I have been honored to raise a family of four boys alongside my wife, Shawntel. Together, we have worked to instill in them the values we believe are most important in life: how to care for others, the importance of hard work, have a positive attitude, appreciation for what we have, and so many others. Beyond being a good person, I believe these lessons have a direct impact on the level of success you will experience in life. As a business leader and serial entrepreneur, my ability to be a strong and effective leader has played a major role in my success.

PUT IN THE HARD WORK

Leadership is one of those skills that is best taught by example. I was lucky to have in my great examples in my parents growing up and have worked to be a positive example for my children throughout their lives. It starts with a lesson my parents taught me from a young age: to have anything in life, it requires hard work. If you are striving for that promotion, saving for date night, or studying to get into your dream college, everything will require dedicated time and effort. But hard work is about more than just the time you put in. It’s about persevering through the setbacks. This includes one of the most difficult things about being dedicated to your dream: embracing the “No.” Learning to look at each “No” as progress instead of a setback is challenging emotionally and logically. However, reframing the “No” into a step closer to the right “Yes” will enable you to eliminate the fear associated with rejection. The “No” is not failure, but a learning moment. It is through these moments that success is possible. This is a vital step in becoming a strong leader.

HAVE A POSITIVE ATTITUDE

The second lesson my parents taught me was the importance of a positive attitude. If you go through work, life, or your relationship looking for the next roadblock, the next reason to quit, the next unfairness, you will find them strewn about your path in abundance. There is no one who can look at the world through this frame of mind and find success. Instead, you must have a positive attitude that appreciates and recognizes the small (and big) wins, the strokes of luck, and the hidden opportunities. Leaders who inspire their teams are able to visualize success and share that optimism to create a contagious positive attitude throughout their company.

When I look back over my career, it was these two foundational leadership lessons that have enabled me to find success. I have learned to exemplify these skills in the face of challenges and the “No.” I have learned to focus on the vision and keep a positive attitude throughout and use that to inspire my team. This experience is what I used to teach my children the same values and leadership skills throughout their lives. In fact, this is not the first time I have written about the specific actions my wife and I take to instill this into our children. I have written in other blogs about our Red Plate Dinners and the importance of individual recognition and appreciation. I have written about the importance of the search for knowledge and desire to know yourself and those around you, through our Dinner Questions tradition. And I have written about the business trips and money management lessons that enable our children to understand business and personal ownership early on.

LIVE IT DAILY

These are just a few of the specific actions that my family has incorporated into raising our children to be strong and moral leaders. However, there are opportunities every day to teach leadership through example and storytelling. That simple question, “How was your day, Dad?” is an opportunity to teach through a true experience that occurred that day, either in business or personal life. Whether a challenge or success, these stories help our children learn about relationships, business, problem solving, and how to have a positive attitude in the face of adversity.

EMBODY OPENNESS AND HONESTY

We believe that a commitment to openness and honesty provides insight to real-life challenges that adults face throughout their careers and lives. It is likely that one day one of our sons will find himself facing a similar challenge and will be able to recall how his parents handled it and use that knowledge to make the best decision. They will learn daily how to deal with difficult life experiences.

We are so proud of our children and the success they have achieved already. I have seen them carry these lessons out in real life, whether it be in school, golf, baseball, work, or with friends. They are able to process and understand and work through complex problems with a positive attitude and a drive for success. My oldest, Braden, has navigated his career path and has stayed committed to his passion for his own life while achieving success, despite unexpected challenges and the “No.” I see it in him in the way he interacts and supports his friends and how he is supportive and loving to his wife.

REMEMBER HUMILITY AND WILLINGNESS TO LEARN

Each of my children will take a different path and each will encounter challenges and successes. I am proud of the paths they have taken so far and excited to see their continued success as they grow. My wife and I will continue to share with them our life experiences and how we will handle each one. And, knowing my children are growing up to be strong leaders, I too, will listen to their stories and experiences and learn from them because, after all, the final lesson in being a strong leader is knowing when to be humble and learn from those who are wiser than you.

