Mike Check.

12.

Check, check.

I got you.

All right.

Welcome to episode three.

This is to dad from dad Podcast, where dads at every stage of life talk about what worked and what didn't and what they do differently.

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It helps conversations like this reach other dads who might need to hear them.

Today I'm here with James.

James is a father of two.

He's got a daughter, age 11, and a son, age 12.

James and his wife Katie, have been married for 13 years.

James, welcome to the podcast.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Very glad to be here.

Awesome.

Before we kind of jump in, I want to give some context about my relationship with James, how we know each other a little bit.

So our daughters go to the same school.

We have been in a Bible study together for probably two years now.

We're supposed to meet every week.

We try, but with work schedules and travel and everything, we.

I don't know, it's probably once a month.

Yeah, maybe.

But really good time together when we do get to meet.

Yeah.

You and I've gotten to know each other really deep, pretty deeply through that.

And then additionally, James and Katie have coached several soccer teams.

You coach your son's soccer team and your daughter's soccer team.

Our daughter happens to be on the same team.

You've been the coach.

You and Katie.

Katie, primarily.

Katie's the main coach, assistant coach.

James, years.

You.

You're constantly carrying all of the heavy accoutrement that's required.

Happy to do it for a soccer practice.

A labor of love.

Yeah.

So we've spent a fair amount of time together.

Yeah, we got a lot of respect for you.

Very successful in your career, very successful father.

So really glad to have you here.

Thank you.

So for the people listening that, can you just.

Where are you in.

In fatherhood right now?

I've asked the other guys, like, what phase or what stage of life are you in?

What phase or stage of fatherhood are you in?

Just give us a rundown there.

Yeah, well, I'm about to turn 50, so I think there's a stage somewhere in there just when you're about to do that.

But, you know, with my kids being a little 11 and 12, it's, you know, they're not little kids anymore.

And so I'm in a phase of fatherhood that is trying to establish where they're headed to next as they're become young adults and try and, you know, position myself on that journey with them to.

To make the most of it, I can.

But, yeah, it's.

It's different today than it was when I first had kids.

You know, them, I'm at a wildly different place, and I've learned so much.

It's almost like the.

The first five years of kids was, you know, love them and maintain the responsibilities, but there's like a fog that gets lifted, you know, when you've been doing it for a while and you realize the optics are clear and you realize how much more intentional you can be, and you start bringing things into a much better balance.

And so I think that where I'm at today is striking that balance and understanding where my kids are and meeting them where they're at and, you know, trying to be supportive from them physically and emotionally and, you know, preparing them for their future battles.

What is.

What do you enjoy most about the age of your kids right now?

The.

My son at 12 is starving for independence.

He wants his own world.

He wants to, you know, he wants to find who.

Who he is separate from his sister and separate from the family.

He's.

He's at this.

You can see him really wanting to grow, and then, you know, that comes with its own special opportunities.

And then my daughter, she's.

She's still a kid to me.

You know, she's just a year, you know, a little over a year off Cal, but she still is, you know, the daughter that still needs the dad in terms of emotional support and holding and, you know, they'll need that forever.

But it seems my son is moving more quickly out of the.

I need my daddy like, this phase into, you know, what is that, what is going on between us, man to boy.

And I feel like, you know, I see what my daughter needs from her father more than I did a handful of years ago, and that's a sign of her reaching a different stage in her life.

And I'm glad that I'm seeing that.

But she's still my little baby, and I still just want to hold her.

And so there's.

There's more.

More evolved, more.

More evolution needed for.

For me to see Quinn start to spread her.

Her wings and see some of that independence.

Right now.

She's happy being daddy's girl.

So a little.

Little different stage for both of them.

Even though they're both pretty similar in age.

It's becoming evident to me more and more like that.

That daddy's girl phase.

Like, dude, it's.

It's going to for both of our girls, it's going to be over pretty quick.

Yeah.

Like, it's coming quick.

Yeah.

You know, and it's weird between a boy and a girl.

You know, you raise them, and at some point, you realize they're not going to go anywhere.

They're just kids.

They're going to be here with us forever.

And then you realize, wow, they're growing so fast, they're not going to be here much longer.

And you realize, what do I need to do in order to feed them everything they're going to need?

And so with my son, it reaches a point where you realize you're trying to train your replacement.

Like, I'm trying to teach him to be an independent man so that he doesn't need me.

So it replaces me when he is able to be that.

And so, you know, trying to do that while my daughter is.

I'm trying to raise her to be the type of woman that can replace me responsibly and effectively.

So I'll raise Cal to replace me as a man, and I'll raise Quinn to choose the right man to replace me in their lives.

And there's a big boding sense of responsibility to try and manage that approach with my children, in a way, because all I can do is prepare them.

I mean, I can enjoy the time I have with them, but my responsibility is to raise, you know, emotionally physically resilient, strong children because they're going to be tested, and we know what they're going to be tested on.

We've ran these.

These traps ourselves.

And so all the things in the world that are waiting for them, it's just this deep sense of finding out where they're at and how to best prepare them for adulthood as.

As a core responsibility that I have, you know, in being a dad.

You said something there that.

I struggle with.

Am I being you?

You just said, at some point, Quinn is gonna have to find a man to replace you.

Right.

And you're going to walk her down the aisle, and you are going to pass the torch of responsibility for her.

Yeah.

Right.

I. I feel this overwhelming responsibility to be the same caliber of man to my wife, Whitney, and to my girls that I would expect them to find in a future spouse, including the way that I love them and talk to them and care for them.

Because I. I think that we teach them what that love looks like, and I think they.

They go and look for that same love in a spouse, or they are never exposed to what healthy love and relationship looks like, which makes it really hard for them to find a good partner.

Yeah.

