About half way through my walk, when I was already going at a good pace and feeling pretty pumped, I saw a young Chinese woman leaving one of the houses and saying goodbye to a young man standing on the doorstep.

Suddenly, the young woman noticed a bus at a stop about 200 meters away. She became visibly uptight, her pitch rose and she looked like she was asking the young man what to do (as I do not speak Chinese, this is all my interpretation).

The man gestured towards the bus and looked like he was urging the woman to run for it and try to catch it. She kept pleading with him until he joined her and they started running toward the bus stop.

By the time they decided to run and crossed the street, I had been half way to the bus and it was still there. There were no passengers in sight, its doors were closed and it kept waiting.

I looked over at the young couple running on the other side of the street. She was running half-heartedly, as if she thought the bus would surely drive away before she caught it. He was just running alongside her, slowing himself down to her pace to support her all the way.

About 30 meters before they reached the bus stop, the bus pulled out onto the road and drove away. By then, nearly 2 minutes had passed and would have caught the bus easily.

This was someone else’s business until Eden came home from the university in the evening and told me another bus story (Coincidence? Serendipity? Quantum attraction?).

Eden’s Philosophy class typically ends at 8:50pm, after which she walks to the bus station and catches the bus home. That evening, the class ran a bit longer and only finished around 9:10pm.

As she was walking towards the bus station, Eden saw her bus already standing there. She said to her friend, “Hey, that’s my bus”.

Her friend said to her, “Go ahead and catch it”.

“Will you be OK?” asked Eden, because it was that time of night.

“Sure”, said her friend, “Go for it”.

Eden sprinted towards the bus and reached it panting heavily. As she got on, the driver smiled at her and said, “You’re lucky you caught me. This is the last bus for today”.

Eden had not known it, but the buses are scheduled according to the normal end time of class, 8:50pm, which leaves plenty of time for the students to make it to the station and board their bus home. Still, when she saw the bus, she ran for it with everything she had.

The way I see it, this sums up very nicely the difference between winners and losers and presents a lesson every parent should be teaching every child repeatedly:

Nobody knows for sure what will happen in the future.

Losers live their life as if they have already lost and give up.

Winners live as if they are certain to win and give life all they’ve got

On a personal note, I was happy my own daughter was showing winning attitude. I would like to believe she got it from Ronit and me, but what I told her was, “Eden, it’s funny you’ve told me this story. Do you know what happened this morning?” And I told her about the other young woman.

If there had been even the slightest doubt in her mind that evening when she had decided to run for the bus, I hope my story helped her choose to give life all she has got every time.

Have a winning day,
Gal

Reality is a bit different, unfortunately. Most of our information feeds are controlled by a fairly small group of huge profit-driven conglomerates, which make their money by selling. To sell well, they need people to “see red”, so they inspire fear via TV news broadcasts, bold newspaper headlines and various other methods.

The result of this is the general view that violent crime is everywhere, that different people cannot live together in harmony and that all too often, the only way to sort things out is to wage war on another ethnic group or country, even at the cost of “friendly” life.

Ronit and I have lived with our kids in a number of places around the world, where there were different cultures, different languages, different food and different climates. We have lived in Arlington Texas and Sunnyvale California in the USA. We have lived in Thailand and in Singapore. We have lived in Israel and in 2 big cities in Australia. We also traveled to many places, including Mexico, France, Philippines, Korea and China.

When we arrived in each one of these places, we naturally focused on the things that were unfamiliar and strange to us, because we needed to get used to them in order to be able to live comfortably. We noticed the local clothing, the local rules of driving, the style of the local buildings, the local manners and the local money.

But after a while, once we have settled in, all we could see was people – human beings, just like us, who get up in the morning, work for a living, have a family, care for their elders and sometimes struggle with life’s mysterious ways. We noticed couples holding hands and smiling at each other, kids running around screaming with excitement and parents looking worried when their child climbed too high or went too far away. We heard complaints about parking being hard to find, the ever rising price of fuel, the unpredictable economy and the distrust of politics. We saw women searching frantically for something in their purse and men panicking as they notice the time. We joined families as they watched big shows and played in the playground.

