Family

[norrisbuffalo]

Not to put too fine a point on it but family is the first place where most of us see leadership. The marytrmade podcast spends quite a bit of time on the concept that we must abandon tribalism to accept a more complex society built on a trusted government and system of laws. The reality is that we often first experience leadership in our own tribal family.  It's easy for me to talk about the leadership in my company or my post-adult community but I could tell you tales that would curl your hair about the adults I know who can't handle the simplest tasks for themselves. So instead, let's think about the children <hyperbole>please God won't someone think about the children? </hyperbole>.

For example, today I had to be the adult father while dealing with my college aged daughter. Denver was hit by a terrible blizzard and my daughter is about to get on a plane from Boise to Denver to make a connection to Dallas. I clearly communicated the probability of delays and cancellations to all parties involved. My ex-wife is going through an emotional time right now having just lost her father and left her husband. My daughter is the "innocent" in this tale as she is the party who just wants to visit her family. I had to be the stoic, rock solid jocko-character telling her "You may have to sit in the airport for a night. Don't worry. Be tough. There will be another plane. I'll see you tomorrow and then we'll shoot stuff." We all have to be Jocko at some point when it comes to our families but it can be harder or easier depending on the situation.

My worries today came from the recently unsettled ex-wife character. I know she won't fail her child, but how will she do for herself? What would Jocko do when faced with a SEAL who won't fail his team but can't take care of himself if he had nothing else to do? The distraught, self destructive yet dedicated type. That might be a good question for a future podcast.

[MikeSchiavone]

I think to answer the question "But how will she do for herself?" She needs to focus on doing things for her daughter. The idea of doing things for her daughter, providing for her, being a role model for her, will put her in a growth mindset where she will be able to take care of herself.

That self-destructive mentality will fade away as she realized what a role she has in her daughters life and it will add value/meaning.

-Mike

[Admin]

I like how you brought up Family in the Leadership area. This is where I struggle the most! At work, I find it easy to overcome challenges because I'm able to detach and look at it from an unemotional view. But at home... Whew! Hard to check my ego and detach. The important thing is that at least I have identified the source of my issue and now I can work on it.

Thanks for bringing up family.

-Admin

[norrisbuffalo]

Yeah. I should apologize for starting a thread outside of a normal subforum but I wasn't sure where to put it. Family is a tough one to address. We all have family issues and experiences but how do you tell a stranger "I'm not sure if I handled that thing with my kid right"? It's much easier to say "gee whiz, work was tough today". If you find a more appropriate forum I'll completely understand if you move this thread.

Back on topic. I had a good time with my family during my daughter's spring break and I learned a leadership lesson.
My daughter hadn't planned for her summer break and when it got brought up I was offered the options
#1 stay in college town where she has an internship but can't afford traditional housing and it's too late to sign up for classes
#2 come home for a few months and get a job
I immediately wrote off situation #1 (since it seemed settled) and began planning for situation #2. There were lots of things to think about. Travel home, a job once here, a vehicle to drive. I began creating battle plans for all these scenarios including options for worse and best case scenarios.
Then I was reminded that her internship is really important to her and she was willing to make serious concessions to stay in college town.
I forgot that you have to have to try plan A before you move to plan B. When it comes to family, communication is part of discipline.

[Admin]

I think this is a perfect place to discuss family leadership. I couldn't think of a form of leadership that's more important!

Good job at thinking things through and supporting your daughter. My kids are young and I'm scared of the day when they grow up and leave the ranch. Until then, I will do the best I can!

A bit of a side note: Have you noticed how the subject of "Family" is somewhat avoided on the podcast? No matter how much Echo tries to bring it up...

-Admin

[norrisbuffalo]

If I may be the Devil's advocate for a moment:
If you get too personal there's a soap opera/reality TV element that comes into play so it's probably smart to avoid too much personal family discussion on something as public as a podcast. I'm satisfied with the occasional "my kid/wife/sibling/neighbor did something cool/crazy/annoying the other day".