You know, or maybe they have to overcorrect.

They go looking for something that they never got at home.

Yeah.

I think that's a big part of it.

You know, I think that, you know, that's what a good dad is.

He's the strength behind the kid as they're on that journey.

Because if they don't feel they have a strong father in the wing while they're living life, they're not going to be as bold, they're not going to be as daring to take those chances in life.

But when you raise them strong, you're representing that strength to them.

And they're like, I'm going to go do this.

I've got strength behind me.

I've been raised with that strength.

And I think that that's how we support our kids.

You know, we can't do everything for them.

And that's a hard part of where I'm at as a father.

There's so many things that my kids are capable of, and they should be the ones doing that, and so trying to make sure that I'm not doing things for them.

Because, you know, at 12 years old, you know, he's got six years and he's fully gone.

Right.

As an adult, but, you know, he's got maybe three years to where, you know, he's going to be driving a car, he's going to be so busy, that my influence, my window of influence starts to shrink.

So the quality of that influence has to continue to rise.

And so I feel that, you know, if I can.

If I can continue to be intentional and purposeful with how I am around my kids, I feel that I'm laying a foundation, you know, for when they reach this point to where my window of influence is small, but there's fruits of that labor that know then to get to be a part of the story.

When you think about Quinn, one of the things I wonder a lot is I think teenage girls can go down a really desperate path of attention seeking.

But I've.

I've observed that's not always the case.

Yeah.

Do you think what.

What do we do to provide an environment at home where they don't feel like they have to go get the attention that they want somewhere else, I think that's a very dangerous place for them to be.

It leads to a lot of bad decisions.

Yeah.

You know, if we're not teaching our kids and influencing our kids, they're going to be taught and influenced.

It's not a void of influence.

In teaching, it's just that we want it to be, we want to dominate what that influence and that teaching is because the world wants to real bad.

The world wants to influence them, their friends want to influence them.

There's so many influencing factors that, you know, that's where we're the rock, you know, being, you know, and then that just doesn't come with us understanding that we are that form of strength for them.

It has to somehow materialize between us and the relationship.

So I think that how we do that is we listen to them when they're having a feeling or when they're trying to express themselves.

Don't correct that, don't over teach that.

The more they can outpour to us and feel safe putting those words out there and sort of exploring that, you know, and us receiving that in a way that, you know, we are managing their affect.

Let them speak, let them have those feelings and emotions.

And the more they do that with the strength, knowing that they can rely on us at the end builds that confidence that, you know what, I can put myself out there, I can, I can go ahead and take chances in life.

I can be a little risky here.

And you know, I think that, you know, the alternative is you stifle them.

You know, you take some of that path away and you try and give it to them.

Let me show you the path.

Let me show you the right way to say that.

Let me show you the right way to experience that.

And I think that at some point that's debilitating, you know, I think that letting them experience it for themselves because they have a foundation of strength and love behind them that we continue to lay for them.

I think that that starts to build a independence of emotion and an independence of action that gives, it's freeing for them, you know, if they don't know that they've got somebody behind them that will support them no matter what, then they're going to be less, less willing to take a risk.

And so that less willing to take a risk is less willing to live.

And so I think that if I can continue to allow them to express themselves and not over parent them, you know, and some of the challenge there is, there's two, two forms of influence at your kids.

There's your wife and then there's you.

And so, you know, we're trying to make sure that we are both a united front on how we want them to be raised and what kind of mistakes we want to let them make and what kind of judgment and accountability, you know, we want to bring to them because we've only got three or four more years of really accountability and direction and steering, you know, before they're kind of in their own person.

And then our influence is more like, more in an adult level type of influence, you know.

And so I think that, you know, where we are today is really establishing, you know, how intentional am I in front of my daughter, how much do I let her speak, how patient is my expression, you know, how.

How much time am I willing to give her before I start getting, I need to do something else, you know, let's change the topic.

And so right now it's a lot of patience, which can be real hard.

But you know, the stage that I'm at also is, you know, I. I came into my relationship wanting children as almost the reason I wanted to have a relationship.

I mean, I was so young and dumb, even though I was relatively older.

But I had spent a lot of time in my career and I spent a lot of time sort of baking myself personally for where I was at, on my path.

And I wanted to get married for a long time.

I remember talking to my mom, you know, she'd call me like, oh, you're single?

Are you seeing anybody?

I'm like, oh, not really.

And it was, you know, I would see a lot of people, but I would know instantly, like within seconds, I'm like, I'm never going to marry this person.

And so the interest level was just never there.

So I never really did a lot of dating.

And my mom would say, you have to pray for the person you want and be specific, don't leave anything off the table.

And I spent a few years really praying.

I said, okay, I'll pray very specifically, from the type of hair to the type of personality, to the size, to everything I could think of to describe the person that I wanted to spend my life with.

And you know, and this was during a point of my career where I was fully engaged.

I mean, I was excelling well, I was getting promoted.

There was a lot of positive things going on.

And it got to a point to where I was believing that, yeah, I'm going to run into somebody.

But it started meeting this life of mine where I'm like, I don't really have to get married.

Like, I'm really enjoying life.

I could live this philanthropic, you know, fully energized, you know, high paced lifestyle and just I could run a big business, I could do all this.

And there was part of that that was starting to appeal to me a little bit.

And I remember I went to a business meeting in Chicago.

This big developer guy, he's like, part owner of the White Sox and the Yankees, just all business and him and his wife.

And so we went to this really nice restaurant, Ralph Lauren, in downtown Chicago.

And, like, they, like, the restaurant, would just reserve a center table in the middle of this small restaurant anytime he showed up.

And I was just thinking, if I stay.

And he was probably 75 years old, and I thought, if I just stay the path.

This is my path.

