© The John Maxwell Company
I am a big fan of John Maxwell’s timeless leadership book, “22 Irrefutable Laws of Leadership.”
For those of you not familiar with John Maxwell, he has been one of the most in demand authorities on leadership for over 20 years.
Being in the business world, I have been through multiple leadership trainings. And it started to dawn on me that much of what I was learning was also applicable to my role as the leader of my home.
And this is one of the best books on leadership basics which we can apply to our roles as fathers.
I hope this inspires you to positive action with your sons!
Your commitment to planning and organizing your time to prepare your son for manhood, then consistently carrying out those plans, will be the key to your effectiveness as a father.
To quote the movie Courageous, “I don’t want to be a good enough father,…”
If that’s all you’re shooting for, you’re in the wrong place!
My goal is to help fathers realize the ball has been dropped in so many households and in so many ways, and we as fathers need to break that cycle. The lack of strong fathers that commit to teach their sons how to be honorable men in a society filled with “old boys”is a main reason why we see so much recklessness, confusion, and apathy around us.
The great reality is this, it doesn’t take that much to really break the cycle of complacency and impotence we see in so many fathers.
We need a plan – a good one.
One we can be confident will give our sons the best chance at becoming a man of honor, worthy of respect because he doesn’t spend his life self-focused on satisfying his own pleasures and ignoring his responsibilities.
Dads, that’s our job.
And to teach this, we must first take inventory of ourselves.
If our sons see hypocrisy in our lives, our teaching will become empty words.
We can do it, but it all starts with a plan.
- Are you ready?
- Can you sacrifice some of your own pleasure to give your son what he needs?
- Will you commit to being a father that is present, available, and ready to teach his son with confidence?
If you didn’t get this kind of preparation from your father, don’t worry. Most men in the last 100 years haven’t. (‘Why not’ is a much longer story for another time.)
The good news is, if you’re like me and didn’t receive training as a young man, it doesn’t matter.
We start now.
And we will be driven by the goal of giving our sons this much needed and wonderful gift!
Something to consider: you’re not preparing your son to be ‘as good as you are,’ you’re preparing him to be BETTER than you are.
Tell him that often so he understands the context of your discussions, and why they are so important to his growth!
I hope you find this thought-provoking in a way that leads to positive action with your sons!
They deserve it.