Who are you trying to please, and at what cost?
Who are you listening to, and how does that align with your enduring vision and your core principles?
"The difference between successful people and really successful people is that really successful people say no to almost everything."
- Warren Buffett
"It is easy to say no when a bigger yes is burning inside."
- Stephen R. Covey
Good morning everybody. Lee Brower here. Welcome to this week's edition of Meaningful Monday. I am grateful to be here and I am glad to be here. Fourth of July week. I'd like to share a story with you. You may not think it has much to do with the Fourth of July, but it has a lot to do with freedom. It's a story that Tony Childress, one of the members of our stream team, where we meet weekly to kind of hold ourselves accountable and share what's going on. It's a great great system, but he shared this story that he often shared with his family. He talks about a farmer and his son who were taking a horse to market to sell the horse, and as they're walking along, somebody comes, as they're walking together, somebody comes along and said, "You have a horse. Why don't you ride it?" So the father takes his son, puts him up on the horse and off they go. And so then as they're walking along, pretty soon somebody else comes along and looks at him and goes, "What a disrespectful son making his father take him into town." So, son gets off, the father gets up. Now as they continue to go on, somebody else comes along and goes, "What a lazy father gets his son down there pulling him along, huh?" So gets down and say, "They both get up on the horse together." So now they're together, they're on the horse. As they're moving along, somebody else comes along and says, "Oh my gosh, how cruel can you be? You're gonna kill that poor horse." So fast forward, then when they're walking in town, and here comes a father and the son carrying the horse on their back. Okay, what's the lesson? What's the lesson? Think about it. What's the moral of this story? Let's take it back and fill in some of the gaps and then let's see what it is. All right, so we're going back till the story is a little differently, a little bit more facts. Mom and dad are struggling. Number one priority is taking care of their family no matter what. And as they think about it, pray about it, think about it. They say, "You know, we don't want to, but we may have to sell our favorite horse because our family comes first." If we can sell our favorite horse, we're gonna have a lot of food. For months, it'll take care of us. It'll get us past the rough time. So they make that decision. Dad goes out, gets the horse. As he's starting to walk off, mom comes up and says, "You know you got to take our son with you." He's a young man, but it gives him an opportunity to see how his father is. And as you're walking along, you're gonna be able to talk, and you're gonna be able to talk about things that will be very helpful to him. What a great experience for a father and son. Family first. So off they go. Now, you understand the difference right there? They have an objective. They have a vision. They have something that is priority. What's the priority? Family. Second thing is they've got to get that horse to town and they've got to sell it. So if they start putting riders on it, it's gonna, the value of the horse is gonna go down by the time he gets to town because it's gonna be haggard. It's not gonna be as strong and maybe they just won't get as much money. So by having the principal first, that makes a big difference. Having the vision first of North, the family comes first and the principals that support it. Covey said, "It's easy to say no when you have a bigger yes burning in sight." Stephen R. Covey said this, okay? Warren Buffett has said, "The difference between successful people and really successful people is that really successful people say no to almost everything. Why? How can you do that?" Because when you say, they know that when they say yes to something, what are they saying? They ask, what are they saying no to? Vision-driven people with principals won't ever be carrying a donkey into town. Now, think about that in terms of your family. My challenge for each of us this next week, we have social media constantly criticizing us. We have so many people criticizing. If you want a teflon best, identify what is your vision? What is it that you, no matter what, comes first? No matter what? Then what are your underlying principles that no matter what you can claim that they're yours? If you can identify those and then start to live by them and as the leader, whether it's in your family or your home or your business, your community, stick to the principals. You see, principals are so much stronger, so much better than just saying, these are my values. Because however many listeners there are right now listening to this, that's how many different interpretations we may have of the same value. How many of you have integrity? We're all going to say we have integrity, but we have, you know, hundreds of different definitions. But if we said that we always do the right thing, we're always in alignment with this, we started to define what integrity is and capture stories that demonstrate what they are, we will become better choice makers. We will become better choice makers. Years ago in our family we came up with the way we sat down and kids were little, what does it mean to be a browser? You wonder to identify underlying principles and then capture the stories around them. Now have we done a perfect job? No, but we've started, we keep working on it, we've done it over the years, it's helped us, it's been like something a little iron rod that we can hang on to. We said, "Brower power, never underestimate the power of a browser. Brows are powerful." What does powerful stand for? Prayerful, obedient, worthy, eternal, reverent, forthright understanding, loving. We have definitions and stories behind them. That helps us, helps us. So whether, just pick one this week, pick one, if you haven't done it already, a principle, I'm not talking about a value, what is it that you can always count on us to do and name your family? You can always count us as a, to always do this. That's a great start. So that's your start, that's your challenge for this week. It'll give you freedom, you'll make better choices and that's what freedom is all about. Have a meaningful week, let's talk next week. Bye bye.
