Ron Macklin: Episode 103. Why the F do I have to
celebrate with family? Welcome to The Story in Your Head. I'm Ron Macklin. And today, Deb and I are transforming
how we experience the holidays. So if you want to go from merely surviving
the holidays to truly celebrating them, this is the episode for you. Deb Dendy: Welcome to The Story in Your Head. Today we're going to talk about a
topic that's a little different. So, Ron, are you looking forward to
getting through the holidays, or are you actually looking forward to celebrating? Ron Macklin: This year, I am looking
forward to the celebration of being with family and being in the space. There have been many years I was
looking for, how do we get through this? How do I survive Christmas, or
how do I survive the holidays? With all the commitments and everything
else we had to do and to produce a world for our kids at the same time. Deb Dendy: So what's the
difference between now? You said now you're looking forward to it. What was, what did it look like before? Ron Macklin: So the reason I
can, I can speak in this domain is because I have three kids. I am a son, I have a
sister and two parents. So I grew up with a tradition. And then I had three kids and married
into somebody who had this different set of traditions and we moved away
and then we moved back and then we moved away again further, right? And so I've, I've learned through a
lot of different steps inside of what is called celebrating holiday, right? Specifically, I'm going to save some
Thanksgiving to Christmas, New Year's type frame, the holidays or Hanukkah or
whatever, all the different events that happened during that time of the year. So those are the ones I'm used to. And when I was a kid, I can
remember my dad talking about it. He was going like, Christmas Day
is just like a day in the car. And we'd get up and have Christmas
in the morning, and that was kind of the end of Christmas. We didn't go to church. We got up, we opened presents,
the Santa Claus thing, right? And then, we got in the car. And drove to Hutchinson, which
is 45 minutes to an hour. Back then it was an hour, although my
dad was probably less than an hour. And then we'd do Christmas there, or
we'd go to Penalosa, which is an hour plus, and then we'd go to Hutchinson. Like, we'd make that triangle. And some of my memories as a kid,
and I can only imagine what it was like for my dad and mom, right,
as we were driving around, was the nighttime in the back of the car. We didn't wear seatbelts back then. I think the car had seatbelts,
but we didn't wear them. Because I can remember crawling on the
floor board, you know, down low, right? And cuddling up down there that
I went to sleep on the ride home. And then when I got married, like
it wasn't a big deal because it was just Connie and I, right? So we could just go and take care of it. My parents did Christmas morning. Her parents did Christmas evening. We lived in the same town. Not a big deal. I mean, walk away. It was pretty easy as we
were dating and all that. And then we got married. And then once we had kids, we lived
three and a half hours away from our parents, and there was a space where
they wanted to have Christmas Eve, right? Celebration. Everybody needed to be there. Big deal, right? And then we'd finish up midnight mass,
right, at that time frame, and we'd drive home so we could have Christmas morning. And so I would drive from, like, midnight
to Midnight mass is, not a midnight, it's like 1030, something like that. And I don't, I just call
it 1030 mass, right? So we, we drive home and I remember
many of the nights, and by the way, all the interstates and
highways, they're really empty at Christmas Eve at three, two to 3 a. m. Like it's just wide
open, zoom, nobody's out. And we get home and then we get our
preparations done and then go to bed and wake up three or four hours later. And I remember going, like,
just exhausted the whole day. And then we'd go over to see my parents
later in the afternoon, because they lived in the same town we lived in. And I was just trying to get
through that, just to survive. It was also the end of the year, like
I had all kinds of other stuff, you know, all the budgets we had to try
to figure out, all the work stuff we had to get done, the projects we had
to get done, customers want to spend a certain amount of money before the end
of the year, all this kind of stuff. And then on top of that, I was, came back
from those two days off, three days off, exhausted, like just, just tired, right? And it was, there's a couple of
things that stood out in my life that really changed my whole world. One was Garrett was just able
to walk, but not like walk like a kid, not like walk, right? You know, a kid walks in a
little bouncy thing, you know, their steps aren't quite right. Yeah. And they're kind of moving. And I was, I was still doing
some traveling, coming back from Virginia and I was at the airport. Normally Connie picks up,
picks me up at the airport. Like she would drive up with
a little white Previa, zoom, I jump in the car, go, right? I'm looking for the Previa to come by. didn't come by and I'm
going, I swear they're weird. I looked down, there's this
