“But it ain’t about how hard ya hit.
It’s about how hard you can get hit and keep moving forward.
How much you can take and keep moving forward
Rocky Balboa – “Rocky V”
Parents voices echo in their children’s head forever. I have no scientific study to back me up, but I do have a lifetime of hearing voices in my head to verify this truth. I don’t think I’m alone in experiencing this phenomenon. I have read about it and see it in hundreds of films. There is something very universal about these voices and therein lies great power.
I had a wonderful experience with my daughter many years ago. She when to the movies on a date and saw “Ocean’s Eleven.” It was filled Hollywood’s most attractive leading men – Brad Pitt, George Clooney and the like. When she came home she told me “Dad, as I watched the movie, I kept hearing your voice in my head. Be critical when you watch movies. Are these people doing good things? Are they stealing and are they hurting other people. It was a fun movie, but I kept hearing your voice in my head.” Wait, what?! While my teenage daughter was looking at Brad Pitt and George Clooney on the screen, she was hearing my voice about people doing good things or bad things? I was blown away. She was listening to me all those years! I bet you bottom dollar that she still hears a few of my words today streaming something.
I was working out with weights as a teenager and my dad told me “It’s not the first 15 reps that count. It’s the last five. When you are really hurting, when you really want to stop – that is when you build muscles here (pointing to my bicep) and here (point to my head).” I hear that voice in my head today when I am struggling hard to finish the last five miles of 100 mile bike ride or writing the twentieth “How To” document for huge project at work. His voice will always be in my head. He continues to motivate me and help me today. That is the enormous power of a parents voice.
You have that power when you write it down in your letter. Those words will echo for years and years. Stories about overcoming great difficulties will be used as inspirational fuel for years and years. There is a great natural power to parent’s and grandparent’s words to drop deep into the mind and memories of children and grandchildren. They will become a trusted tool. A mental tool that can help them when they need it. It can help them when they need a reality check, when they depressed after failing, when they looking for answers about life, when they are frustrated at work and when they think they are too tired to go on. Your words and your stories can help them.
Encourage your children and grandchildren to create and repeat words of truth, strength and encouragement. Tell them that it will work. That inspire of the fact that it seems like words are lost on children like water running down a duck’s back, that they do indeed stick. They hear you. The words sink in. Maybe not all of them and maybe it takes 400 times, but they do sink in.
My oldest son repeats these words to his daughter every night, “You are strong. You are smart. You are brave. You can do anything.” She is only four years old now, but he has repeated those words hundreds and hundreds of times to her just before she goes to sleep. Day after day after day. My son has built a Greek temple in his daughter’s mind. There are four massive Iconic pillars holding up the front facade triangle based on the golden ratio. At the base of each pillar are words chiseled in stone and chiseled into my granddaughters heart and soul, “You are strong. You are smart. You are brave. You can do anything.” Life is going to be hard for my granddaughter at times. But when those times come, she has strong, ancient and beautiful temple she can enter in her mind that will fortify her and encourage her. She will hear her father’s messages echoing in her head.