A LETTER FROM CHRIS SUAREZ
THE SECRET TO SELF-RESPECT
This week has been quiet around the house. The girls flew out on Monday to spend some time with a few friends on Oahu. It was an unexpected invitation that wasn’t on the agenda for this month or this summer, but I knew the girls really wanted to go. So I hopped online and bought three tickets for them to leave a couple weeks later. I bought three tickets, not four. Why didn’t I go?
I love every minute I get to spend with my wife and two little girls. When they are not here the house is way too quiet. There are no messes that I usually look forward to picking up when I get home each day bringing me satisfaction. There is no little girl jumping into my bed at 3am every morning. Even my dog misses them.
But I stayed home. I had already committed to a week of appointments. Appointments with current partners, meetings with future partners, meetings with our team and staff, meetings with clients. Could I have broken every one of those commitments and hopped on a plane? Yes.
But I had not only promised other people I would do something this week, I had promised myself. I had promised myself I would get certain things done this week, and when I do that, I make it a habit of doing it. Am I perfect? Hardly. But I have found when we break even one promise to ourselves, we are more likely to break another, and another, and another. These don’t have to be big promises. It could be as simple as telling yourself you will wake up and get in that workout or run. Telling yourself that you will be at the office by a certain time. Telling yourself you will commit to do an activity that day. Telling yourself you’ll make twenty contacts tomorrow. The promise almost becomes irrelevant. Keeping it is priceless.
Broken promises to ourselves breaches our self-trust equally as much as when a broken promise to a friend or a partner breaks down their trust in you. When we lose trust in someone - including ourselves -our respect begins to slip for that person. So keeping promises by doing what we say we are going to do builds incredible self-respect. Human beings need a dash or two more of respect for self. It will cause us to show up and do what we said we would do. It builds self-confidence and personal commitment.
What have you told yourself you would do countless times, always to allow something else to get in the way? What did you commit to do on Sunday night that never got done Monday through Sunday? What did you say your future self was going to do, that your present self never seems to complete?
So I stayed home. I did it because I had said I would be there. Brendon Burchard calls that knowing “who needs your A-game today.” Some people needed my A-game week. I needed my A-game this week. Of course my family always needs my A-game. But this week, based on the countless photos and FaceTimes’s and video texts, they are definitely living their A-game life on Oahu. I’d like to convince myself that they miss me every minute, but then I watch the videos. I’ll concede for the missing me at moments.
The girls are loving every minute of the mother-daughter time. They are enjoying time with their friends. They have swam, boated, shopped, hiked, ate, shopped some more. They have hit almost every part of that island over the course of this past week. I am looking forward to picking them up at the airport and hugging and kissing them and welcoming them back home. Back home to fill the house with noise, and music, and piano, and laughing, and shouting. Back home to leave messes everywhere for me to pick up after work. Back home as a reminder of what family really is and why I do what I do. I love that they had this experience together and with friends.
Staying home was not about the hustle or the chase of achievement. It was simply about doing what I said I would do. It gives me great purpose to take care of my family, my three girls. There wasn’t guilt this week when I wasn’t there, because of all the times that I am there. I don’t believe relationships are built on quality time. I believe in quantity. They need me to be present always. Not just for the fun and vacations and beaches and photos. The experience they had was made possible by keeping my commitments, keeping my promises, doing things that at times may not be perfectly scheduled, and doing things that are much harder than sitting on North Shore’s Sunset Beach.
Chris Suarez