However, if he wanted to discuss how to build and maintain a family during military service and deployment there's probably some interesting stories in there. I can attest from my own experience as a kid that a military career can be really tough on marriages and families.

[Admin]

I see your point. I guess what I struggle with and would like discussion on, is what you brought up about military life. Although I'm not in the military, I am a Fire Captain in Southern California. Because I live a distance from my work, I stack my 24hr shifts together to minimize my commute, usually being away for 72-120 hrs at a time. During wildland fire season, we get deployed out for 21 days at a time. As a collateral duty, I am K9 handler for a FEMA Urban Search and Rescue Task Force, where I may be deployed out for long periods.

Needless to say, my wife is the one that runs the house! Although she works her ass off, I often come home and become frustrated because things aren't the way I envisioned them. The biggest thing I'm trying to work on is me...how I react to the situation. It's a hard transition to make, coming from a sanitary and orderly fire station to a chaotic home/ranch with 3 kids. A lot of the frustration is a result of my high expectations and lack of communication on my part.

Usually after being home for a few days, I'm ready to go back to my cocoon at the fire station, and truthfully, I'm sure my wife is ready for me to leave too!

-Admin

[loribell]

I began thinking of applying "Extreme Ownership" leadership principles to families and parenting early on in reading the book. For instance, "There are no bad kids, just bad parents." Or "It's not what you preach, it's what you tolerate." Just as in the work world, in fact maybe more so, it is hard to accept "Extreme Ownership" as a parent, but it does kind of make sense when you think about it.

How might things be different if more parents learned to Lead their children, their family "teams" based on "Extreme Ownership" principles? What if more families had their own "mission statements"?

I'm only to Chapter 4 right now, but the wheels are turning in my head and I sense there is another book just waiting to be written on this subject.

[loribell]

Oh...and I'd be happy to be part of the team that writes it!

[Admin]

Awesome! I think you're on to something...

-Admin

[mynewunit]

I have been trying to come up with a good #askJocko to get some of his thoughts on this topic. The sad truth is that you have to be what you want in a child to have a chance to have you child to turn out close to that. There is a proverb "the more you polish a stone, the more it reflects you". It means that the more involved you are, the more you work on your relationship, the more their behavior, thought process, etc resemble yours. So, start by being an awesome human being: humble, initiative, gracious, generous, responsible, CONSISTENT.

The next thing is present solutions instead of problems. It is totally different to say, "Daughter will be fine sleeping on the couch" instead of "Where will daughter sleep?" But you have to ready to accept other options. You can say "a buddy at my work is selling is 10 year old sedan, I will float you the $2K till you can pay me back", but be fine with "I'll take the bus/bike/ride with coworker".

[loribell]

First of all...this is a book-length subject, at least. As much as we human beings have learned about all of the technology that surrounds us, we have also been so distracted by it, that we do not spend nearly enough time fully understanding what it means to be a human being. I think I recently heard in Jocko's conversation with Tim Ferriss that of all the tactics involved in his military operations, it was dealing with other human beings that was really the hardest part of it.

The truth is...human beings are very complex organisms. We form complicated interconnected families, groups, and social systems that now span the world thanks to our new and growing "central nervous system" - the internet. In spite of all the resources available to us, one of the areas that still causes us the most difficulty is interpersonal relationships - the more intimate, the more difficult.

This has been a subject of constant study for me through the course of my life. As I am thinking more seriously about what I would share here, I've been thinking about all of the resources that have contributed to my current understanding.

For instance, there's a book I read back in the early '90s: Infant and Child in the Culture of Today by Arnold Gesell. Although it seems archaic in some ways, it's based on a longitudinal study in the 1930s and it gives guidelines for what to expect from children at various ages so you know what is normal behavior. This book has been around for about 80 years now, but how many parents or soon to be parents have taken advantage of reading it or ANY parenting book for that matter before becoming parents?