little kid running at me. I go, oh man, that sure is a cute kid. He gets about 10 feet away. I go, it's my kid. Deb Dendy: Oh, wow. You didn't recognize your own kid? Ron Macklin: Not until,
not, not for a while. I mean, it wasn't immediate, right? I realized in the three
weeks I had been away, right? Like, he changed. Deb Dendy: Mm hmm. Ron Macklin: Right? And he knew me. Like, like, he was lit up, running, right? And I was, I was like, okay, so, so
this is, this is not gonna last, right? Like, this whole travel, this space,
and being with them at that age, and there was one of the trips we made to
Wichita, and we were coming back, and somebody had, like you say, broke into
our house, although one person had a key, and had hung our stockings and
filled them and all that stuff, right? And like, Like Santa had been
there, and Colleen and I, like, were going like, it was magic. I mean, we could figure it out logically
where it was, but that somebody cared enough to go there and do that while we
were gone, knowing we would be home by a certain time, so they made it all happen. It was magic. I mean, it was still one of
the best Christmases ever. Not everything before that, and
not everything after that, but for that five minutes, it was magical. Like, you could go, I believe
in the magic, like, it's all, this is real, right? And that's when we said, you know, we only
get so much time with our little kids. We only get so many Christmases,
we only get so many holidays and all that kind of stuff. And then probably about four
years later, three, four years later, we moved to Germany and
there are no family expectations. And I'm, I'm, let me be clear
here, there, there may or may not have been some expectation
for us to go do all those things. from them, but there were
expectations in our heads that we need to go do those things, right? So it's like, you made up Deb Dendy: the story. You had, we made up the story, right? Ron Macklin: Then this, you can blame them
all, all we want, but it doesn't matter. We still made up a story
and went and did it. We can say, well, it's important. We want to be in that space. I'm going, wait a minute. This is our family. Our family is Connie and I and Garrett and
Lauren and Brennan, and that's our family. Extended family goes beyond that. We were in Germany. Best Christmases ever. Because. They do it differently anyway,
it's like, like we didn't really know what we were doing. They have Vynaxmak, which
is Christmas market. And so for about a month up until
three days before, there's these little places you can go hang out and
everything just looks like Christmas. It's dark out, there's all these
candles and they glue vine and all that stuff and people walk around,
it's cold, like they're so far north, it's cold, but it's wonderful, right? And then the Christmas trees that you go
to buy, artificial trees, no, real trees. Need the real smell, real
smell, real, real trees. And you want to buy a tree about
three days before Christmas to start to go on sale. And then Christmas Eve, they're out. Like you got like two days. One thing I learned about German. You need to be organized to
be, to survive in Germany. And so we brought home this real tree. And I've talked to people at work,
they go, yeah, we use real candles. Real candles on trees? Whoa, that's dangerous. That's Deb Dendy: not UL approved, is it? Ron Macklin: Oh my God,
what are you doing, right? And then so I brought this tree home
when I got, I took a lighter out. I tried to light it. This tree's not going to burn. It was cut down. It was fresh. Fresh tree, it's not going to burn. I'm going, I think you could put
candles on this thing and burn them. And this is what it would look like. And then we didn't have any place to go. We just stayed at home. That's one of the beauties
about being in Germany was that there's no place to go anyway. There's no restaurants open for two days. Mm hmm. Like you just stay at home. Hope you have food bought, right? And at that moment, we shifted our
whole world to where we look forward to Christmas because we're just
going to spend time with each other. Some Christmases, we never
make it out of our pajamas. Because we're just
hanging out at the house. We're just being with each other. Get the planning done beforehand. Be in that space. I've also learned to, whatever
work I have to get done, I want to get it done like the 20th. Like, done, so that
there's nothing left to do. The year can be closed out. I'm complete. I can just be in my family
and there's no phone ringing. There's no, no phone ringing like my
phone ringing and no phone ringing like all the things I have to get
done that are sitting inside my head to be there to get them out. And what I hold, we hold, Connie and I,
we hold the, the powerful part is the stories we have now about in our head. Even to the place where one year,
because Brennan was gone, I think she still doesn't like us because
of this, but because she was gone, she was in Germany on Rotary Youth
Exchange, and great program, by the way, if anybody was interested in that. But she was gone to Germany,
so we went to New York. We really went and got away
from any family obligations that we had in our head. We went to New York and just hung out