And I remember being at the table with them, and they would look at.

And I invited Katie at the time, and I'll get into that later, but I invited her.

And so I remember we're sitting at this table, and I'm talking to them.

I'm listening to them, and they're looking and talking to me like I might be their grandson.

They were so, like, this young guy's here with us, and we're.

They.

It was just this.

It turned from business into.

They were just so interested in who I was as a young man.

And by the end of the conversation, I realized the holidays were coming up.

They didn't have anybody to come see them.

They never had any.

They never had any children.

They didn't have much in the way of nieces and nephews.

It was really just them.

And it just.

Like, I was.

I was just numb with that at dinner.

And I just realized that is not the life I want.

I want to love children and a wife.

I want a family.

And I knew that night I was going to marry Katie and have a family.

So let's dive into that a little bit.

It's one of the things I wanted to talk about you about today is, how old were you and Katie both when y' all got married?

I was 37.

Okay.

And then.

So Katie would have been 33.

Okay.

And so, yeah.

And I remember I specifically, I wanted to get married, to have children.

And the type of person that I prayed for was Katie.

You know, that came to pass when I was in Houston.

And I remember very clearly praying for a certain type of woman.

And I remember my managers came back from a business meeting from another division in San Antonio, and they said, james, we met this girl.

You've got to meet her.

She's like, so for you.

And, like, we don't even know if she has a boyfriend or she's married.

We know nothing, but this is, like, the girl for you.

And I'm like, okay, okay.

Everybody settled down, and it fizzled away, and everybody went back.

But later, I was thinking about like, oh, that's interesting.

I wonder who this is.

And then probably four months later, my boss called me and he said, I need you in San Antonio and I need you there next week and it's going to be permanent.

And I was like, okay.

So I grabbed my, my bag and my box fan and I headed over to San Antonio.

And as soon as I met her, I knew that it was different.

And, you know, quietly spent two years, you know, reserving my heart and trying to just manage and be and do what we were due.

But, you know, eventually it was just too obvious and ended up retiring her.

And we got together and we got married and immediately had a family.

You know, it was like the whole thing by design.

It was beautiful.

It happened very quickly, but I did, I spent a lot of time on the other side.

And so it's a.

It was a different life.

To go from just me and just fully engaged in work to now I have a family, you know, know, and passed up a lot of promotions from that day to this day because the priorities shifted immediately.

Immediate shift in priorities.

And I just don't.

I don't even look at life the same anymore.

It makes life so much more worth it.

I mean, the idea of not having a family is such a boring, numb existence to have.

It's so enriching to you personally.

But when I started that family, I was still just a single guy.

Like, I didn't know you'd think, like, oh, you're more mature.

You'll have an understanding of how to take care of your wife and how to bring children in and nurture the family.

You don't know.

And so I feel like I spent the first five years learning and screwing up and trying to figure it out.

And I'm like, okay, I know what my priorities in life.

It's God, it's my wife, it's my children.

This is not hard.

But it was.

And then I didn't know, how is my priority God, where do I fit in in terms of making myself a priority?

And I realized, well, it's me and God.

I'm the temple.

I have to take care of myself and my relationship with the Lord in order to strengthen who I am and have that foundation of love for my wife.

And then to make sure that your wife understands that she is the priority while you have kids running around that absolutely need you on a real time basis and will be more needy than your wife.

And so, okay, well, then your wife has to see that she's a priority.

Your children can never feel that they're not a priority.

And so, you know, I have to take care of myself every as the priority.

And so the whole idea of how to manage that was very difficult in the first five years.

And I only feel like I'm just now coming into a certain amount of clarity for how to balance my family and make them all feel nurtured, make them all feel my love, because they're all going to feel love differently.

You know, it's all going to come from my time, but they're all going to receive that love differently.

And so even if I feel like, you know, I'm a responsible man, I'm putting these things out there, it could fall flat, and nobody will ever feel that love.

And so you have to spend time and study your family and understand how they feel that love and where you can position yourself constantly so that they never have this slip of.

Where is he?

In my life right now.

And so that's a big part of what I'm managing.

But when you do recognize there is a balance, when you do recognize that there is a priority, that brings it all into clarity.

Oh, it's so much easier.

It's so much easier to put God first.

It makes everything.

It makes.

It gives you.

It gives the.

The.

The clarity over where you're going with everybody else.

Just such a strong.

Such a strong position that I would have never had before.

All right, I want to go back.

You.

You said, you know, you guys were a little later in life.

You, you know, you were certainly.

Whitney and I got married when we were 20.

Oh, right.

So certainly got married later in life, y'.

All.

You courted her, dated for two years.

But being that you were 36 at 38.

I was 36.

36 at the time.

What was the conversation with Katie like?

Because you.

You dated very intentionally for two years.

Was there a lot of conversation before you got married with Katie that said, I am.

We.

We.

I am doing this because I want a family, and when we get married, we need to get busy.

I'm ready to have kids.

Yes.

Y' all took y' all heads, I.

Would say all of that.

Yeah.

And that's exactly how it worked.

And, you know, from the honeymoon, you know, all the way to when she was pregnant and she didn't.

She didn't know.

And, like, it was just like, we were having a conversation one day, and I looked at her and I said, you're pregnant?

And she's like, no, I'm not.

I'm like, babe, we're pregnant.

And she would not receive it.

And then it was later on that day.

It was October.

And she came out of the bathroom, and she was like, you just see, like, she had taken the test, and she came out, and she knew she was pregnant.

I'm like, I told you, we didn't have to say a word.

And she was like, what am I going to do?

I'm like, this is everything we've planned for it.

Literally.

Look at your watch.

By design.

We're starting a family.

We fell in love.

We're doing it.

This is awesome.

And it's exactly how it worked.

