My favorite thing about the entire training was the idea that he said that families are broken and strong. It is Eric Sztanyo from Keller Williams Realty and team Sztanyo.com coming to you from the Sztanyo Van-yo today. Today I wanted to talk about families and particularly the idea that families are a lot of things, but families are broken and strong. What do I mean by that? Well, there are one of the taglines we say or one of the beliefs we have, and I really enjoy being a realtor to help people with this is that home is where families grow strong together. And today, I was working with my editor, Garrett and we were editing a 4th of July video that we did in Fort Thomas, Kentucky.
Why Families Are Both Broken And Strong?
And I was looking at the footage of that video and thinking..man! if anywhere there is kind of a Mayberry type feel like in Northern Kentucky, Cincinnati Fort Thomas, Kentucky’s probably. It’s very idyllic. there are no buses here. So kids are walking to school. It’s a kind of small-town feel it’s very close to the city. You’re only going to Fort Thomas if you’re going to Fort Thomas. So there’s not a lot of through traffic here. This means people are walking around and just have that small-town feel. And as I was watching that, I’m like, you know what? This is very awesome. I like this video and I love living in this place, but the truth is every single family that’s represented here. It has problems, right?
Like every single family. When you’re working with realtors and when you’re home shopping and I don’t like this, but it’s the reality of kind of the world we live in. Everything just looks glossy and perfect and shiny. And we live in an Instagram world, right? We live in a social media world where we like to lead with our strengths and not our weaknesses. And we put on a picture to the world that everything is rosy and shiny and beautiful all the time, or at least most people do. Very rarely do you see somebody being kind of authentic and saying, “Hey, I’m struggling with this. This is my problem.” That doesn’t tend to get a lot of likes or shares. So as a realtor, I’m cognizant of this. I like showing people different areas of town and you know, and trying to show, “Hey, these are good builders, or these are good homes, or these are good neighborhoods” or whatever, but the truth is no matter where you live, no matter what home you buy, there’s going to be good things it, and there’s going to be bad things about it.
And we gotta be honest about that, Right?. And the truth is – going back to the title of this video –families are broken and strong. Every family has both good things and bad things about it. So actually I went through this training a few years back with a friend of mine, his name’s Paul Owens. And he worked at a crossroads church that was kind of like the big mega-church here in Cincinnati. And I’m a part of some groups that thinks a lot about family and church and stuff like that. And he did a training called intentional families where he was giving some tools to families in the church about kind of like your weekly rhythm, maybe putting that like a Sabbath rest- What would that look like? What does a date night with your wife look like? What does it look like multi-generationally?
He had some ideas about interviewing the previous generation and just asking for stories about them because otherwise those get lost. And so you’re really honoring your parents or grandparents. If you say “Hey, I’d like to tell my kids about your story. What was it like growing up?” Just simple, basic questions. What’s different now about then, stuff like that. But my favorite thing about the entire training was this idea that he said that families are broken and strong. And I wonder, so what did he mean by that? It’s pretty self-explanatory, but the idea is every family has things about them that are hard, that are broken, have sinned and there’s a weakness and there are things that have gone wrong and people have made bad decisions. And it’s this stuff we kind of like keep in the closet.
And every family has that. No matter how idyllic something looks on YouTube or Instagram or Facebook or whatever. Everyone has problems, right? Everyone has things that they have to bear. Everyone has made bad decisions that have consequences. And at the same time, every family has strength in it. So no matter what your circumstance, no matter where you’ve come from, there are things about you and there are things about the people in your family that are strong, that are unique, that are specific to you. You have a specific set of gifts or skills and experiences that is uniquely you. And when you combine that with other members of your family- your family has a unique identity and something to give to the world. So you have this dichotomy of the fact that families are broken and strong. And so when I made this tagline or this newer tagline, or one of the things we believe with team Sztanyo is that family home is where your family grows strong together.
Those words are chosen very specifically. Home is the base that encapsulates both broken and strong families. But the reason I like doing real estate on the residential side, and I’m an investor too is that I really like helping families find the right home or sell a home when they need to. But is the fact that this is like your base. You should look at it as your base. You should serve your family well for what you need to grow, which grow means you’re not there yet. Right? You’re on a journey, you’re in progress. And I love it when people are viewing their home as a base where they can grow, where they can grow stronger together in a marriage, whether they’re training their children to be responsible adults in the world.
You’re growing, you’re learning, you’re working through weaknesses and brokenness. And hopefully getting stronger, growing stronger together. And how do you do that? You go through stuff, you go through hardships, you go through suffering, you go through pain. And when you come through on the other side of it, you’re stronger. That’s how the world works and everything’s not delicate, right? So when I see stuff from realtors and whatever, I get it, realtors do stupid things but something in me like Brussels. I mean, I want somebody to have a house that they love that fits them. And I want people to aspire to certain homes that worked for the family. But what makes me feel weird about that statement? A dream home is like, if I buy this home, if people think, if I buy this home, everything in my life will be good.
And that is not true. Right? We all know that where you live or the things you buy is not a magic solution to the problem in your life. It can serve your family, the property you buy, what neighborhood you live in, the features and amenities of the home, all of that can serve kind of the vision of your family. But it’s not going to solve every part. It’s not a magic wand. And what I love helping people find is when they’re using the home for their family, and they’re really thinking through what matters to us, why are we buying here? Why do we need this many bedrooms? Do we need to study? Do we like whatever the features like, we need to have a view, we need to be close to work, we need to be out in the country. There are all kinds of different reasons. And that’s what I’m saying. Every family is unique. But the last phrase is that families grow strong together. You’re doing it together. And so in that specific home with unique personalities and gifts and skill sets that make up family, whatever your family looks like, a home is a place where you get to do it together, where you get to grow strong together. Now it can also be a place where you grow separate, you know, go separate ways or like where you tolerate one another until you go do your own thing. And that happens a lot. That’s a reality as well.
But, uh, what I hope to see families do is look at the home where it’s a, it’s a base where you are putting as much effort and thought and energy into building and strengthening your family as you would your job, as you would anything else in life, your career. I have another friend, Jeremy Pryor is a good friend of mine who kind of came up with this. He shares this idea of what if parents thought about the way they thought about their home is the way that they thought about their work. What if they were kind of like a coach at home? And that’s a really helpful thought and analogy for me.
So I just had that thought today wanting to share the idea that families are broken and strong and home is where you can grow strong together with your family. So hope you guys have a great day.
