The Art of Manliness - #467： 3 Big Questions to Help Frantic Families Get on Track

00:00:00.000 brett mckay here and welcome to another edition of the art of manliness podcast does your family

00:00:19.420 life feel frantic does it seem like every week you and your wife are scrambling to manage all

00:00:23.720 the stuff that's going on like school and community activities extracurricular social

00:00:28.420 engagements home maintenance perhaps what you need to do is apply some of the strategies that

00:00:32.420 help businesses get organized to your family life that's the argument my guest makes in his book the

00:00:36.400 three big questions for a frantic family his name is patrick lincione he's a business consultant for

00:00:40.880 fortune 500 companies today on the show we discuss how the questions he asks his corporate clients

00:00:46.080 provide clarity and direction to their businesses can also provide clarity and direction at home

00:00:50.560 pat unpacks his three questions and explores how vital it is to create a sense of context mission

00:00:55.120 and purpose for your family why every family needs a rallying cry and how to actually implement the

00:00:59.660 principles we discuss in your family's life you want to start leading your family and living

00:01:03.360 intentionally instead of staying in reactive mode this show is for you after it's over check out our

00:01:08.140 show notes at aom.is frantic families and pat joins me now via clearcast.io

00:01:14.300 well pat lincione welcome to the show it's great to be here so you wrote a book about three questions that can

00:01:32.100 help frantic families but you're not a psychologist not a family counselor you're actually a ceo guy or

00:01:37.900 consultant tell us about your background because it's really interesting yeah i uh i'm just i didn't

00:01:43.320 go to grad school or anything my parents didn't go to college i just went to college first generation

00:01:47.940 and then uh got a great job out of college that was supposed to be a great job at a management

00:01:53.560 consulting firm and it wasn't for me and i was really more focused on the human side of business

00:01:58.200 so through uh various blessings i had i was able to get into this field and then about 21 years ago i

00:02:05.780 started my own company and wrote my first book which was a total accident i just came up with a

00:02:10.240 theory and somebody said you should write a book about it so i wrote a fable because i was a screenwriter

00:02:14.980 in a previous life for fun and people liked that and then it took off and i started writing more and

00:02:20.720 more and now i'm considered something of a thought leader in the field of organizational health leadership

00:02:27.820 teamwork and all things related to uh to business or organizations so that's kind of my story if you

00:02:35.500 will right and so companies hire you to you know come in look at how they're running the ship basically

00:02:41.660 and you offer suggestions on how they can improve so what was the right what was the moment when you

00:02:48.400 realized that you thought the same principles you use with companies could also work to help improve

00:02:55.020 families run better well you know so we have four kids four boys and my wife and i like so many

00:03:03.080 it was a pretty frantic life two of our boys are in college now it's no less frantic because we're very

00:03:07.480 involved with them still but um i was going out and working with great companies like southwest airlines

00:03:12.640 and chick-fil-a and all these other businesses and helping them make their businesses more sane

00:03:18.100 more intentional and then i'd go home and life was very reactive and it was it was crazy you know

00:03:24.880 and i said to my wife one day not in a rude way but it sounds pretty rude i said you know if my

00:03:32.180 clients ran their companies the way we do this family they'd go out of business

00:03:37.400 and i thought and it was really an indictment of myself i tell i like to tell the story like like

00:03:43.280 my wife got really mad at me but the point was here i would go to off-site meetings with my team at

00:03:48.140 my office my company and i'd help my clients do that we get very intentional about what our values

00:03:53.320 were and our strategy and how we're going to execute and we'd have a a rhythm for that and

00:03:58.160 and we go home and whatever comes up that day we just respond to it and and i just thought why is

00:04:04.920 this my family is more important than my business no doubt so why do i spend so much more time managing

00:04:10.800 my business than my family and when i really thought about it brett i think what it came down

00:04:15.760 to is because there's not unconditional love in companies you can get fired if you do a bad job or

00:04:19.840 your customers can leave but at home we tend to take it for granted unconditional love like well

00:04:24.580 my kids are going to love me even if i'm not very intentional and my wife you know what are we going

00:04:28.840 to do this is just how we are and so sometimes we take advantage of what we believe to be

00:04:33.480 unconditional love and we don't do our very best at home so the the book is you know three questions

00:04:38.220 that helps frantic families so you know i imagine as you talk to people you coach ceos you coach i'm sure

00:04:43.840 they've mentioned their family life and i've noticed this too with my own interactions with friends like

00:04:48.520 everyone just feels so frantic and like they're flailing around it's like what do you think is

00:04:52.940 going on there like what why what makes life for family life so much more i mean i don't know was it

00:04:57.680 like this in the 50s or 40s i mean or is it i mean is this something new or different no i think it was