The post Vital Leadership Lessons to Teach your Children from a Young Age appeared first on Ryan Wuerch.

Photo by Jen Light

Quality time with family is so important. When each of my boys reach 10 years old, they know something special will happen. That is when they begin planning a one-on-one trip with me during the summer for 5 to 7 days. This trip is always to accompany me on a business trip to another city or country, sit in each of the business meetings, and get to experience what it is their father does for a living. What’s exciting is this is a trip they get to have every year and always to a different location.

During the day they sit in everyone of my business meetings which gives me an opportunity to see first hand the relationships that I have and what causes business to progress.  These trips aren’t all work and no play. We are sure to plan experiences that are uniquely important to them and who they are. In the past, my sons have chosen to play golf at a course they’ve always heard about or view a great play in London or NYC, or go to a baseball game at Fenway Park in Boston. I try to give them the experience of visiting my favorite restaurants or sites in cities that I often visit as well to share with them my passions, as well.

It is amazing having my boys with me and sharing that time with them. I greatly enjoy sharing with them my passion for the work I do as well as teaching them why I do and say what I do in meetings, how to act professionally and how to present myself. All of these elements are vitally important to success and are applicable no matter what career path they take in life. These are real life moments where I can take the opportunity to teach them important lessons while at the same time watching grow personally and professionally as they develop their own powerful presence.

With sons who are now 23, 20, 11 and 9, I’m looking forward to the trips this summer. Brennan counted down the months until his 10th birthday, as he knew his trip was coming.  And my second son, Barrett, who turns 21 in April just asked me, “Where are we going this summer, Dad?” The tradition will continue with Bryson, our 9 year old, being he’s already naming the places he wants to go.  The countless memories that have been forged and the experience each of my sons have gained from our family and individual trips, is my way of preparing them for the real life situations that they will experience once they are running their own companies or working in their field of choice. They are developing their leadership skills, world view, and business insights that will be tied to our times together.

The memories for me though are worth more than any trophy or any amount of money that I possess.  Sitting on the plane sometimes by myself reliving in my mind the different trips, deep conversations, the laughter and seeing their eyes light up when they do something they’d only imagined.  Memories…..Braden at 11 years old, staying in London at the Lanesborough Hotel, touring history with my son, seeing a play on London’s “Broadway” and walking the streets of London, eating at my favorite Chinese restaurant Hakkasan and talking about the days meetings.  Waking up in the morning on the coast of California with Barrett at 14 years old, driving in the car to our first meeting and talking about our day, seeing him in the crowd as I spoke at an investment banking conference and feeling more pride knowing one of the most important people in the world was watching me, playing golf in the afternoon then feeling so incredible that night as we watched the San Francisco Giants win their first game of the playoffs in the season they won the World Series.  My first trip with Brennan to Puerto Rico where we boarded the plane and I looked to see the amazing smile of happiness, scuba diving with him in crystal blue water and him standing on stage with me as he spoke with such eloquence and price about some of the most incredible people in the world. Memories I’ll cherish for a lifetime!

These trips are designed to expand my son’s horizons and broaden their worldly perspectives, but I find myself constantly learning from my son’s unique vision and dreams. In the end, I may appreciate these trips even more than my sons do. I cannot wait for our next trip together.

The post PART IV – How Business Trips Will Teach Quality in Work and the Power of Relationships appeared first on Ryan Wuerch.

I previously have written about creating meaningful traditions that last, and how in our family, one way to do this is with the special “Red Plate” that symbolizes a special event or achievement from one of us in our home. It can be a birthday, a graduation, special sporting event or accomplishment, or it could even be the day of a doctor’s appointment, but whomever comes to the kitchen table in the morning and sees the Red Plate at where they sit, they know they are going to be celebrated. Every one of us – my four sons, my wife Shawntel, and I – all look forward to seeing the Red Plate.