Everywhere we went, we saw good people.

Now, some people find it hard to spot the good people and I think I know why. You see, by design, our brains interprets anything that looks, sounds or feels like us as trustworthy and good, because it affirms us. By the same design, we become suspicious of things that look, sound or feel different to us.

The problem is there are sometimes obvious things that look different, while the similarities are harder to find and require effort.

One of the things I have said to many people many times is this:

The more you know about another person, the harder it is to judge them. If you knew everything about them, everything they did would seem like the best thing to do and the obvious choice. Being them, you would do exactly what they do

Ronit and I have immersed ourselves and our kids in other cultures and gradually understood more and more of their customs. People who live in the same culture all their life (especially in the same place) and receive filtered information about other groups and other places are not likely to find that understanding. When they bump into people who do things differently to their local custom, they suspect them and protect themselves against their influence.

In many places in Europe, the population is rapidly becoming heterogeneous, especially since the Soviet Union was dissolved and the European Union was established. In the USA, over 1.1 million people became permanent residents in 2008 alone and over 4.4 million from 2005 to 2008.

Australia is a country of immigrants. Of nearly 24 million residents, over 4.4 million (18.3% of the population) were born outside of Australia, mostly from non-English speaking countries. In 2008, 1½ times more people were added to the population of Australia through immigration than through birth. Looking back 3 generations, most of the Australian population came from somewhere else and many still retain their original culture to some extent.

Lots of people now work with colleagues in other countries. Many serve clients in other countries or purchase from suppliers in other countries. Unfortunately, not a small number of people have lost their jobs to people in other countries.

It is becoming increasingly difficult to “stick to your own”, isn’t it? If you think about it, it is going to be far more difficult for your kids!

So what can you do?

Whenever we go out to events with a large crowd, I like to play a little game with myself (if you are smiling to yourself now, please stop it and stay focused). I choose a person, a couple or a family and make up a story about them. I watch them for a while as they move around, touch things, speak, gesture and interact with other people. Then, I imagine what it might be like to be them.

When I see a couple with stern faces who hardly talk to each other, I imagine how they got up in the morning and had a fight. When I see a little girl crying and her father comforting her, I imagine she fell and got hurt or wanted to buy something and was disappointed.

I ask myself, “What may have happened for this person to behave like this?” I try to put myself in their shoes, or rather their emotional state, sometimes by matching their body language or facial expression. I try to BE them for a second.

Some of these people are black, some are Muslim, some are Asian, some are big, some are thin, some are short, some are sunburned, some wear sandals, some wear fancy hats, some are old and some are bound to a wheelchair. I really don’t care.

To me, they are all people. Good people.

In my imagination, they feel scared, they feel happy, they worry about their relationship with their spouse or their all-of-a-sudden opinionated teenager walking around looking too inviting, they give up chatting with a friend to push their toddler on the swing, they wonder what others might be thinking about them and are surprised when a stranger (guess who) smiles at them a big smile of understanding and identification.

Often, I share my stories with Ronit and the kids. I think it is important for my kids to see good people, because they are everywhere, but they are so easy to miss. I believe that for our world to be a good place for my kids to live, they have to see the good people in it and in doing so, they will become good people too.

What about you?

Gal

Problems are not stop signs, they are guidelines
- Robert Schuller

When I write about life lessons, I think that every experience in life can be somehow written as a lesson. It is almost as if everything that happens to us is meant to teach us a lesson that will guide us on our way forward.

The word “lesson” makes most people see themselves sitting in a class with a teacher talking at the front. Many times, it brings up extra homework and fear about being tested on subjects learned. What a shame, because life is a long lesson, with lots of work (at home and outside of home) and daily tests!

Believe it or not, about 20 years ago, I managed to get a group of kids (1½ to 4 years old) to think that life can become a great lesson if only we ask the right question. For them, there were no failures in life, only opportunities to learn. They were so young and uncorrupted by life’s heartaches, I could convince them to think whatever I wanted, so I did!

