Category Archives: Life’s Lessons

Book? Done! “My Husband Wears The Short Shorts In THIS Family!”

December 11, 2013 11:17 pm , Leave a Comment ,

In the midst of my husband Scott Mackintosh‘s  funny picture of him sporting those Daisy Duke style short shorts gone VIRAL, my good friend and New York Times, best selling author Bridget Cook, called to say she had been watching this funny little story take on a life of it’s own as it traveled around the world.  Bridget and I collaborated on writing a short little book featuring “the story”,  followed by ten life’s lessons in raising our seven children.  Another friend came up with the name; “My Husband Wears The Short Shorts In THIS Family!”

And so it began …

Bridget interviewed Scott, our daughter Myley and me, probing for details to the story that the media had not yet shared.  As she was busy creating the reenactment of  the story of Scott cutting his jeans to make a point to our daughter, I dove into writing ten life lessons that I learned in raising our large family in this faced paced and somewhat chaotic world.  I didn’t set out to write a specific number of lessons it just naturally happened,  the lessons could go one into the hundreds.  But wanting to keep the book short, I stopped at ten, with a bonus chapter written by our oldest son Tosh, sharing lessons he learned from his dad, who wears the short short in THIS family.

After weeks of constant writing, the book felt complete – for now!  Scott and I have a joint book we are working on focusing on specific life lessons that WE learned from each of our seven children – in THAT book there will be SEVEN pretty awesome life lessons shared.

Every family is unique, but we all have a truck load of commonalities within our experiences as parents, families and people.  

There is so much we can learn from each other and share with each other to help make this journey called life, more enjoyable and love-filled.

After several edits, tweaks and re-tweaking the book is finally FINISHED and on December 10th I uploaded the Ebook to Amazon! Yep! You can order it  and read it right now!  AND as we speak the book is being printed …available in paperback.  This short-easy-to-read-and-promise-to-make-you-laugh-book is the perfect Christmas gift for your boss, a parent,  spouse or of course the perfect gift to give yourself!

My book.

TODAY, December 11, 2013  KSL The Browser 5.0 invited Scott and I back onto the set of Scott’s very first interview about life after going viral – the book and all the crazy happenings since that dang unflattering picture went viral.

An unexpected surprise has been all the requests

for Scott to speak at everything from corporate to youth groups.

 We have done a lot of speaking together which has been really fun because we both LOVE to tell stories – life’s lessons that have been pivotal in shaping who we are today.

We aren’t quite sure where all this is leading, it seems to have taken on a life of it’s own.  We’ve decided to take it one day at a time and enjoy the journey.

“One day at a time” consists of; writing, speaking, blogging,

answering email requests and enjoying my little grand babies.

On a side-note; today was the birth of our first grand-daughter – the priceless miracle of life.  I love being a grandmother now to three adorable little ones.  Many life lessons still to learn.

Digg ThisShare via email
Share on MyspaceSubmit to redditShare on Tumblr Share
Posted in: Life's Lessons, Parenting

What I Learned From A Four Year Old: True GRATITUDE

November 13, 2013 2:21 am , Leave a Comment ,

I’d like to share a story that took place in 2011 that will live in my heart forever – it’s a story of gratitude from a four year old.

My heart grew larger as I walked the streets that Mother Teresa walked in Kolkata, India. I went to India with the intention of changing the lives of others, only to discover it was my own life that was forever changed.

Never before had I seen such poverty – heart wrenching poverty. But what surprised me the most were the big smiles and the genuine love that oozed from their faces spite their obvious hardships.

It is estimated that over 100,000 children live on the streets of Kolkata. There is an organization in Kolkata that is trying to make a difference – The Towards Life Foundation. This charitable organization has built 8 one-roomed schools called “centers” throughout the slums of Kolkata to provide the street children the opportunity to go to school. Some were lucky enough to have desks, other were not – all were happy just to be in school whatever the conditions.

India School -blog

India dum dum school blog 3

I was part of the Global LifeVision-Inda team; consisting of 8 women and 1 man. We were eager to volunteer at these centers to help in anyway possible.  We arrived prior to the country’s biggest holiday – Diwali. The children at the centers are given new clothes in celebration of the Diwali festival, much like our Christmas – they exchange “sweets”, decorate the streets and dwellings with lights, and parade around in their new clothes.

On this occasion the teachers thought it would be more memorable if the visiting Americans distributed the new clothes to the students. The boys would get a new shirt and new pair of underwear, and the girls a new dress and new pair of underwear.

An unexpected surprise. 

On our last day helping at the centers, a big box was delivered with the new clothes. Each item was wrapped in a clear cellophane package with a child’s name printed on it. The clothes were placed on a table in front of the classroom in two piles. The teacher would call out the name written on the package and hand it to one of us to give to the child. Without hesitation the child would say “Namasté ma’am”, and some would bow down to kiss our feet – the ultimate sign of respect and gratitude.

