My Best Investments

I’m such a slacker. I never made it back here to tell you this:

SHE’S HERE!

Our little bundle of joy arrived at 1:55 p.m. last Wednesday. She weighed in at a solid 8 lbs. 10ozs.

She’s a little slice of heaven.

MC was a champ all through labor and delivery, and is settling into the sleep-deprived life of a mother of three. 

We’re in the home stretch, folks.

Sometime in the next three weeks, there’s going to be a baby in our house.

With that in mind, let’s place some bets on when this little girl is going to arrive on the scene.

Here’s the pertinent information:

- The doctors have stated the due date as June 18

- Both of our other children have arrived three days before their due dates

If there’s anything else that will help you arrive at your expert conclusion, just holla in the Comments.

It’s funny that as I’ve been thinking, blogging, and reading your comments about trust, I got a chance to work on it at home.

When it was time to put the kids in bed on Monday night, MC had run out of steam, so I offered to handle the kids while she soaked in the tub. (Eight months pregnant and chasing after two kids all day - I figure she’s entitled to a break every so often.)

During their rest time earlier in the day, the kids played in the hallway connecting their rooms and failed to clean up before they came back downstairs.

Among the items cluttering the hallway were two towels.

“Who got the towels out?” I asked.

“Not me,” they both answered.

“Someone got them out,” I said. “Who got the towels out?”

“Not me,” they each maintained.

“I’m going to ask you one more time, and you’re going to tell me the truth this time. Who got the towels out?” I asked.

“We both did,” they confessed.

With that, I dispatched them to hang the towels in the bathroom and told them to come back and sit on the edge of Daughter’s bed when they were done.

In my “Uh-Oh, Dad Is Serious!” voice, I let them know I shouldn’t have to peel back layers of lies to get to the truth, and that I didn’t appreciate them being so cavalier about lying to me.

I needed to give the moment some weight and really let them know that their honesty is something I value. So I set off a preschooler version of World War III.

“You’ve lost your stories for tonight,” I told them, and sent Son to his room to get in his bed.

I let them weep and gnash teeth for a few minutes while I went downstairs to tell MC that everything was under control. Fortunately, she couldn’t hear the proceedings from her spot in the tub. And that’s a good thing, because if she could hear their screaming, she might have thought someone was being drawn and quartered.

After giving the kids another moment to emote, I went back up and had a calm, matter-of-fact talk with each of them.

“It’s my job to be the best daddy I can be for you,” I told them. “I wouldn’t be doing my job if I let you think - even for a moment - that it’s OK for you to lie to me. If we went on with our routine like everything was normal, you might not understand how serious I am about this.”

And then I gave them hugs, tucked them in, and said goodnight.

Now if you think that stopped the drama (and more specifically, the screaming) you’re mistaken. They wailed for awhile longer.

Trust at home is built on honesty. And for my kids to see that I value honesty, I had to demonstrate to them that I can’t endorse their dishonesty.

I’m not sure the lesson stuck, because MC caught Daughter in a cleanup-related fib yesterday. But at least we’re planting the seeds, right?

So let’s talk quickly about how trust operates in the workplace.

Yesterday, I alluded to my view that trust is necessary before any relationship or interaction can be effective. That holds true in relationships between coworkers and between us and our clients.

Building Trust

Trust is built by making promises and keeping them. In the early stages, these usually aren’t explicit promises you’re making; these are unspoken, implied promises.

What are implied promises? Things like showing up for work on time and dressing the way you’re supposed to dress.

So what are the explicit, spoken promises you make every day?

It’s returning a phone call at the time you would (or earlier). It’s mailing the paperwork you said you would.

It’s setting an expectation, and then meeting (or exceeding) that expectation.

Every time you say you’re going to do something and then do it, you’re communicating to the other person that they won’t be surprised.

Once you’ve demonstrated a pattern of behavior, people can project that pattern forward and make assumptions that you’ll act consistently in the future. That’s when the person starts trusting you.

The Challenge

Unfortunately, there are people I know I just can’t trust. And there’s probably people that would say the same about me.

So the challenge then becomes: if we’ve got work we need to do together, how do we team up and get our stuff done when I don’t trust you or you don’t trust me?

Here’s one I’ve been thinking about a lot lately:

Are you trustworthy? Am I?

You can’t begin to do anything effectively in this world until you prove to someone else that you’re trustworthy.

Since the vast majority of my time is divided between just two places - work and home - I’m looking hard at the ways I demonstrate that I’m trustworthy (that I’m a safe person) to my clients, coworkers, wife and children.

I’ll be back tomorrow to talk about being trustworthy at work. Then I’ll tackle trust at home a day or so later.

Until then…

“When will you be posting to your blog again?” MC asked me last night.

It’s a fair question.

Even though there’s plenty going on, I haven’t spent much energy trying to shape a few posts. Back in the heyday of My Best Investments, which spanned about a four-day period two years ago, I was writing good stuff and keeping myself entertained. Maybe even keeping you entertained. Who knows.

These days, to give my family and my work the attention they expect and deserve, it’s hard to devote much time to keeping this place up. And that’s probably why I find myself using Twitter more than the blog.

