Manners: A Roadblock To Success

Twenty one grandkids standing outside their bedroom door waiting. I remember as if it was yesterday; how every time my grandparents came back from a trip, we were all waiting for them to open their luggage and discover what was in it for us.

Grandparents have their own way to pamper and spoil their grandchildren; it is like having your very own personal Santa Claus. Chocolate, ice-cream, candy, chips…almost anything and everything you want that your parents usually don’t allow when you are at home with them.

In my case, every time my grandparents came back from a trip, we were just waiting to be allowed inside their bed room to see what souvenir they got for each one of us. You could see over their bed t-shirts, water guns, chocolates, etc. It looked like a mini gift shop right there in their bedroom.

I was the youngest of the old cousins and the oldest of the young ones. You could say I was in the ham in the sandwich; a good analogy if I may say so because I was also the chubby one.

So then it came… war time. We were called inside the bedroom and we usually we chose one or two things. And when things got “ugly” and two or three of us were fighting for any particular thing, parents came in.

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Most of the time that I was fighting for a gift that I thought rightfully belonged to me, which is a nice way to say that I saw it and grabbed it first, I was the one that had to surrender. I remember those words “Don’t worry next time you can get it”, “You have manners leave it to him”, “You don’t need that, here’s something else for you”.

And this situation happens all the time without us, as parents, even noticing it. If you are at a party and your kid is eager to throw himself at the candies of the piñata you tell him to wait and calm down. If he’s playing any sport or game with his friends at the park and someone is sad because they didn’t win we tell them it was only a game and both won.

We are taking away the drive, the hunger from our kids and we are doing it without noticing, just because we have “manners” and we don’t want other kids to “feel bad”.

A couple of weeks ago my mom had two gifts for her two granddaughters; one for my princess and one for my brother’s princess (my niece). My daughter came to me showing me the gift while she was playing with it, she was happy.

Before going to sleep she approach me and said “Daddy can I tell you a something?” –Of course baby what’s going on?, I responded. She told me she was grateful for her gift, but that she had chosen the other gift first and her granny told her to change it with her cousin.

I told her not to worry and that she should be happy she got something. As the words were coming outside my mouth a flashback memory came to me and I was able to notice something in her eyes disappearing, like if I was putting out a fire. I immediately apologized to her and encouraged her to speak up if it happened again. I also told her I was always going to have her back.

At that moment the flame in her eyes came back and I felt fantastic.

I am not going to blame my parents for doing their best and what they thought it as best for me, but that night my daughter taught me something. In retrospective I may have lost some battles because of my “manners”, because I didn’t fight hard enough.

That doesn’t mean you have to be an uneducated Neanderthal and fight to death for everything you want. But don’t let the fire go away.

It not only happens to us as parents in our home.

As an Entrepreneur you are the leader, people are eager to show you how they can do things, how they can add value to the business. Beware not be extinguishing their flame and their drive just because you don’t have time to listen to them. Or maybe you know only one of your employees did the work and the whole team is getting credit, tell them and help him or her grow.

As parents, entrepreneurs and leaders it is on us to help each and every person around us grow, let’s start today!

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