00:05:03.740 different i'm sure there was some franticness but back then we were just talking about this here in the

00:05:08.260 office that back then parents were not near as involved in their kids lives and you kind of sent

00:05:14.520 them out there and said if i put a roof over their heads and you know love them but they're

00:05:18.660 going to make it on their own half of them went into the military and they life was harder and today

00:05:23.140 you know i don't know what it is about our generation but you know dads and moms alike are totally involved

00:05:28.260 at home often both working and yet they're driving their kids to every underwater travel lacrosse team

00:05:35.060 i mean it's crazy how many activities we think we have to get our kids involved in and yours are younger

00:05:39.840 than mine let me just tell you you don't have to have them involved in all those things the first

00:05:44.460 i have twins that are now 20 and when we grew up in a very suburban area where everybody participates

00:05:51.180 in everything everybody would say well you know you have to sign them up for that because if you

00:05:54.800 don't sign them up when they're five they're never going to get involved in it when they're 17 and

00:05:57.620 then they're never going to go to college and they're never going to have a normal life and so we

00:06:00.520 would gosh it was nuts and that was kind of the prevailing wisdom and so here we are over

00:06:06.640 committed under enjoying it it's making our kids too stressed out it's making us stressed out and

00:06:12.800 this is not the way we're meant to live and so i just realized boy we should start being more

00:06:17.140 intentional and and start taking care of our families in a way that we take care of our

00:06:22.420 businesses and it's not just that makes sense to you that makes sense and it's not just kids

00:06:25.920 getting over committed it's like parents getting over committed with like church organizations

00:06:29.480 community organizations i mean just having friends in a social life that adds to it as well

00:06:35.640 oh my gosh and every day it was basically what did somebody email us about and what do we have

00:06:41.140 to respond to and what decisions do we have to make today and every one of them felt like a gut-wrenching

00:06:46.520 crapshoot rather than an intentional calm peaceful decision with some sort of rationale okay let's start

00:06:56.420 talking about solutions and so the the overarching solution you say is families need to provide context

00:07:01.800 for themselves what do you mean by providing context for a family well it's the same as in

00:07:07.840 business in fact my company is called the table group because we believe the table is the best piece

00:07:11.580 of technology that exists well we almost called it the context group because without context it's really

00:07:17.600 difficult to make decisions and be intentional so in context it's just really answering some questions

00:07:24.140 to give yourself clarity so that when you have to make decisions and live your life you have something to

00:07:30.240 look at and say well what makes sense here so for instance we one of the things we say is when i work

00:07:35.660 with a company one of the first things we do is we say you know what do you believe to be true in

00:07:41.120 terms of your behaviors every great company southwest airlines we helped them they they were great at it

00:07:47.020 but we helped them codify their values like what are the behaviors three behaviors that need to be true

00:07:52.120 here for a person to fit in and and be successful i thought well why don't families figure out what their

00:07:57.560 values are everybody talks about family values and then you say what are those and they go i don't

00:08:01.680 know they're family values so what i realized is that a husband and wife need to sit down and say

00:08:07.160 you know what is it that we believe to be so true in our family that we want to teach it and and

00:08:13.720 reinforce it in everything we do and and and it probably is different from one family to another

00:08:18.580 your brother and sister-in-law though might be very wonderful people and close to you are going to

00:08:23.400 have different ones and the family next door the one that sits in the pew next to you at church

00:08:27.480 they're not necessarily going to be the same so my wife and i sat down i we said what is it that we

00:08:34.100 were attracted to each other about what was it about one another that we love that we have in common

00:08:37.980 and let's build our family around that and so we did you know one of the things i loved about my

00:08:43.140 wife when i met her in college is that she would stand up for what was right regardless of the 1.00

00:08:46.900 politically correct ramifications she was courageous enough to say this is how i feel

00:08:52.400 and she said that's what she loved about me so we said okay let's make that one of the pillars of

00:08:57.300 our family standing up for what's right regardless of the ramifications she was very creative i was

00:09:03.200 creative our families weren't necessarily creative but we both loved that we said let's teach our kids

00:09:07.440 to be creative let's build our family around that and then we said forgiveness is really important

00:09:12.040 because we both we get in arguments sometimes and we have to recover we said forgiveness those became

00:09:17.280 our three values we said that's what makes us unique some of my favorite people in the world brett

00:09:22.900 and i'm sure you and your wife would come up with three different ones and the point is do you know who

00:09:29.180 you are and do you know what it means to be a linchoni in my family and so having that kind of

00:09:35.860 clarity just kind of helps us to say this is what makes us unique yeah so that first question

00:09:39.900 providing contests is what makes us unique it's figuring out your core values but i thought