As I was watching this take place and the excitement of each child as they received their new clothes. I noticed a little boy in the middle of the room inching his way to the front and jabbering in his native language, getting louder and louder while tears filled his eyes – he stayed fixated on the table displaying the clothes. I looked at the table to see what could possibly be troubling him and saw there were only a few shirts left, I thought; “He is worried they are not going to call his name.” When the second to last name was called – he lunged forward grabbing his shirt and hugging it tight, then quickly he put it into his backpack and skipped around the room one happy boy.

As I was observing this priceless moment of gratitude for a new shirt, my colleague was observing the youngest girl of the class, over in the far corner of the room. This adorable little 4 year old had removed her new dress from the cellophane wrap and very gently unfolding it, once opened she slowly slid her hands from the top of the dress to the bottom. Then she folded it back up, slid it back into the cellophane and held it to her chest rocking back and forth in delight. As my friend shared what she had just observed my eyes filled with tears. We had witnessed gratitude in it’s purest form.

My perspective changed, leaving me never to be the same. I returned home with a deeper appreciation for the things I often take for granted; my family, my health, and all our basic needs: clothes, shelter, food, and most of all the simple beauty of  …everything.

Digg ThisShare via email
Share on MyspaceSubmit to redditShare on Tumblr Share
Posted in: Aspire Dreams Within, Ideal LifeVision, INDIA, Life's Lessons, The Power of One , Tagged: , , , , , , ,

Speaking? A Book? What? Me? Us? Oh My!

October 14, 2013 4:21 pm , 2 Comments ,

Last week my cute married daughter and recent college graduate Kelsey, created a video from our many TV appearances.

I think you will agree that she is very talented. I’d like to say she takes after me, but NO, all that techie stuff goes right over my head. She made this video for her dad and I to use as an intro-piece at our speaking gigs. What speaking gigs? I know, WE are as surprised as you are. Let me back up a bit and explain what’s been happening.

A few weeks ago, New York Times Best Selling Author M. Bridget Cook, called asking if she could interview me, my husband Scott, and my daughter Myley and then help ME write an eBook of our story and other life’s lessons in raising seven children. Wow is all I can say! We have been busy writing and will soOn have an eBook on Amazon. The book is entitled “My Husband Wears The Short Shorts In THIS Family.”

A week following Bridget’s telephone call, motivational speaker/author Chad Hymas called. If you don’t know Chad, you need to get to know him. He is listed in the Wall Street Journal as one of the ten most inspirational men in the world. Chad is a member of the Speakers Roundtable and the youngest to be inducted into the National Speakers Hall of Fame. I have been fortunate enough to work for Chad the past few months and have known him for several years. Our telephone conversation that day went something like this,

“Becky, is Scott home?

“No, he is out of town until Saturday.”

“Okay, I will call back on Sunday. I want to talk to the both of you about becoming a speaker and sharing your message with the world.” He added, “I’ve never seen anything like this.”

What Chad said next caught my attention,
“I am not essentially firing you, but I am firing you. And then I want to become your speaking coach. You will need to work really hard. Instead of putting 40 hours into me, I want you to put 40 hours a week into becoming a speaker. Can you do that?”

The following Sunday when Scott and I spoke to Chad we were overcome with feelings of both doubt and excitement.

“Can we really do this? YES, we CAN do this!”

We couldn’t ask for a better mentor or coach than Chad, it doesn’t get any better.

AND what’s better than to speak about something we are so passionate about – NOTHING!

Teens are the most misunderstood age group, the group most people want to skip over and ignore, but we love them! Scott is gray, and I color my hair because of them. But there is nothing we’d rather do than help bridge the gap from teens to parents and strengthening families.

The crazy thing is that over the years I have asked Scott a number of times the following question, “If you could BE anything and DO anything what would it be?” I would quickly add, “Besides being a professional hunting guide.”

Scott’s answer was always the same, “I would be a speaker focusing on teens. I would like to speak to teens and parents everywhere.”

I would pipe in, “What would you speak on? What would your platform be?” He’d say, “I don’t know.”

Then I’d say in a skeptical kind of way, “Scott it’s not like church where they assign you a topic ….you have to have a platform.”

Well Scotty ….Guess what? Now you have a platform! It came unexpectedly, it’s a good one and the world apparently is wanting to hear it.

About three years ago, Scott started writing a book about his life lessons, a book to pass down to his children, but now I’m thinking it may go to a much broader audience. What do you think?

Before remembering the book that Scott has been writing, I bought the URL “Life’s Short Lessons” to build out a website to house all our “stuff”. It will be humorous, fun, inspiring and enlightening. To be LAUNCHED very very SoOn!