Another critical resource that I found in the late '90s was A Mind at a Time by Mel Levine. It is clear Levine feels a great deal of compassion, especially for children's whose brains are simply "wired differently", endowing them with unique strengths and weaknesses that, if not understood and addressed early in their lives, can lead to behavior problems down the road - and a waste of huge potential along the way. One thing I especially appreciate from this book is the analysis of various "system failures" and how to compensate for them; i.e. it is Solution oriented rather than just describing the problems.

And prior to both of these books, while on the road with the carnival in the late '80s, I read The Drama of the Gifted Child by Alice Miller. I had the opportunity to share something about this book while giving a TEDx talk at George Washington University in 2011. You can view that talk here. You'll get a little more of my background, my own childhood experiences as well.

This is just the beginning...

[loribell]

I'm going to toss this out there as well - a blog I wrote some time ago called You Get What You Play For!

I'm sharing this because it links back to my suggestion that the world might be a different place if families had their own "mission statements". With the idea that we are all Part of the Greater Whole of Human Society a mission statement might include how a family/team intends to contribute to that greater whole.

[norrisbuffalo]

You bring up some very intense topics, loribell, and after reading through your blog I'm not sure how much I have to add.

So, sort of relevant to your original point, I'll point you to the 3rd installment of the Martyrmade podcast. The whole podcast is a deep exploration of the Israeli/Palestinian conflict but this episode deals with the "Honor Culture" and what hit me was the idea that to accept the rules of a (peaceful) society you have to cut the deepest ties to the family. If you know that your father, brother, mother, sister, uncle, aunt, cousin will come to your aid to right a wrong that's been done to you then why do you need something more complex? If you trust your judges, courts, police, leaders to preserve your rights then why do you need to put up with your ridiculous family members? Tribal life denies the faceless emotionless authority of a greater society and all successful societies dissolve the bonds of the family.

We want our children to grow up loving and respecting their families, but as mynewunit pointed out, you have to be the person you want your children to be. So, what do you want your children to be? Mindful of themselves? In tune with the natural world around them? Supportive of the machine that helps the most people live the best lives?
We live in a nation that expects you to respect and trust your government and law enforcement to some unspoken Nth degree that would have been reserved for family a few generations ago. Not too many centuries ago all your trust would have been placed in the strongest members of your tribe, now you are supposed to give it to those who pass the minimum requirements for employment in tax funded service. A thousand years ago I could trust a Jocko or an admin to protect me and my family from enemies and fires. But when a Jocko retires, who do I trust to replace him since it's not my brother or cousin? The man who gets his job might not be the same color or religion as me. How can I assure my child that the new man in charge will handle things? Can trust in the morality and discipline of some unseen person help me sleep at night? (Useless side note: I used "me" there because if I'd typed "you" people would take this post personally and I've been around the internet too long to make that mistake again. However, just for the record, I meant "you". I sleep like a baby because I live all alone in a house full of snakes deep in the woods and dreaming is super fun!)

So, with only one lifetime to live and only one brief window during which to teach your children, do you concentrate on the family or the larger culture?
It's been many years since I read "Zen and the art of motorcycle maintenance" but I'm the type of guy who rides and repairs his own machines. I love toggle switches and pliers. By definition, I depend on myself and (if I had any) my kin before I hope the next town has a mechanic that can fix my fancy new motor bike. On the one hand I want my child to have my independence, on the other hand I don't want her to be a loner like me. I'd like for society to work well and for all of us to be OK, but those are separate desires. Life doesn't care about the individual living or dying; it cares about the whole. We, individuals, get to chose to care about more than ourselves but we don't necessarily get to help more than ourselves no matter how hard we try. (I think I got off the topic there)

I already pointed out that I can't really redress any questions you put forth in your blog (which you summed up quit well with your personal gratitude) but maybe some of this adds to the discourse.

OK, Time for bed. Those dreams won't have themselves.