“Ideas without action aren’t ideas. They’re regrets.” (Jeff Haden, Inc Magazine)

I just spent a few days in Las Vegas with my family. We had a great time — without gambling one cent. Don’t get me wrong; my stance against it is not a moral position, and it’s not because I’m not a gambler. It’s actually quite the opposite — in the real world, I’m a constant gambler.

As an entrepreneur, I’ve gambled my entire net worth and career to get ScreamFree out into the world. As a public speaker, I’m risking this non-profit’s reputation by continually trying out new material.

However, I think my riskiest behavior of all is not as a professional, but rather as a spouse. It’s incredibly risky to open myself up to the one whose opinion matters the most to me. My wife could hurt me emotionally, physically, and financially far more than any other person alive. She could ridicule my attempts to succeed, reject my advances in disgust, and refrain from showing any affection at all. Coming from her, even the slightest smirk or furrowed brow while I’m revealing some vulnerability, could definitely, profoundly, hurt.

So why risk it at all? Because connection isn’t possible without intimacy. And intimacy isn’t possible without vulnerability. And when it comes down to it, I prefer the risk of rejection to the certainty of regret.

“Whenever you make a mistake, admit it. When you don’t, you just make things worse.” (Ward Cleaver)

Regardless of how you feel about the idyllic show Leave it to Beaver, this little nugget of wisdom from the Beav’s dad is worth consideration. Its truth lies in its simplicity. Everything you need to know is right there on the surface.

We may fear coming across as weak to the people under our management, but the opposite usually occurs. It’s actually easier to respect someone who can admit when they’re wrong.

“The love of liberty is the love of others; the love of power is the love of ourselves.” (William Hazlitt)

When people are disrespectful or rude, we can easily lose our cool. We all have the tendency to think the world should bend to our whims, and, when it doesn’t, we can get pretty worked up about it — especially when the rudeness and disrespect comes from people under our authority. Here’s where a slight change in our thinking can make life easier.

We get angry because we take others’ behavior as a personal affront. But this is an opportunity to exercise true leadership. Leadership allows people to be who they are and how they are. Leadership then allows people to see how the world works through natural consequences — without you having to punish others out of anger.

Rudeness and disrespect carry their own consequences — much like sawing against the grain of a piece of wood. Allow people the freedom to learn lessons like this without the haze of hurt feelings clouding your judgment. That’s part of loving the people you lead.

“Never promise more than you can perform.” (Publilius Syrus)

Simple, right? If you promise to take your daughter for ice cream after dinner, you take her for ice cream. She sees that you can be trusted, and all is well in the world.

Of course, it’s a lot easier when what you’ve promised is something fun for both of you. The trick is to follow through on ALL your promises — not just the pleasant ones.

Empty threats are really broken promises. Don’t tell your child (or your spouse or your employees) you’re going to do something and then fail to do it. They might act relieved if you back down from a consequence, but you’re doing them a disservice by confusing things. This will only make the next encounter with discipline that much harder for everyone.

“The palest ink is better than the best memory.” (Chinese Proverb)

My kids have been making fun of me a lot this week. This is not new, for I am frequently their target. What’s new is the subject of their barbs—my fading memory. As I get older, names and events seem to be slipping away at a rapid pace.

It’s not the years, it’s the mileage, I tell them. Mileage gained by raising them.

So, I find myself having to operate as a journalist, noting my way through life with a handy Moleskin journal. While this can be cumbersome, I’m finding an unexpected blessing along the way—how much more present I can be when I’m not worried about forgetting something. I’m listening more, noticing more, reflecting more.

So here’s the advice: Write more, memorize less. You end up detecting things you may have missed—like the time your daughter showed genuine gratitude—and you end up, ironically, remembering things you might never have thought of—like how much you actually enjoy yard work.

Maybe aging has its benefits. Who knew?

“Learning to dislike children at an early age saves a lot of expense and aggravation later in life.”       (Robert Byrne)

This quote is obviously sarcastic, but sarcasm is only funny when it hints at the truth. Mr. Byrne has touched upon the truth that sometimes it’s almost impossible to like your kids. They annoy us, they bug us, they drive us crazy by making dumb decisions and ridiculous requests. And then the next moment, they can crush us with one smile. Byrne’s suggestion is to go ahead and dislike them before they annoy us: in other words, cut ‘em off at the pass, if you will. I actually believe that he’s not far off from the truth. In order to have great balanced, respectful relationships with our kids, we have to be able to rise above the fray. This doesn’t mean dislike them, per say. But it does mean that we should let go of the need for them to perform or behave for our sake. They are the kids; we are the grownups. They need us to not need them.

“Success is the ability to go from one failure to another with no loss of enthusiasm.” (Sir Winston Churchill)

“Do not pray for an easy life, pray for the strength to endure a difficult one.” (Bruce Lee)

Take this moment, and thank the heavens for all the difficult moments you’ve already gone through this year. Maybe you’ve had a boss redress you in plain view. Maybe you’ve had a child get bullied, and watched the school turn a blind eye. Maybe your spouse has literally turned you a cold shoulder in bed, just when you thought things were warming up.

Maybe, like me, you’ve recently buried a dear friend.

For all of this difficulty, be bold, and a bit ridiculous, and give thanks to the universe, God, or whatever. Dare to offer up gratitude for the hard things, because in your heart of hearts you know that these are the moments that make you most alive. Enduring them is what makes you truly strong. This is not necessarily because of what you learned from these difficult moments, but simply because you outlasted them.

Go ahead and enjoy the easy victories — I hope you have some of those as well. But remember that there is usually more value in the struggle to survive. Sometimes, perseverance is its own reward.

“Anger is the feeling that makes your mouth work faster than your mind.” (Evan Esar)

A mind is a hard thing to keep up with. Minds wander. They daydream. They calculate far more quickly than we can even fathom. But when we get angry, our minds have a tendency to check out and take a backseat to our mouths.

Maybe that’s precisely the time when our mouths ought to mind our minds. Maybe clamming up is the best idea when we get angry.

Perhaps the next time anger wells up inside and your mouth wants to erupt, you should just stop. Zip it. Shush. Not forever, but just long enough to push the pause button so you can make sure that what you say is what you really want to say and what you do is really what you want to do.

“Acceptance is not submission. It is acknowledgement of the facts of a situation, and then deciding what you’re going to do with it. ” (Kathleen Casey Theisen)

There is the way things are, and there is the way things ought to be. We understand this when we look at the state of our world, the state of our workplace, the state of our homes, the state of our own hearts. Things are not always the way we wish they were.

So, what are we to do about this?

You could refuse to acknowledge the truth. Just pretend things are better than they are. Put on your rose-colored glasses, and lie to yourself and everyone around you. That’s one option.

You could acknowledge a part of the truth. Focus exclusively on how bad things are until you throw your hands in the air and give up. That’s an option, too.

But neither of those will get you what you want. The only way forward is to recognize where you are, acknowledge the gap between where you are and where you want to be. Only then can you begin to strategize ways to make things better. Mind the gap, and then you can close it.