In short, Twitter is my new best friend and you should join too. When you do, come find me at twitter.com/leightonh

If I had any computer sense at all, I’d figure out how to put my Twitter feed on the front page here. But I don’t have any computer sense. If any of you would like to lend some computer sense to help make that happen, I would happily accept.

But just so you have a taste of what we’ve been up to lately, here are a few short Twitter-style updates on out lives:

- Nursery is painted a nice shade of pink. Will place all the furniture this weekend. MC is feverishly laundering and folding baby clothes.

- We’re going out tonight to get some of the world’s best barbecue. I’ll put up a Twitpic tonight.

- My brother and sister-in-law are moving from Philadelphia to Orlando in a few weeks. And they’re having a baby. And it’s going to be awesome. I can’t explain how happy and excited I am about everything they’ve got going on.

- Today was crazy busy,  but in a great way.

- I won a radio station contest today.

- Is the Disney movie Earth open yet? If it is, anyone seen it?

Okay, I’m out. Time to go meet MC for barbecue. Have a great weekend.

How ’bout some stream-of-consciousness posting to start the week? Ready? Let’s go:

1) I ran a 5K with my dad on Saturday. The race course went through our neighborhood and past our house. My kids cheered me on from our yard with shouts and waving signs as I jogged by. It was great fuel to keep me going.

2) After the 5K, I painted the nursery. For four hours.

3) After the painting, I did all the yard work.

4) After I did all the yard work, I nearly fell asleep at the dinner table.

5) On Sunday, MC helped me put a third coat of paint on the nursery walls. It’s finally done, so now I can put the crib together.

6) Wanna know what’s dangerously addictive? The FlightControl app for the iPhone. 

7) MC is throwing a pork roast in the crock pot this morning, so we’ll be rocking some barbecue-y goodness tonight. I’m not sure I can wait.

I hope you have a great start to your week. I’m going to dive into this stack of work (but I might land a few planes first).

Since MC and I both graduated into the world of smartphones last year, we use texting to keep in touch throughout the day.

I always like getting messages from her, no matter what the topic. This morning’s first exchange was great:

MC: Is your phone showing it’s an hour behind?

Me: You mean just the clock itself? No. Mine is right.

MC: Yes - it says it’s 8:27 and won’t change!

Me: You didn’t get in a modified Delorean with a crazy old scientist and drive it at 88 mph and crash it into a power line just as lightning struck, did you?

MC: Oh whoops. Yep. That must be it.

I may have mentioned before that my son is an early riser.

In fact, if I didn’t think that age 3 was perhaps a little young to send a kid into combat overseas, I’d enlist him in the Marines. They seem to like waking up early, too.

He’s also an extrovert, which means he’s not content to be awake early; he wants to be awake and partying with someone early. Our daughter, by contrast, sleeps late and would rather not see anyone until she’s had some time to wake up.

I walk the line between the two of them. While I like to be up early, I like to have a dose of solitude before the day cranks up.

For that reason, I’ve been waking up at 5:20 a.m. for a couple weeks to have a few uninterrupted minutes to read the Bible and listen to God. (I’m hanging out in Proverbs, trying to really dig in.)

Usually I get a solid hour of study done before Son calls out for some attention. At that point, even though I’d prefer to keep reading until 7:00, I go up and hang out with him.

This morning, I settled into my chair with my first cup of coffee at 5:40. I opened to Proverbs 13. Just as I was finishing the second verse, I heard Son calling out for me.

Twenty minutes and three trips back-and-forth from my chair to his room, I’d lost all my patience with him. He fussed and argued every time I tried to leave his room, and he got especially mad that I suggested he go back to sleep for another hour.

“Why can’t you stay?” he always asks.

“Because I have to do my special reading,” I tell him.

As 3 year olds often do, he got loud and emotional. I mostly got loud and didn’t contain my frustration that he was messing with my quiet time.

Honestly, if waking up at 5:20 won’t get me a head start on my family, what time do I have to get up?

After another trip to his room (and another argument), I unloaded on him. I threatened to take away all his privileges. I raised my voice. I was not a nice man.

And in my stern / angry / scary dad voice I told him, “NOW I DON’T WANT TO HEAR ANOTHER PEEP OUT OF YOU UNTIL 7:00 BECAUSE I NEED TO GO DO MY SPECIAL READING!!!”

As I stomped back to my chair, I soaked up the irony of yelling at my child to leave me alone so I could go read my Bible.

I picked the Bible from the ottoman and my eye was instantly drawn across the page to Proverbs 14:29:

“A patient man has great understanding, but a quick-tempered man displays folly.”

Well played, God.

______

Update: I wrote this post on Monday evening. After I vented my frustration to MC yesterday, she devised an entirely new game plan for our kids’ morning routines. There’s even sticker charts.

I’ve been sloppy and inconsistent in managing my part of their morning routine (especially Son’s) which has left our behavior (mine and his) bent from the way it should be.

This morning was far better than yesterday, so I think our new system is promising.

I was giving Daughter her goodnight hugs a few minutes ago.

I pulled back and looked at her and asked, “When you think about me, what do you think about?”

“Work,” she said, with a bit of a sad tone.

“What else?” I asked.

She got an excited look in her eye and popped up to whisper something in my ear.

“Sausage and eggs,” she whispered.