00:09:44.220 there's an interesting distinction you talk about in the book as because as you're consulting companies

00:09:49.340 companies you know the whole thing coming up with a mission statement coming with values it's become

00:09:53.540 so cliche now and oftentimes you'll see companies come up with these things like we believe in doing

00:09:57.840 good and being honest and like making as much money as possible and saving the environment right and

00:10:03.840 so like those are values but they're not actually core values so when people typically come up

00:10:09.560 with core values or whether it's a business or a family what are they actually doing typically

00:10:15.060 and it's actually wrong well first of all they're trying when we come up with values and i wrote this

00:10:21.120 for corporations too there's different kinds of values like there's aspirational values those are

00:10:26.080 ones that you don't have and you wish you did and you're going to try to work on that well don't

00:10:30.440 call that a core value that would be like my wife and i saying neither of us are very organized we're the

00:10:35.220 same myers-briggs type pretty much and we're kind of spontaneous which is nuts but that's who we are

00:10:39.700 if we said one of our core values is being organized anyone that knew us would think we were fools or

00:10:43.960 liars and so you got to know what's not true even if you wish it were true you don't build your

00:10:49.080 company or your family around that the second one is there's permission to play which are those very 0.90

00:10:53.540 obvious ones like we're not murderers you know it's like be nice well that doesn't make a core value

00:10:58.760 because it's usually pretty generic and then there's some values that you don't want to build

00:11:03.520 around because they're they're weaknesses and you got to guard against that core values are the things

00:11:07.940 that are so endemically true and good and that you want to be that you double down on those and you

00:11:15.460 say let's never violate those because that's who we are it's like an example southwest airlines i was

00:11:21.500 just talking to somebody from there today they're friends of ours one of their core values is having a

00:11:25.660 self-deprecating sense of humor right that's what they talk about anybody that's ever flown southwest

00:11:30.040 knows that well once a woman complained about the humor on the airline because they were making jokes

00:11:34.680 during the safety check well the the ceo at the time herb kellher the founder he wrote her a letter

00:11:39.820 that said we'll miss you instead of saying oh we're sorry it's like hey that's one of our three core

00:11:44.180 values we're not going to change that in my family when one of my sons was really little he got in

00:11:49.460 trouble because he stood up for a friend at school to a bully and of course like they do in so many

00:11:55.060 schools they brought both the bully and my son in who stood up to him and told them both they were

00:11:58.900 wrong and we absolutely reinforced our son we said you did the right thing really the principal was

00:12:03.980 was rewarding you and we think what you did was fantastic because standing up for what's right is

00:12:10.560 one of our core values we will never sacrifice that so if you don't know what your core values are

00:12:15.980 you don't know how to protect them and to reinforce them and most people think they don't really know

00:12:21.480 what they are or they have a list of 12 things which are a mishmash of nice things easy things

00:12:27.740 wishful thinking bad things and they just throw them together and call it values that was a long

00:12:33.740 answer no short no no it's it's it was really clarifying but so like how can people when they're

00:12:39.220 sitting down and trying to answer this question with their wife how can they ensure that they're

00:12:43.160 this is actually core value they have to ask themselves like do we actually live this today

00:12:46.900 is that with the yes okay that's a great question here's the beauty of this book and this this this

00:12:53.320 concept and by the way let me tell you something this book called the three big questions for frantic

00:12:56.960 family i've written 11 books almost all of them are about business this is the first one which is

00:13:00.840 really a business book for families it's sold by far the least of all of them and yet everywhere i go

00:13:06.700 people will come up and go we have transformed our family and it's very embarrassing for me as an

00:13:11.380 author because they're using it more than i am and they say we i think this book has gone deeper

00:13:16.720 for more people than anything i've ever written and it sold a fraction of the other so so it's

00:13:21.460 one of those books that i think is really great but people generally don't go out and buy books to

00:13:25.860 change their families they kind of wing it which is part of the problem so getting back to what you

00:13:30.880 asked me you don't need to spend three days at an offsite in the woods to figure this out you can

00:13:36.140 go on a single date let's say you have 90 minutes to sit down that's a long date i realize and you

00:13:41.700 sit down and you say hey you know what is it about one another that we admire and that we want to be

00:13:46.360 true in our family forever and we want to raise our kids reinforce it live it and we never want

00:13:52.020 to make decisions that violate that so like i said my wife and i just said well what was it that i

00:13:56.620 liked about you and what and i would told her things about her that i loved and she goes well that's

00:14:00.180 exactly what i loved about you and i said that's it that's one of the things that we have in common

00:14:05.320 and that we admire each other around so there's people in my office that one of their core values is

00:14:09.900 humor and i happen to know the woman and her husband and they're hilarious and humor is a huge part

