Balancing Your Needs And Theirs

[twitter]Being a dad isn’t always about doing what you want to do. Actually, it rarely is. It’s about compromise.

I received a last minute invitation to see Mitch Joel and Gary Vaynerchuk speak today. The invite would mean I would heave the two boys on my wife to take to a busy doctor’s office and would skip an afternoon gymnastics class.

These are two of my favourite social media, marketing and branding guys. They get it. I see a lot of myself in the messages they preach and very often they speak or write about topics I myself have laid out in my media blog, cyberbuzz. I’ve even written about both of them on this site, as each is a father.

So you could say I’m a fanboy.

So I called my wife to start last minute negotiations. Quickly I realized I could juggle half the day, but wouldn’t be able to pull off the whole thing. I could see Mitch, but I would have to skip lunch watching the Italy / Paraguay soccer game and I’d definitely miss Gary’s talk as it was the exact same time as gymnastics.

Gold!So I saw Mitch, was inspired, bought his book, had a quick chat with him and ran off to take Zacharie to class – and it’s a good thing I did: today was the day they handed out the medals.

He takes his gymnastics at a venue home to a few Olympians. There are flags and awards adorning the lobby and so they take “graduation” seriously. A mini podium was set up and each student received a medal.

I didnt watch Gary Vee pump the crowd up and Crush It! I didn’t watch Italy claw back against Paraguay. I watched a 3 year old bounce on a trampoline and win gold.

That’s the best day ever.

 

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3 Comments

  1. henderson June 14, 2010 at 9:39 pm

    Have you seen this film? It gave me a new perspective on putting my son’s needs first, even though his needs are not nearly as demanding as Rowan, the boy in the film, who suffers from autism. nnhttp://www.horseboymovie.com/Book.php

  2. henderson June 14, 2010 at 4:39 pm

    Have you seen this film? It gave me a new perspective on putting my son's needs first, even though his needs are not nearly as demanding as Rowan, the boy in the film, who suffers from autism.

    http://www.horseboymovie.com/Book.php

  3. Pingback: Four Fathers on Father’s Day | DadCAMP

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