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GETTING RIGHT WITH DAD
 Hi Everyone,
For many years, I was angry with my dad because I felt he didn’t accept me for who I was. I complained to a friend about this, but my friend challenged me by saying, “You don’t accept your father for who he is. You feel cheated and denied by your father for not embracing your lifestyle, but you haven’t embraced his lifestyle and beliefs.”
“But he’s the parent, and I’m the child,” I defended. “He’s supposed to accept and validate me.”
My friend diligently reminded me of my beliefs, such as Only what you aren’t giving could be lacking in any situation, and that my father has a little boy inside of him who’s always looking for love, acceptance, and validation...just like me.
 My friend was right. The minute I accepted my father for who he is, the minute I entered his world and became interested in what he was interested in, my father became more interested in me and I no longer felt the desperation of needing his acceptance. I grew up, let go of the unfair expectations, and felt as though I could approach each day with no regrets.
There’s a level of maturity that occurs when you finally get it right with mom and dad. I’ve seen adults who seem to never get it right as they move from one relationship to another, growing more and more bitter. That holds them back in career success, marriage, personal success, and self-esteem.
In honor of Father’s Day, this newsletter is about getting it right with dad (and mom, too—we can’t leave her out)! This month’s People Profile features author and speaker Leo Buscaglia, a lovely, gentle man who seemed to laugh while he spoke. No matter what Leo had to say or write about, I was always interested, simply because he seemed to believe it so strongly. His audio recording about his family’s day at the beach, in honor of his father, brought me tears of joy and made me understand the profound love that my own father has, and has always had, for my mother, my siblings, and me. That’s huge.
In the past several years, my father has struggled with a number of health issues. I can’t tell you how grateful I am that he and I figured our stuff out years ago, before his health issues began. If my father were to be taken from me tomorrow, I can honestly and thankfully say that I would have no regrets.
Lifetime relationships pose ups and downs, loving and fighting. Sometimes there’s no sense to the drama and conflict in family relationships. Sometimes the only thing that makes sense is to respond with, “You’re my father, and I love you. That’s all that matters.”
Thanks for helping me live my fantasy of spreading this BE NICE message and giving nice people a voice.
XOXO, Winn
BE NICE News
Taking Our Message on the Road
Frank Bennett, owner of The Academy NYC Paul Mitchell Partner School, has been racing Porsches for years. After crashing one at the track, he used its engine as the “heart and soul” of a new car dedicated to the Paul Mitchell culture. The car is covered with logos and special messages, including “Be Nice (Or Else!).” The Academy NYC racer is like a school mascot, Bennett says. “It gets so much attention and it gets people talking.”
A BE NICE Story
Do you have a BE NICE story to share? Send it to editor@BeNiceOrElse.com. If it appears in the newsletter, you’ll receive a BE NICE T-shirt and CD!
Casey was in the audience at one of my seminars not long ago, where I shared the same story I repeated at the beginning of this newsletter.
Hi Winn,
I am the daughter of a man who recovered from alcoholism 18 years ago. And, I’m the daughter of a man I’ve had many resentments against for a very long time because I have long felt he never loved me as he should (even if he loved as much as he could or knew how). Through much of my life I’ve felt that he didn’t accept me or much about me, and those feelings have affected not only how I feel about him but also how I feel about myself.
You said something profound when you stated your own realization about love and acceptance of your own father. Though I’ve heard similar things before, there was something in the way you worded it, and maybe an open ear in my heart, that made it drive deeply into my emotions.
On my way home, I called my dad. I explained the things you’d discussed about your relationship with your father. I told my dad, “I just want to tell you I’m sorry I’ve not given you the very things I’ve always expected from you. I love you. I don’t want to change you. And Dad, I really do accept you for who you are and I will do everything I can to display that to you from now on.”
My dad cried. I cried. But I smiled as I cried and a very heavy burden immediately lifted from me.
Since then, I’ve experienced an unbelievable shift in the energy that exists between my father and myself. My mother even said, “I don’t know what exactly went on with you and your father, but whatever you said, it touched him deeply.”
Love and acceptance are all components of the balance required in life for ultimate happiness and peace. I believe this wholeheartedly. Interestingly, it really is giving that ends up allowing us to receive.
Thank you for delivering a message I very much needed to hear.
Casey Durrett
Nashville, Tennessee
People Profile
 The youngest of four children, Leo Buscaglia grew up in a close-knit Italian family, served in the navy during World War II, and attended college on the GI Bill. He earned his bachelor’s, master’s, and doctorate degrees from the University of Southern California and later became a faculty member there.
While teaching at USC, Buscaglia was strongly affected by the suicide of one of his students. He told one interviewer, “I had to ask, ‘What’s the good of all our learning . . . if no one ever teaches us the value of life, of our uniqueness, and personal dignity?’ So I started my Love Class,” a tuition-free, noncredit course that gave students a forum to consider the “truly essential things.”
