My kids are my greatest teachers. Here’s a quick story to illustrate one powerful lesson they recently taught me. My youngest son, Ian, started singing a song that he had heard on the Disney channel, “Down in the Bubbily Boo.”
The song was cute and catchy, so the rest of the family joined in. To mix things up, my three kids would do various renditions of the song. “Sing it like an old lady this time!” or “Sing it with a French accent!”
After many different Bubbily Boo renditions, including versions in Opera and Munchkin, my son Alex challenged my son Ian to sing it like “Dad when he’s being the business person.” Ian then stiffened his back, cleared his throat, and started sing-talking like a newscaster delivering a special report. “Down in the bubbily boo,” he said, with furrowed brow and deliberate hand gestures.
Through the humor, I got the point: regular dad is distinctly different than business-person dad. With one innocent imitation – of me – my kids had pointed out the gap between my self-self and my business self.
I’ve decided that I want to close that gap. The truth is, I’ve been playing it very safe in my writing, and in my business dealings in general. There are a lot of crazy and upsetting things happening inside and outside of work, and I’ve kept my mouth shut for fear of alienating some of my readers and clients. In the process, I’ve become politely benign.
You’ll notice a shift in this blog post. We’re going to more assertively participate in conversations that need to happen. In other words, we’re going to live more consistently with our company’s mission: to help people and organizations be more courageous.
Going forward I plan on writing occasional posts under the header “Bill in the Bubbily Boo.” I’ll share my perspective on things that we tend push underneath the murky waters of simmering indifference – the sensitive stuff that scares us with a big “Boo!” You’ll always have the option of not reading the Bubbily Boo bits if you prefer to stick with Giant Leap’s standard business stuff. But I do hope you’ll consider joining me down in the bubbily boo.
