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Success story is a Square partner now your favorite neighborhood spots run on Square. You know, I was just at Panther Coffee here in Miami last week. And beyond the incredible cortado, what struck me was watching them seamlessly handle the morning rush. The barista mentioned they've been using Square to manage everything from inventory to building their loyal customer base. It's so much more than just that little white card reader that we all recognize. Square knows that local businesses can be big businesses. And as things get more complex, Square meets you at every opportunity. So whether or not you're expanding to new locations, building a loyal following, even covering cash flow gaps, Square's powering all the behind the scenes stuff that matters. They knock out today's to dos and they unlock tomorrow's what ifs. If you're ready to see how Square can transform your business, go to square.comgosuccess to learn more. That's square.comgosuccess square meet you there.

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Signal subject to change in this lessons episode we're talking about all those hours that you spend doing things you hate. The soul crushing jobs, the endless kids sports practices, the networking events, the committee meetings, the social obligations that you dread. If you are constantly sacrificing what you want to do for what you think you should do. If your weeks are full of activities that you are just enduring instead of actually living a life that you enjoy, this one's for you. You are screwing your kids up on top of screwing your own life up. Going to show you why your kids can tell when you're dead inside what you're actually teaching them about adulthood and how to stop modeling a life that you hate and start turning life into something you enjoy, not just survive. Watch the parents at any kids soccer game this weekend. Half are on their phones, another quarter are gossiping about work. The rest are staring dead eyed at the field, mentally calculating if they have time to hit Costco right after this. And the worst part is the kids see it all. Not that you're distracted. They see that you're dead inside that you are enduring the game, not living. That sitting in those bleachers at 7am, it's killing you slowly. See, when dad checks email during the game, the kid sees it and the kid knows that dad would rather be anywhere else. When mom is fake smiling through another tournament that she rather not be at, the kid understands that love means pretending. And when parents stand there dead inside pretending to care, the kid learns that this is what adulthood looks like. See, this is a truth that should terrify every parent. Children are emotional mirrors. They don't feel what you say, they feel what you feel. And if you feel that when you sit in Those bleachers at 7am you are dead inside. Your kid knows it, their body knows it. And they're learning that love and life means dying slowly in public while pretending everyone else is fine. And this isn't good enough. This isn't acceptable. Being an adult does not mean that you have to hate your life. But if you don't work on yourself, this is what you're showing your kids. We have convinced ourselves that to be a good parent we have to sacrifice everything, right? That love is measured in hours logged at practices or dollars spent on equipment or weekends. Surrender to tournaments or any of the other million different hobbies and pastimes and extracurriculars that kids can do. So we sit in these stands and we're dead inside, scrolling on our phones, gossiping with the other dead parents, pretending that this is what love looks like. But this is what I wish more parents understood. Your kids don't need more activities. They don't need more gifts. And honestly, they're probably getting lots of love. What they need is to see you living a life worth living, really living a life worth copying. Because right now, if you are just going through the motions, you are just showing them some cautionary tale that growing up sucks. And it doesn't have to. You want to understand what you're actually showing your kids? Do this exercise. It's going to ruin your week. But it's important. For the next seven days, track your hours in two columns. Alive hours and dead hours. So alive hours would be hours where you feel genuinely energized and present and chosen and just living and doing things that you enjoy. And then dead hours would be hours when you are just enduring and scrolling and just counting the minutes until it's over. And I want you to include everything, anything. So the commute to practice, dead. The tournament weekend, dead. The networking dinner, dead. The gym class you actually love. That's an Alive hour. The coffee with your friend, alive. The book before bed alive. Okay, what you're going to discover is that you are modeling 70 plus dead hours per week. 70 plus hours that you hate. Whatever it is you're doing, you're modeling that to your kids. And that is 70 hours of teaching your kids that adulthood is a prison sentence. 70 hours of showing them that love means endurance and 70 hours of programming them to expect misery. Your kids are watching and they're not learning what you think they're learning. They're not learning dedication. They're learning that adults are zombies. They're not learning commitment. They're learning that marriage means two people always fight and never see each other. They're not learning love. They're learning that having kids means your life ends. But newsflash, it doesn't. Here's a different way to live life. Here's a different way to model how to be an adult. My dad coached my hockey team for 10 years. But here's what made him different. He. He didn't do it for me. He did it because he loved hockey. Every practice he'd be on the ice an hour early, working on his own game, running drills with his beer league buddy, still trying to perfect his slapshot at 45. And when practice started, he wasn't teaching us hockey. He was sharing his religion. The way he talked about the conditioning work, the joy when someone finally got a play right. The way he'd demonstrate a drill. And you could see that he forgot he was coaching. He was just lost in the pure pleasure of the moment. And other kids, parents, they sat in the stands, were miserable. They were counting the minutes. And my dad was on the ice, alive. So his alive hours that week, probably 15. Just from hockey, plus his work that he loved, plus his Thursday poker game that he loved, plus his Saturday morning pond hockey before my game. So he was modeling 40 plus alive hours per week doing things that he actually