And both the pregnancies, I informed my wife she was pregnant.

Really?

Yeah.

I'm like, yep.

Here you go.

Wow.

So something else you said I. I want to just jump into is your.

Your career progression up until the point where you got married was pretty insane.

When you got married, did you immediately transition your priorities or was there.

What was that transition like?

Logically, you knew, hey, this is going to change things.

But I would imagine that it took time to downshift or to pivot a little bit.

What was that transition like?

Yeah, it was really easy for me because love was new for me, and the idea of family was new for me, and it was so powerful that it provided the opportunity for change.

It was more challenging for, you know, maybe my bosses to, you know, be like, all right, James, that regional spot's open.

And then for me to continue to turn those down.

You know, when.

When even the.

The founder himself is like, you know, James, this is.

This is where we need you to be, you know, for CEO, for, you know, CEO position.

I need you to.

I need you on this path.

And, you know, three or four times to tell him, no, you know, that's not the path that I'm on anymore.

You know, was.

Was a lot.

I think it bothered them.

And, you know, and I'm at a point in my career now where I see who they've chosen, and I see where it's at, and, you know, I don't like it as much, and I don't care.

I have everything that I want.

And the idea of leaving my family to go on the road and spend 150 nights on the road in a hotel while those beautiful kids are growing up, wondering where their dad is.

It was never even a question.

I mean, if I had to quit my job, I'd have quit it.

I could never leave them.

And, you know, it got to a point later to where, okay, I can't just spend all of my time with my wife and kids, I need to expand, you know, and I think that's probably one of my early failures is I was so isolated in my career.

I had a lot of relationships around me, but I didn't have any mentors.

And my dad is a great man.

He's a spiritual man.

He's a lovable man.

He's not a communicator.

He doesn't talk.

I didn't grow up getting hugs and I love yous or anything like that.

And I found myself as an adult, a successful adult, you know, with, you know, a bit rudderless in my life.

And I could have really used a positive role model.

And it got really difficult for a while in the beginning of my marriage because I didn't have a lot of positive influences.

And, you know, fast forward to even getting around some of that.

I've spent a exorbitant amount of time at home with Katie, with the kids.

You know, if we do some.

Something, we do it together, you know.

But I didn't have a friend base where I would ever leave my house and go do anything.

And it got to a point after six, seven, eight, nine years to where it would be like, oh, am I going to go play golf?

Like, am I going to leave?

And like, it would be weird, like, I'm leaving the house on a Saturday or something.

It was just the idea of me being apart from them, you know, but to realize how much growth has happened since I have expanded, you know.

I remember when Gray reached out to me on the Bible study that we were in.

It had been so heavy on my heart, and I remember telling Katie I was like, I need more.

Like, I need more influence and accountability.

I need more friendships that aren't business relationships.

I needed, I needed more in my life to, to help myself and just healthy relationships.

And I remember when Grace stopped me and said, hey, we're going to do a Bible study.

Like, as soon as he did it, I felt like God was at work in life.

My, my life.

Yeah, because it was, it was really.

I wasn't, I wasn't being good in managing myself as a priority.

I wasn't being good at managing Katie as a priority.

I didn't have a good example of what to do.

I wish I could have gone back and started a, a, a new couples, a new married couples counseling or just something to where somebody could have been there to tell me, you know, hey, here are some pitfalls.

They're going to sneak up real quick if you're not paying attention.

So that's something that you would go.

Was that something that you would go back and tell yourself if you could?

Oh, absolutely.

You don't know what you don't know.

There's no playbook for, you know, being a good dad or being a good husband.

You know, you do it with the best of intentions because a lot of times you're in love and your heart is just pouring and you're like, just turn me loose.

I'm going to do everything right because, you know, there's so much love here.

But it, it takes more than love.

It takes understanding how to love and how people receive love and, and then habits and then just living in that.

But it wasn't easy.

And I've been a better man since.

I have put more relationships around me.

You and Gray and Pete and Rick and all of them.

You know, imagine living your life with none of that.

I think this is, this idea for a lot of guys seems insurmountable.

It seems unattainable because when we talk about mentorship, when we talk about finding somebody that can be that, that person for you, there's a misconception that you're looking for someone that's perfect.

Yeah.

That, that's not where the value is.

None of us are perfect.

We are all fallible.

The benefit comes from commiserating with other guys on how you've screwed up and learning.

That's why we're doing this, that's why this podcast exists, is to, to share that we're not.

I'm not perfect, dude.

I, I've got a lot of issues, as I would imagine you do too, as I know Gray does.

But the community of struggling through those problems with other dads who are like minded, that that's, that's where it's at.

So if, you know, if I would say to people listening, don't over complicate this idea of healthy community with men and mentorship.

They don't have to be older than you.

They don't have to be this perfectly righteous person who's the perfect dad.

Just surround yourself with people who have a heart to be good fathers and to be good husbands.

The conversation between you will, will do what it's supposed to do, and the influence of your pursuit of God.

Yeah.

Will.

Will stand in the gap when your own understanding doesn't get you there, you know?

Yeah, that's exactly.

And I've experienced that, you know, when, you know, starting my relationship as a single man that never really had a lot of good examples growing up, I felt other challenges that were just like, it was just Such a mess.

You know, you think you meet a woman and then all of a sudden, in short order, her last name is different, her career is different, her whole sense of responsibility is different, she's living somewhere different and she has new friends, like.

Right.

That's a, that's a lot in a relationship when you get married, to have to nurture for her and to, you know, I came out of the first five years of my marriage stronger and better just out of my own moral compass and out of my own discipline to try and square my life away.

But it got so much easier when I found community.

It got so much easier when I was being influenced, you know, by a group of healthier men.

You know, I could hold myself more accountable.

When I saw other men were struggling with the same things, it made it a lot easier for me to say, okay, all right, I'm not at the, I'm not at the, you know, the end of the race and the last lap and everybody's up there waiting for me.

We're all doing this together, trying our best, you know, and, and it was very encouraging for me to find out that, you know, everything's going to be okay.

I'm doing all right.

You know, we're going to support each other and, and we're going to be better for it.

And it's that pursuit of just making ourselves a little bit better each day that, that really does play into that.

So, yeah, it's something I'm really grateful for.

I couldn't have been as good of a dad without taking care to build a network of good people around me.

Yeah.

Something else I wanted to, that you touched on a second ago is you.

I, I look around, you know, I've.

We've.

I've got a guy that'll, he'll be on the show at some point.

He was a CEO of a company for a long time.

Pretty good sized company.

A lot of the guys that I work with are incredible fathers and incredible human beings, and they are wildly successful.

I think there's this weird hustle culture that exists today.

Yeah.

And I'm, I just want to say, speaking personally, I have been extraordinarily blessed in my career.

I would, I would say you, you feel the same.

And I know that some of these other guys that I work with would say the same thing.

It doesn't have to be one or the other.

But to your point, it, it can cost you opportunities to do more and that, that's okay.

Right.

But don't.

I, I just, it's, it's not all one or the other, I guess, is my point.

Yes, I, I, I have to make sacrifices to provide for my family.

That's, that's my job as the dad.

I'm the provider.

Right, you're the provider.

You still have to make sacrifices to go do work things when you want to be at home.

Dude, I want to be at home all the time, you know, But I, I just want everybody to know, like, it's not all one or the other.

It's intentionality with your time to everything you say yes to, you say no to something else.

Right.

And so I just, that's something that for you, I think really stood out to me because I knew that about your story, that there came a point where your career was on such a skyrocketing trajectory, and you, you kind of said, I'm going to step away because my priorities have shifted.

But even since then, you have been wildly successful in the role that you're in, but you've made the conscious decision to say, I'm comfortable where I'm at.

Yeah, right.

Yeah, yeah, absolutely.

I just think that's important perspective.

Yeah, it is, it is important because if not, if I wouldn't, if I wouldn't have engaged with my family, I was going to be engaged with work.

Right.

And, and, and it doesn't have to be all one or the other, but it does have to be a good balance.

And you do have to mentally understand what, where that priority is.

Because work wants to be the priority.

Absolutely.

It desires to be your everything.

And so to spend time from work's perspective, to spend time with your family, you have to carve time away from work and forego them.

And then same with the family, you have to carve time to go back and be with work.

But yeah, it is tricky.

But, you know, despite what my dad might not have given me growing up, he gave me work ethic.

I saw him hitting that clock every day.

I saw his, his commitment and his discipline.

You know, rain, snow, didn't matter.

You know, it was time to go to work.

And so, you know, I, I think the work ethic is a good, is another good thing that we get to give our families and our children is understanding that, you know, yeah, we would also love to be home.

We would also love to be playing.

And we have priorities.

I think, you know, just a word of encouragement here too.

There are organizations out there that exist that good, good, healthy organizations, understand employers, when I say organizations, employers that understand for you to be the best at work, you have to be Good at home.

Right.

The organization I work for is, Is absolutely of that mindset.

Now, look, I still have a tremendous amount of responsibility and expectation at work, but the people that I work for speak that truth into me, that I have to take care of my home life and my relationship with my wife and my relationship with my family, because for them to get the most out of me, I have to be okay at home.

Yeah.

And I.

And you know, that's the case because when you're not.

Absolutely.

That's out of balance.

Yeah.

You see it, they see it.

That's right.

Yeah.

Yeah.

There are unhealthy organizations out there that probably don't value that or that can't see it.

But if.

And if you find yourself in that position, I just want you to know that even if they don't, even if the, The, The.

The place that you currently work doesn't align with your family values necessarily, maybe they don't believe in healthy work life balance.

Maybe you're in an industry where that's just really unattainable.

All of those things can be totally true.

But mentally, it's a frame.

It's a, It's.

It's a mindset.

It's a mindset that my employer wants me to be the best for them when I'm at work.

And in order to do that, I need to take care of my household.

Yeah.

And you're.

You're in control of that, so.

Yeah, we're in control of it with so many variables and factors that sometimes it can feel like we're not in control.

That's right.

But.

But we really are.

And, you know, it's not the, the perfect outcome of any situation, but the, the intentional influence that we chose in any given situation.

And, you know, it's like listening to a speaker.

You know, you might only get 20 or 30% out of it, but that 20 or 30% can be everything.

And I want to give my kids whatever that is, whatever.

Whatever that window of opportunity is.

I just want to make sure I find it and lean into it.

Yeah.

And they're growing.

They're growing so fast that, you know, another thing, and I think we brought this up earlier, is just, you know, I want to raise my kids to be better than me.

And, you know, my kids have the benefit of meeting life at the end of my career.

And, and so, you know, I grew up a very.

We.

We grew up in a very challenged, you know, financially challenged environment.

I mean, it was Detroit.

It was tough job to job with my dad.

He finally Found, you know, good.

Good work and everything was great.

And I got a bad motorcycle accident, you know.

You know, both my parents almost died.

Long, you know, well, years of rehabilitation for my dad, it was just.

It was tough.

And so, you know, it was laid off.

Sold what we had moved up north into the woods, into a small patch of woods where, you know, it was probably fourth grade to probably second to fifth grade, fifth or sixth, right where we were.

And, you know, if we didn't have a garden, we might not eat, and if we couldn't have gone out and hunt, might not have been a lot of food.

You know, my dad went from, you know, laying on a mattress in the living room to being on the couch, to being in a chair, to being in a wheelchair, to being on crutches, to being on a walker, to being on a cane, to, you know, completely getting his engineering degree, putting himself back together, going out, putting him, you know, back into his career.

And then, you know, everything kind of from there went a little crazy with my childhood, ended up in, you know, divorce before I graduated high school, and, you know, ended up moving from, you know, Michigan, where I was at, down to Texas and started my own life.

And things happened pretty quick.

But, you know, I certainly understood and appreciated the value of a dollar.

You know, I certainly understood and appreciated the value of things and stuff and what we didn't have and what we did have and being grateful for whatever we did have and, you know, being at a point to where, you know, I've got a little more of an affluent lifestyle, that my kids don't see the other side of it, wanting to make sure that they are properly influenced with gratitude and being grateful for, you know, for what they do and don't have and trying to raise them with that same point of reference to money and to things and to life.

And is.

Is also something real.

You know, nobody wants spoiled kids.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Okay.

I got.

I want to transition because there's something about you that I want to talk about today because I want to know more about it, Right.

Something that I admire about you, because I do not have this in me, is you are always willing to do the work, to do things with your kids.

And what I mean by that is, you know, we come over to your house a lot, and you.

You get everything out and you put everything away.

And I don't think you just do that when we're there, but when it comes to when your kids want to do something, you're like, yeah, we can do that.

Let me.

Let me get up in the top shelf of the attic and get this box down and get all of this stuff out so that we can do this thing that you want to do.

And when everybody goes inside because they get bored, guess who has to pack it up?

You.

And you do that.

When we come over to your house for the soccer parties at the end of the season, there's a bounce house and there's all of this stuff that you set up, and at some point everybody leaves and you put all of that stuff up.

You just have this, just, just this drive to do those things.

Where does that come from?

Have you always had that?

Did.

Did.

Was your dad like that or have you.

Have you corrected like.

My dad was not like that.

I.

It's my, it's, it's, it's the work.

You know, it's my job.

You know, the, you know, I get, I'll go to, you know, when I go to work and I sit behind my desk, I have a job and I have things I have to do.

But the real priority, the real job that I love is my family.

And again, you know, this last decade for me, I haven't had a lot of friends.

I haven't really left my house.

I, you know, my friends are my family, my friends are my dogs, my friends, my wife.

And so I'll drag the bounce houses out, I'll drag the ping pong table out, I'll drag all the games out of the garage.

I'll go to the attic and I'll, I'll set it up later.

And you know, I feel like, I feel like I just want to pour into them.

I just want, I have this desire to be in service to my family a lot.

And I, I think that, I think that it is a, you know, my way of contributing, I guess.

You know, you know, none of, none of, none of them are going to pull that stuff out and put it together.

They're not going to organize it.

They're.

Nobody's going to go through it.

So it's just kind of, I'm the one there to do it.

And I know when I don't do it, we don't do anything.

You know, we'll sit there on the couch if I don't do something.

But I enjoy the labor of love.

I enjoy doing things to engage with the kids because it is, it is the, it is the priority in my life.

And I feel a sense of service.

I want to be in service to them.

I want to do things for them.

I guess that's how I show Love.

I show love by acts of service.

Right.

And so I just try to, Yeah, I try and I try and create an environment where they can see, I love you, I'm going to work for you and we're going to have fun doing it.

Do you, this is, you know, peek behind the curtain because I, when we come over, you know, normally it's a handful of people over there.

Do you find, do you.

There, There has to be weeks where you're tired or you just don't feel like doing it.

Oh, yeah.

I guess my question is, do you do it anyways?

Not all the time.

Not all the time.

You know, there are different, there are different acts of service to the family that don't always involve such labor, you know, and the kids just want one thing.

They just want my time.

Right.

You know, whatever activity we engage in, they're happy to do it because I'm there doing it, you know, and there's so many things that, you know, I'll be, you know, go play, go do this, go play basketball, Go.

Whatever it is.

They don't want to do it because I'm not doing it with them.

Right.

They just like it.

Doesn't want to play chess.

Do you want to go paint the house?

They don't care as long as I'm there doing it.

And so to understand, the real core of it is they just want their dad present.

And so I'll go through all the acts of service I can to create a fun environment for them.

They don't care.

They want their dad.

Yeah.

You know, they want me eye level with them.

They want me both listening and talking, you know, and so everything else around it is just supports that endeavor.

Yeah.

Pete said something when we, we talked a couple weeks ago and it really stuck with me.

He said, you know, as a parent, it's really easy.

And maybe not even as a parent, just as a human being, it's really easy to fake caring about somebody.

You can fake that pretty easily, but what you can't fake is showing up.

Yeah.

And, you know, just as you're talking there, I'm thinking about my own life.

I love to work in the garage.

I love to work on projects.

I love to build things.

And, you know, whenever I go out in the garage, I've got about a five minute window before the kids are out there with me and they're like, what are you doing?

What are you working on?

Can I, are you gonna use that piece of wood?

Do you have a hammer?

Do you have some nails?

Can I, what can I do.

Do you need me to hold something?

You know, and I. I'm sorry to admit this, but the majority of the time, I'm just like, oh, my gosh.

I. Y' all go back inside.

I. I'm trying to get stuff done.

I'm working on things.

And, man, I just get riddled with guilt about that because I'll lay in bed later and I'll just kick myself, because, dude, they're beautiful, sweet children, and all they want is to spend time with me.

Yeah.

And to your point, that doesn't mean that everything that you do with your kids has to be this grand adventure, this grand setup.

Just include them in what you're doing.

Yeah.

Yeah.

It's the most simple.

It's the most simple way of looking at being a father.

You know, it doesn't require any extra flair than just your presence.

And, you know, and when it.