in a hotel room, little tiny thing. Went to a mass at a New York church,
wandered around and put together a Christmas tree in the motel
hotel room and just did all that kind of stuff and went all that. It was amazing and we just had fun. We did a scavenger hunt. That's cool. We made up the scavenger hunt, and then
we did the scavenger hunt, and the two of those together made some really great
memories in New York City on Christmas. So I look forward to it now. Like this year, Brennan's coming up,
because she comes every other year. One year they go to her boyfriend's
house, and the other year she comes here. This year she's going to be here, and so
we're looking forward to everybody being together and doing, well, very little. Just being. Doing some cooking. I think we find it's best for us to,
we just have two meals, one somewhere around 10, one somewhere around four. And, and then we, we, we set a goal of
how do we make sure we don't eat too much? So we're not uncomfortable from
four o'clock till midnight. So it's, it's all the stuff that I
can say that we, we've done about this, the like being with family
and all that stuff, holidays. It really is the changing of the
stories that are in our head, my head. Connie's head. Deb Dendy: Mm hmm. Ron Macklin: Because those, those were
traditions we used to have, like we had to go see them, had to do that. Those were stories that lived in our heads
about what we should do and shouldn't do. So that's my stories. And that's what, how I
changed my stories over time. Are you looking to strengthen
your relationships, whether personally or professionally? You want to learn how to build
authentic connections faster. Or perhaps you're looking to beat employee
burnout through the power of connection. My name is Ron Macklin founder of
Macklin Connection and in our workshops We teach you the fundamentals of how
to do exactly that and more to learn more of the power of your relationships
Visit us at MacklinConnection. com Deb Dendy: It's funny Ron Like, there are
a couple things you triggered me with, and I'm thinking about my dad was a professor. Okay, so end of the semester, had to
submit grades invariably, and they were from LA area, but we lived in Wisconsin. So we actually, and at the time we got
on a train, we got on a train in Chicago. And took the train out to LA
and before we could afford to fly on the professor's salary. And I remember he was always so
busy at the end of the semester. And sometimes he just
wanted to stay in Wisconsin. Like we would get a white
Christmas there and everything. But no one else wanted to
come visit us in Wisconsin. The family didn't want to come. It's too cold. And I remember, I
remember the frustration. Like, ah, we, it's like we have to, it's
a, we have to, instead of we want to, Ron Macklin: we have to go to LA, Deb Dendy: we have to go to LA,
you know, our parents are there. We have to, we have to
go see them now for me. It was great. I mean, talk about three days on a
train and like getting to see your grandparents and going to, yeah. The only ones on the beach that weren't
in a parka, it was great, but I, I remember the pressure on him later
when I got married and had kids. I remember the end of the year pressure. Oh, you got to ship product, right? You got it. You got to capture that
revenue for the year. So you have to ship all kinds of product. You're working so many hours. For me, I was traveling all over
the place and sometimes back to Boston where it would snow and I
would get my, my travel interrupted. And I remember coming home. And then since I live in
Arizona, everybody wanted to come here cause it's nice weather. During Christmas, but I'm, I'm tired. Like I'm tired and I'm, I'm
hosting, but I'm, I'm burnt out from all of the responsibilities. the obligations at the end of the year. And of course, you know, throw on top of
that, well, rather than having parties throughout the year for our company, let's
just jam them all at the end of the year, you know, cause there's not enough to do. And it kind of turned things into,
wow, this is really a great, wonderful time of year to who I'm tired. I just, I want, I want to go to bed
and, but, but I'm hosting, right? And lucky for me, I have the family
that if they walk in the door, they're going to do the dishes. Like, I don't, I never have
to ask anybody to help. Everyone's going to help do everything. So that for me is a big blessing. And I know it's a, it's a
pain for them to travel too. But at some point there was, there
was a time where it was like, man, this is, you know, This isn't that
enjoyable to be so tired from work. And now I've got to be busy again. Now since then, I would say I've, I've
learned that that mood that I created before isn't really that amenable
to having a great time together. Right. Producing this space where people
could feel like they belonged there and they wanted to be there and they
were, we were happy they were here. That mood that was created by all
that busyness, it didn't create that. And so now I, I can, like
I can create who I am. I can create myself to
be joyful and peaceful. And I can also say no to things. Ron Macklin: Tell me more