00:14:14.400 of their life they value it now when they came up with that one i thought well gee i should be

00:14:19.940 humorous too that should be one of ours like no no that doesn't mean we don't like humor but that

00:14:25.000 is a founding principle in their family it's how they interact with one another another one was

00:14:30.300 generosity they're really generous and i thought well shoot that should be one of ours well it doesn't

00:14:35.340 mean i'm not going to try to be generous but it's not necessarily the the foundation of who i am

00:14:43.400 i mean i i've read your bio brett and you and your wife could sit down and it would not take you long

00:14:47.820 and it would be pretty clear you go oh yeah it's these things because you'd look at not only

00:14:51.560 what you believe but how you act and it's not hard to you know in 20 minutes on that date that hour and

00:14:58.820 a half date can come up with all of these questions answered now of course after you answer them two

00:15:03.860 weeks later your wife's going to come to you and say hey wait a second you know some i thought of 0.79

00:15:07.560 another one i think this is it and you're gonna you're not going to go well we already laminated it and

00:15:11.100 made t-shirts because you're not going to do that anyway you're going to go hey you're right

00:15:14.620 and so you're going to add that one or change it so it's a process but it doesn't need to take

00:15:19.540 days and flip charts and it's really going on a date and asking a few basic questions of one

00:15:25.860 another about what you love we're going to take a quick break for your word from our sponsors

00:15:29.240 and now back to the show so besides figuring out your core values to figure out what makes your

00:15:35.800 family unique start providing that context because these values are going to start determining

00:15:39.200 or start helping you guide your decisions you also talk about strategy so how can a family well

00:15:45.480 first of all what do you mean by a family strategy and how can that make them unique yeah and that and

00:15:50.380 that's the whole thing the strategy is one of those words like communication or love that everybody

00:15:55.220 defines differently and nobody really knows what it means when we talk about strategy both in our

00:15:59.340 company and in regard to families what we mean is what are the intentional decisions you've made as a

00:16:05.360 family that will differentiate you from others and give you the best chance to be successful or live

00:16:10.440 the life you want to live and you have to look at at your life and so my wife and i said well what are

00:16:15.260 our what are the strategic things that we've decided that make us who we are and we looked at it we said

00:16:22.100 well one is my wife stays home okay now she actually runs a bible study now which is fantastic and she's

00:16:27.520 very involved in other things and in the kids lives but she did she left her job and and postponed her

00:16:33.120 career because she wanted to be a mom and and and that's her that's a strategic decision we make she 0.99

00:16:39.140 didn't do it regretfully she didn't do it just because every day she wakes up and doesn't do it

00:16:43.720 she said i am going to do that and therefore pat you are going to be the primary breadwinner i'm going

00:16:48.920 to be with the kids and that was a core strategic decision we made another one was our lives are going

00:16:56.400 to revolve around our family and our children not our career so even though i've been i've been blessed to

00:17:01.100 be successful i don't i don't travel abroad hardly ever i travel only for like one or two nights at a time

00:17:08.800 at most i've coached my kids teams we're we're very very invested in our kids lives that's a strategic

00:17:15.640 decision we made another one is that we chose to live away from our families i don't neither of us live

00:17:21.640 in the same city as our families we didn't choose that necessarily on purpose but we realized it was the right

00:17:26.880 thing to do where we live so we said our extended family is going to have to be a group of friends

00:17:33.960 and people we know that aren't part of our clear family like thanksgiving this year was with the

00:17:39.440 same family we always do it with they're like the cousins to our children and the aunts and uncles but

00:17:44.420 they're not so we had to create an extended family that wasn't part of our natural family now

00:17:50.040 we realize that those are intentional decisions we've made and we need to honor those so when

00:17:56.560 somebody says hey do you want your child to be on the travel underwater lacrosse team and travel to

00:18:00.840 europe we look at and we go would that allow us to have a family where we were totally involved in

00:18:04.860 their lives nope we're not going to do that and when somebody says hey do you want to buy a house in

00:18:09.740 lake tahoe we look at that and we go well it depends would that allow us to live according to our

00:18:14.840 strategy or not and and it gives you peace so that when you make decisions you don't feel like

00:18:20.000 you're making it up from scratch you look at your values you look at your strategy and you say this

00:18:25.460 is probably the right decision and you move on right right because you've already made the decision

00:18:30.740 right exactly and that's what businesses do but but usually when people go do you want to be on the

00:18:35.980 underwater water lacrosse team the parents look at each other and go i don't know do we want them to

00:18:40.060 be in lacrosse is that our goal for them in life i don't know what are the kids next door doing i think

00:18:44.000 our cousins our cousins are doing that and and does he want to and are we going to regret it and and