Our family has another way of creating meaningful traditions.  Another major event happens when our boys reach their 10^th birthday, when they have the opportunity to accompany me to a meeting with my stockbroker, and learn what the stock market is and how it works. And on that special day I place $1,000 into their stock account, and my boys have 100% control what happens to it – I let them manage it as they see fit, as long as they keep the money in the stock trading account. They are in charge of choosing the stocks, researching the companies, which I’ve found provides an invaluable lesson in beginning to understand financial management and develop skills that will serve them well throughout their lives.

My son Brennan made his first stock picks when he turned 10 years old this past July: Facebook, Apple and Amazon. Only 7 months after he picked his first stocks for his account, he’s seen a 21% gain in his portfolio.  I’ll never forget taking his older brother Braden (who is now 22 years old) to open up his stock trading account when was 10 years old.  He sat with my broker wearing a blue sport coat and so eager about what he was getting to do.  Braden bought Coca Cola because it was his favorite drink, McDonalds because it was his favorite restaurant, Best Buy because he thought it was the coolest store, AOL because he loved the internet and Gateway because it was his computer. In his first two years Braden had a 38% return in his portfolio! That included a 6.7% return in his first several months, and his brother Brennan is even showing some of the same return results.

What does this show? That in investing, as in so many other areas of life, it’s good to go with what you know and like! I remember my brokers saying to the boys to not think of the stock market as charts, graphs or newspaper headlines but rather think of it as way to buy a part of the companies you think are great and that you think will be great for a long time, the Warren Buffet philosophy.  The boys were instructed to take two weeks and ask me what companies that they liked were public or private. It was after two weeks that they were to buy companies they like, buy what their friends like, and what they and their friends would like for a long time. None of those things took a computer program to analyze.

This tradition of investing has imparted so much wisdom to my boys, like lessons in money management and sound investment principles. It’s also a good way to impart the values of saving as well has learning how money can be put to work for work, as opposed to spending money on things that don’t provide a valuable return.

The post PART II – Stock Options and Money Management appeared first on Ryan Wuerch.

People often ask me “How do you do it?” How do I spend so much focused time with my family, at work, training for marathons and with philanthropic causes and still manage to make the time high value and high quality? As I’ve talked about in a previous blog, it is all about living with purpose.

We tend to live in a microwave and fast-food society where we want everything immediately and as cheap as possible. But throughout my life I’ve found that enduring results and reward actually come through consistently doing the right thing with consistency over a long period of time. A good family friend, Tommy Thompson, said to me when our eldest son, Braden, was just 6 years old, “You can never really have quality time with your children unless you have quantity time with them, because you never know when the quality moments will sneak up on you.” There is nothing fast or microwaveable about that.

Early on in our sons’ lives, I decided as a father it was going to be important to establish traditions that could be carried through each of our children’s lives and then be passed down through generations. These traditions would build character, intelligence, values and a heritage. The traditions would also foster a high degree of self-worth and create precious moments with our children.

This is the first of a series of blogs that talks about these different traditions my wife, Shawntel, and I have developed and why I believe they have had a positive impact on our children’s lives and our own as parents.

We have a special red plate that says, “You are special today.” It has become a great symbol in our household. This red plate is placed where our sons sit at the table on days we feel are special or significant for them – it can be a birthday, a graduation, special sporting event or accomplishment, or it could even be the day of a doctor’s appointment. When one of our boys is going to be celebrated, he comes to the table and see the plate in his spot. Immediately, a smile brightens his face because he knows that this morning is his morning. He will get his favorite breakfast and everyone in the family will take a turn telling him why he is special to them. Watching our youngest son wait in anticipation as his older brothers talk about how he is important, valued and unique, creates a sense of happiness, confidence and great worth in him. These moments cannot be replaced or overvalued. Even my wife, Shawntel, and I have come to be excited when we see the red plate at our spot on the table. There is rarely a red plate day without tears of joy.

