promised land

Autumn Sky

I am so glad

  I live in a world 

Where there are Octobers.

L.M. Montgomery, Anne of Green Gables

Orange-y Sunset

My parents had a home office so work happened in, around, and among our family life.  Phone calls about logging jobs happened while we cleared the table and paychecks were advanced while we did the dishes. The lessons we learn from the family segment can help explain the process and challenges on the business side of life. 

One of the major premises of  business coaching expounds on the need to be reliable. Follow-through will make or break a business.  The lesson we can take away is from our kids.  If we make a promise to them about getting an ice cream cone or going swimming as a reward for doing some unpleasant task, we find out just how good their memory is when they spend hours in their swim-suit or wait by the door with anticipation.  On the other hand, they are hoping we forget the ominous threat when we start counting to three, and especially hope our delayed follow-up will match their procrastination. 

 Promises, we learn, are a useful gauge of character - from a simple choice: 

"I found a comic book to read. Maybe Mom will forget about telling me to clean my room," 

to more costly ones: 

 "I would rather quit for the evening than take care of a frozen rental water line at 8 p.m. on a dark evening at 20 below."   

When the kids run to beat the buzzer and quickly forget what they were supposed to do, where do you think they learned that behavior was acceptable?  I hesitate to rent to young people, not because I don't want to give them a chance, but because I know from experience that I'm going to end up learning just when their parents gave up teaching responsibility.  Utilities, rent, yard work, buying a lawnmower, watering, being timely with the monthly payment, being a good neighbor by keeping the noise down: if the landlord is as unreliable about follow up as the parents, the lessons get delayed, the rent goes unpaid, the yard gets ruined, and someone else gets to figure out how to fix the mess.  

Commitments matter.  Our word matters to someone.  A handshake with eye contact should be as good as our word, so the plan needs to be realistic.  If going to the kids' games is important, then we are going to need to make adjustments in other areas.  In a family-run business, this can be challenging.  We attempt to support the commitments made at work and school while we juggle to protect precious play-time.  The upside is that kids love to support cohesiveness in a family unit so they don't ask for much.  They remember rock collecting trips and a few sand castles, hikes, and campfires as if they were a big deal.  The trick is simple: make sure the fun happens with regularity.  Friday night bike rides or Sunday afternoon hikes are easy choices.  During winter months there are games: endlessly beloved Candy Land, checkers and Old Maid, Pit and Monopoly.  

If we promise things but fail on the follow-through, it is probably not going unnoticed.  Tim McGraw sings, "the heart don't forget something like that."  Promises get placed on back burners, but that doesn't mean they disappear.  Every so often we need to make it a priority to check our simmering pots.  That pot bubbling  away quietly is important to someone.  

Being present counts.  When we are present for our customer and paying attention, answering questions, solving problems, that matters in a service business.  When we are present for our kids - listening, guiding, answering questions, solving problems, that matters, too.  We may not be able to tell our six year old how to engineer spacecraft propulsion, but if we help them figure out long division, assist with memorizing the Gettysburg Address or spelling homework and the customer's heat system works, the rest can become a research project.  Being present is not rocket science and neither is keeping a promise.

Rays of Evening

Word Origin & History

 

promise c.1400, from L.promissum "a promise," 

nounuse of neuter pp. of promittere 

"send forth,foretell, promise," from 

pro-"before" + mittere "to put,send" (see mission). 

Ground sense is"declaration 

made about the future, 

about some act to be done or not done.

"The verb is attested from c.1420. Promised  

 land (1538) is a ref. to the land of Canaan

 promised to Abraham and his progeny 

(Heb. xi.9, etc.; Gk. ten ges tesepangelias). 

Promising "showing signs of future excellence" is from 1601.

Think Velcro.

It may have looked easy

But it yanked really hard and deep

When I walked away.

I can’t say goodbye anymore.

It even hurts to sleep now

But I think I can do this

And you said it gets easier.

I say, “When?”

I talk to my heart

When it cries.

Hush, I say. Listen.

Wait for it.

The promise

That never comes.

~MMB