Weekly Wisdom #371 - The Experience of Life...

Hey guys. Dean Graziosi, welcome to the Weekly Wisdom. It's an honor and a pleasure to have you here. Whether you're watching on Facebook or YouTube or@dingraazzioc.com or anywhere. It's an honor to have you here where I get to share every week and hopefully deliver you wisdom and capabilities and just some thoughts that could make a little shift that could make a big impact down the road. And today I'm gonna fall back. Maybe I do this too much. If it's annoying, please let me know. But I'm gonna fall back on a conversation I had with my daughter yesterday morning before school. Because when I listen more than I talk with her. So I'm just not the preaching, you know, giving her the advice I want to hear. I want her to figure things out on her own and I've had to get better at things. I just want to give her solutions. But the best thing is to let her talk through it. But don't think I don't guide her along this path to give her the skills that took me years. I do the same thing my son took me years to figure out. And when I tell her talking to a nine year old, it makes me realize the improvements I have to make or the changes I need to make. So let me just tell you. So she's having a little trouble in school. I shared that with you. If you watched a previous weekly Wisdom. One girl's a little tough on her, wants her to be just her friend and when she's not, she treats her bad. It's not bullying, it's more like exclusion and causing trouble. And my daughter just didn't know how to handle it. So yesterday morning I had a great conversation with her about loving herself. That's what I talked about last week and be the thermostat, not the thermometer. I told her Eleanor Roosevelt's quote of no one can make you feel infer your permission. But I dumb it down as simple as I can for a nine year old. But one thing came out by accident. Sometimes I say stuff and I'm like, man, that was brilliant for a nine year old. She got it. But it was also a lesson for me because as much as I work on this, the outside world still does affect me. So yesterday morning, hour before school, we're sitting and talking and she's like, dad, I just don't want to go today. I said, okay hon, so here's the thing. And I told her the story about in a stream that the rough rocks are on the Side, the one with sharp edges and the rocks you like. She loves those smooth, round rocks. See, you know where they are. They're in the most tumultuous water. The roughest running water makes the smoothest rocks. She just totally got that. But yesterday morning, it was so bad, she didn't want to go to school. She's like, if I go to school, I have to deal with that, dad. And it just makes me sad. And I don't know what to do. I don't know how to handle her. And sometimes I get lucky and stuff comes out of my mouth. That it was so simple and she got it so quick. But then it reminds me that I need to apply this in my life. This needs to be a part of me. This needs to be something I want to share with you. So here's what I said to her when she didn't want to go to school. I said, listen, if you go to school today, you might have to deal with some stuff. You might feel some pain. There might be. You feel uncomfortable, you might be sad, but then you'll work on a solution. And I told her the difference between knowledge and wisdom, and she got it. I said, knowledge is when people tell you, dad's telling you how to handle things. Teachers tell you how to handle things. You learn things through books. But when it turns to wisdom, hun, is when you put it in play and you fail and you learn, or you fail and succeed. And along this journey, you learn and it builds the muscle to handle the problems so you could go to the next level. No one likes problems nobody wants to deal with at 9 years old or 90 or everywhere in between. You don't want to deal with it. But when you know you come out on the other side, you come out better. So here's what I said to her, and I want to say this to you. I said, okay, Bri, how about if you just stay home? What if you quit school, you homeschool, and I protect you forever? You never have to worry about a friend being mean. You never have to worry about failing a test or the outside world or being a rainy day or a friend making you sad? Or never have to worry about a boyfriend someday or going to college and dealing with all those professors. Or try, you just stay right here and I'll protect you and you don't have to have any problems, or you get dressed and you go to school and you're gonna have some crap today. In fact, I said the word shit first time I said that in front of my daughter. I think I said, you're gonna have some shit today. I'm like, I'm sorry. But she laughed and sorry, sorry. Hope you don't mind I said it, But I said, you're gonna have some crap today, but you'll learn and you'll get through it. And someday you won't even remember this friend or this experience, but this experience is giving you the guidance. I said, and whatever you believe, God, the universe, karma. I said to her, what if God put this in your life? What if God put that friend in your life? So you can learn this experience in third grade, not fifth, sixth, or college, where you have the experience to learn through this and understand the other side. I said, but you could stay home and be protected, or you could handle this today and you can handle going into middle school and feeling awkward and handle going into high school and feel weird, but learn from it and get new friends and have a boyfriend and it fails, and then find somebody you really like and then go off to college and be scared and learn and then someday go backpack across Europe and you fail miserably or you feel upset in Italy, but you have a great time in Spain, and then you find a husband and you have. And I just go through this whole thing. I said, you can have this roller coaster in learning and experiences and you get to keep your heart, but you learn from each one. Or you could stay here and be protected. Which one do you want? She looked at me immediately and she's like, I don't want to stay here, Dad. I said, well, that's the experience of life. And if you could learn this at 9 years old, that the outside world doesn't have to make you sad, the outside world doesn't control you. That's the thermometer. You're the thermostat. Yes, there's going to be things that make you sad and upset. That's life. But you get to pull from gratitude. You get to pull your own happiness. You get to decide what state you're in and not let other people's words or actions affect you. So I boiled it down, and all these years of training, I said, bri, as your dad, if there's two things I can teach you as the core of happiness that I wish someone would have taught me at nine years old is the outside world. And what people say can't affect you unless you allow it. Love for oneself can protect you from that. And secondly, if you can just think when something goes wrong about all the good things, you have your puppy, your brother, your Family, your travel, the things you love, the great. How blessed we are to live in this great neighborhood, in this house, as crazy as that sounds, if you could just flood yourself with gratitude and make that a habit. Make it a habit that the outside world doesn't affect you. And I'm so grateful for what I have. If you could do that, Bri. I don't have to worry about anything else in your entire life. I don't care where you go to college. I don't care how education you have. If you can do those two things, you're going to have such a great life. And I probably said it a little simpler to her, but that's the message I gave a nine year old. And when I was done, she was glowing. Like, literally glowing. I could see it in her cheeks and her face. She got it. Now. Did she get all of it? Probably not. But what I've realized with my daughter is as I share, she grows into a lot of these things. So again, I know I give a lot of examples of my kids, but it makes me clarify my thing because you got to be quick with kids. If I went on for two hours, she'd be like, oh, dad, stop. If I was too complicated, oh, dad, stop. But we all are busy. We have cell phones next to us. We have emails, texts, going nonstop. And sometimes we just need that clarity. So I gave it to her. I wanted to share that with you guys. I hope that made sense. I hope you guys don't mind that I'm always talking about my kids, but they're huge in my life. They're my number one love priority. And it's. I'm just trying to help, you know, I got a blank slate with them and trying to write on their blackboard, on their, you know, on their slate to give them the foundation that they can go and accomplish and change the world and change their own lives or just find a fulfilled life based on their knowledge that I get to give them. And I hope I get to share it with you. So thank you so much for watching this week's weekly wisdom. If you're new, honor and a pleasure to have you here. If you don't have my books, go to deansfreebook.com that's deansfreebook.com and you can get my New York Times best seller on personal development. Also my latest real estate book, you can have them both for free. No catch. I'm Dean Graziosi. I'll talk to you next week.