My wife Julia and myself.
Sometimes, the hardest thing we have to do is follow our own advice. Live our own teachings. Or, as a past colleague used to say: “Eat our own dog food.” You may recall my blog post a few weeks ago about how important and valuable it is as a leader to smile. Well, to give you some context, that blog post was written more than a month before it was actually posted. The day before it was scheduled to go live, my wife and I had, well–let’s call it a ‘relationship opportunity.’ You know those, right? It’s the opportunity to evolve, to grow in our relationship. Not an argument per se, but a conversation in which my wife was expressing to me what she needed more of from me. It’s the sort of thing all couples go through (I hope). And it ended with a simple plea from my wife. She said, “Steven, smile. Please, smile more, even if you don’t feel like it!” The next day, that blog was posted, though I had long since forgotten about it, and even in the heat of the conversation I failed to recall its content. When Julia saw it, she simply looked at me and said: “Really?! Really?”
I was grateful for my own blog that day–it served as a great reminder that more times than not, we already possess the wisdom we seek. We just forget to use it.
