Pain Matters…
Any dad who cares at all for his son (or daughter), pains along with his son when he has hardships. Many people have a problem with God because there is suffering in the world. Know that God also suffers because of the pain in the world. After all, he created us in his very image. How could he not love us and share in our pain when we are hurting? We are his family.
It’s also essential for you to allow your son to suffer the consequences for his poor actions in order to let him mature ...
Take our 8 Question Quiz to see how you compare…
Last week we had the privilege of presenting our Tender Lions keynote address to almost 400 Tender Lions at an awesome event called The Man Feast. Part of our presentation involves doing an anonymous survey asking what kind of issues they may be wrestling with. The results were sobering.
Check out the survey results. Each man was asked to simply check the box next to the statement if it applied to him.
45% The relationship I have with my father has never been ...
Living Open-Handed
Let’s try a quick experiment. Tightly clench your fist. Now, look at your hand. What can you give away while your fist is clenched tightly? What can you receive? What can you hold in your hand? Obviously…nothing. I used this illustration in a workshop recently to describe the difference between living with a spirit of abundance versus scarcity. A doctor in the audience said, “Being turned in on ourselves is our natural state. Even when we die our hands stay closed.” It seems that our ...
10 Reasons Demonstrating that the Boy Crisis in America Continues:
This week’s blog has excerpts from a September 29 New York Times article “The Crisis of Men and Boys” by David Brooks. The article captures many of the serious negative implications of fatherless that Tender Lions: Building the Vital Relationship Between Father and Son reveals, and we’ve been writing and speaking about for the last three years.
The basic premise of the article is that boys and men are struggling in America, and it’s not getting better. Here is some of the ...
10 Take-Aways from the Global Leadership Summit (3 minute read)
After blogging regularly for 2½ years I took an eight month break from writing. It wasn’t that I wasn’t working or caring about the father son relationship or leadership. It’s that I was feeling depleted. Depleted from the “white noise” caused by isolation due to COVID, intense political and racial ugliness, and trying to make sense (and grieving) the lack of empathy and love for our fellow neighbors.
I don’t have it figured out by any stretch of the imagination, but I know ...
6 Helpful Tips to Deal With Festering Shadow Beliefs
Last week I was leading a Men’s Retreat at Camp Wartburg in southern Illinois, and an important theme kept recurring…“shadow beliefs.” This concept relates to our hidden or unresolved beliefs. These come to the surface when we have some issue that we just don’t want to deal with (denial) or it may be an issue that we’re truly not aware of. If we’re not aware of it or in denial about it’s “in the shadows.” And…it’s impossible to challenge or change something that remains ...
7 Things Every Dad Should Model for his Son
Since Jeff and I started writing Tender Lions, we’ve been immersed in reading, research and observing the behavior of dads and sons. The list below are common sense things, that upon closer inspection appear to not be so common as one might hope. Over 35% of boys in the United States don’t live with their dads, and another significant percentage have one who may be physically present but emotionally absent. Thus, a high percentage of boys just don’t have many positive male role ...
The Power of Love
That great philosopher, Huey Lewis in his 1985 hit song, The Power of Love, sang:
“The power of love is a curious thing, Make a one man weep, make another man sing. Change a hawk to a little white dove, More than a feeling, that's the power of love.”
The phrase “change a hawk to a little white dove” is the one that affects me most. Many in leadership today try (unsuccessfully) to lead from a position of domination. Their actions demonstrate that they think by pushing someone ...
Here’s To My Heroes!
Does “award season” lasts all year now? It feels like there’s an onslaught of award shows (Oscars, Academy Awards, Screen Actors Guild, Grammys, Tonys, CMA, MTV, and the EIEIO…okay, I made that one up) that lift up America’s most famous people as if there were heroes.
After the last year (for almost everyone on the globe) due to COVID isolation, and many trying to “drive” to the end of the internet, a little entertainment isn’t the worst idea. But I am not a fan of making ...
The Danger of Certainty
For those who are reading my blog for the first time…thanks for your interest in this vitally important topic. Each message is intended to help you raise your kids (primarily boys) to be Tender Lions…to be tough, decisive, brave, discerning …and to be tender, sensitive, empathetic, and vulnerable.
In the last few years (if you’re paying attention at all you already know this) our society is increasingly more chaotic, divided, racist, polarized and examples of hate are plentiful. So ...