Leadership / Learning / Parenting / Joy

Leadership Moment — 10 Dec 21

Sometimes my kids teach me . . .

Mark McMillion
2 min readDec 10, 2021

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GIF courtesy of https://gifer.com/en/23hR

My wife and I have four kids, two of each kind. By that of course, I mean we have two athletes and two non-athletes. One of the athletes and I watch lots of sports together. Something he’s used to hearing is my old man derision at players’ celebrations after big plays (those yahoos acting the fool out there, they ought to cut that crap out and just play ball). He loves it when I say “yahoos” because it’s like, the most old-guy word I use.

We were watching Ted Lasso the other night, a fictional TV on the fruit streaming service. Yes, I know there’s a ridiculous amount of profanity in it and the f-bombs fall like a B52 Arc Light strike. Arc Light explanation.

But there’s some great stuff in there as well after you scrape the muck words off.

We were watching a scene of the footballers (okay, they’re soccer players) when a player who’d been like a wigwam and a teepee (two tense) made a great play and celebrated wildly. My son said, “See, Dad, that’s what you don’t get, that guy just feels so good. His celebration isn’t about rubbing in the other team’s face; he just can’t hold it in.”

Bam! The boy dropped a truth bomb on the old man. Target hit. Take a breath old guy, let the players play.

Sometimes we can be too professional, too business-like. Sometimes we need to let that joy out and revel in the moment..

I’m still not sure about the rehearsed and choreographed stuff you see in the NFL though . . .

That was my leadership moment today.

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Mark McMillion

Retired Army officer with two tours in Baghdad, married with four kids. Proud West Virginian and West Point grad. Works available on Amazon.