What Do You Look At?

I happened to be watching a parent drop off their student the other day when I noticed something that made me pause. The student went on their way as usual, but the parent paused for a brief second to look at them as they walked away. You know what look I’m talking about I’m talking about. In that second, the look on the parent’s face conveyed more caring and love for that child then any amount of words possibly could.

It made me recall an aspect of a book I am currently reading. Empower by John Spencer and A.J. Juliani quotes Tom Murray when it states; “Every child in your class is someone else’s whole world.” In fact, it made me think about last weeks message concerning focusing on how to be successful rather than worrying about how not to fail. I give a personal example in the video below of how I made this mistake with my son and needed to hear that by another person.

This is all because as a society we fall into the trap of being so focused on the end result that we forget the process. Or more importantly, the people in the process. Add to this the inclination to always look for or noticing the negative in situations and we can damage important relationships. Even though most of us preach the importance of building positive relationships; few of us actually intentionally set aside time to structure positive experiences with those who are important to us? Presence reigns in this world of fast paced, results driven world if building quality relationships is your goal.

A receiver can make 8 out of 10 catches and we talk about the two he or she dropped. A team can win 9 games on the season and the big question is what happened to make them lose. Or as in my personal example in the video, a student can have all “A”s and we focus on the one missed assignment because it is an “F”.

The overall message is that we need to focus on:

succeeding rather than not failing
the process rather than the end product
the positive rather than the negative

I want to challenge you. Be intentional about focusing on the person instead of the result; the positive instead of the negative; and the actual overall relationship over the course of the next week. Start with a week and then move to longer periods of time. After all, when is the last time you will be able to give that special person that look?

Take time to: