Larry Hagner: The Night I Realized I Was Becoming My Father | DSH #1743

I just typed out the good dad project. That was it and that was like the surrender of the ego

That was like, I'm done trying to wing this. I'm done trying to like figure this out as I go

What if I learned it? What if I actually learned marriage? What if I learned communication?

What if I learned connection? What if I even learned patience?

Can I learn those things because anything that I think we're ever good at anything we have to learn it?

Okay, guys got Larry here from St. Louis. We're going to talk about fatherhood today. I'm really excited about this one

It's a pretty deep topic for me and I know it is for you. You based your whole show and life around it now

So thanks for helping on man. Thanks for having me. This is an honor. Yeah, you're 1400 episodes in. Yeah, that's incredible

And it's all around fatherhood all around fatherhood marriage

Men's work, you know pretty much all that. Yeah, so growing up. I know your parents got split right

My story is kind of odd. Yeah, and I'm happy to share if you want me to go for it

Yeah, so I was my mom and biological father were married in 71. They got married really young 21 years old

They had me four years later in 1975 and then about nine months later they got divorced

And I got to be honest with you Sean. I don't know much about their divorce. All I know is it was bad

And then as soon as like he was gone like I have no recollection of my four

No, I was one and then I was about I was four when I kind of realized I didn't have a dad

Oh, well, so it was just me and my mom

But but here's the funny story

I was in preschool kindergarten age. That's kind of when the audio video kind of comes on and I remember like

Dad's coming to pick up my friends

So I knew what a dad was like some dads wore suits and some dads were jeans and I knew I didn't have one

But it didn't really bother me because I thought actually moms go out and find dads

So my mom hadn't found my dad yet

So I'll never forget this one time when I was five and my mom told me she's like hey

I'm gonna have a friend over for dinner tonight. I'm really excited for you to meet him

I've known him for a little bit and I'm really excited for you to meet him and we work together

So like that was basically my mom telling me like I've been dating somebody I work with as time for you to meet and

dude

My thought right away was oh my gosh, that's the dad she found the dad

So this guy comes walking in my house. I'll never forget it

I'm like five years old like 45 years ago. He's wearing a trench coat three-piece suit double wins or tie mustache feathered hair

1979 whole nine yards. Yeah, and

The first question I asked this guy when I shook his hand was are you gonna be my dad?

And he laughs pretty much like that too and I think my mom actually like gasped and but they got married six months later

Wow, yeah, yeah

I think my mom kind of took that as a science kind of like that Jerry McGuire movie

You know like where the kid comes up and hugged Tom Cruise and she's like oh my gosh

Like I probably should marry this guy and that's what she did

And I think she probably married him because she the idea was good and

Man, I was so happy. I remember that first year like eating dinner together and we we want a vacation together

And then like after about a year things got really bad

He was a big drinker. My mom was a big drinker. There was a lot of blowups. There was a lot of fighting

There was a lot of beatings. Yeah, I remember one time when I was six years old. I'll never forget this

I heard screaming in the middle of the night. I ran into my mom and dad's bedroom and I

What I saw was my dad on top of my mom holding her down my mom just screaming

jeez and

Nothing sexual or anything like that, but just like they were fighting. Yeah, and I remember going over and trying to peel his hands off of her

Like I was punching his hands and everything couldn't get him off

He like picked me up drug me in my room through me over my bed slam the door

I ran out again tried to get him off her he did it again, and then finally I guess the neighbors heard us and

Called the cops and that was one of three or four times that cops came to my house

But it was really messy and terrible by the time I was 10

They got divorced and right around that age. I was like wait a second

This guy came into my life at five and I actually have the same last name he does so I'm adopted by him legally and

My mom then told me and she's like well, you you actually have another dad out there

Like I was married before I had no idea well, and not that she was keeping it from me. I think she was just more or less like

I need to tell him when he's ready type of thing and a couple of years passed by she dates

Same type of guy is very toxic very abusive. Hmm. Well, here's the crazy thing

I'm 12 years old. I

Go to a rec center with my friend to play basketball and I knew my dad's name. That was all I knew

And I knew kind of what he looked like from pictures and I heard I went to get my basketball and the guy behind the the counter said

Here comes I'm not gonna say his last name, but here comes Mrs. So-and-so with the hockey payments my dad played hockey up there

So and I was like I'm sorry. What name did you say and he said it and I go you said her husband plays hockey up here

And he said yeah, and he goes well, what's his name and my dad's name is mine Larry and I go my gosh

That's my dad's name like that's my dad's name. I told my best friend who was with me. I was like

I think that lady's married to my dad

So she hands over the check. I like tap around the shoulder. I'll walk right up to her 12 years old

I'm like, hey, what's your name? And she she looked at me like I was crazy like she told me I said

Are you married to a guy named Larry and she said yeah? And I go I think your husband is my dad like 12 years old and she was like

Sweetheart, are you Larry and I said so she knew about me and I said yeah, and she goes

Would you like to talk to your dad and I was like I would love to talk to my dad Wow

And so we went around the corner of pay phone put a quarter and she's like hey, I'm up here at the rec center

I just ran into your 12 year old son. He'd like to talk to you and just handed the phone right over and

Sean I got I got to be honest. I don't remember what we said

I just remember the sound of his voice and he just sounded so humbled and just shocked

But we ended up meeting and then we ended up having this relationship

He only lived to three miles from us. I had no idea. So he's married to this woman. I had a two-year-old half-brother

She was pregnant at the time and we had like six months together and he came to like all my literally games

Like everything was awesome like I saw him all the time and then after towards the end

I didn't see him as much and I felt like something was just kind of off her odd

So I remember calling him and I was 12 years old and I'm like, hey

You know, is everything okay? Like I just feel like I don't we don't see each other that much. We're not talking as much

I don't even remember what words were said. I just remember that was the end of our relationship again. Whoa, and that one hit me hard

Because you got a taste of it. Yeah, and that one I kind of just to be honest like as a kid

I just kind of gave up. I gained a bunch of weight. I

Failed the eighth grade. I had to do eighth grade twice

Ended up going to high school went on to college. My mom continued to date got married one more time when I was 18

But it was like disastrous and I think at one point time no kidding around

I think I was 18 like I just there was so many men that kind of came through not that my mom

Was permiscuous or anything like that. I'm not saying that but she dated, you know

She was trying to find a husband, I think but it was always like these toxic dudes

And I think at one point I was like man, I'm done with fathers like I'm just done and

fast-forward to where I'm about your age. I'm about 30

Married two years first son on the way. I'm in a Starbucks hadn't seen my dad for 18 years

I'm in there for a meeting and

I look up and this guy comes walking in

And it's my dad hadn't seen him since I was 12 and I

Remember one of the friends that I was with one of the I worked with a right with a group of people and one of the

One of the women on my sales team. We were friends also. She she knew this whole story

And she looked at me. She's like are you okay? Like you just look like you've seen a ghost and I was like

I was like you're not gonna believe this. I was like

My dad just walked in here and she's like

What like the one you haven't seen since you were 12 and I was like yeah, and she goes where and I was right over there

She's like oh my gosh like what are you gonna say? What are you gonna do? And I was like I'm not gonna say a word to him

She's like wait a second. You're gonna let your dad walk out of here. You're not gonna say a word to him

I was like yeah, it's pretty much the plan. Yeah, I'm not gonna do anything

So she just got up didn't say word just got up and just sat at his table and they started talking and I was like

My gosh like what is about to happen and I could read his lips and I heard I saw him say where is he?

And he looked all around and we met our eyes met and I was like

I'm like gosh like what is about to happen and he got up and he sat next to me. He's like hey, he's like

My gosh like how are you like are you married or you have kids?

And I'm like and I wasn't nice, but I wasn't a jerk. I was kind of in between. I was like

I'm fine. How are you? Yes, I'm married. I have one on the way

And I was just kind of like that. He's like we you know, we should we should get together and I was like

kind of like was like

I'll tell you what I

Slip my business card over except the time was 2005. I said if you want to meet

You can contact me and I didn't hear from him for like three days

And I was like well, I thought that was a way. It was gonna go down and then I got this email from him and it was long

and the guy just poured his heart out and

He told me that he regretted everything if I if he would give if I'd give him another chance

He would love it. That was 20 years ago and we still have a relationship to this day

Well, yeah, and we live 20 minutes from each other my boys know him as grandma grandpa

He's still married to the same woman has been for 47 years. I have two younger half brothers

I make my dad sound like a bomb. He's not

He's a very successful entrepreneur a good family man a good man

Just made bad decisions, but that was that was my upbringing. Wow, what a story. You're such a good storyteller by the way

Did you find out why he left like after the six months? Why he kind of stopped responding to you?

Yeah, we after we kind of started our relationship. I guess over again at 30

You know, I just was like I asked him out to dinner one night, and I think he knew you know a conversation was coming

And I just sat down we small talked for a while and he looked at me and he goes

Why don't you tell me why we're here?

And I said

Okay, I said I have a lot of questions. He goes I know what what do you got? He's like I'm an open book

I'll tell you whatever you want to know

And I just said I want to talk about this one time and then we don't have to talk about it again. I said but

What the hell man like you left when I was a kid

Twice like why

And he took a deep breath and he was like

It's the worst decision I ever made both like he said the divorce between me and your mom was so bad

He goes I actually thought when I signed over parental rights to your adopted father

I was actually giving you a better shot

He goes because that killed me to do that

He goes but I thought I was actually doing something very selfless

He goes it was also you know not the

Bravest thing I ever did either. I have ownership in that too. I could have fought harder

I didn't he goes and then when you were 12

He goes it became so complicated and it became very difficult between me and your mom and it was causing animosity

And it was causing a lot of tension

Just in general he goes and I thought I was doing the most selfless thing possible and that is

protecting my family and maybe not confusing you

worst decision I made

And he goes

So that's it. He goes and all I can say is I'm I'm so sorry and if I had to do all over again

I would do things different but I can't and

He apologized we cried we hugged and

That was it. Well forgiveness

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I'd imagine living with that guilt for 30 years must have ate at him

You know a lot of people that's a good point

I think a lot of people you know are like man

That's it's like rough like how you know grown up like that

And I was like you know

It was I was like but I don't regret it like I'm very thankful for like none of this would have happened if none of that happened

At the same time

Carrying a burden like that's gotta be tough. Yeah, yeah, I'd imagine yeah

And it makes me wonder because it divorce rates so high these days. It's crazy

These fathers just living with similar situations in their head. Yeah, I grew up divorced. It was so rough that

My dad when it happened he didn't see me for a year

He just disappeared for a year. I didn't know if I'd ever see him again honestly

It used to have really symptom. Well, it's been recently passed, but yeah, we we mended

You mended yeah, I was like fifth grade when that happened

Wow, so I didn't see him till I think seventh grade then I used to see him on weekends

But yeah, that divorce was rough for him. I can't imagine well that year for you probably had to be really rough

Yeah, I was doing like counseling and stuff. It was it was crazy

But now that's that's common these days divorces. It's like that's not even on common anymore

You're in fifth grades. You were 10. I was 10. So that was the same age

That my dad like and I have never seen him since my my one that adopted. Yeah, yeah

Wow, and he's still

He passed your dad. Oh, he passed away. Yeah, but he passed away about 10 years ago

Did you feel like you wanted some closure there?

Man, that's a good. I don't know if I've ever been asked that

I guess in a way. Yeah, you know because it was um he I still he was my dad like that's why I called that

That's who I knew his dad growing up and um

How to do over again

Yeah, I would have loved to have some sort of closure like he died unexpectedly of a heart attack like I think it like 60 years old

Wow, that is pretty young that you never know these days, right? Yeah, that's why for me

It's really like important to leave with some closure. Even if it's not positive just to like talk to I try not to have any enemies

You know, yeah, I just don't want to be living with I saw I have one my dad

So he grew up in a very like abusive household and he never made up with his parents

So like that just ate at him all the time. I'm sure it did and

With me he like loved me so much, but he didn't know how to show it if that makes sense makes total sense

Yeah

So um

I didn't know if he loved me growing up to be honest

Because he just didn't know how to show it

I think there's a lot of guys out there like that, you know, it's just um it's kind of like it we call it um

It's like the it's like this this gap like this gorge, right? And like where men usually are and where they want to go

And they just sometimes it's just that gap and that skill of how to get there, right?

Yeah, it's tough for us. Yeah, I'm sure even with you when you start dating like just that dynamic affected how you treated

Your wife right? Well, it was I dated like I got into a bunch of toxic relationships

You know, and there were some good ones too, but like it was almost like I think if you're kind of brought up that way

You want to go to where you're familiar, you know

So even if it's even if it's not good and like I was I gravitated towards a lot of other relationships

But luckily like my wife man, we've known each other for almost 30 years and

Been married for 22 four boys and she's my best friend. She's my writer dye like it's crazy

The more time we're together the more we actually feel like we're in love with each other

Wow, but it's also like I mean, I get to do this work

So like we get to you know, I get to know the know how to which is good. That's incredible

Because you hear the opposite with people in long relationships at this man's the fire dies out

Yeah, but you're not having any issues without no, we actually I mean we I'm don't get me wrong the first half of our marriage

Was not good. It was just the whole reason I started this

I was

When I got married I made three promises to myself and I'll share the story too of how it even got started

I'm gonna be a good husband good communicator good husband

I'm gonna be a good dad and I'm never gonna hit my kids out of anger because I was hit a lot

And I broke all three of those promises what in that first 10 years and the whole reason

Dad ed you even got started was because I have a I have a 19 year old 17 year old 11 and nine and my 17 year old was four

and

I'll never forget this night and this is

This is I've told this story so many times that still kills me

My son

One night we were packing to move and I had also I was a medical device sales at the time

I lost my number one customer that day

Made up like 60% of my territory revenue. So a ton of my paycheck was wrapped up into this one customer

lost that customer

Thought I was gonna be fired. We were getting ready to move

And I was like really stressed out my wife was a stay-at-home mom

packing up our house and I was packing up the kids playroom

My four-year-old comes down and I was about ready to take a break and I said hey

I said I just packed up all this all these toys. I was like there's some toys over here

I was like but please don't unpack anything. I'll be back, you know in about 20 minutes

I don't know why I thought a four-year-old would listen to that

I mean, I've been a dad for almost 20 years and I look back on that and be like are you know

You're you're dumb like you're clueless. So I come back

And literally almost every toy that I packed was just scattered about and I just reacted and I turned him around

I swatted him on his butt

And unfortunately

He faced planning. Well, he hit the ground and

The thing that kills me and I've told this story for 13 years, but it kills me every time because

As soon as I did it, I knew exactly what I did and I was like oh my god what I just do and I went to go pick him up

And I was like oh my gosh are you all right and he turned over and he saw me coming at him and he literally just went like this

Like don't hurt me

And in that moment like

Really what I saw was myself because there were so many men

They came in and out of my life. There were father figures that had a heavy hand and I saw that look fear

And his eyes and

That was it and even my wife who is one of the most amazing most forgiving people I've ever met was like

She was like seriously. She's like Larry. He's he's four. He's four

And it was that night. I went into my office

I was crying open up my laptop and I got on Facebook because that's what you do as an adult

That moment you just go on social media and you just scroll and you try to forget about it

And I saw this button in the left hand corner. It said create a page and this is 2012

So it's kind of before all this got big and I was like so I clicked that button and this thing pops up says what do you want to name your page

I just typed out the good dad project. That was it

And that was like the surrender of the ego that was like I'm done trying to wing this. I'm done trying to like

Figure this out as I go

What if I learned it? What if I actually learned marriage? What if I learned communication? What if I learned connection?

What if I even learned patience like can I learn those things because anything that I think we're ever good at anything

We have to learn it and as soon as I did that I started I never did it for a following

I started just researching things and I just put it on that page. I used that page. Just as more or less a journal

You know, I said I'm gonna go out and one learn one new thing every day and I did

And then all of a sudden it just started getting a following and I haven't

You know never really intended it to be that

Then I started being asked to speak and I was like I'll never forget it was 350 women who asked me to speak at this church

I was like 350 like I was like what do y'all want me to talk about like when they when they hired me

They're like we want you to talk about what it means to be a good dad. And I was like you got the wrong guy

I'm not I'm not a good dad. I'm trying to figure that out there. They're like no

That's actually what we like about it. You're so authentic like you just tear yourself down

publicly on what you're learning

so I did that and then it

2015 I started the podcast and I was just like I really want to interview people and learn from people on their expertise and over the past 10 years

I've gotten a front row seat to I think one of the best educations I've ever had

And five years ago I went full-time with this and I left a very lucrative job

And I was a I was a national sales director for a medical device company

Making a lot and I walked to do this full-time and

I wish I would have done it two years sooner

Actually, yeah, wow

So you left the job that was paying way more to do this. Yeah, at the time. Okay. Yeah at the time

Wow, I mean, it's it's such a major issue now, right? You're trying to solve something really massive. Well the thing is is that

I have a heart for dads

I have a huge heart for dads because I know how badly we struggle and I know how badly we struggle that we don't even say out loud

And I also know the other side of it and as well as you do what it's like to be on the receiving end of a family that doesn't really have, you know

the structure the support, you know and

The good things that happen in a family that should

And I think if more people had more education around these topics that we teach

I honestly believe my

That the world would change overnight. I really do. I think dads have that much power, you know and in a good way

Yeah, I mean the numbers don't lie on on fatherless households. You've seen those studies. I have a bunch of them. Yeah

It's really alarming. They're they're so bad. I mean, it's all you have to do is Google fatherless environment, fatherless homes and

The percentage I mean, I think it's like 82% of teenage pregnancies happen from fatherless homes 92% of incarcerated individuals are

Come from fatherless homes. It's it's really bad the dads make up, you know, dads really make an impact. Yeah

When it comes to parenting are you like collaborative with the children?

Do you want to rule by fear like what's the approach that you've seen work for your four kids?

I mean, I like to I like to hit them still

Actually, I joke with my 17-year-old nox is he's now that he's been the starting

Center

First high school football team and he is an absolute beast and he outweighs me by about 40 pounds

And he could have his way with me anytime he wants. Yeah, but no, it's it's definitely um, I would say

I would say 80% of it, especially my older guys my 17-19 home. It's it's really collaborative

Not fear. I don't think anymore at all

There are some times where you have to have really direct conversations of course

But not not fear and especially with my little guys

I don't I don't rule with fear anymore. I mean there are times. I think that you have to pull a lever

But it's minimal like minimal minimal minimal. Hmm pulling a lever meaning like hey

We need to have a serious conversation and there's serious consequences for what you did

Right that kind of thing

But I'm more of a fan of let's have a conversation around this and let's learn from it versus

Rule with fear. I love that. Yeah, I would say my house and my mom watches every episode

So she'll see this but it was I'll just call it what it was it was a fear based house. Yeah

I was scared of getting you know punished yeah and yelled at and stuff like that

Can I see a question about that? Yeah, did that

When you grew up in a house like that

Did you did you feel safe to tell your parents like bad news or yeah, I would hide it and honestly I would rebel

Yeah behind the scenes right, you know, yeah, it would make me want to cause more trouble right? Yeah

I think if it was more collaborative. I wouldn't have been I was a bit of a troublemaker growing up

You know, yeah, and I think it does have to do with the environment I grew up in and just not having a father figure too

See there you go. It's like right with the stats

You know, it's like I really think that dad's like I didn't not to take anything away from moms

But dad's I think really provide a ton

Well, I had like confidence issues identity issues. Just like being a man. I never felt like like a guy if that makes sense

Total yeah makes total sense that felt pretty soft. I did too. I think that's why like

Ain't my feelings away, you know, I gained a much away, but yeah, it's like

I think without that like I think young boys especially especially in that age range of like nine to 12

Especially like as they get it get their purity because they're not necessarily a boy yet

Yeah, not necessarily a man yet and things are it's confusing

A lot of things that happen in those few years especially these days with phones and just the access to information

And ideas being put into these young kids heads. Oh, yeah, you know, it's it's the wildest

It's crazy. Yeah, I'm sure you didn't give phones your kids to lay wear a certain age rent. No. Yeah, so like

I'm not the most popular dad when it comes to that one

Yeah, we we recently I think my

There were 14 my two older ones my 12 year old does have a phone, but it's it's it's called a bark phone

So he yeah bark phone. It's a bark phone is it's very limited on what he can do and I get alerts if there's anything

Bad happening so interesting text messages

Anything on the internet that he's searching

Email like literally anything. It's actually quite entertaining. Yeah, you get to kind of see

Through text messages you get a real flavor for their friends that is very interesting

So some people would would see this clip and say that's like a bit of a helicopter parent. I'm sure you've been called up

I haven't been called that but here's my belief with with social with with any device that access to the internet

I mean, we we wear seat belts when we get in the car

We have our kids put on a helmet when they're on a bike right or on a skateboarder scooter

You give them a window to the world and be like go have fun

I don't think that's being a helicopter parent. I think that's the same thing is hey put your seatbelt on and I think because here's the thing

Boys now see porn

Uh, at eight years old. That's the average Instagram. It's great. It's everywhere, right? So like

I want to know when these I want to be proactive with it

Every conversation and everything that they're going to see your experience

And I want to be in front of that verse behind it

I just had a conversation with my 12 year old right before I came here actually and we were having the talk

And he asked me he goes

I was like he's like, why do we talk about this and I go do not want to talk about it

He goes, no, no, he goes. I do he goes, but sometimes it's weird. I'll go. Yeah, of course it's weird

I was like guess what's weird for me too. I was like, but here's the thing

You're either going to learn from me you're either going to learn from the internet or your friends

And out of those three things, I'd rather you just learn it from me and when you and he goes, yeah, I think I would

I love that. Yeah, uh eight is young though. I can't believe that. Yeah. Oh my god

It's not man. I feel like it used to be like 15-16

Yeah, and we had to like I mean, I'm older than you so like I'll never forget like

magazine

Yeah, I had a I had a 10-year-old friend of mine trade his bike for a playboy

What and we were like what are you gonna tell your parents when you get home with no bike?

I don't know figured I was like

Yeah, they were that expensive the magazines. No, he just he buddy has it like a one of his front one of our friends

Grab one from his dad stash and he's like here. I'll give you this if you give me your bike

It was like a mangoes like it was a nice bike and he handed it over. I was like, oh my gosh. That's crazy

Yeah, that's nuts. But yeah, these days you just be scrolling on any social media platform

It's pretty much porn. Yeah, it's not everywhere. Yeah, and the average kid. I don't think he can control themselves. No

No, not all. Yeah, I mean, there's a lot of grown men. We they can control those facts

Um, I did see you talk about the loneliness problem too. I wanted to cover the 70% of men are lonely. Oh, yeah

So we call that the lone wolf, right?

Men so I don't know if you've ever

If you've ever interviewed Stephen Mansfield or now he has he wrote a book called Mansfield book of Manly men and

If there's anybody and he's about I guess about 60 years old and he's been doing men's work for a long time

But he talks about how grown men. It's it's kind of this stage

where

We graduate college, you know, we get a job and then we get engaged we get married and then suddenly like our friends like our

Our social circle kind of goes away

physically we're surrounded by

People all day long, but what Mansfield says in his book is most men have rusty relationships and when I had him on my podcast

I was like, what do you mean by that? He's like, well, there's really no there's not a whole lot of depth

He goes if you think about it, you know, we go to if you're hanging out with your college buddies

You know when you're older you're talking about college probably or you're talking about politics or you're talking about sports or whatever

Very rarely do men have a place where they can be like, you know

Hey, man, like I'm really struggling like communicating with my wife

I'm really struggling with like intimacy with my wife like we're just we're just like

Two ships that are just spinning in different orbits, you know

We don't have conversations like that like we talk every conversation we have can be answered with fine good busy

You know, that's it. How are the kids? Oh, they're busy. How's work? Oh, it's crazy busy. You know, how are you?

I'm fine. How's your wife? Oh, she's good good and then we kind of move on to just the more shallow things

Yeah, a lot of guys out there what what I have noticed

From 10 years of doing this work and coaching men for that long is

Men really want to have deeper conversations

You know, they want to be better. They want to have information. That's gonna make their families better

It's gonna make their their lives better. Yeah. Yeah, I think they want to but they just don't know how to

The hardest thing that I've seen is the asking for the help actually raising your hand and being like

I don't have this one figured out because I think society kind of puts us in this box of like

If you don't know how to be a dad or you're struggling with it

Well, you're weak and if you don't know how to be married or you know how to be a husband well

Then you just don't know women or you don't know this. It's just it's all these labels and the funny thing is is

You know, we just talked to Jake shields out here, right?

The funny thing about that is like that guy has been doing

MMA for years, right? I mean, can you imagine like if Jake shields got in the ring with somebody and never did any training like ever

He'd get pummel, right?

But that's what happens to us when we get married like we have all this different information and all this different education

Like I have a four-year degree in sports med

But I didn't know how to communicate my life until you start to learn these things

So the good news about all of this though is they're all skills and we can all learn them

But yeah, the network of men is lonely. Yeah, sure, and that's what you built their community, right? Yeah

And it's a is it all-mind you do meetups? How does that work?

So we we've had a community now for nine years when we have two different ones

We have one for career guys

So that's called the alliance and then we have what's called the the data edge business boardroom

That's for our business owners. What we found was is that

We separated those two because we found that the business owners

As you know, there's a lot of emotion. There's a lot of physical. There's a lot of mental energy that goes into building a business

Leading people, leading teams, customers

I'm not saying it's better or worse than a career. It's just

You most men feel the heaviness of being a business owner and then what usually happens is is they're out there building a business

They come home and there's a there's there's a lot more going on right?

There's a lot more things that they have to handle

They don't want to leave their marriage on the table

They don't leave you know the connection with their kids on the table

It's the same thing with a career guy

But usually what we have found is business owners are just quite frankly stretch more than

Than then career guys. So that's why we separated that degree. I mean they're working 18 hours a day

Yeah, right tons. I had on a billionaire and I asked like do you even go to your kids sports games? He's like now

Wow, and I was thinking like damn is that because you need to be somewhat present for your kids right

My my thing is is don't come home with a wallet full of money and a house full of strangers

You know, sometimes business just has to suffer to quote the godfather, right? Yeah, it really does. I mean

Truth be told I know we rescheduled this show because I didn't want to miss one of my kids things

So um there are just sometimes and I got to be honest like I was like

I hate to pass up this opportunity to go on

You know this podcast with you at the same time

I I'm not gonna miss this like and I'm and then business and this if this doesn't get rescheduled

It's just gonna have to suffer. I'm not gonna give that up. So um

I think that that that needs to be a priority a core memory for me is

My soccer games usually I'd maybe my mom would be there, but my dad wasn't over there

Really, you know what I mean? So that that just like sticks out to me

And then the one time he did go he had a seizure

At one of my soccer games. So they had to cancel a whole the whole game. Oh my gosh. Yeah, so that's just like a memory of mine

You know

He struggled with some drug stuff and alcoholism. It was it was rough. You had a lot of demons. He was fighting man

You and I are cut from this

Yeah, it's crazy. No, that's just like a core memory

Yeah, he had a lot of issues man. Wow

Wow, did your mom ever get remarried?

So she never got remarried, but she's with someone now after like seven years. So pretty much

I guess do you guys get along pretty well? Yeah. Yeah, he's a lawyer. We're cool

But like you she brought a lot of guys in and out yeah over the years and every time I get my hopes up of like

This guy could maybe move in be my dad stepped out or whatever

And then it would just end. Yeah, you know dating stuff these days

It is stuff

Back then too. Yeah

But that was that your experience was same as mine. Yeah, I think you kind of skipped a point where you're like wow

Like I just it's I think it's the trust factor really for sure

But yeah, now I'm trying to be proactive. You know, I'm getting married

I want to be a really good father when I have kids

So I'm interviewing guys like you all these therapists or dating coaches. Just get ready man

Yeah, I'm excited for that shot there in my life. That's good man. It's important for me

You know growing up the way I did to be a really good father

And you know, I think that if you grew up the way you did the way I did I think it becomes

Insanely important. Right. I mean, it's almost like man. I can't I can't mess this up and the cycle and the cycle

Yeah, you know, there's a quote that I put in the book called a

The definition of hell is meeting the man that you could become when you're on your deathbed

And I believe that's an Napoleon Hill quote

But that one really resonates and I think it really creates urgency for guys like you and I

You know kind of grew up that way and we're just like the same happened on my watch like it's gonna be different

Yeah, I want to give it everything I have on my deathbed because I saw

You know with my father and my grandfather feel like there were some unanswered questions for both of them

You know, when they passed yeah, which yeah closure, right? Yeah, no, it's important

So you got four kids. So how old were you on the first kit 30? I was 30 wow

So I'll be probably about the same age. Yeah, that's pretty crazy back

Very similar life. I know even even the courtship with you and your fiancee is so similar to yeah, Jessica and I and you said

So the first half was rough. You said of the marriage the first 15 years the first

I mean dating

Well, oh my gosh when we dated it was it was really rough. Yeah, cuz I was we were really trying to figure it out

I mean we were in our early 20s. I met her when she was 18. Oh, it's long

And yeah, we we took some lumps, you know big time and plus rookie relationships

I think there's one other thing here that's kind of unsaid based on what you just said is that

I think it's really important for men to do growth, you know and and to really understand what it takes to be married

But I also think on the flip side women my wife has done a ton of work with it too

So like the combined work that we've done together. I think it's really solidified relationship. What type of work was she doing?

So we we've done a ton of work on like so communication. Yeah, um connection

Believe it or not. I know this sounds kind of crazy

But one of the things that we've really worked on is our friendship

Because if you really think about it, I mean at the end of the day, you know your your spouse is your friend

And she's my best friend

And I think what there's what I put in the book there's four elements to a great marriage

The one is the self-care right so that's where both individuals we need self-care

I can't be my best for somebody else unless I'm my best right same goes for her and she realizes that too

The next one is partnership partnership is like the not so sexy stuff

That's the chores the roles the bills, you know

The managerial stuff managing the kids schedules

And I'll come back to that one here in a second

Then there's friendship right which you got to be friends with your spouse and the last one is intimacy

And that's obviously the physical part of your relationship those are the things you share with nobody else, right

But what usually happens to married couples is they get stuck in that partnership loop

And that part and that's all the conversations that they have is like those high-level managerial conversations

You know, it's like X's and O's right they forget about their date nights. They forget about, you know, intimate talks

They they even kind of push the friendship a little bit sometimes to the side

And then we wonder why we don't get the intimacy that we want

And a lot of it just has to do with the fact that we haven't done those four things that we need to do

Yeah, you called out the drift right the drift yeah, yeah, I think I've definitely been there, you know

Yeah, definitely been there um because the first five years

I'm working to like build up some uh some liquid capital

Yeah, one of the family kids in the house and all that so I'm working my ass off and then we're just stuck in that drift

Yeah, we're not doing activities

Outside of work. Right. Yeah, it's like it's like the washrooms repeat. It's like the groundhog day. Yeah, every day feels like the same the same

Yeah, yeah, come home late. Don't even ask her how her day was just right focused on the work

I have a story around that if you want to hear when I first got started doing this work

I had this great mentor of mine

And he said and this was a 2015. He's like if you're gonna do a podcast

He goes you need to have an avatar. I was like I didn't know what avatar was

I was like, what does that mean? He goes you need to

Write in detail

Who you're speaking to what problems I have and how you're helping them and I was like well, that's me

I have all these problems. He goes yeah, but you kind of want to picture somebody that you're talking to

So Lance I'll explain my avatar and I'll explain the drift

So Lance is my avatar like he's the guy that I created. He's the guy that I talked to when I'm on the podcast

He's the guy that I write the book to he's basically like your best friend type of thing. He's 38

He has three kids under 10

married to a woman named Kate and

They had a courtship for about five years and

For the past ten years ever since they started having kids. He's noticed changes

He goes to a job every day that he doesn't really like eighty two I think it's eighty two percent of men don't really like what they do

well

And so he goes to a job that he feels kind of stuck in sort of trapped

She's a stay-at-home mom so he doesn't feel like he can really do anything else

So he feels pretty unfulfilled from a career standpoint

Comes home after eight to ten hours of that. It's chaos

three kids under 10

desperately wants to connect with his kids, but also has problems with patients

tries to connect with Kate just doesn't it just never really feels like they're connecting and they're just drifting

And they're just talking like about the high-level things and he goes to bed every night and he's like

I thought there was more like isn't there more like I just don't feel like

I'm completely fulfilled. I know there's more

But he just keeps going on, but here's the here's the trickiest most sinister thing in my opinion

It's the men that we surround ourselves with

Because in Lance's world he's got these rusty relationships

And anytime he opens up and talks about it. They're like dude you've been married for ten years

Like you're not gonna have sex anymore

You've got three kids like come on man. Get over it. He's like a no one likes what they do

Just keep doing it. Just forget it. And so Lance just hangs it up and he's like

I guess this is life and I'll just keep going

But all the while he's

Happy he's content to some degree, but he's also pretty miserable to some degree

But he just keeps going the book talks about how to disrupt that

You know and to really really get into your marriage to really get involved with your kids

And but it actually starts with us first. What do you mean by that?

So like for instance

One of the hardest things for a man to do is if you're a guy like Lance you don't want to raise your hand and say

I'd really like some help to connect with Kate better

A lot of us don't want to even say that kind of stuff out loud

We really want to talk in detail about what's going on in our marriages

We're like ashamed or we're ashamed. It's like well, it's it's a ding on me like if I

If my marriage is an on point

But as soon as you get Lance to say you know what no more no

Line in the sand. I'm done living this way

I'm gonna go get help and that I'm not saying therapy or anything that but I'm gonna go figure this out

I'm gonna learn I'm gonna listen to podcasts. I'm gonna. I'm gonna read some books

Maybe I'll get into community around other like-minded men

And I'm gonna start to learn this stuff through conversation and through skill

Then he starts to implement these things

Then he starts to see his marriage start to change then he starts to see the connection with his kids start to change

Then his life starts to feel like he wanted it to feel and not saying that there's no bad days

But the bad days are a lot less

Yeah, yeah the first step is basically admitting that there's an issue

Do that for a guy like that that is the hardest thing but but also I also say this

As soon as you raise your hand like the scariest thing is being like I don't know all about this

I don't have us figured out but as soon as you're like

I'm ready to learn

There's a there's something that I think happens to a guy in his heart and in his mind where he's like all right

That wasn't so hard

Let's go. Yeah, and then they start to go and man

I mean, I've seen guys turn

Marriages around that I the high thought I was like oh my gosh. I don't know if this guy has a prayer turn marriages around turn

Kids haven't spoken to some of these guys for 10 years. Whoa some they they turn their relationship around

I mean, I'm just like this is awesome. That's incredible. Yeah, wow 10 years the kids I've spoken to

Yeah, I mean there I've I've had a client like that. That's not wow

There's a quote I pulled. I don't know if this is from your show your book married first father second. Was that something you said? Yeah

Could you elaborate on that? Sure, so

You know, I think that's a

When we say marriage first parent second, I think a lot of people take

Certain statements for extreme right and I'm not saying like oh

Yeah, I'm sorry. You have a broken arm, but and you need to go to the ER

But me and mom have a date, so you're just gonna have to suffer until we get back

Not saying that at all what I am saying is once we start having kids, you know, just take a regular married couple

What most married couples will do is they will slide their marriage on that back burner

And the kids now have the front burner and which rightfully so in those first few years

I mean that kid is totally dependent on you, but then they never get back to being a couple

They're just parents right so all the attention goes on the kids

Which in actuality I don't think that that's necessarily a great thing for the kids because

I think one of the greatest gifts we can give our kids

I'm speaking to the right man right now. Think about this for a second

If your parents and my parents were like, you know what

We're gonna make a killer marriage here. We're we're gonna make this marriage work and we're gonna be

Functional we're gonna be happy and we're gonna learn the skills to do it. I'm gonna fulfill your needs

You're gonna fulfill fulfill my needs and it's gonna be awesome

But we don't do that

I think as soon as a couple makes that decision

I think the family is set up for better success

Because where do we learn functional relationships like you and I right like I completely tripped over this for over a decade

But when we have our marriage on point

Our kids get a front row seat to a functional relationship that actually is working

Yeah, which I think will give them a better probability of things working and even my 12 year old

You know, I've asked him. I'm like because my wife and I are one of our goals is to gross them out every day

We try to gross them out every day

But I've we've even asked our kids were like what does it feel like for you when you see mom and dad love each other

My wife and I man we we love each other yeah heavily right and

My 12 year old says it feels warm. Mm-hmm. It feels cozy. It feels comfortable in here. It feels good

And I think that's his way of saying it feels really safe, which is one of the kids three needs is to feel safe

When parents are lock lock step

I think that makes kids feel safe and feel good and plus they get to see a functional relationship

That's beautiful. Yeah, my fiance grew up in an environment like that

So she has a secure attachment style. Oh my gosh, and she's been trying to get me from my avoidant attachment style into oh my god

Her lane, you know, I'm just saying that because that Jessica came my wife came from the exact same

So really your fiance did and I was you and like so yeah, it's like

It's it's fascinating. She's very secure. I was very avoidant. Wow

It's like she would always have to chase me down to talk. Yes, and yeah

Were you able to transition to secure or are you still avoided? No, I'm secure. Oh nice that took a ton of work

I'm still work on it's been years. I don't what worked for you in in regards to that transition

So I think um, I think you have I think a couple of things

I think you have to make a decision of I'm gonna face things head on and the consequences are gonna be what they're gonna be

Right, because I think we approach a lot of different scenarios or relationships with expectation and agenda, right?

So it's like I have to operate within this way for like survival in this relationship

But I will say this as soon as you make that decision of like no, I'm just I am going to make sure that I'm the one tackling problems initiating conversations

I do think things get better, but I will say this

I think there's one thing that couples could really really get better at and that's conflict resolution

Because

One of the things that didn't make me feel very secure is

Conflict resolution had no idea how to do it. So you just fight with raw emotion

You know, she's saying one thing I'm saying another and then I just I would just walk yeah, but now we know how to resolve

You know, and we and we know how to get conflict resolution now. I love the what's the process for that?

So we learned a skill and I I always have to say who we learned it from

It's this skill called the cube. It's um, we learned it from an organization called clear leadership

It can go to clearleadership.com. You'll see all their stuff

But this skill that they taught us was gold. It's but it's observations

Thoughts feelings and wants so it's the in that process. So an observation so like I can give you a total example

So this was about three years ago

Jess and I have a great intimate life like no complaints there

We're pretty active. I would say at least two or three times a week

And even after all this time

We went through a couple years going through like a three-month thing where we were only about once a month

and

I got kind of like irritated with that

Like most men do it, right? So how I would normally handle that is I would either go quiet

You know walk or just not say anything at all. It's just avoid it or I would

Talk to her like this. I would say hey, so what's going on with this lately? Like I feel like we're not

We're not intimately like every time. Oh, if I initiate you're not like I what's going on there? You just like I don't understand

And then she'd be like, no, it's and then we would just fight, you know, it was like raw motion

Now, I'll just kind of take it through step by step

We used to fight about that topic constantly, but now so like how I handled that one was

The observation has to be

What she sees and I see equally right so observations are not opinions

She has to see it the way I do and I have to see it the way she does so like me saying

We've only been intimate once a month for the past three months. Would she agree to that? Yeah

She would because she knows that too

So I'd say hey, I've noticed over the past few months

We've only been intimate like once a month. Yeah, and she's like yeah, and I was like so here are my thoughts

And I always try to thoughts and feelings are different

And by the way, you'll probably never unhear this around see this because people get this wrong all the time

People say this all time. I feel like I really like that shirt

Right, that's not a feeling. That's a thought, right? The thought is a sentence and a feeling is a word

So I could say something like

I really like your shirt and when I see that shirt. I feel happy. Okay, right? So so a feeling is one word

So what I would do what I did in that scenario is I would say hey, you know

Here are my thoughts around that my thoughts are we're both probably really exhausted

Like the kids activities or a lot by time we get the bed at night. It's we're exhausted. Hmm. Here's the other thought that I have

Um, the other thought that I have is

Maybe you're not attracted to me anymore. You know, it's like or maybe you've just had the same guy for so long

And maybe I'm just boring. Yeah, and I try to yeah, I always try to throw on a thought that make the person laugh because

It was true, right? It's very true

And I say but all kidding aside, you know, I'm a little concerned and then the ones are

You have to go three layers deep of why you want it's I can't I can't just say I just want to be with you because

So you know

What I what I truly want is

I'd love to be intimate with you like we used to be you know a few times a week because when we are intimate

Like man, we're we're in lockstep

We communicate better. We're better. We're even more patient parents like we're just we're just better

Right and she's like I want that to but here's the crazy thing

If you don't use a conflict resolution skill like that and you by the way you probably won't ever unsee this either

Most people when they argue

We are fighting for what we don't want anymore

But we never usually ever say what we want

Like we're just fighting for we don't know true

Oh my god, so that that makes as much sense is doing this

So you go to Starbucks and the woman says hey, what can I get you and you're like last time I was here

You gave me an album look latte. I did not like that

She probably like you'd be like okay

What do you want right but that's one of the biggest things that we miss and conflict resolution is just stating

What we want but most importantly on the deep level why do we want that right?

So I don't I don't say to Jessica. I just want you just because I tell her I want I want this because

We communicate better we're better parents. We're more connected like it's our relationship is just better

Right and usually here's what I've found

When you state what you want a lot of the times not all the time

That other person usually wants that too. Wow. Yeah, that is such a cool model

And then what's after the one is at the last step? No, so that's that's really like the launching pad for then a conversation

Because when we barrel in with like I just don't understand where I haven't sex anymore

Like what why not like are you tired like are you tired of me or you board of me like what's going on

That's gonna do nothing but raise those defenses

Right and I'm stating what I don't want anymore

Which is like I don't want we have right now and I've never been clear about what I do on

But as soon as I share that then we can have a more fruitful conversation

She's on the offense. We're set up for a better conversation. That's great

Yeah, I'm sure you run into a lot of guys dealing with like sexless marriages or oh my it yeah a lot not having sex and off right

Yeah, I mean it just naturally. I guess the sex drive goes down as we age to right

I don't know no

I

Could I could still go every day at I think maybe it's different from men. Yeah, you know prop probably after a couple kids

I'm sure they're chillin a little more than normal

My wife and I man it's like we we actually do it net more now

Wow, which is great you're giving me some look forward to yeah

So I talked to a lot of older guys and they're like yeah, I want once a month. No, it's pretty normal. I couldn't even imagine

Yeah, I couldn't that's not a lot

Dude, this is great. It's the book out yet. Yeah, the book came out

On September 16th and so it's on Amazon now

I do have one other way for people to buy it if they want. I did a pre-order

I did a pre-order campaign. I didn't I didn't really think much was going to come of it

But it became massive we we sold a ton of books

I think a lot of people wanted the bonuses that came with it though

So um if your audience goes to to the dad edge.com for slash legendary book

They can buy it for me if they want but they get two courses with it

So I have a course that's called creating more patients

It's 45 minutes it teaches men six skills on how to be more patient with their kids and just life in general

And then I have another course called creating extraordinary marriage and there's 11 skills in there around communication conflict resolution

intimacy learning your wife's three needs which is being seen heard and safe

You know and understanding how to fulfill those

But I'm given those two courses for free as long as people buy the book there

And I'll probably keep that page up until the end of the year

Well, beautiful. We'll link that in the video and we'll link your podcast anything else you want to include

Um, no, I think that's probably about it. Awesome. Yeah, right actually. There is one more thing

If if any guys you know are out there, you know, if you're if you're a business owner, you know, especially

We have a heart for our business owners big time if they go to the dad edge.com for slash mastermind

They'll see those two pathways for the alliance and for the boardroom

Um, but yeah, if they want to apply if they want to get in conversation is learning these skills that we're talking about

That's the best way to do it amazing. We'll link that as well. Thank you. Come on man. Thank you

Yeah, I hope you enjoy Vegas me too. I hope you guys are enjoying the show

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