enjoyed. And that's what I absorbed. Not that adults sacrifice, but that adults play, adults live. See, I learned that adults are allowed to want things. Parents are allowed to choose themselves. Themselves. And sometimes showing your kid what it looks like to honor your own dreams is the best coaching you can do. My mom was the same with the outdoors. She'd wake up at 5am on Saturdays and just love to hike and love to snowshoe and love to do anything outside. And she did it on Wednesdays and Sundays and random Tuesday evenings. And the mountains, the forest, the trails, those were her life. She'd take a snowshoeing and spend half the time looking at birds or identifying these animal tracks. And it, I guess a little bit was for education, but not really for our education because she genuinely needed to know what made those prints. She loved it. She'd stop mid hike, she'd pull out her plant identification book, totally absorbed, basically forgetting that we were even there. So her alive hours were off the charts. Every sunrise hike, every camping trip, every moment that she spent plotting the next adventure. And we absorbed that energy. Me and my brother, we loved the outdoors growing up. But more than loving the outdoors, I loved that she was doing what she loved to do. See, kids whose parents have lives are more secure, not less. They don't wonder if they're enough to make you happy because they know that the parents happiness comes from all these different sources. They don't carry the burden of being your entire world. They're just a part of a rich life. And they don't feel guilty about growing up and leaving because they know you're the parent, you've had a great life, you love what you love, you're going to be fine. And they get something better than a parent who never misses a game. They get a parent who shows them what a life worth living looks like. So this is a lesson to you, to the parent, to the parent who's just existing through life. Because hey, it's a job I have. It's, you know, I have to do this, I have to do that. I'm not saying blow up your life overnight and quit your job and never go to another tournament. I'm just saying that start moving towards the direction of enjoying your life, enjoying your hobbies, enjoying your work, enjoying your spouse. Because what your kids actually need to see is you excited about Tuesday because your thing is Tuesday, you and your spouse kissing in the kitchen, not performing happiness, but actually being happy. Your kids need to see you say no to something without explaining yourself to death. They have to see you working on something hard because you want to get better at it. They have to see you protecting time that's just yours, like it's sacred, because it is. They have to see you having friends who knew you before you were someone's parent. They have to see you reading a book in the middle of the day to dancing to music that they think is ancient, to you starting something new at 40 and 50 and 60, to you choosing alive over dead even when it's inconvenient. And to you modeling that life, it is worth living. This isn't about being a different parent. It's about choosing to be alive. So I want you to start small this week. Add one thing that makes you feel electric, that lights you up. Not for your kids, not for your spouse. Do it for you. It could be a morning run. It could be lunch with that friend who makes you laugh until you can't breathe. It could be a hobby you haven't touched in years. It could be a class that you keep saying you'll take. And then look at your dead hours. Look at the things that you really hate doing. And pick one that is truly optional. The committee you hate. The book club that you hate. The standing coffee with somebody who drains you the favor you do every week that no one actually needs. Cancel it this week. Right now. Not after the holidays. Right now. The goal isn't to abandon your responsibilities. It's to stop treating every obligation like a life sentence. Look at everything through this lens. Can this become alive? Can I bring something I love into this? Can I shift how I do this? If not, if it's truly, irredeemably dead, can I kill it? And slowly and deliberately, you're going to start choosing alive over dead whenever you have the choice. And your kids will notice. They won't notice what you're skipping. They'll notice what you're choosing. They'll see you protecting your morning workout. Like it matters. They'll hear you laugh on the phone with your friends. They'll watch you say no to things without apologizing for just existing. They'll catch you doing something badly and loving it anyways. They'll see you building a life that doesn't require escape. And they'll learn that adults get to want things. That marriage can include two people with their own interests who choose to come together. That having kids doesn't mean your life ends. It means showing them what a life looks like, a good life looks like. Remember, your kids are keeping score. Not of your attendance at their tournaments, but of your aliveness. And for most of us, right now, we're losing. Your kid won't remember the activities. They will remember that you look trapped. That you're living a life that looks like hell. That you are showing them that being an adult means your life is over and it doesn't have to be. Choose things that light you up. Choose things that make you feel alive. Choose things that show your kids what living a true, good, fulfilled life actually is. Foreign Think big, buy small is a success story. Partner. Now, if you love hearing from bold entrepreneurs and leaders who carve their own paths, you'll definitely want to Check out Think Big Buy Small. It's back for a brand new season. It's one of my favorite shows. Think Big Buy Small is the chart topping entrepreneurship podcast from Harvard Business School. The show explores an innovative approach to business leadership. It's called Acquisition Entrepreneurship. That's where you buy a profitable small business and then you become the CEO rather than trying to start a business from scratch. If you need somewhere to start, check out their Season 3 debut episode with Ensemble Performing Arts CEO and Harvard alum Jeff Homer. In the conversation, you're going to follow Jeff's journey through the search process all the way through to building up a sizable business, which is interesting because this all began as a passion project for him. So don't miss out. Follow Think Big Buy Small on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or wherever you're listening now. Monarch Money Is a Success Story. Partner now. You know it's weird. 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