As a parent, it is vitally important to develop habits that will keep you on purpose with your children. The red plate is an easy way for us to focus on the accomplishments and joys of each of our uniquely special children. Over the years, I passed this tradition on to many of my friends and family. They now use it as their own and it has been so rewarding to hear their positive stories that accompany this new tradition that has been established in their family. This tradition has created such incredible reward for both our children and for us as parents throughout the years.

Do you have a tradition like this in your family? Tell me about in the comments!

Next week, I will elaborate on our family’s traditions and what we actively do to make our family time valuable and high quality.

The post PART I – The Red Plate – Creating meaningful positive family traditions appeared first on Ryan Wuerch.

Herb and me at his printing business

When we got our Seattle Mariners season tickets five years ago we didn’t realize that the greatest thing about the games wasn’t going to be watching baseball but was rather developing a great friendship with Herb and Janice Blackinton who sit directly behind us. We’ve come to know their kids, grandkids and great-grandkids and have relished in hearing Herb’s laughter and stories.  We’ve talked and shared Seattle baseball wins and losses (mostly losses). Herb is 72-years-old and I’ve often said to Shawntel that someday when I’m his age I hope to enjoy life, family and friends like we’ve seen him do.  Recently, he took me aside and confided in me that he has been diagnosed with cancer. He then asked me if I wanted to visit his printing business he had built from the ground up and in which he had found great success. While he sold his business 16 years ago to a large public company which afforded him to live a life that most would dream of, he was still very much a part of his business and its success is a very important piece of who he is.

I visited his business last week. He gave me a tour of the facility and I was able to see his excitement as he talked to me about the large printing presses, their world-class customers, and showed me every aspect of the facility.  As we walked throughout the building, he introduced me to employees as if they were family. He knew everyone by name and I marveled at how many employees had worked with him for their entire careers, some for 18, 20, 25 and 30 years or more.  Each of their stories was amazing.

During our lunch I asked him what three things he felt defined him as a person. He thought for a moment while I waited, knowing this man possessed sage wisdom. He is the type of man I’d be proud to share some of his attributes, a man full of energy and joy, someone who is loved by his family and many friends and is satisfied in his accomplishments, both personal and professional. He smiled then and started with a story.

He told me how he wasn’t a heavy practicing Christian, but he saw himself as someone who embraced Christian values, which was his first point of definition. He was never brought up going to church but it was a constant presence in his life. Each week he would attend Cub Scouts, then Boy Scouts, at a local church. The values learned were embedded in his heart.

The second defining value was to have a conscience. He told me of how early on in his childhood his father had asked him a simple question, “If you find a wallet on the street with two twenties in it, what do you do with it?” Of course you return it. That is the only answer that will provide a clean conscience.  This too was evident in his business. He could not have reached his level of success without truly being honest, open and moral with his work, employees and customers.

The final value was family. This was evident even before we went to lunch as his season tickets were always filled with family members who clearly loved and deeply cared for him. He treats his business the same way. Those employees I met while walking through the printing plant, were not just former employees to him, they were family. Important business relationships are not just business, they are valuable and personal relationships that when cultivated will carry you through the toughest of times and make victory so much better when shared with them.

I thought back to the visit we had just made to his business and could clearly see how these values had been built into every aspect of the success he had created. He had introduced me to employees like friends, showing his heart of love.  Herb again smiled when I told him how I saw these values in his business.

I asked him how he thinks of customers.  He told me it isn’t all that complicated. It was simple, his customers have a need and it is his job to help them solve it. Focus on treating them like family while solving their need and the money will follow.

I’m proud to have been blessed by having Herb in my life. Being diagnosed with cancer is a new challenge in front of him but his smile and optimism once again shows how great a man he is.  Even in the face of a great challenge and without having all the answers, he continues to teach me.  What a great man!

Thank you Herb!

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