What Matters to You Matters to Me

June 14, 2026

I am writing this from a hotel that is hosting an event called Nerdtacular 2026. The tagline is, “We are the dorks you’re looking for.” Amazing!

I am not entirely sure I belong here. I grew up playing sports. I understand locker rooms, competition, scoreboards, and the strange joy of being physically exhausted with a group of teammates. That was my world and it was by most definitions, not nerdy.

Entering the lobby of the hotel was like entering a nerd layer. I was surrounded by comic fans, board game aficionados, and Jedi Knights; I smiled and thought longingly about my son at home. He loves Pokémon, Beyblades, and imaginary worlds I know very little about. He knows characters, cards, storylines, powers, evolutions, and details that I cannot keep straight. When he was born, I assumed our connection would happen by bringing him into my world. I would teach him the things I loved, show him what mattered to me, and hope he would find joy in these shared interests. It has not been the case, and it hasn't always been easy.

There is nothing wrong with sharing our passions with our children. In fact, that can be beautiful. But I have been learning, slowly and not always gracefully, that love also requires me to go the other direction. If I want to know my son, I have to become curious about what lights him up. I have to ask questions. I have to listen without quietly waiting for the conversation to return to something I already understand. I have to be willing to look a little awkward in a world that is not mine.

Stephen Covey wrote about this in The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People through the idea of the Emotional Bank Account. Relationships are strengthened through deposits of trust, care, attention, and understanding. One of the great deposits we can make in family life is to show genuine interest in another person’s world. Not performative interest. Not the kind where we nod politely and move on. Real interest. The kind that says, “What matters to you matters to me, because you matter to me.”

This is true with children, but it is not only true with children. It is true with spouses, siblings, parents, cousins, and friends. Every person we love has an interior world we can either ignore, tolerate, or enter. Their music. Their hobbies. Their work. Their fears. Their strange little fascinations. Their dreams that may not make sense to us at first. Love becomes more joyful when we stop trying to make everyone meet us on our ground and begin walking, humbly, onto theirs.

That does not mean we have to become experts. I may never fully understand Pokémon. I may always confuse one character for another. But I can learn enough to ask better questions. I can sit beside my son and let him teach me. I can let him see that I am not just interested in shaping him, but in knowing him.

There is a unique joy in that kind of knowing. It softens family life. It opens doors that lectures never can. It reminds people that they are not projects to be managed, but people to be discovered.

Sometimes the most loving thing we can do is put down our own playbook, pick up theirs, and say, “Show me how this works.”

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