One Story. One Lesson. One Better Week.
When my son Max was little, there was one phrase he probably got tired of hearing. “Let’s kill the monster while it’s small.”
Today, he says it back to me.
That may be one of the things I’m most proud of.
The funny thing is, it wasn’t my idea.
About forty years ago I took a transformational course that gave us one of the strangest assignments I’d ever heard.
We were told to imagine we were leaving for the moon
- Not for a week.
- Not for a vacation.
- For two years.
- No phone calls.
- No visits.
- No letters.
- No communication of any kind.
- The assignment was simple.
If you only had 30 days before you left, what conversations would you need to have?
Who would you thank?
Who would you forgive?
Who needed to hear that you loved them?
Who deserved an apology?
What had gone unsaid for far too long?
For the next month, that’s exactly what we did.
I still remember how uncomfortable some of those conversations were.
I also remember something else.
Almost every conversation I had dreaded turned out to be far easier than the one I’d rehearsed in my own head.
That’s funny about life.
We create monsters in our imagination that are much bigger than they ever become in reality. A few years later, while working with Tony Robbins, I heard him say something that immediately brought me back to that assignment.
“Kill the monster while it’s small.”
Don’t wait.
Don’t let resentment collect interest.
Don’t let silence write the story for you.
Handle it while it’s still a conversation instead of a crisis.
I’ve tried to live that way ever since.
- Not perfectly.
- Just intentionally.
My wife Julie and I have been together for more than thirty-five years. People sometimes ask us the secret. There isn’t one.
We’ve disagreed plenty.
We’ve frustrated each other.
We’ve said things we’d like to take back.
But we’ve always tried not to let little things become big things. If something feels off, we talk. Sometimes it’s awkward. Sometimes one of us is wrong. Sometimes we’re both wrong. But almost every time we finish the conversation wondering why we waited even a few hours.
Life gets lighter when you stop carrying unnecessary weight.
One of my favorite moments happened not long ago. Max called me after we’d had a small misunderstanding. Before I could say much, he smiled and said,
“Dad… let’s kill the monster while it’s small.”
I laughed. Not because the situation was funny. Because the lesson had become his. It wasn’t something I had taught anymore. It had become part of how he chose to live.
As a parent, that’s about as good as it gets.
The older I get, the more I realize that relationships rarely end because of one big event. More often, they fade from a thousand little things left unresolved.
- An assumption.
- A hurt feeling.
- A missed phone call.
- A conversation we convinced ourselves could wait until tomorrow.
Tomorrow has a way of becoming next month.
Then next year.
Then sometimes… never.
That’s one reason I carry a Memento Mori coin in my pocket every day. It reminds me that life is shorter than we think. Not in a depressing way. In a clarifying way.
If today really mattered…
Who would I call?
What would I say?
What conversation am I avoiding simply because it’s uncomfortable?
I’ve found that the hardest conversations usually lead to the greatest freedom.
This Week’s Thank Goodness It’s Monday Challenge
Think about someone you’ve been meaning to call. Someone you’ve been avoiding.
Maybe you owe them an apology. Maybe they owe you one. Maybe neither of you owes the other anything except an honest conversation.
Don’t wait until the monster grows.
Make the call.
Send the text.
Have the conversation.
You’ll probably discover what I’ve discovered over and over again. The monster was never as big as you imagined.
Until next Monday
Have the conversation.
- Say “I love you.”
- Say “I’m sorry.”
- Say “Thank you.”
Life is too short for undelivered words.
And remember…