I thought you were going to have to take a work call.

And, you know, so no matter how much work you've been doing, there's always more to do. And, you know, life is all about action and showing and continuing to show. And so, you know, some of those things that, you know, brought up, it's almost like triggers for all intents and purposes, right? And, you know, some of those things that maybe happened five years ago, six years ago, seven years ago, and, you know, Ada's infancy and super impressionable moments, you know, maybe I did show up differently.

And so again, it just reiterates to me how you will never see me at practice with my phone out, my laptop out, anything like that. Or if I have a 1 second phone call, I always say, I'll call you the minute I'm done with cheer, I'm done with ninja, I'm done with basketball, I'm done with whatever. I'm not that parent. I will not be on my phone during my children's events. But even so that you made that conscious, concerted effort and decision, it's still an impressionable moment of things that have happened in the past.

So you live and learn, and I will be better from it. Here's the second thing that I learned, okay? Here's the second one that I learned is. So we had an activity galore weekend, right? It was just activity a, activity b for the kids. Ada had a cheer competition. Drew had a basketball competition. My boy Drew was nine and nine years old. He's in basketball. He made the a team of the traveling group, and he was playing in a tournament, let's call it 30, 45 minutes away from our hometown, there was 8810, twelve teams, right?

So they got their first win of the year. That's right. So they got their first win of the year. They moved on to their second game. And during their second game, it got pretty heated. I'm not going to lie. Yes, yes. 4th, 4th, 5th grade traveling basketball. The two coaches, I'm not saying we're going to go fist to cuffs, but you could tell that there was verbal altercations that were happening between the two of them and the referee at one point said, hey, he called the time out. He kind of separated the two of them.

One coach was mid twenties, probably 24, 25. He did not have any kids on the team, anything like that. You could tell, like, this is a passion for him. The other one was a coach, 40, 45, did have a kid on the team. And so it was like, one on this side, one on this side. They went through the half. At the half, you know, there was, I'm not going to say like a dust up, but you could see kind of rub off. And then when the game was done, I just kind of wanted to see how all this was playing out with behaviors and whatnot.

And so when the game was all wrapped up, the two coaches, you know, kind of came and shook hands, and the young 24, 25 year old, and I could hear it because I was just waiting to see what was going to happen. The young 24, 25 year old shook his hand and said, I'm so sorry about the way I acted. That wasn't a representation of me, and I hope that you'll forgive me. That's not how I like to be. That's not how I like to show up. I was like, gosh, what a mature moment. And then the 40 to 45 year old said to him, and you could hear this kind of going on because I was waiting for my son to come off the court.

And he said to him, he goes, I appreciate that, but I was the one in the wrong. And it was cool just to see how the two individuals kind of came together and had a moment of, like, you know, we missed. And, yes, competition sometimes fuel those fires, but at the end of the day, it was just so great to see how those two individuals came together, you know, and ultimately just realized, like, the moment was bigger than them. And they lost themselves and they lost their emotions a little bit, but they got, they got through it.

And then it was really cool because after it was all done, I coach, I called the coach and I said, hey, coach, you know, what did you guys, what was your takeaway from all that? You know, asked him a couple more questions and he said, I told him I'd love to learn from him and how he's working his team and what he's doing because I have a feeling I can learn a lot from it because by nature, I'm really not a coach. I'm here to try to help my son and go through, and I was like, wow, what an amazing moment.

And so, again, two major things I learned this weekend is, you're right, Risa. Like, kids notice. Kids notice everything. And no matter how much I feel like I'm showing up all the time the right way, not on the phone, et cetera, those things still bleed in. Right. And so I can do better. Number two, is that those two coaches, I just. If two coaches in this tense battle that's going on, sure, it's not Duke in North Carolina, and sure, it's not LeBron and Kobe, but if two coaches can come together, I think this world can come together, too.

And our world is so fractured and it's polarized at the left and the right. And I'm not meaning politically, although politically is obvious, but it just seems like we're so polarized in our questions and answers and how we show up. And, I mean, if these two individuals, 2025 years apart, can come together and ultimately learn from one another, I think we all can. So I hope those two stories resonated with you and maybe ways in which you can show up, maybe if it's for your own children or if there's a tough moment at work, at home, whatever.

You know, sometimes compromise just comes from, you know, basic lines of gratitude and understanding, kind of where you went wrong. So have an incredible week. We have thanksgiving coming up this week, and I know that holiday means a lot in a lot of different ways for a lot of different people. Show up for one another, love each other, have an incredible week. Do some special things, take care of you all. Bye.