My Incredible Dad shares his beautiful love and relationship insights.
Take a listen to hear just a few unique things he does for our family.
Welcome to Lovin My Daughter-in-law Podcast. I’m relationship expert and master certified coach LeAnn Austin. I’ll help you create more connection, love and fun with others, yourself and your daughter-in-law.
Hey y’all, welcome to Lovin My Daughter-in-law, episode #152: Commitment with My Dad
I love observing and connecting with other humans, especially noting how they feel and implement love into their lives and their relationships.
We have my incredible dad sharing some beautiful love and relationship insights with us today. All right Dad, tell us a little bit about you. My name’s Ron. I have this totally amazing daughter and three amazing sons. I have 14 grandkids with four grandki-in-n law and one and a half great grandbabies.
In my former life, I was an attorney. I am so fortunate to be married to the most wonderful, beautiful wife ever, who loves and supports me. I’ve got a really warped sense of humor that I’m constantly told about. I live in St. George, Utah where life is beautiful all day long and I’m just happier than I’ve ever been in my life. I love that.
All right, so how do you incorporate love into your business and life, retired, whatever, and how does that impact your relationships?
You know, I’ve thought about this a lot, and my observation is the last 10 years or so, there has been a dramatic increase in contention and decision and hatred. And I think that it all started with politics. I remember being able to talk with people about whether Kennedy was a good guy, that shows my age, or Nixon or Johnson or the Vietnam War or whatever. And we would talk, but at the time, we would always, at the end, be able to agree to disagree.
But I don’t feel you can do that now. Now, if you disagree, you’re stupid or incompetent or crooked or a fascist or garbage or the enemy or whatever. I even feel fear for retribution to me and my property, even family on social media. If you express an opinion for one thing, sometimes even family members are brutal and yelling at you. And that makes me crazy.
I know I’m just one person, and the only way I know how to affect that is to try to show love to everybody. I’ve always tried to be a nice guy. In my former life, I was a trial attorney. I was going up against the evil insurance companies. But most of the time I was able to valiantly represent my client, argue against the opposing attorney. But at the end of the day, both of the attorneys would shake hands and we often went to lunch, or get a snack. For the most part, we would be courteous in our dealings, both in court and out.
When it comes to driving, I used to have a through lane syndrome. That’s when you’re in a two lane road and a lane is ending and I’m obediently staying in the through lane and some idiot jumps in the closing lane and accelerates just to try to get ahead a couple of cars. And I admit, I would sometimes allow my car to drift so as to block the closing line and prevent this. But then I learned the DOT regulations mandate you’re required to fill all of the available lanes so as to minimize long lines. I didn’t know that.
Well, I also knew it wasn’t very Christian to get mad. So now I smile and I relax, and I get in the closing lane. So, you know, but seriously, I’ve really tried to be kinder and gentler and understanding, if a clerk or a teller or a waitress, is short with me.
Zig Ziglar told a story once about kicking the cat, which was a great story if you haven’t heard it. You have to realize when people are mad or bent or discourteous, somebody just kicked their cat, and you have to understand that and try to be, you know, gentler.
I just try to remember if they’re having a bad day, and if I can make it better by smiling or being kind, it makes business relationships go better. I’ll tell you that if you’re kind, if you’re courteous with an opposing attorney. You get further when you want to negotiate. If you’re kind with a snotty waitress or a teller or something, things go better.
I remember one of my DILs saying that she got to the car rental place. It was late at night. There were people screaming and yelling at the checker. They were short on cars, and she just went up and she said, I understand. Just, you know, hey, just try to do something to help me out. And she got an upgrade to a van free and everything because the teller realized that, hey, here’s somebody who’s, trying to be kind and, you know, in a selfish way, it pays off. Yeah, that’s what I think.
Yeah. Well, it’s amazing. And you’re so good at this too Dad, when you just are kind and loving. And my favorite quote is you either love someone or you don’t understand them. So when you can just show up with love and compassion, it’s like, oh, they’re respectful. That’s beautiful, thank you.
So what is something that you love about you and why? I try to not think about me very often. But probably the most important, I love the knowledge that I’m a child of God. It chokes me up a little, but I love I have a Savior and He came to earth to help me. I love that I can have faith and hope for a good future.
I so love, I have an incredible wife and four amazing kids and three outstanding daughters-in-law, son-in-law. 18 crazy good grandkids and the great grandchildren I talked about. I love the fact that I have the ability to choose. I love the fact that I have the ability to help in a little way I can with others. That’s what I love about me. Ah, so tender. And that is key, just knowing that we’re children of God. I love that. Thank you.
So, I enjoy talking about connection with others and ourselves. And I think the daughter-in-law relationship is packed full of endless examples to learn from. So, any thoughts about your daughters-in-law?
You know, I admit, I never thought about DILs as a class until, and the relationships, until you started doing this program. And with permission, I’m going to expand the DILs to MILs, mothers-in-laws, and GDILs, granddaughters-in-law. Because I think the relationship between all of those is, is really important.
My mother-in-law was the kindest, sweetest person I think I’ve ever known. She was smiling all the time. She was accepting and loving me from day one. And even during times I wasn’t very lovable, she was always there to support me and compliment me. She was amazing.
I have two present DILs. That sounds funny, but one of my sons went through a divorce and initially from my perspective, that particular then daughter-in-law was less than kind to my son, but things have calmed down and I realized she did help to provide two of my grandchildren. And she helps in supporting and raising them. But, you know, there’s not a relationship I can really talk about there.
But one of my daughters-in-law worked for me in my law office for 15 years. She is an incredible gifted employee, is a great mother to three of my grandkids, and she puts up with my son, which says a lot about her abilities and patience and long suffering. And I’d like to think that I have a good relationship with her.