When it comes down to influence, that's what it is.

You know, you can.

You can add all the accessories to your life that you want, but carving that time out and, you know, I. I hear you, man.

It's the same.

Even just because, you know, I'm.

I'm flexing in that arena doesn't mean I'm not failing in that arena, too.

When they come up to me and I'm in the garage and I'm doing something, and they're like, dad, this, this, this, you know, I'll barter with them.

I'll be like, just.

Just let me do this now.

And then later, let's.

Let's go do that.

And then sometimes later doesn't happen, and I'm laying in bed kicking myself, and I'm like, come on, you know, let's square this away.

There's not going to be a lot of these opportunities left.

It's like when they say, at some point, it was the last time you ever held your child.

Yeah.

And it goes.

And you don't know that it went.

But then you go, shoot.

Yep.

And then you go, did I hold them enough?

You know, that's the beautiful thing about kids, is you can't love them too much.

You can.

You can over coddle them when they don't need it, but you can't.

It's not possible to love a child too much.

Right.

And.

And so, you know, when you.

When you look at it through that lens, you've got all kinds of opportunity.

You can love them without spoiling them.

That's a beautiful thing.

And it's exactly what they want.

It's so simple.

Right.

And so, you know, just understanding that love is enough and it's what they starve for is.

Is the driving force behind it.

But, yeah, nobody's perfect on it, you know, and it's like the career thing.

It doesn't have to be all one way or the other, and it just needs to be enough that the priorities are clear.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Something else I kind of along this vein that I really probably jealousy is the word, but that I admire about you and Katie is you guys tremendously value travel and family time.

Experience, experience, experience.

Right.

So you guys do a lot together.

You go on a lot of trips together.

How do you think about what.

What's your approach?

Like, what's your mindset to that?

Do you and Katie talk a lot about that?

How do you maximize that?

Why is that important to you?

Yeah, no, good question.

You know, it's a big world.

God created a real big world, and it's beautiful, and there's a lot of experience and beauty waiting out there.

And, you know, you know, sometimes to evaluate a situation, I'll look at both ends of the extreme.

You know, on one end of an extreme, there are kids in San Antonio that have never seen snow before.

Right.

They've never traveled anywhere.

They've stayed in the space.

And then to think that, you know, some children are, well traveled.

They've experienced other cultures and foods, you know, things that they might not like, but it's the environment they were in.

You know, we're going to go to Europe a few times a year.

It's just what we're going to do.

And we talk to the kids every time.

And we make them learn the language.

We make them know how to order the food.

We make them engage with life when we do these travels and we talk about what life was like for me and Katie, traveling and, you know, how important it is and how that perspective and how building relationships and meeting new people is really important.

And, you know, it's just sort of turned into a.

When you spend a lot of time with your family and you're there at the house, you know, you go to travel, it just makes sense you're going to travel with them.

And so it's just doing life in different environments, giving you new opportunities to share with your children and expand their vision of the world in preparation for them taking the wheel.

When you guys travel.

We have.

Whitney and I have a hard time.

Like, we.

I've told a couple people this.

We are not good at vacationing.

Like, we're not good at traveling.

I. I think some People are really good at it.

We're not.

It requires so much patience.

Patience, managing your own expectations.

Adaptability.

Right.

It's hard for us because we put so much of an expectation on ourselves to create this experience, to do the thing that we're supposed to do there.

And I think what that leads to is we're stressed out, we're worried, and I know that that shows up to our kids when we're there, and it's something that we're.

We're working on.

In fact, the last.

We go on a big family road trip every year, we were gone for 10 days.

We drive.

We could.

We could fly, but we.

We drive because we want the time together.

And this.

This last year, we've been kind of working on being better at it.

And one of the things we learned is we're going to anchor each day around just one thing.

And whatever else happens, that's up to.

You know, we don't have plans for lunch today, but what we know is we're going to go to this national park or we're going to go see this crazy thing that is only in this area.

And outside of that, if we pass a food truck that looks good, we'll stop.

If it ends up that we don't pass any place good and we end up eating at Arby's or Taco Bell, that's okay, too.

But there's this pressure that comes with.

When you're in a city, when you're on the road, you're on Yelp, you're on Google, you're on TripAdvisor, and you want to eat at the local spot, you want to experience the culture, and, dude, that stresses us out.

Yeah, that's not easy.

Yeah, you know, it.

It is.

You know, and we've done the same thing.

You know, we've gone, okay, we're going to Italy.

Let's line it up.

We're know, just.

Let's.

Let's fit it in and give them the full boat experience, you know, but, you know, after so many years, we realized, okay, we're going to this place, we're going to go do these two things, and we're going to get those two things done inside of five days.

Yeah.

Everything else, it might be staring out a window, it might be going for a bike ride.

It might.

No matter what it is, it's not going to be planned.

It's not going to be stressful.

You know, it's.

It is a.

A way of just prioritizing something without making that something dominate the whole Experience, because still they just want the influence and the time.

My whole family does.

My wife just wants that for me.

My kids just want that for me.

So if I spend 40% of the time getting into the restaurant and the this and the that and the timing and everything, pretty soon it's becoming something it's not supposed to be.

It's just supposed to be us figuring this out together.

And.

And so, yeah, it.

It took some time to strip some of that down.

And even getting, you know, at home, if the kids are there and everything's hectic and crazy, you can go find your space.

You can be like, I'll be right back.

And you get.

And kind of get away, reset and come back on vacation.

There isn't.

They're there.

They're in your face.

The noise is happening.

They're talking over each other.

And I have to go to, like, I call it my monk state.

Like, I really have to center myself because I don't do good with the noise and the chaos, but.

But it's part of it.

And so I just have to breathe and I center myself and I bring it back in and I let that happen.

