It’s a healthy upbringing rooted in personal example driven by disciplined behavior.
“The most valuable gift you can give your kids is not a car, phone, or vacation.
The most valuable gift is a healthy upbringing rooted in personal example.
Building their health (wealth) literacy & teaching them the unending value of physical preparation for life is THE gift.”
-Ray Zingler on X
We focus on a lot of the wrong sh*t in America.
We try to impress people who don’t care about us.
We tie our kids’ identities to a single sport because that guy over there is doing it..
And we fret over GPA’s & Standardized test scores as if they have any real-world implication on our kids’ future successes.
I hate to break it to you mom, but getting into <insert state school> that 30,000 other people are at isn’t going to “differentiate” Timmy in the real world.
Remember, that loser landscape company owner who can’t spell standardized test will clear $500k this year with a zero turn and a weed wacker, while your scholar philosophy major, neck deep in debt, looks for the job that he’s “owed”.
But the reason we put so much focus on all the wrong stuff is because society and pop culture has conditioned us to think the way we do for THEIR benefit, not our own.
Do you think the “systems” and “ways of life” we subject our kids to are what’s best?
Or are they what’s standard? Average?
Well, if everyone else is “doing it” and you have your kids do it too, is the likelihood not that they’ll receive similar outcomes, playing the same game as everyone else?
In the school hall, they teach you that is the very definition of “the law of averages”.
So, where am I going with this?
Stop trying to be like everybody else.
The greatest gift you can give your children is not a car, phone, or vacation.
Its not conditioning them to believe an abundance of SAT/ACT prep is going to be the “key to their success”.
And it’s not even buying them the best bat so they can make the “A” team.
The best gift you can give them is the gift of health, which is WEALTH.
It’s modeling, every day, a healthy lifestyle that is rooted in disciplined, sound decision making.
Give them nice things, sure.
But don’t lose sight of the most important construct that will serve them for the rest of their lives..
The gift of physical preparedness for the game of life.
You can argue it, but it’s most important.
