How to Be a Person of Your Word (and Why It Matters)
Being a person of your word doesn’t mean saying yes to everything. It means making realistic promises, communicating when things change, and giving people words they can trust.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Life Lessons From 80s Movies I Understand Differently as an Adult
Please Be Kind, Rewind: What Ferris Bueller, Mr. Miyagi, and Other 80s Movies Taught Me About Growing Up
Some nights, we reach for the comfort movies.
You know the ones. The credits roll and you’re already mouthing the lines. The hair is big, the clothes are so bright they had to wear shades, and the music slaps in that synthy way only the 80s could deliver.
I’ve been on a bit of a run lately.
Ferris Bueller’s Day Off.
Summer School.
The Karate Kid.
Can’t Buy Me Love.
Not because they’re perfect.
But because they’re still alive in me.
And now, somehow, in my kids too.
The strange thing about rewatching these movies as an adult is realizing how much I missed the first time.
As a kid, I saw the jokes, the fights, the cool cars and the pretty girls.
Now I see the lessons.
Ferris Bueller’s Day Off: Life Moves Pretty Fast
We wanted to create some of that Ferris Bueller’s Day Off magic for our kids—a celebration of my son graduating into middle school and my daughter wrapping up third grade. So we planned a trip to Chicago immediately after the last day of school.
Wrigley Field? Check.
The Art Institute? Yep.
Sears Tower? You know it.
No parade, but we hit the spirit of it.
“Life moves pretty fast. If you don’t stop and look around once in a while, you could miss it.”
That line used to sound like a cheeky excuse to ditch school.
Now it feels like a spiritual reminder.
A warning.
The rush years move fast—quicker every season—and you blink and your son’s got acne blooming on his forehead and your daughter would rather play Dress to Impress than hang out with you.
There’s this scene in Ferris—and if you’ve only watched it as a kid, you probably missed it—when Ferris, Sloane, and Cameron wander into the Art Institute. They quietly fall into step with a line of elementary school kids walking through the museum.
It’s gentle.
Innocent.
Absolutely perfect.
Then they reach the paintings. Each of them stops in front of something different. Arms folded. Alone, but still together. The music changes. Everything slows down.
That moment doesn’t shout.
It whispers.
Remember what it felt like to see the world with wide eyes and an open heart.
That’s the genius of Ferris Bueller.
It’s not really about skipping school.
It’s about how joy, beauty, and wonder are all around you—if you’re willing to stop long enough to notice them.
Summer School: Growing Up Without Losing the Fun
Summer School hit especially hard this time.
It’s goofy, yeah—chainsaw kids, a teenager stripping at night so he sleeps through class, Denise falling in love with her teacher and trying to move in with him.
But when we watched it again to kick off break, my son lit up.
“Wait—is this the one where they scare the sub with horror makeup?”
He remembered.
The energy stuck with him.
What I didn’t understand as a kid was how hard it is, as a grown-up, to balance being liked with being responsible.
Shoop is just trying to keep the whole thing from falling apart—taking the kids to the beach as an unsanctioned field trip one minute, going to Lamaze class with a pregnant student the next.
And somehow, it works.
Because he shows up for them.
He’s not perfect.
But he gives a damn.
Maybe that’s the grown-up magic trick:
Be fun.
Be firm.
Give a damn.
And try not to lose yourself in the middle.
The Karate Kid: Mr. Miyagi’s Best Life Lesson
The Karate Kid is one of those movies that sneaks up on you.
You remember the crane kick. The Cobra Kai bullies. The Halloween skeleton costumes.
But when I watch it now, I don’t just see an underdog story.
I see a philosophy for how to move through the world.
At one point, Miyagi points to his heart and tells Daniel that this is where karate lives.
Not somewhere else.
Here.
That stuck with me.
And I realized I’d said almost the same thing to my son.
After one of Gio’s baseball games when he was probably nine or ten, we were driving home and talking like we always do—what went well, what could improve.
I remember telling him:
“Gio, if you want to be great at baseball—and I mean great—you need to put it in here.”
I pointed to my heart.
At the time, I wasn’t consciously thinking about Mr. Miyagi.
But it was the same lesson.
You can learn to field a ground ball.
You can work on your swing.
You can learn where the cutoff man should be.
But you can’t fake passion.
You can’t shortcut heart.
Whether it’s karate, baseball, school, work, or life, eventually the thing has to matter to you.
That's what I didn't understand when I first watched The Karate Kid.
I thought it was about training montages and fighting back.
Now I think it's about love.
Belief.
Inner discipline.
And yeah...
Some seriously solid headbands.
Can’t Buy Me Love: Popularity Isn’t Worth Losing Yourself
Can’t Buy Me Love has always stuck with me—not because I ever wanted to be Ronald Miller, but because I saw what he gave up and knew I wouldn’t make that trade.
He had the telescope money saved.
He had his crew.
His curiosity.
His whole inner geek.
And he swapped it out for a ruined leather jacket and a seat at the cool table.
As a kid, I saw a movie about an unpopular kid becoming popular.
Now I see something different.
Ronald stops trusting himself.
He forgets who he is.
And that's the real cost.
But he also finds his way back.
That's the part that resonates with me now: the return.
You don't have to sell out to stand out.
And even if you lose yourself for a while, you can still find your way home.
And yeah, the movie is clumsy. Awkward. Completely unhinged at times.
But like so many 80s movies, it's built around this wonderfully optimistic belief:
People can change.
And maybe even learn to like who they were all along.
Why 80s Movies Hit Differently as an Adult
I didn’t plan for my kids to love these movies.
I wanted them to.
I wanted to share a part of me with them—a part that felt free, funny, and full of heart.
But I didn't expect the movies to give something back to me too.
That's been the surprise.
I see Ferris Bueller differently because I know now how fast life actually moves.
I understand Shoop differently because I know how difficult it is to be responsible without becoming joyless.
I understand Mr. Miyagi because I've tried to explain passion to my own son.
And I understand Ronald Miller because I've lived long enough to know that becoming somebody else to please the crowd is almost always a lousy trade.
These movies aren't just nostalgic anymore.
They're a bridge.
Between my childhood and theirs.
Between who I was and who I'm still trying to be.
Maybe that's the real magic of a good 80s movie.
Beneath all the neon, the montages, the absurd side plots, and endlessly quotable lines, they carry something fragile and important:
Pure joy.
That unmistakable youthful energy.
That feeling that life is messy, weird, full of possibility—and you're right in the center of it.
As adults, it's easy to let that fade.
Responsibilities pile up. The days blur. Your to-do list never seems to get shorter. Your kids grow faster than you can keep up.
Little by little, the weight of adulthood settles in.
So how do we keep the spark alive?
Maybe it's through our kids.
Maybe it's through a ridiculous movie we've already seen twenty times.
Maybe it's just remembering who we were before the world got so heavy.
Whatever it is, I think it's worth chasing.
Because youth isn't an age.
It's a spirit.
And if these movies taught me anything, it's that mine is still in there—waiting for a reason to dance.
“Know what’s enough. Build what matters.”
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