Later on, I traveled around the world with my program and realized that our perception of life depends on our definition of happiness, knowledge, curiosity, success and failure.

What have I learned today?

If you want to know how those kids felt, look at every experience as fun and learning. Instead of asking “How was it?” ask “What have I learned from it?” Try this every day before going to sleep and allow your mind to extract the learning from the events, thoughts and emotions of the day.

We learn many things all day, every day. Writing down your learnings is a good way to remember them better. Keep a notepad next to your bed and write down your answers to the question “What have I learned today?”

Today, I want to share with you (some of) my notes from this month. I wrote them on notepads not only next to my bed but in the car, in my bag and in my diary. I hope my notes contain some useful learnings for you too:

1. Every time my son (Tsoof) performed, every time he wrote music, every time he played his guitar or practiced for his big audition, I learned that pride and satisfaction are my rewards for waiting such a long time for him to be born.
2. When I went to give a talk at the festival my daughter (Eden) helped organize, everyone came to me and told me “You have the most wonderful daughter in the world”. I learned that, although I did not need other people to tell me that, it made me feel so proud!
3. When I went this month to meet the teacher of my youngest daughter (Noff), I discovered her class would not have enough time to cover all the required material for the national exam and I learned (again) that the responsibility for my kids’ education was, is and will always be mine.
4. At the same meeting, the teacher asked me if we were coming to see Noff dancing with all the year level and I said “Of course!” She said she wanted to make sure, because Noff would receive a special dance award. I learned that she asked it because many parents just don’t come. We would have gone anyway.
5. After discovering my husband (Gal) had a skin cancer and having a stressful month, I learned (again) the importance of emotional strength and good attitude. I learned (again) that life throws many tests at us and we are much stronger than we think we are. Every time we get up in the morning, we have passed that test.
6. During the surgery, time in the hospital, doctors and more doctors, I learned to appreciate the value of health insurance. Thank God money was not an item on our worries list.
7. While Gal was recovering from his surgery and friends came over, I learned how important it is to have friends and how valuable they are in times of joy, but also times of trouble.
8. Every second I worked with “Together for Humanity” to promote living in harmony, I learned how much I love being around kids. I learned they give me strength and I love them so much, I probably get from them more than I give them.
9. This month, we met a new family. They came over for dinner and we had a wonderful time together. I learned that I love meeting new people. I had a chance to meet so many new people this year, it has made me very happy.
10. Both of my sisters were pregnant. One was in hospital for more than 8 weeks, counting hours and days to keep her precious pregnancy and avoid having a premature baby. The other was suffering pain and sleepless nights and considered herself lucky. I learned that when I see someone going through bad things, it makes it easier to pass my own tests.
11. I learned that worrying about my sisters from far away makes me feel helpless and I am not very good with feeling helpless. How can I help if I feel so helpless? I need help myself!
12. In over two months of worrying about my sisters, I learned that my own scars never disappear. I could feel the tension building up in me and all the demons ran loose again. I needed to meditate a lot!
13. I learned that being on Skype two to three times a day with my sisters makes me miss them badly and questions (again) my decision to live on the other side of the world from them.
14. After a year of not using our Jacuzzi, we wrote the yearly goals with the kids and Eden wrote she would love to fix the Jacuzzi and use it more often. With her encouragement, we did! We used it move than 10 times in the last 2 months. Now, every time we do this, Tsoof brings his guitar and plays and we sing and we are so happy, so I learned that asking the kids to share their goals and desires with us contributes a lot to our relationship as a family.
15. This month, Gal and I decided to buy Tsoof a music editing program and to hide it from him until we got it from overseas. I learned that it is very hard for me to keep a secret, but it was well worth it just to see his reaction when we showed him our gift.
16. It took me over 3 weeks to organize a professional development training day, but it was very, very successful so I learned that I’m really good at this!
17. I did a presentation about acceptance and stereotyping at the Ideas Festival in Brisbane for 220 kids with two of my team members. The kids were so cooperative I learned that my work helps me live my purpose of making a difference every day. I learned (again) that education is a great way to make a making difference.
18. I managed to tell jokes on stage at the Ideas Festival and I hoped my kids could hear me. They think (and I agree) that I am not funny at all. I learned that I can be.
19. I received a notice about fees for my kids’ activities at school. I compared what I needed to pay to how happy my kids were at those activities and I learned that I am lucky and happy to be able to allow them to experience so many wonderful programs at school.
20. My laptop is now one year old. This month, I discovered it cannot burn CDs (though it should be able too), but since I had never tried, I did not know how long it had been like that. I learned that, I need to use all the functions of everything I buy in the first month.
21. Just planning our camping for the school break made me so happy I have learned that looking forward to something fun can be a great motivator.
22. Every time I get into the laundry room and look at the shelf unit we have built, which makes the room look so clean and organized, I am happy and proud. From the long quest to organize the laundry room, including attempts to paint the doors, bring in another closet and use a screen wall, I learned that trying one more time and then one more time is the right way to find solutions.
23. When I sat next to a group of people talking about the hassles of having the kids at home during school break, I learned that, although there are challenges to working at home, it provides the huge advantage of looking forward to spending time differently with your kids during the holidays.
24. We watched our kids’ videos from 11 and 19 years ago, which showed the kids themselves, as well as their little sister, what they were like as young kids. I learned (again) the importance of making videos of your kids. The memories of every smart thing they did and their first words do fade and videos are a great way to bring them back to life. I also learned that it was an awesome experience for 7-year-old Noff to see her siblings, who are 7 and 12 years old older than her, in diapers, taking their first walking steps.
25. One of my sisters’ friends, who is 38 years old, decided to have a baby without a partner. Her family is not talking to her and her siblings and mom keep minimal contact with her for fear of her dad’s anger. She asked her mom to come and help her after the birth and her baby, but her mom said she could not come. When my mom heard this, she called my sister’s friend and told her she would come for the first few days and help her out. I learned that my mom, who is 70 years old, has a heart of gold (and I am so happy).
26. This month, I finished writing my best book yet, called “Reflections”. It is a book I have been writing for over 25 years. When I signed it with a sense of achievement and accomplishment, I learned the importance of allowing myself time to grow and evolve. I learned that some of my lifelong projects require purpose and persistence and that in hindsight, everything that happened to me, good or bad, contributes to my life story.
27. From reading the many supporting comments on “Family Matters“, I learned that making an effort to write and share every day is certainly worth it!