about the saying no to things. Deb Dendy: Well, it's funny, like,
why all of a sudden does everybody want to have some sort of get together
within the last two weeks of the year? And yeah, it would be a whole lot
of fun to go to those, all that. It doesn't leave me space to, to have
downtime, to create a piece for myself. I just felt like I was so busy and
busy isn't an enjoyable mood to be in. It's just. busy. So that's, that's how I notice it. I, now, and my kids are older, we
always loved when they were younger. And because most of the time people
came here, we were pretty lucky. But I know others in my family weren't
as lucky because they were the ones leaving their house to come here. And it's, it's about, you know, I
don't want to just get through this. I want to enjoy this. And, and I feel that there's some space
here, you know, as business people, family, people for us to recognize. Yeah, sometimes this mood of busy or
this taking on too many things at the end of the year, we don't have to do it. Ron Macklin: What would you go back
and tell yourself as a 25 year old? Hmm. What advice would you give a
25 year old you back then, now? And, and I also offer the how to be
different if you're 25 years of age. Deb Dendy: Yeah, it's funny. So I didn't have my first
child till I was 33. So I'll, I'll bring it up a little bit
because I have kids a little later, but you know, the grandparents will say hug
those babies cause they grow up so fast. Right. And you'll see people. Oh, man, you got to enjoy them. You know, older people will tell them,
give me that advice and, and that's advice I would be given myself now. And, and, you know, I, I see
parents now I see how busy they are. Just, I was in the game too, right? Being busy, taking them
all over the place. You know, they've got to be in
all these activities and things. And what I noticed now is I was just
creating a world of busy for them. Yeah. I wasn't giving them time to just
be, even though they didn't have to ship product or anything like that. But I would, I would say to
myself, like, it's okay to just be and, and be with others. And it's okay to say no to things. Ron Macklin: What does
that mean to just be? Deb Dendy: Yeah. To rid myself of some of the things
that I made up or obligations. To open space for things to just happen
that I didn't have to have planned in advance to create new traditions. If we wanted to, I mean, it's
really, it's really freedom that just be is just a freedom to do
things that you don't have to plan. And that everyone can be a part of it
might be spontaneous that we decide we're going to go mini golfing,
I don't know, but if I'm so busy planning everything, I don't leave
that space for people to just be and be together, you know, the spontaneous
conversations that can erupt as well. And if you're so busy,
there's no time for that. Ron Macklin: Thank Deb Dendy: you. Yeah. So I'm wondering about our listeners. Like, are they, are they looking
forward to just being over the holidays or is it really a matter of like,
no, I just got to get through it. Ron Macklin: Yeah. I'm speculating. It's, it's, I got to get through it as an,
I got to get all these things done so that it can be called Christmas or Hanukkah
or whatever the holiday is, right. I got to do all these things and then
it's that, and then you got to get through it and you go, okay, I did. I did that. I get done. very much. Versus really being with the other kids. Being with your kids, being
with other people, being open. Deb Dendy: What advice
would you give yourself? Ron Macklin: It may sound
familiar, be your stand. Which means you gotta figure
out what your stand is. We, we're really good at
mimicking things in life, right? We, that's how we learn to do things. That's how we learn to do stuff. We mimic all that. But it's inauthentic because it's not us. We're just doing it because
somebody else did it. Mm hmm. And then to live an authentic life, to
create, author your own life, your own space, figure out what your stand is. And, I would tell myself, be
careful, you're not going to get it right the first time. Like, you're going to go over
your stand, you're going to go try it on, and then you're going
to go, okay, that didn't work. I mean, somebody somewhere probably
put their stand on the first time and got it right the first time. It could happen. Most of the times, that's
not the way it works. Doesn't work that way for me, and
be open to dancing with, like, what it is that is your stand. Deb Dendy: Rhonda, keep
talking about stand. Tell us, tell us more about,
what do you mean by that? Ron Macklin: Stand is a story. that I have. My stand is a story that I have. It's a story about, like,
what I will do in my life. Also, what I will not do in my life. And a list of things that you might do. Like, you won't always do them that
way, but sometimes you're gonna say, yes, that's part of my stand. But not all the time. And I hold every human
already has a stand. They drifted into it. And when I say drifted, I don't
mean that they didn't choose it. They just chose it when they were like
seven years of age, nine years of age, 15 years of age, 18 years of age, 20 years
