Building Men: from boys to men

Last night I attended with my two boys a talk by Joe Ehrmann on turning boys into men.

The one part that left me pondering the most was when he talked about what he asks the coaches he trains (on turning boys into men) -- not a direct quote but paraphrase of what I recall:

On your piece of paper, draw a circle and then think back to your adolescent years and recall who gave you the most encouraging words (the most positive memory of those years) and write down his initials inside the circle. Now, draw a square and go back to those same years and recall who gave you the most discouraging, negative words and write down his initials inside the square. And then he side tracks something about how he meets with other men up to their 80's and even they remember 70 some years back of who gave such negative words. Finally, he asks the coaches, now imagine 20 years from now when your students/players are taking this training from Joe and they are writing down the initials for the circle and the square: where will you find your name in?

Ouch! So, will my name be in the circle or the square? Or both? (Interesting that in Japanese culture, circle is "goodness" while square is "badness.") My wife thinks both since we spend a lot of time together with them (for her, she spends all day with them, while I try to spend some time with them each day, some fun/play time and at least some form of devotional every night and we also drag them to all kinds of meetings like last night's talk (grin)) and they experience all the ranges of our emotions from joy to anger, from praise to disappointments!