My other daughter-in-law is a great mother to five of my grandkids. She lives on the east coast, so I don’t get to see her and interact as often as I would like, but she is so very kind and supportive of the family.
I also have two GDILs, grand ones, and they have added so much of our family. I had much more opportunity to interact with one of them because she lived in the same state and would always come to our house for Thanksgiving and nearly a year ago, gave us our first great-grandchild, a boy.
Have a great relationship with the other GDIL, she lives in another state and I don’t get to see her as much as we would like to, but she is always so responsive and supportive in our activities. And she answers a lot of my TRAJs, which I’ll talk about in a minute, but best of all, she is going to have our first great-granddaughter early this summer, and we could not be more excited!
I’ve never thought about my daughters-in-law or granddaughters-in-law, daught-in-in law as being in competition withwith our grandsons. I know listening to some of your podcasts, people say, well how do you treat them, and do you feel like they’re, well not a danger, but drag down your grandson, or, you know, whatever.
The fact of the matter is both of my GDILs have made my grandsons better husbands and better grandsons and better people. And they’re happier, they’re more successful. I think granddaughters-in-law, I think daughters-in-law and granddaughters-in-law and mothers-in-law are awesome. I just love them. Yes, a hundred percent. I love that.
All right, anything else that you want to share? Well, we would be probably discriminatory if we didn’t talk for a second about SILs and GSILs, sons-in-law and grandsons-in-law. And I just got to give a shout out. I have it just the best son-in-law ever. He is so good. He supports my daughter. He’s an amazing chef in the smoker area, and amazing with kids.
And my two grandsons-in-law. Even though they don’t have any hair, they have this condition where you don’t grow hair, you’re just bald, but they are so good and so kind and so wonderful to my granddaughters and stuff. And I think, you know, a relationship with them is as important as the other.
Well, and tell us too about how you create more connection with your grandkids. Like, what is it that you do? I love this so much, the posts that you have and the questions you ask them, anything you want to share about that? Well, I’m going to loop that in, jump the gun on your next question. Oh on the question at the end? Okay, if I may. Yeah let’s do that. Your question about love, your quote.
My favorite quote is, I don’t know where I heard this, but I heard this a long time ago, and it just seemed to summarize what love is. And I’ll read it so I get it right: “Love is the total commitment to the full development of the potential of another.” And that is, you know, it’s kind of hard to describe. It’s something my wife taught to me. She’s always more interested in assuring I’m happy and I’m doing the things I should be doing and improving my relationships with others. She’s been a great example. I’ve been able to use that caring in relationships with my grandkids.
I was prompted one day to send a text message to each grandchild. I decided that I would send a three part message consisting of a inspirational thought, a riddle with four possible answers, and a stupid joke. I called them my TRAJs, thought, riddle and joke. I would end it with a love you, and hopefully they would know that I was thinking about them.
For example, Thought: children are a reflection of the true love of Christ. Riddle: the fruit at the top of the men’s singles trophy at Wimbledon is A, a strawberry, B, an apple, C, a pineapple, or D, a banana. And Joke: Why did the kid walk softly past the medicine cabinet? He didn’t want to wake the sleeping pills, Baha. And then, say love you.
And so the same set would go to each grandchild, but would be sent individually so that they could respond to me individually. So I sent out 14 of those the first day. I suppose somebody more techno savvy would be able to send them all at once as a blast text, but there’s something satisfying about clicking each one, and I could add a little note if it were their birthday or they were having a hard time or something. So I sent. out 14 of them, 14 TRAJs. I got a couple of responses, and it felt pretty good.
So I sent out a new set of TRAJs, a new thought, a new riddle, a new dumb joke, the next day, 14 clicks, and then the next day, and then the next day. And I haven’t kept an exact track, but as close as I can calculate, I think this morning, I sent out my 1700th.
18 clicks now because four of the grandkids are married and I include their spouse, but it would be five years in February. It hasn’t been consecutive days because sometimes I’ve been out of the country or where there was no internet service. And I say that not to pat myself on the head, but to say it has been amazing. It has been fulfilling to me. Many times they don’t respond and that’s okay, but by golly they know I and my wife love them, are thinking about them, are committed to making them the very best people they can be.
There is something about helping and encouraging and supporting and consoling and everything you do with family and friends and others. Each one of our own kids have gone through desperate times, as well as our grandkids. But we’re family, and we’re committed to everyone getting through things and being happy and progressing.
It’s fun with strangers too. Our church sponsors vending machines called a Giving Machine, where you can go and you can buy a chicken or a goat or some tools or some meals to send to people around the world who really need it. I don’t think I’ve ever had so much fun standing in front of a vending machine spending money.
Sometimes we’re going through a drive thru and Helen will say, pay for the car behind us, and that’s been fun. Although my observation is some people really eat. I believe in love and commitment and helping other people and bringing up lives. It’s a tough world out there, but if there’s even a scrap of hope and light, it just makes it easy. It makes it easier. So if I can help someone, that’s what I like to do.
I guess the other quote that I like is: “You ought to find something you love so much when you don’t have to think about anything, that’s what to think about,” and that’s what I tried to do.
Yeah, I love that so much, and your commitment to me and our family, man, so, so blessed and so thankful to you dad. And as a dad and a grandpa and a great-grandpa and all the things, we just love and appreciate the countless things and time that you spend for all of us. So thank you. Thank you. Thank you. You’re most welcome.
I love that thought: “Love is a total commitment to the full development of the potential of others.” Hmm, something to think about.
Thank you dad for sharing your love insights with us. Here’s to commitment, connection, and love. Have a good one y’all.
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