Category Archive for : ‘Father Son Relationship’

(Updated from June 2018 Blog)

This Father’s Day I’m choosing to remember, learn, and even benefit from the relationship between my dad and I…the good, the bad, and even the ugly.

I have wonderful memories and lessons learned from Harold Henry Becker, now sainted for eight years. Dad was the most honest man I’ve ever met, faithful and supportive of my mother for over 59 years, a hard worker, intensely loyal to friends, generous with his time and money, possessed a simple and deep faith in God, and he was present at

This week’s blog has excerpts from a September 29 New York Times article “The Crisis of Men and Boys” by David Brooks. The article captures many of the serious negative implications of fatherless that Tender Lions: Building the Vital Relationship Between Father and Son reveals, and we’ve been writing and speaking about for the last three years.  

The basic premise of the article is that boys and men are struggling in America, and it’s not getting better. Here is some of the data:

Girls outperform boys academically in virtually every subject and at

Recently I watched a riveting interview with Dr. Deborah Birx, former leader of the White House Coronavirus Response Taskforce. Her way of dealing with a very challenging situation illustrated a number of vital leadership qualities, particularly needed in our fragile and fractured country today. To see the interview just click here. By the way, the lessons listed below are my observations not hers.

Calm Under Pressure – When you’re in the public eye and how you appear is just as important as what you do, stay calm. Keep emotions, anger, disbelief,

Most people associate the word “apocalypse” with a disaster or horrible event nearing the end of times. Actually, the word means “to uncover” or “an unveiling.” My hope is that this blog will provide some “unveiling” for you.

If you’re a new reader this blog is about raising a boy to be a “Tender Lion,” and how to do that in a very challenging world. This last week brought with it some terribly challenging events, and I’m predicting that the coming weeks will bring more equally as challenging.

How do I help

Stress is caused by uncertainty,
uncontrollable situations, and sustained volatility according a stress researcher
from Harvard University. The research I’ve read finds that the “big three”
elements that cause stress is when “family, finances and/or health” are
threatened. It appears that all of these elements are in the bullseye right
now, and it’s almost certainly going to get worse before it gets better.

Who could have imagined the lightning speed at which the
world has changed in just the last few days. In many parts of the world the
number of cases and deaths from COVID-19 is

This blog has some helpful information, and ends with one vitally important leadership lesson. For those who believe that everything that President Trump says is true, when he said finally said late this week that “the Conronavirus is serious”…believe him! Be it two months late, he finally responded to the Coronavirus pandemic appropriately.

Here’s what I believe to be helpful information. Earlier this week I heard Trump say these things in a press conference:

“Coronavirus is like the flu.” It is NOT like the flu. When the NBA, NHL, all of college sports,

This past Sunday much of the world was rocked when we learned that Kobe Bryant, arguably one of the best basketball players of all time, was killed along with his daughter and seven other people in a helicopter crash. My wife, daughter and son all have basketball “in their veins” having been serious basketball players in school. They each have their “Kobe stories.” If you watched much (or any) basketball in the last 20 years, you probably have a Kobe story, too.

This week the news media and personal conversations were

In the last few months both Jeff and I have encountered challenging
ethical dilemmas involving organizations and people that we really care about. What
follows are a few of the important lessons for Tender Lions to be aware
of, because it’s only a matter of time before you and/or your son are going to
encounter a challenging ethical situation. While you can’t anticipate
everything, it’s best to have your eyes wide open. Consider discussing these
seven observations based on our personal experiences:

When you “poke the bee hive” don’t expect the bees
to thank you. To the contrary,

In the bestseller, Leadership and Self-Deception the story is told of an upper level manager, “Tom”, who has an inability to see his own problem – self-deception. Self-deception caused a number of significant problems both for Tom and those he worked and lived with. Let’s take a look at this scenario:

Tom always saw others as the source of his problems.Tom had an overblown sense of his importance, always saw himself as the most committed, the most dedicated, and the smartest guy in the room.Tom actually, unknowingly, provoked others to resist

If you’re a new reader of our blog, Tender Lions is about building the vital relationship between a father and son. On March 1 my son, Jeff and I are releasing a brand-new book, Tender Lions. The book, among other things, contains interviews with very interesting men that Jeff and I believe have valuable perspectives on their relationship with their dads. Jeff conducted the following interview with his life-long friend, Kris Grahnke, just a few weeks before Kris died of ALS on July 24, 2017. Kris was a special education