When clients come into our office, they are seeking advice. We have awesome clients here at Taatjes Financial Group that tend to have similar value systems as ourselves. As a result, I have been on the receiving-end of advice learning from the lives of the people we serve. Most commonly, I am reminded by our clients to slow life down because your kids will grow up fast. Enjoy time with them. Soak it in. The time will be gone in the blink of an eye. Recently, I had the chance to put it into action.
My wife headed off on a well-deserved getaway in a warmer climate with a friend leaving me home with my twin girls. Being alone with the kids isn’t something foreign to me, but, when I woke up this particular morning the advice I had been hearing from my clients kept playing in my head. "Slow it down. Soak it in." I made a conscious decision to put my phone away and keep the girls away from screens. I did everything I could to soak in every moment.
I cannot tell you how many times throughout the day I wished I could freeze time. My girls were asking to sit on my lap laughing with each other and having me watch them do something they were proud of. I can remember vividly sitting with both girls curled up giggling on my lap. I got this overwhelming feeling that these are the moments my clients were talking about. This moment right here is what my clients have described wanting to go back and experience just one more time - and here I was living it, soaking it all in. I was doing everything in my power to slow these moments down and soak them in as much as possible; the ones I would want to go back and relive someday.
As the world gets weirder, there are many things out of my control. This lesson has taught me to focus more on the things I can control. My kids will get older; that I cannot control. However, the ways I spend the time I have with them is in my control. There were definitely tears, scrapes, and bumps throughout the day. The day wasn’t perfect. My girls weren’t perfect. I wasn’t perfect. However, the advice I received from our clients for that particular day was, indeed, perfect.
Thank you.