00:18:48.840 and this is real angst people feel and they end up making decisions that they look back on later and

00:18:53.940 say we didn't even live our lives intentionally things just happened and that's not how we're

00:19:00.880 meant to live you know intentional living is really a good thing and so this having the context allows you

00:19:07.720 to be intentional and not reactive no we've my wife and i've implemented strategies like that

00:19:13.620 we try to limit the amount of activities our kids get involved in i don't travel or hardly do any

00:19:19.380 speaking engagements and see there's people listening to this who are gonna go oh man i should

00:19:24.400 do that too and it's like well first of all be intentional about it what what you don't want to

00:19:28.660 do is say because there's some great parents out there they go no i could travel a little bit but

00:19:32.080 i'm going to take lots of time off and i'm going to do it differently what you don't want to do is let

00:19:36.700 the world dictate this to you and you feel like a victim of circumstance because there's a lot of people

00:19:41.500 listening to this that said i never really made a decision just as business got busier i just started

00:19:45.700 saying yes and before i knew it i was living a life that i hadn't really chosen and so again it's

00:19:51.700 about context and intentionality versus reactive feeling like a victim of circumstance all right so

00:19:58.240 your values your strategy serves as a filter for all the stuff that comes at you every day in your

00:20:04.960 family life the second question is what's our rallying rallying cry so what do you mean by that

00:20:11.720 okay this is probably the most powerful part of this and by the way all of this you can come up with

00:20:18.540 in one date so the rallying cry goes like this and we use it in companies too what is the single most

00:20:25.420 important thing that you need to focus on as a family right now and and let's say in a family for

00:20:31.060 the next three months for the next three months it might be long it might be six months what is the

00:20:36.620 biggest thing going on in our family that we have to get done right because the problem is there's a

00:20:41.140 thousand things going on but what is the biggest thing right now okay now a few years ago my sons were

00:20:48.420 getting ready to go to college and and it was all about laura and i said okay everything that we do has

00:20:53.280 to be done in the spirit of how are we preparing our our boys and our family to go away to school

00:20:58.960 so we had to think about okay that was our rallying cry getting the twins 50 of our children ready for

00:21:06.240 college that was now were there other things that were interesting absolutely other things i wanted

00:21:11.400 to do yep but i couldn't do those if i was doing it at the expense of this because that was the number

00:21:16.320 one thing years ago brett and this is my favorite one when we had three children we had three boys and

00:21:22.240 my wife and i are disorganized so we were pretty scattered we found out we were pregnant we weren't

00:21:27.000 surprised we knew how that happens and we were very excited very excited obviously but we were

00:21:31.500 like oh my gosh we're already stressed we're already overwhelmed what are we gonna do we're gonna have

00:21:35.640 another child and it's a boy so we said okay we our rallying cry was prepare our family for baby number

00:21:44.320 four okay so that doesn't mean you should go out and put signs on the wall and make t-shirts like

00:21:51.040 companies do your rallying cry is the guide for everything else you do so we said if that's our

00:21:56.760 rallying cry prepare for baby number four then you have to come up with what we call your strategic

00:22:03.540 definitional objectives okay the objectives are the goals that determine whether or not that goal is

00:22:12.320 going to happen we call it in the business world defining objectives they define how we're going to get

00:22:17.160 that done so we said if we're going to prepare our family for baby number four what do we have to do

00:22:22.900 well the first thing we had to do is we had to get our seven-year-olds that's where our 20-year-olds

00:22:27.600 were at the time we had to discipline them up because they weren't taking a shower without us pushing them 0.98

00:22:32.020 in there making their own lunch getting their books together and their homework done without us goading

00:22:36.460 them and we said when when our fourth child michael comes if those boys are not more disciplined we are not

00:22:42.480 going to be able to do this that was our first defining objective our second one was we have a

00:22:47.460 two and a half year old three year old who's who's not where he needs to be he's and so we were like

00:22:53.380 Casey get out of our bed and get out of those diapers because life is over as you know you know 0.97

00:22:56.860 we had to get him schooled up because if if he wasn't more mature in those little areas we weren't

00:23:03.120 going to be able to handle it then we had to clean out our garage and because we had more stuff coming in

00:23:08.500 we had to outsource some activities in our family that my parents thought i was crazy because we

00:23:12.620 should mow our own lawn but we said we can't do that and then we had to finish the kitchen remodel

00:23:17.420 that we were in in the midst of that had been going on for 12 months that we were about to kill the

00:23:22.260 contractor and we said if michael comes and that's still going on we are going to kill that contractor

00:23:26.600 so we had five defining objectives if we're going to be ready for baby number four we have to have the

00:23:32.440 twins schooled up we had to have Casey better disciplined we had to have our garage cleaned out 1.00

