12 rules to live by: A letter to my daughters
I missed the first year of Olivia’s life.
It’s hard when you come back after a year. Your family has moved on. They have a routine. One you’re not part of. That hurts.
It’s just as hard on them. A stranger interrupting the mess that is daily life.
Expecting to fit right in.
But when you are one year old you don’t remember someone you haven’t seen much of for the last year. He’s just a stranger, awkwardly interjecting himself into your world.
I wrote the “what if” letters. You know, what if something happens to me while I am “over there.”
Sacrifice was just a word I paid lip service to until it became real. The sacrifice my family made was just as real. Finally, I understood what exactly it meant.
I’ve been back for years now. I fit in again. It wasn’t without a few rough patches.
I’ve since watched Olivia take her first steps, learn to read, enter school… and for all of that, I am blessed.
My wife and I accidentally delivered our second daughter at home. That’s a story for another time. For all that could have gone wrong, almost nothing did, and for that, I too am blessed.
Life.
I watch them grow older and like every parent I want the best for them. I want them to thrive, to learn the hard lessons faster than I did.
I keep a morning journal. Usually, it’s all about my goals, ambitions, and plans. For three days I wrote out the lessons I wanted to help my daughters understand. It just happened. I’d run out of time and start again the next morning.
The lessons that would make them successful. The lessons that would help navigate the turbulent waters of life.
To Olivia and Amelia,
I have no way of knowing if you will ever read these words. Hopefully, you won’t need to and the actions I take, the things I do, speak louder than these written words ever could.
Here are a few things that you need to understand and learn about life as fast as possible.
1. Go make mistakes
What separates success from failure is whether or not we learn from our mistakes.
Thomas Edison had 1,000 failed attempts at inventing the light bulb. One thousand. When he finally made it work, he was asked what it felt like to fail 1,000 times. His response? “The light bulb was an invention of 1,000 steps”.
If you are not making mistakes and reaching failure, you are not truly pushing yourself. The vast majority of people will spend their lives hiding from failure, avoiding it. The fact is that they pay for this dearly. The opportunities they miss, the growth they never experience, is tragic.
Push yourself so far you fail. Then pick yourself up, learn from it, and succeed exponentially.
Embrace failure and mistakes as opportunities to learn.
2. Physical traits don’t define us
Olivia came home, and with a sense of resigned sadness, told me that boys were better than girls. She had been told that at school. I didn’t respond very well to that. I told her boys were idiots. Sometimes we are.
The sex we are born, the color of our skin, or where we are born do not make us better or worse as humans.
Google spent years trying to determine how to build the perfect team. In the end they found that diversity was critical. Diversity is a strength.
Judge people by their character, not physical traits.
Which leads me to my next point…
3. It’s great to be different.
The ones who are different in school have this funny way of turning out to be wildly successful. Bullies tormented Elon Musk so badly that at one point he was severely injured and had to be hospitalized.
He is currently working on putting humans on Mars. He has a pretty good shot at it too. I wonder what the goals are of those who bullied him all those years ago? Or even what their names are?
Be who you are.
4. Growth often comes from discomfort.
Some of the most difficult times in my life have caused the most growth. We learn far more from mistakes and pain. When I first stepped on the famous yellow footprints of Marine Corps Boot Camp I had no idea the level of discomfort I was about to face.
It was brutal. It also helped make me who I am today.
Understand that when you are facing adversity, when life is overwhelming, that it can be difficult to see the lessons. When you are finally able to step back, examine the experience. Find the lessons from it, and use them to grow exponentially.
Seek out discomfort and learn from it.
5. Money doesn’t matter nearly as much as happiness
People that think it does probably haven’t had much of either.
Prioritizing money over happiness won’t lead to either.
But…
6. People who say money doesn’t matter are wrong.
Besides providing the basics, money does two things. It allows for experiences, and it provides opportunity.
Experiences are the building blocks of our lives. Exposure to different things can help develop new perspective and lead to personal growth.
Money also buys opportunity. Regardless, of your political views, it is a simple fact. I am not saying it is fair. I am saying it’s reality.
Money matters but make sure you understand why.
7. Know your purpose and use it as a guide.
For years I never defined what success was to me or truly understood my purpose. The issue became that for all the goals I set, I didn’t have a real sense of direction.
It is difficult to move in the right direction if you don’t know where you want to be.
Understand your purpose and use it align your priorities.
8. The ability to communicate is one of the most important skills you can cultivate.
It consists largely of listening.
Here’s the thing most people don’t understand about listening. Listening isn’t that thing you do while you are formulating a response to what someone else is saying. Listening is where you try your best to understand what they are telling you.
9. Physical fitness goes far beyond appearance.
A friend’s daughter came home upset because she was “fat”. She had been told that at school. She’s in the lower half of the percentile chart on weight. Not even close to fat.
The messages you will be bombarded with about appearance and fitness are usually horribly wrong.
I hope you are fit, but not because I care how you look, but because there are so many benefits to being fit. Research has repeatedly shown the cognitive, mental health, and longevity benefits just to name a few.
Fitness is something you make a part of your lifestyle, make it a habit early and the lifetime benefits will be amazing.
10. Action is a requirement for success
Without action, you will never be successful.
It can be incredibly difficult to take that first step. It requires putting yourself out there and possibly failing for the world to see. Often, people will take pleasure in your perceived failure.
Take the first step again and again. You will learn, grow, and be more successful than you can imagine. Don’t ever quit.
Take action.
11. Mediocrity is worse than bad.
I remember my father teaching me how to sweep a floor. To sweep in even rows ensuring the entire floor was properly covered.
People who do things poorly will usually try to get better. The real issue is that when they become just good enough, they quit trying to get any better. Mediocrity is the trap of just good enough.
Who wants to go out and eat a mediocre dinner? Who wants to take a mediocre vacation? No one! So why accept it in any area of our life?
Refuse to accept mediocrity.
12. Your friends matter
Mike Tyson, (in)famous boxer, surrounded himself with people who cared far more about what they could get out of him than his success. The decisions he made were largely influenced by people who cared very little for him. After career earnings of over $400 million, he ended up declaring bankruptcy.
Your friends are incredibly important. They have a subtle influence on how you think, act, and perceive the world around you.
Be wary of people who want to succeed but believe they must do so at the expense of others.
Compete only against yourself and help push those around you to achieve their goals. Find friends who do the same.
Choose your friends like your life depends on it, your success certainly does.
Watching you both grow up and seeing you begin to interact with those around you has shown me that my actions speak far louder than anything I could ever say.
I’ve seen you both mimic things I do when talking to each other. Good and bad.
If anything, I am writing this as a reminder to myself of the things I need to do as a parent to demonstrate to you what is important in life.
These are just a few of the things I want to help you learn, to understand. There is so much more I still want to say. So many things I still want to teach you. Hopefully, the things that I do, the actions that I take will impart these lessons.
Use these concepts as a guide and as you experience life for yourself, add new ones to it. Never stop learning. Grow from your experiences and even more importantly learn from your mistakes!
It is exciting to see the potential you have.
Remember this, whether you discover these lessons at 21 or 76, it is never too late to grow, experience new things, and to change for the better.
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Liked the message? Read about lessons learned, winning success, handling adversity, and the importance of who we friend.
About the author:
Dan’s passion is taking his experience and helping you apply it to your day-to-day life in order to define and achieve personal success. He has decades of experience as a leader and mentor through his time in the military and law enforcement. Interact with him on twitter @dantruex
