Hi, I'm Mike.I believe the most important conversation you'll have this week is the one you have with yourself.Every Sunday, I send Sunday Morning Coffee—one honest story, one reflection, and one question worth carrying into your week. Along the way, we explore emotional honesty, relationships, parenting, personal growth, resilience, and finding the courage to be yourself. Pull up a chair. The coffee's on.
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Coffee ready? You know how much I love getting lessons and teachable moments from movies, right? Things I can point out to the kids. A favorite moment for me is in Avengers: Endgame. When Thor is told by his mom that he's a failure, but not at what he thought. She tells him that everybody fails at being who we're supposed to be. We should instead try to succeed at being who we are. I think most of us have felt that feeling. When I was a kid, people told me I had "potential." Sounds like a compliment. It can also turn into an expectation — you're supposed to become something, nobody says what, and you get the feeling the people whose opinion matters most aren't sure you'll pull it off. So I built from two lines I never agreed to: too smart to make mistakes, not good enough to succeed. That's a hell of a blueprint to hand a kid. Nobody actually handed it to me, though. That's the thing about inherited plans. Nobody sits you down at the kitchen table. It's a comment here, a reaction there, something somebody says and forgets five minutes later while you remember it for thirty years. Enough little lines connect and you start building from them. And they don't feel inherited. They feel like reality. Some of what you inherited is worth keeping. Loyalty. Humor. How to show up. This isn't about putting anybody's history on trial. It's just noticing which lines you chose, and which ones you've followed so long you forgot there was a choice. This week's check-in: find one rule you live by that you don't remember agreeing to. "Keep your problems to yourself." "Never quit." "Money means stress." Whatever yours is, ask it one question: would I choose this today? You don't have to change it. Just find out whether it's yours. Keep the coffee hot. P.S. — That "potential" story is how The Blueprint opens. The full book's finished, and before it launches I'm giving it free to a small group of advance readers. All I ask back is your honest take on what works and what doesn't. Signups close Monday, Oct 12: https://mike-kerklin.kit.com/7d5057810f |
Mike Kerklin
Hi, I'm Mike.I believe the most important conversation you'll have this week is the one you have with yourself.Every Sunday, I send Sunday Morning Coffee—one honest story, one reflection, and one question worth carrying into your week. Along the way, we explore emotional honesty, relationships, parenting, personal growth, resilience, and finding the courage to be yourself. Pull up a chair. The coffee's on.
Coffee ready? I'm back home after a week away with the family. We spent the week on a Disney cruise we'd been planning for more than two years. Two years of deposits, reservations, schedules, anticipation, and making sure everything was in place. And now we're home. The suitcases need unpacking. The laundry has apparently reproduced while we were gone. The inbox is waiting, and Monday is standing outside the front door like a process server. Snap back to reality. Ope, there goes gravity. Last...
Coffee ready? I'm drinking mine in Florida this morning. We flew down yesterday, and tomorrow my family and I get on a Disney cruise. Today, we've given ourselves a beach day in Ft. Lauderdale. Life's not so short that you have to hurry. Life is actually long, and you should live as much of it as you can. Here's the part that surprises people: we booked this trip more than two years ago. Two years. Paying deposits on a week that's still two calendars away can feel a little silly. Planning a...
Coffee ready? Hey everybody. I've been thinking about course corrections this week. I've been doing some course correcting myself in fact. Remember all the shows where some guy didn't want to ask for directions, and ended up lost? I'm good with a little pride, but I also don't like wasting a bunch of time and gas. Sometimes you really don't know how lost you are, and sometimes you just don't want to look and find out. Usually that is me and my bank account after a trip to the casino. Ross...