00:23:37.380 we had to finish the contracting and we had to outsource some services when my wife and i went

00:23:42.260 to bed at night brett we would think about those five things rather than the million little details

00:23:47.460 that overwhelm us so you come up with that defining objective i mean that thematic goal

00:23:53.220 what's the biggest thing going on in your family right now and then you come up with what are the

00:23:57.240 four or five things that we have to do to make that work does that make sense that makes perfect

00:24:01.780 sense below those defining objectives there's these things called standard objectives which are

00:24:05.940 which are ongoing in a family for instance so my wife and i had to get ready for baby number four

00:24:11.520 but i also had to pay the mortgage we had to keep our marriage strong we had to keep our faith strong

00:24:17.140 we had to keep the kids healthy keep them doing well in school so there's what we call standard

00:24:22.180 objectives which probably don't change for like 10 years at a time because they're kind of like how do

00:24:26.820 we keep the family in business so to speak there might be some other things that are pretty much

00:24:31.460 always going on the question is what's particularly unique as you go into 2019 given what's going on

00:24:39.840 in your family and there's no right answer it's just you have to have one answer let me give you an

00:24:45.060 example when we were getting ready for baby number four i was determined to re-landscape our front yard

00:24:50.060 and our backyard because we bought a new house it was kind of crazy it wasn't very kid friendly

00:24:53.460 and we said nope we're not going to do it that is not the most important thing we need to do right now

00:24:59.320 and so every day i would pull into the driveway and see that ugly front yard and i'd go

00:25:02.980 that ugliness is a testament to my discipline of focusing on what really matters because there's

00:25:07.880 always three or four other things you want to do and it's when you say no to those things

00:25:12.440 because there is a higher priority you know you're living an intentional life so the rallying cry is

00:25:17.960 like that one thing that you can work on for the next three months that will really move your family

00:25:21.740 ahead yes it's going to move the ball forward and you will you will do that at the expense of a bunch of

00:25:27.660 other things that would be nice to do but aren't as important so like you know one rallying cry i

00:25:31.560 think there's an example you gave in the book it's like dad finds a new job because his job is making

00:25:35.660 him miserable and that's coming home and and we need to fix that and and you and you depending on

00:25:41.980 the age of your kids i talked to somebody just yesterday a guy came into my office a ceo and he

00:25:46.400 goes oh yeah we're involving our kids now his kids are 10 8 and 5 and they're like oh not the rallying

00:25:51.240 cry but they sit down with them and say hey here's the number one thing going on in our family

00:25:54.740 and it might be daddy's looking for a new job so here's how we're going to help him he's going to

00:25:59.380 have to take a little extra time we're going to have to do more around the house while he's doing

00:26:03.140 this he's probably not going to be quite he might have to miss a few ball games because he might have

00:26:06.980 to go do some interviews and you get the whole family rallied around that and suddenly it's becomes

00:26:12.160 like everybody's in it together and they understand why things are different and and you give dad a

00:26:18.400 better chance without stress mom a better chance and it might be like mom mom's health isn't good 0.95

00:26:23.720 or mom needs to find a hobby or whatever else it is if everybody's focused on that there's a much

00:26:29.460 better chance than if you're siloed out and everybody's working on their own thing which is

00:26:34.060 exactly what happens in bad companies and too often in families that casey has his own thing

00:26:38.480 connor has his own thing matthew has his own thing mom has her own thing and everybody starts to pull

00:26:43.480 apart okay so i want to point out that one thing you said because i thought it was important

00:26:47.860 was okay you have your rallying cry these objectives you're working on to achieve that rallying

00:26:53.040 cry but at the same time they're those standard objectives those things you have to do day to day

00:26:57.360 to keep things going the way they are you can't let those slack or else things are going to start

00:27:02.540 falling apart exactly and like if and and it's probably not that hard to come up with those at

00:27:06.780 all because in my family it's pretty easy it's like how's our finances how's our health how's

00:27:10.660 education how's our faith life how's our marriage how's our relationship with our extended family

00:27:15.620 you know those are those are the things that probably never go away the problem is when you live for

00:27:21.700 those things on the bottom only you kind of get burned out because you go okay what's next well

00:27:26.800 just more of the same another school year another checkup another vacation which are really really

00:27:34.640 really important but it's not necessarily moving the ball forward you always have to have to what's

00:27:39.520 the thing that we're doing that's making our family even stronger so that next year will be a

00:27:43.560 different family i love that so here's a question you've been talking about coming up with this

00:27:48.540 and it's been like you and your wife do you bring your kids in on this conversation trying to figure

00:27:53.120 out the the core values the strategy the rallying cry or is like is this like a ceo level job and like

