Is there really an ROI to investing in your Family?
Over the past several years of self discovery and seeking answers to questions about why my life wasn’t working the way I had envisioned it, it suddenly hit me that I wasn’t alone as a man!!! Wow what a concept, and come to find out that in general men tend to operate this way when they begin to run into challenges without having any ideas on how to solve them. We begin to isolate ourselves and create a story that we are the only ones experiencing the problem we are having.
“We cannot solve our problems with the same thinking we used when we created them.” — Albert Einstein
Let’s be honest here, if we want different results in our lives but yet remain experiencing the same results we have always manifested, then perhaps it’s time to seek outside knowledge so that we can learn new concepts and tools that are being used by others that are getting the results that we desire. So here was my problem…. It was my understanding that to be a good Man, it meant providing for my family financially…period.
Well providing for my family is what I worked so hard to do for so many years, but little did I know that this overwhelming focus on making $$$ and my constant distraction with work and travel was resulting in significant distance between me and my family and shit wasn’t working. My wife and I were not connecting emotionally or physically the way that I had imagined, my relationship with my children were not where I had envisioned.
After years of travelling and working to get to another level of income and responsibility within my company I had finally got the opportunity of a lifetime!! My goal of potential ownership of an $80M/year firm was a real potential and I couldn’t believe it!! It was hard for me to really believe that the current owner was considering grooming ME to take over the company? Just this middle class guy from a small place in Canada who wasn’t even going to go to University…..a reckless, irresponsible teenager with anger issues, how is this even possible….
I recall telling my wife of the opportunity and being so thankful for all of her loyalty and like always she unselfishly told me how proud she was of me and how she knew that I would be a great leader of the company.
After much deliberation and looking into the future I realized how selfish it was of me to move forward with this endeavor, I had already missed so much of my children’s activities and moments that I would never get back. And as much as I didn’t want to admit it, we had 2 separate families…. Me and my work family and then my wife Stephanie and the 3 kids. The travel and commitment was so much that she was left with everything, getting them to activities, coordinating drives, sit down chats, tucking them in good night, and all the things that a committed mother does. The big change for me happened when I asked myself WHY? Why are you considering this move? What is it that you really want?
BOOM it came to me! It was time to reunite my family! So we took our family on a 2 month trip to Asia. https://henryfamilyadventure.wordpress.com
When I returned to work, it wasn’t long after that I made the most difficult choice that I can recall. It was when I planned a conversation with the president of the company and a man that I have great respect for to let him know that I’d no longer be working for the company and was going to be moving on. The part that was the most difficult for me was to know that I was saying goodbye to my family in so many ways, the people that I shared the last 15 years of my life with and so many that I did and still consider my dear friends. So it was time to move home and begin my new life…….
And after the most difficult 2 years in my life with significant family losses and investing thousands of $$$ travelling and learning again how to be a Good Man and working through (and continuing to work) through the habits and routines that do NOT serve me and replacing them with habits and routines that DO serve me, I would not change a thing!
My takeaways are this…. Being a good man is NOT merely to provide financially for your family but it is to be a 4-Dimensional Man;
Body — Invest in YOU physically
Being — Invest in YOU spiritually
Balance — Invest in your FAMILY!!!!
Business — Produce & Build SHIT!
Is there an ROI in investing in your Family??? Damn right there is! Your Balance is the ONLY pillar that when you invest in this pillar with your energy and presence it pays dividends in each of the other pillars by giving you POWER and energy! As a man how well do you create and operate when you leave the house in the morning with a warm embrace by your wife vs. the silent treatment??? I’ve had both and I’m unstoppable when I have earned the embrace….. we do not Deserve the embrace, we EARN & CREATE the embrace by our daily actions.