of age, 30 40, all the way up, right? It keeps changing. But we never stopped and
said, what is our stand? We didn't design it. We drifted into it. Mm hmm. And, and we have some of our
stand that's like, literally, it's a seven year old stand. That's the one that a seven
year old would, would make up. And then we found all kinds of reasons to
say, yes, this is a good thing, because we saw verification for it, because
we saw it, we were looking for it. And now that's what, who we are, but it
was, it's just a seven year old stand. And what is it? Being a 60 year old is
not six, ten years dance. Like, it's not just keeps multiplying over
time, no, it's, we, we change, we evolve, we, what we want and where we're at. And so a stand is what we will
do, won't do, might do, right? And if you go through and figure out what
that is for you and your stand, and then you live within that stand, like live
with it, like what you're going to do for the holidays, your stand, it, there's
peace because everything you're doing is within what you want to be doing. You're not doing it and, and
have the story that says, well, I'm doing this because somebody
else said I should do this. And when you, when you live in a world
where you say, I'm going to do that because somebody else said I should do
that, your stand authentically is, I'll do what other people want me to do. And if you don't like it, your part
of your stand is, I'm going to regret that I'm doing what other people want
me to do, but I'm going to do it. And there's no freedom. There's no peace. There's no joy. There's no happiness. And Deb Dendy: you triggered me to
think about the stand I drifted into of, I'm just going to be busy. Like I'm just, I will be busy. And now in creating my stand is
that's not what I want to do. I don't want to just be busy, right? I want to create meaningful
relationships with people. I want to have deep
discussions with people. I want to. open space for people to be
authentic with me and vice versa. But there was no space for that
before when I was drifting into the stand of, I just want to be busy. Ron Macklin: Thank you for that. I'm sure that there's a story that
we're all always fully invested in everything we're doing. Okay. But one of the things I'm invested
in is, is that having space. To just be in the world. Mmm. If it's not a part of my stand,
it won't be a part of my actions. Just be with, with, with family, be
with kids, be with Connie, right? Lay around. Four hours to open 25 presents. Deb Dendy: Oh, that 20 seconds? Ron Macklin: Yeah. Yeah. That was, uh, I, I, I, cause we grew up
in a place where each person opens one and you talk about it, you know, but next
one, everybody talks about it and see, you know, and we were at a friend's house. Shout out to Mark really,
cause he's listening to the thing and it was like this, go. And everybody just tore everything apart. And I got like, Two and a half
minutes later it was over with. And I was going, this is different. Deb Dendy: But yeah, it's, uh,
it's kind of different thinking though, Ron, to think about
having a stand of leaving space. Ron Macklin: Leaving space. And that's because we're
always fully invested. That's how you're investing your time. Nothing. Doing nothing. Being in the world. Deb Dendy: When you, we
have so many distractions. Right? Our, our, our phones, our mini
computers that we carry around with us that can distract us with every
little mindless game or social media or planning to not have anything to do
to open up the space to, for whatever. If that happens, that is very uncommon. Ron Macklin: If you ever stopped and
just been with another person, I'll say words, don't, don't, don't act up. Just be with the other person face to
face and just be there for five minutes. It's an amazing experiment. And the only way I can describe it
is I think some of it was what, what developed in that five minutes of not
saying a word and people I had never met before was, I don't know, There was
a respect, but I think there was love. And after it was over with, I could look
at the people and go, like, like I was, I was excited to talk to them, right? And I think if we just take time
to slow down and be with another person, you might find we really are
a lot alike, and there's a lot to love and respect about everybody. Deb Dendy: What a great message for right
now at this, this time of year, right? When we're so busy and you know,
sometimes uncle Larry can get a little honoree at the dinner table, uh, telling
us all the things that he thinks. Yeah. Now to learn, to be together. What a great gift that would be. Ron Macklin: Yeah. Thank you, Deb. Deb Dendy: Thank you, Ron. Ron Macklin: Thank you for
letting me work through this. And, and, you know, right before, right
as we get into Christmas time, this is so relevant to my being in the world. Deb Dendy: Yeah. So you as listeners, how, how will
you create space for the holidays? What will you do differently? We'd love to hear from you. Ron Macklin: I'd also love to hear if you,
if you say, no, no, no, I can't do that. There's some dragon out
there, metaphorical. Some dragon is keeping you from just being
in the world and being with somebody else. Let us know what your dragon is. Curious. Awesome.