00:28:00.080 you just convey that to the members of your family you know honestly the the the socially acceptable or

00:28:06.740 progressive answer would be oh yeah involve them but the truth of the matter is you're leaders of your

00:28:10.460 family as a parent and you need to set their thing now you can involve them in certain ways in terms

00:28:14.700 of how to describe it or how to make it real and it's a wonderful thing of course it depends on how

00:28:19.160 old they are but so yes involve them but just like i would say to a ceo when they say well we're going

00:28:25.080 to do our values we're going to take a survey of all the employees and ask them what they are it's

00:28:28.260 like no that's some of your employees don't know the right answer you're a leader and so you can

00:28:35.300 solicit input i suppose but you need to set the direction and frankly most of our kids want us to do

00:28:40.360 that now if you're a family and you had a 17 year old and a 15 year old i'd probably sit down and go

00:28:45.280 hey you guys let's talk about what we think the most important thing is but generally the parents

00:28:50.440 set the tone and then involve them and how to implement it and and get their buy-in but um really

00:28:56.400 the parents job is to kind of create that that context okay so the third question but it's great

00:29:01.660 to have meetings with them well yeah let's and sit down with them but oh go ahead well that's the next

00:29:05.840 that's that leads me nicely to the next question this idea of meetings so the question is how do you

00:29:09.940 talk about and use the answer to these questions because it's one thing you do this thing with on

00:29:13.360 a date with your wife we found out what makes us unique we found out a rallying cry and then you

00:29:18.440 never talk about it again and it just goes nowhere right you know what we did the first time we came

00:29:24.180 up with this is we were at a restaurant that had paper tablecloths and crayons me and my wife and so

00:29:28.580 we uh we we we sketched it all out there and we just tore it off the thing and stuck it on the

00:29:33.020 refrigerator and it would just sit up there and we'd walk by it in the morning go oh yeah that's right

00:29:36.120 these things so here's what a meeting looks like so i want everybody out there to imagine a single

00:29:40.500 sheet of paper right and on the top is a big square that says our our rallying cry in our case

00:29:45.360 it's like prepare for baby number four then underneath that horizontally there's five boxes one says

00:29:51.460 you know get the seven-year-old's just twins discipline get the three and a half year old

00:29:55.120 out of the bed and out of his diapers you know finish the kitchen remodel outsource some of the

00:30:00.020 services and clean out the garage those are our five things and then at the bottom it says

00:30:03.480 marriage finances health education all those things faith okay you have a single sheet of paper

00:30:10.980 with these boxes on it what you should do is once a week you should just look at it for 15 20 minutes

00:30:16.780 and go how are we doing in these areas and you look at each one and you go let's be green yellow or red

00:30:21.440 green means man we're doing great yellow means we're doing okay red means oh we're we're way behind

00:30:26.200 and if you're like me i i let people use lime if it's between yellow and green and orange between

00:30:31.280 red and yellow we actually involved our kids in this when they were 11 and seven and three

00:30:38.160 where we'd sit down at night sometimes and we'd go okay let's rate ourselves and it was so cool

00:30:43.740 because the kids would rate themselves in these areas and they'd usually be tough graders so you go

00:30:48.060 through and you go how are we doing on the twins discipline and laura and i would look at each other

00:30:52.800 and go you know they're still not getting ready in the morning pretty well i i it's pretty good it's

00:30:57.140 yellow or or lime let's just put in lime okay how about casey nah he keeps coming into bed with us

00:31:03.900 still in diapers that's a red how about the kitchen remodel okay that guy we think it's going to get

00:31:09.480 done we think that's what yellow and you just go through this it takes you five minutes then you

00:31:13.600 look at it you go you know what we need to do this week we need to turn the red things to yellow and

00:31:17.160 the yellow things to green okay that's it good i'll see you next week the difference between that

00:31:22.780 conversation for 15 or 20 minutes once a week and what most of us do in our families

00:31:27.740 is exponential it's massive if we families say to me oh my gosh just having that scratched out piece

00:31:35.380 of paper up on the on the refrigerator and looking at the red things and going oh yeah i gotta do this

00:31:40.600 this week oh yeah okay good good good that's how i'm gonna organize my day most of us wake up and go

00:31:45.000 what are we gonna do well i'll look at my email i'll see what what the kids are doing who's yelling

00:31:50.380 the loudest for something and at the end of the day we go did i really make a difference

00:31:54.140 and with just this much structure and i this conversation brett might sound to people listening

00:32:00.880 like it's a lot of work literally in the book there's like a few pages where it says go on a

00:32:06.280 date and ask yourselves these questions do this and this and this it provides examples of different

00:32:11.360 families and in 90 minutes you can turn everything upside down and go i think we have a handle on this

