Today’s newsletter will be fairly short. I decided to write it based on Rudyard Kipling’s timeless poem ” If.”
I am still trying to figure out how I made it through most of my adult life without knowing about this poem.
I found it by chance while reading other people’s posts on the X platform. After reading something like this, I have become slightly discouraged with my writing ability. Joking aside, in a few short paragraphs, this poem covers most of the stuff I talk about in my X posts and newsletters.
“If” offers advice that is universally applicable. It guides us to navigate life with integrity, resilience, and self-mastery. It underscores that mastering these virtues leads to personal fulfillment and success, a message that resonates with all of us.
Every young boy should have this poem hanging in his room. I have actually just ordered a couple of frames to hang this in my kids’ rooms.
This poem is a must-read for not only the young men in your family but anyone looking for advice on navigating life with integrity, resilience, and self-mastery. It provides guidance on how to remain composed and balanced through various challenges. It is a quick introduction to being disciplined.
Self-control and Patience. This is something every young person struggles with. Kipling’s poem emphasizes the importance of staying calm in difficult situations. You have to be patient and not let your emotions take control when things do not go your way. We all struggle with patience when things do not go our way. With kids, it can be not having enough time on their PlayStation. For adults, it is all the adult stuff related to relationships, work, and politics.
Resilience and Perseverance. Every young man should learn the value of embracing mistakes and challenges. Every challenge we overcome builds valuable experience in life. The poem highlights the value of bouncing back from failures without dwelling on them. It encourages pursuing your goals even when there are setbacks. There is no more valuable lesson for every young person to learn than setbacks, which are lessons in disguise, building the experience needed for future success.
Emotional balance. Every young kid and most adults probably lack this ability—emotional balance is maintaining stability and control over one’s feelings, even in challenging situations. In self-improvement, it allows for more precise decision-making and growth, as emotions are managed rather than suppressed or overwhelming.
Courage and Risk-Taking: Kipling promotes the idea of taking risks. I am not saying to teach your kids to take dangerous risks. We all remember building crazy daredevil bike ramps when we were kids. It was a little risky, but in its small way, it taught us we could take a risk and survive. The potential of loss should not consume kids. Courage is essential in both winning and losing.
Humility and Integrity: There might be nothing worse than an arrogant and prideful child. You look at a young man or woman with those traits, and you can easily predict the trouble they will have later in life. Kipling encourages readers to stay humble, avoid arrogance, and remain true to themselves. This includes treating success and failure as opportunities to build experience.
Throughout the poem, Kipling advocates maintaining emotional balance, neither giving in to extreme joy in success nor to despair in defeat. This is an essential lesson for us all to learn.
Putting the Poem Into Practice
This poem offers many valuable insights, but how does a parent put it into practice?
- Discuss the Values in the Poem. This might be the hardest step. Sometimes, having a good discussion with your children or young adults is challenging. Read the poem as a family and break it down, discussing fundamental values such as patience, resilience, humility, and self-control. Explain what each value means in everyday life and why it’s essential. Kids are visual; have real examples from your life to give them. Have your kids write down their ideas. Have your younger ones build a small album of drawings that demonstrate what they think about their values.
- Model the Behavior. You have to lead by example. If you do not live your values and lead a life of honesty and integrity, how can you expect your children to? The best way to teach is by showing. Children learn best by example. Demonstrate the qualities mentioned in the poem—perseverance, honesty, and emotional balance—through your actions. Show them how to stay calm in difficult situations, handle failure, and treat others with respect.
- Encourage Reflection on Mistakes. The earlier we can teach our kids that mistakes are not bad, the better. Teach your kids that mistakes and setbacks are opportunities to learn and grow, not reasons to give up. Help them see failure as a stepping stone, just like Kipling suggests in the poem. Again, refer back to item two above. The best way to teach this is through example. If they see you running from the challenges in your life, they will do the same. What better motivation to become a better version of yourself than to teach your kids how to do the same?
These are a few quick examples; I will follow up with more in future articles and training programs.
Family Project
Here is a great project to promote the values and integrity in your family. This is one I did with my family. Have the family come together and establish the rules for your household.
Here are the rules of the @TheDayWarrior family:
Be Honest
Be A Copycat
Help Others
No Electronics at Table
No Complaining
Be Responsible
Memento Mori
Discipline Equals Freedom
Be the Nicest Person in the Room
Be an Emotional Ninja
I then went to Etsy.com and created a large-size framed photo that we have hanging in our family room. It is a great daily reminder of the values and goals of our family.
My Final Thoughts
When I think back to my early career years and living in Japan, I remember the frustrations I went through learning what it meant to be a responsible young man. I was faced with so many challenges living on my own in a foreign country and learning how to adjust to a culture I was not born into.
This poem would have served me well had I learned about it earlier.
Kipling’s “If” is a timeless guide to how we should live. We should focus on integrity, resilience, and self-mastery. It is a high-level blueprint for handling life’s challenges with grace and courage.
We should embrace challenges and see them as opportunities to create the experiences we need to be successful in our lives.
The themes taught in this poem are almost universal to everyone, and the poem is a powerful tool for personal development.
Ultimately, the most important thing about this poem is that it teaches us that true success is not just about external achievements. True success comes with the cultivation of strength, character, wisdom, and experience through the trials we face in life.
I hope that you enjoyed this week’s newsletter. This poem really moved me, and I am still shocked that so many years had passed before I first read it.
I will publish future newsletters or training course materials to examine this topic in depth. Please share your personal experiences in this area. I would love to hear from you and learn from you.
The Day Warrior
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