We didn’t plan for any of this to happen, we couldn’t have scripted it any better if we wanted. The opportunity to share what we love just opened up to us on it’s own. We are grateful, a bit nervous and overjoyed for this new chapter.

Thanks for your support.
bEcky mAck 🙂

 

Digg ThisShare via email
Share on MyspaceSubmit to redditShare on Tumblr Share
Posted in: Life's Lessons , Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Dad Short Shorts Gone Viral Update

September 19, 2013 9:37 am , 2 Comments ,
Speaking? A Book? What? Me? Us? Oh My!

Speaking? A Book? What? Me? Us? Oh My!

 

Little did I know that when Scott put on those tiny short shorts that our lives were about to be turned upside down.

When I first encouraged my husband Scott to write his story,”The REAL Story Behind The Short Shorts” he laughed and said;  “Who’s going to read your blog,  FOUR people?” Well sweetie, hate to break it to you, but slightly more than four people read it! 🙂

I was certain that there were a lot of people as surprised as I was when I initially saw him sporting those shorts that would want to hear what the dad behind the “nice legs” had to say about his little night-out-on-the-town ….and WHY? It was 11:30 pm when I hit the “Publish” button, tweeted the link, posted on Facebook and then went to bed. The rest is history!

Only a few days later we were hearing it was top news in the DailyMail UK, I wasn’t sure what that meant. Then I get a call from the DailyMail NY asking permission to use the picture with a link to my blog.

I appreciate that so many outlets have emailed or called to ask permission to post the picture and tell the story. The ones that have not asked permission seem to be the ones that twist the story to their own agenda, but I totally get that there is opposition in all things, so why would I expect any different?

Scott’s very first interview was with a local news station KSL Browser 5.0. It was the same day that the local Deseret News ran an article. I thought “Okay it’s staying local…that’s good!” I watched the analytics on my blog go up ad up. I said;

“Myley, this could actually go viral. It’s taken on a life of it’s own, and there is not much we can do about it now. Are you okay with this?” Her answer, “Yea, why wouldn’t I be? I’m fine. It’s dad that should be embarrassed.”

After that, the days seem to blend together. The phone ringing became the norm; “Hello this is CNN, The TODAY SHOW, GOOD MORNING AMERICA, INSIDE EDITION, FOX News, FOX AND FRIENDS, FOX 13, HLN Showbiz Tonight, HALLMARK, The HUFFINGTON POST, RACHEL RAY, ELLEN, STEVE HARVEY”, not to mention all the radio and TV shows who did not call for an interview, but talked about it and showed the picture; The View, Jay Leno and Jimmy Fallon the list goes on and on. We tried to accommodate all who called requesting an interview, but because some wanted exclusivity not all requests were able to be met.

On Thursday September 12th, three film crews came to our home to interview Scott and Myley; INSIDE EDITION, GOOD MORNING AMERICA and The TODAY SHOW.  GMA also put me under the spotlight to ask a few questions. It was 10:30pm when the last crew left our home. They were aired the following day on Friday the 13th, later that night friends began texting that Jay Leno and Jimmy Fallon had shown the picture and talked about Scott sporting his daisy duke shorts to teach a valuable lesson to his daughter in their monologue. Seriously? This whole thing is craZy. Still trying to wrap my brain around it.

What made this funny, out-of-the-box idea, which was meant only to teach a valuable lesson about modesty to our daughter, go viral? I’m guessing initially it was the funny picture of the dad with the nice legs wearing a Best.Dad.Ever t-shirt. THEN it became the story behind the picture, a story of a dad who loves and cares about his daughter enough to make a fool of himself in hopes to teach her the value of modesty in a fun, creative sort of way.

Chelle Golland PhD said on GOOD MORNING AMERICA;

“What this father did was an excellent way to get this message across. It was creative, it was funny, it engaged the family, it engaged the teenager.”

Most of the comments and messages received have been very positive. Only a handful of readers have been negative. Several have asked “How does Myley feel about all this?”

On National TV, Myley said; “I mostly learned the lesson of how much my dad loves me.”

Myley is at the end of her teen years, she is 19. I’m a mom and most likely when she is my age, 50, I will still be her mother who gives her parenting advice as my 82 year old mother still does to me. Myley has completed a year of college and is now working to save money to continue her schooling next fall. She is a lovely young lady with a giant heart who’s goal is to be a social worker to serve and make a difference in this world.

Has she changed her wardrobe? Not drastically. Myley said; “It got the point across. Yes!”

We know all the hype about the picture will die down, but the message behind the short-shorts we hope will carry on for years to come.

 

Digg ThisShare via email
Share on MyspaceSubmit to redditShare on Tumblr Share
Posted in: Life's Lessons , Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,