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| Vol.3.73 | |
Food Fight Leadershipby Vince PoscenteAuthor of The Ant and the Elephant, Invinceable Principles and The Age of Speed Face it. You're going to mess up as a parent or leader. A part of good leadership in the Age of Speed is to accept any faux pas and quickly move on. But messing up makes for a good story. Early in my role as a dad, my son hosted his first play-date. Just shy of five years-old Max and Cordell were looking to be entertained. What better way to entertain than to educate the boys on the fine art of a food fight? "Boys, do you know what a food fight is?" I said, knowing I had plenty of time to clean the kitchen walls. I didn't need a woman telling me this was a bad idea. This was it. We had our chance to break the rules and have some good ol' cave-boy fun.
I scooped up an inner piece and tossed it in the direction of the boys. Their eyes flashed wide in mid-pizza-flight. Unfortunately, Cordell (not my kid) was nailed by the splayed piece. "MY EYE, MY EYE! IT'S HOT! MY EYEYEYYEYEYYYYYYYY." Max looked at me in disbelief and yelled, "Why would you throw burning pizza in Cordell's eye?" over the howling of his soon-to-be-former-best-friend. "But, I... was just... trying to..." A cold cloth soothed the young boy's reddish eyelid but not enough for him to forget. Despite my coaching, "The term is food fight NOT mean dad threw hot cheese in my face," when I took Cordell home he beat me in a mad dash for his front door. "Mom, Mom, Mom, Mr. Poscente threw hot cheese in my face and burned my eye out." Unknown until this moment, my wife was there too. Standing, in fact, next to Cordell's mom. The two provided a suitable wall for him to hide behind. Looking sheepishly at the both of them I still only managed to add two words to my defense, "But I... was just... trying to... I'm sorry." The lesson here is pretty straightforward. When throwing food, make sure it is substantially lower in temperature than the surface of the sun. Or, if you're one of those - Big Picture sorts - When a hot pizza idea hits your unsuspecting troops in the eyeball of life, just apologize and move on. Progress is faster that way. Until next week it’s full speed ahead,
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© 2010 Vince Poscente. All Rights Reserved. |
We just tucked into a 14-inch pizza. Each of us had a small perimeter piece in mid chew when I followed with words that echo to today. "This is what a food fight is." 