Buscaglia’s class led to his first book, Love, which stayed on bestseller lists for 20 years. His popular lectures caught the attention of national media and landed him on PBS, talk shows, and the lecture circuit, where his simple message and warm presentation style made him a popular guest. By the time he died in 1998, Buscaglia had written 13 books, including five simultaneous New York Times bestsellers.
Buscaglia was especially loved for his childhood stories about his parents. His book Papa, My Father is a warm tribute to his father, whom Buscaglia considered a great teacher to his children and a “near saint.”
“There is always the chance that my deep love for Papa has caused me to be partially blind to his faults,” Buscaglia wrote. “I know he had imperfections and I am not suggesting that he was a candidate for canonization. . . . But no matter what he had or didn’t have, was or wasn’t, his attitude toward fatherhood made a positive and lasting difference in my life. What else can we ask of another human being?”
Corporate Corner
Too Busy for a Friend
You may have seen this story circulated on the Internet. Unfortunately, I don’t know the author’s name, so I’m unable to give the credit he or she so richly deserves. Whether you’ve seen this before or are reading it for the first time, think about what could happen if you tried this exercise in your workplace.
One day a teacher asked her students to list the names of the other students in the room, leaving a space between each name. Then she told them to write down the nicest thing they could say about each of their classmates. That Saturday, the teacher wrote down the name of each student on a separate sheet of paper, and listed what everyone else had said about that individual. On Monday she gave each student his or her list. Before long, the entire class was smiling. “Really?” she heard whispered. “I never knew I meant anything to anyone!” and “I didn’t know others liked me so much.”
No one ever mentioned those papers in class again, but it didn’t matter. The exercise had accomplished its purpose. The students were happy with themselves and one another. That group of students moved on.
Several years later, one of the students was killed in Vietnam and his teacher attended his funeral. As she stood near the coffin, a soldier who had acted as pallbearer came up to her. “Were you Mark’s math teacher?” he asked. She nodded yes. “Mark talked about you a lot,” he said.
After the funeral, Mark’s mother and father were waiting to speak with his teacher. “We want to show you something,” his father said. “They found this on Mark when he was killed. We thought you might recognize it.” Opening his billfold, he carefully removed two worn pieces of notebook paper that had obviously been taped, folded, and refolded many times. The teacher knew without looking that the papers were the ones on which she had listed all the good things Mark’s classmates had said about him. “Thank you so much for doing that,” Mark’s mother said. “As you can see, Mark treasured it.”
All of Mark’s former classmates started to gather around. Charlie smiled rather sheepishly and said, “I still have my list. It’s in the top drawer of my desk at home.” Chuck’s wife said, “Chuck asked me to put his in our wedding album.” Vicki took out her wallet and showed her worn and frazzled list to the group. “I carry this with me at all times,” she said. “I think we all saved our lists.” That’s when the teacher finally sat down and cried. She cried for Mark and for all his friends who would never see him again.
The density of people in society is so thick that we forget that life will end one day. And we don’t know when that one day will be. So please, tell the people you love and care for that they are special and important. Tell them, before it is too late. Remember, you reap what you sow. What you put into the lives of others comes back into your own.
Do Something!
Let’s Be Clear!
If you want to cultivate better long-term relationships with family, loved ones, new friends, and acquaintances, you’re obviously going to have your disagreements and do the wrong thing on occasion. To make sure your relationships grow and flourish, you need to practice being clear with people. Here are some guidelines on clearing:
- Keep it between the two of you: It’s so easy to divide a household with the seemingly insignificant comments you make about other family members. Be aware of your words, actions, moods, and attitudes, because every other family member could easily be placed in uncomfortable positions trying to keep peace and harmony.
- Always clear privately, where no one else can hear: One-on-one feels like communication from a friend and loved one. Two-on-one feels like a firing squad.
- Stick to the facts: Only share with the person the actions and words that upset or hurt you.
- Focus on your desired end result: Decide in advance what the best possible outcome would look and feel like. Imagine the two of you talking it through, confirming your love and appreciation for each other, and ending the chat with a hug.
There is also profound value in doing the work to clear with people who’ve already passed on. Perhaps you didn’t have a wonderful relationship with a parent and didn’t have the chance to clean things up before that person died. That doesn’t mean you can’t do the work now. Journaling and letter writing are two powerful exercises for expressing thoughts, beliefs, and intentions of the heart.
If one person (you) decides to heal and mend a relationship, the other person doesn’t have to participate. In fact, even if the other person decides not to participate, the work you do to make your apologies, forgive that person, forgive yourself, and express your love and gratitude can be all that is required to proclaim, That relationship is healed. I can now move forward with peace, love, and resolve.
Quotes of the Month
“When I was a boy of fourteen, my father was so ignorant I could hardly stand to have the old man around. But when I got to be twenty-one, I was astonished at how much he had learned in seven years.”
— Mark Twain
“We are not held back by the love we didn’t receive in the past, but by the love we’re not extending in the present.”
— Marianne Williamson
“The first step in forgiveness is the willingness to forgive.” — Marianne Williamson
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