00:32:17.680 and then if you take 15 minutes a week to review it honestly it takes you from zero to eight

00:32:23.560 in terms of intentional living and that's all we really need is to be an eight yeah and i imagine

00:32:29.020 husbands and families like i bet wives appreciate when the husbands take the lead on this i think

00:32:33.400 a lot of wives they want to do this sort of thing they want intentionality in their family and they 1.00

00:32:37.180 try to implement it but like they feel like they're just dragging their husbands to it 0.99

00:32:40.400 and maybe it'd be better yes you're exactly right and and it's it's so i was in this very room i'm in

00:32:46.000 right now in this conference room and i had a ceo and his executive team in here and we were talking

00:32:50.360 and the whole concept came up of dating and i said yeah you know it's really frustrating to me

00:32:54.520 because we see we're going to date but then my wife never schedules it and he says no it was this

00:32:58.580 brazilian guys no that is your job you plan the date you show her that it's important to you

00:33:04.240 and i realized it's true and and by the way this is true whether the women in my office who work 1.00

00:33:09.260 i have a woman in my office whose husband stays home and helps with the kids and she works 1.00

00:33:13.260 but nonetheless there's this thing about men and women the art of manliness i love it where

00:33:17.160 men tend to think well my wife sets a social calendar well the problem with that is it makes 1.00

00:33:21.800 her feel like she's trying to coerce you into doing things that you don't really want to do

00:33:25.640 and when your husband when the husband says we're going to go out on date i've planned it don't worry

00:33:30.220 about it honey we're going to do this it's pretty cool and um and no matter even though i'm saying

00:33:36.220 that to you right now i still whiff at it most of the time but it's the right thing to do i've got to

00:33:40.380 i've got to say we're doing this and and having this conversation my wife loved doing it she said

00:33:47.820 to me and now she's going like we got to have that we got to do it again we got a new thematic goal

00:33:51.080 right yeah shows yeah leadership show some leadership well pat is there some place people

00:33:55.820 can go to learn more about the book and your work you know um yes we have a we have a website called

00:34:01.520 tablegroup.com table like the kitchen table tablegroup.com and you can find it there we have all of our

00:34:07.940 corporate stuff there but you can find the the frantic family and and you know i'm embarrassed to

00:34:12.420 say i don't think there's a specific website for just this book but the most important thing you can

00:34:18.300 do is is go to the website or just go to amazon or someplace else hopefully and and buy the book

00:34:24.080 and and it's it's crazy it's i think it's like 20 and there is it's it's a story by the way it's a

00:34:29.640 fiction story every people listening should know that all of my business books but one are short stories

00:34:34.100 because i'm a screenwriter so i write them like a little movie because that's a lot more interesting

00:34:37.780 so it's a story about a a husband and wife who are really frantic and how they struggle with

00:34:44.520 comparisons to other families and what they're supposed to do and how they put it together and

00:34:49.020 that really helps you understand what it's about it's short it's a good read i think if i might say so

00:34:55.280 and then in the back there's a there's actually the structure for how to do it this is probably the

00:34:59.480 most useful book i've written fantastic well pat thanks so much for coming on the show it's been a

00:35:02.980 pleasure hey i love the art of manliness i love your website i i'm i'm shocked at how many things

00:35:07.760 you have that i wasn't aware of so to all those people listening they're probably already big

00:35:10.880 followers of yours but what a great what a great resource this is i love it it's going to become a

00:35:15.760 go-to web page for me well thanks so much i appreciate that okay god bless my guest there is

00:35:20.100 patrick lincione he's the author of the book the three big questions for frantic families is

00:35:24.280 available on amazon.com and bookstores everywhere you can check out more about his work at tablegroup.com

00:35:29.660 also check out our show notes at aom.is slash frantic families where you find links to resources

00:35:34.160 where you delve deeper into this topic

00:35:35.960 well that wraps up another edition of the art of manliness podcast for more manly tips and advice

00:35:52.640 make sure to check out the art of manliness website at artofmanliness.com if you enjoy the show you've got

00:35:57.140 something out of it i'd appreciate if you take one minute to give us a review on itunes or stitcher

00:36:00.900 it helps out a lot and if you've done that already thank you please consider sharing the show with a

00:36:04.940 friend or family member who you think would get something out of it as always thank you for your

00:36:08.660 continued support and until next time this is brett mckay telling you to stay manly

00:36:27.140 so

00:36:29.140 you

00:36:30.900 you

00:36:32.900 you

00:36:34.900 you

00:36:36.900 you

00:36:38.900 you

00:36:40.900 you

The Art of Manliness - December 17, 2018

#467： 3 Big Questions to Help Frantic Families Get on Track

Episode Stats

Summary

Transcript