My learning list for this month was as big as the one from last month and I learned that my learnings are the result of the challenges, successes and joys I experience. To survive a challenge, I ask myself “What can I learn from this?” To maintain and leverage success, I ask myself “What can I learn from this?”

Not everything in life is beautiful and easy, but everything holds a lesson – a message of encouragement or a warning. When circumstances speak, all you have to do is listen.

Until next time, I wish you great, empowering lessons.

Be happy,
Ronit

Now, my own 3 kids are a source of pure joy and pride for me and, being an experienced father and a parenting coach, I felt I needed to say something to make him feel easier.

So I traveled back in my head to one of my favorite moments in time, when the paediatrician finished examining my first born, wrapped her up snuggly in her first-ever clothes and handed her to me. There I was, dreading the huge responsibility for a totally helpless human being, worried sick about my best friend, who was being stitched up from her C-section operation, and exhausted from 30 hours of labor.

I reached out, held the little bundle in my arms and brought her close to my chest. Her warmth spread through my body and suddenly, everything was alright. Not knowing what the world is like, not being able to do even the simplest things, my new daughter has the amazing ability to make everything right just be being there.

I looked at her, tears welling up in my eyes, and said, “You know, I don’t know you yet, but already I love you so much” (here I go dropping a tear again as I write – sniff, sniff).

So I told the young man this, “Let me make parenting really simple for you. If something could be dangerous, don’t do it. Stop and ask someone. If it isn’t dangerous, go ahead and do it and then see what happens. More than anything, remember that your kid will need your love in order to grow. She (he is having a daughter too) will do the rest, so be guided by her responses”.

He relaxed and smiled.