I let all those experiences happen without letting it get to me.

But I have to take a moment and center myself.

Yeah.

Because the pace, or the lack of pace, whatever it is, sometimes I do get caught up in it.

Like, I need to be productive with this.

And, you know, that's not necessarily what a good vacation is.

Right.

And so just knowing that, you know, again, keep it real simple.

My family is there to spend time with, you know, not to entertain.

This past year, something really, you know, there's so much of parenting that's just learning.

Like, we went to Pagosa Springs in.

In Colorado, and beautiful city, lots of stuff to do, the hot springs and everything.

You can stay at the Pagosa Springs, like, spa that has all the hot springs and everything in 7, 8, 900 a night.

And we're looking, and we're looking at two.

We're looking at written tubes, we're looking at written paddle boards.

We're looking at all this stuff.

Well, when we got to Pacosa Springs, we went to one of the local parks.

We found a parking spot, and we walked down to the river.

And on the river, there's public access to some of the hot springs or whatever.

And Whitney and I, when we got there, we're trying to plan out everything we're going to do.

We let the kids play in the water for, like, 30 minutes.

And it's like all Right, girls?

We.

We're.

Let's go.

We gotta.

We're go.

We're going on to the next thing.

And they're like, well, what's the next thing?

It's like, well, we're gonna go over to do.

To do this thing or whatever.

And the girls are like, well, can we just stay here and play in the water?

You know?

And Whitney and I are like, no, you know, come on, let's go.

We gotta go do this thing.

And in that moment, we.

We actually kind of had this epiphany where it was like, you know, if this is what they want to do, like, if.

If they're content doing this, if this is making them happy, I don't need to force trying to do something else to entertain them or to make them happy.

And I think that's something that I. I hope we carry into us into future trips, which is sometimes you just find something on a trip that the kids really enjoy and want to do, and you have got to give yourself permission to say, wow.

I. I would not have expected that they would have wanted to just sit here and play in the river for four hours, but that is exactly what they want to do.

I need to go to the car, and I need to find a couple chairs, and I need to just sit here and let them play until they're tired of it.

Yeah.

I mean, it's kind of the objective, right?

It is floating around, trying to find something they all like doing, and then you find it.

But you're so beholden to this concept of task and vacation and, you know.

Yeah, yeah.

So that's a good point.

That's good.

Yeah.

And a lot of times on a trip, I'm not in vacation mode.

You know, the first three days solid, three days of a trip, you know, I might as well be at work.

Yeah.

Like, the whole idea that there's.

There's logistics and things have to be managed and, you know, you want to stay in front of it, but, you know, and I know they see it.

I'm not fully calm.

I'm not fully relaxed yet.

But after about the fourth day of a vacation, like, I finally let it go, and I'm finally in the moment, and I'm not all caught up in it.

And that's what I liked about this last trip.

You know, we went to Paris, and there's so many things you could do.

You could just stay busy the whole time.

But then we planned four days at the end of that trip on the coast of France, just took the train out to the coast with not one plan.

We didn't, there wasn't even a lot of even looking into the small town.

We just knew we were going to go stay at this little beach house in a small town on the, on the coast of France with no to do's, no responsibility, no nothing.

And it was phenomenal.

It's kind of like what everybody needed.

Yeah.

So you think about all of the to do's and the plannings and the line it up and this day and that day and the best of it was days that we didn't have any plans.

Yeah.

You know, that's where everybody really, you know, got a big ROI out of the trip.

There's this.

I, I, I, I guess I'm trying to think like, I don't know if social media has done this, you know, comparison is real bad and social media is a huge driver for that.

But the other thing that is kind of, I think, over complicated parenting is this expectation to perform for your kids.

And what's funny is I, I, you know, I think about you guys talking about spending four days there when, when we go, when we go to the, the coast, the only thing the girls want to do is go to the beach and play in the sand the whole time.

That's all they want to do.

And.

Whitney and I are kind of like, is this really, is this, this can't be.

This can't be the only thing we do here.

This is, this isn't enough.

We should be doing more.

I think that's a total fallacy.

Yeah.

You know, more.

More for what?

More to what end?

More.

More.

What's the real objective there?

I mean, there's, there's certainly more to do, but you want a fulfilling experience, right?

You want an enriching experience.

You want the laughter and the laughing and the running and the giggles and the, you know, you know, if that's really what it's about, then you're right.

Find, find where the tuning fork is resonating the best on that and then just play that tune for a while, you know.

That's right.

Yeah.

All right, so just a couple more questions.

We'll wrap this up.

So what, this is a, it's a vulnerable question, but right now, where you are in, whether in your marriage or in, in fatherhood, parenting, what do you feel like you're struggling with right now?

What are, where are you falling short?

What are you working on?

You know, it's a good question.

It's a, it is a kind of a profound question because, you know, there's so many different areas that I want to do better and I want to spend more time on.

You know, a big part of it is, for me, a lot of mentally where I'm at right now is just abandoning self, you know, for the Lord, abandoning self for my wife, an abandoning self for my kids, you know, just stripping some of that away so that.

So that.

So that they.

So that I am truly connected with them.

And I think that, you know, the only time I'm never not truly connected with God and my family and my children is when it's self.

You know, that's the other.

That's the other thing that takes up my time.

And so the more I feel my children getting older, the more I want to lean into that.

And so, you know, I am.

I'm at a point to where, you know, as long as I'm taking care of myself as a priority with God, all of my time, I just want to give it to my family.

And so, you know, I'm right now trying to figure out how best to spend time with my family as I end my career, because I feel like I'm, you know, within.

Sometimes I feel like I'm within months, but, you know, certainly I'm within a few years of.

Of wrapping that up and doing something different.

And then it's like, okay, well, what.

What kind of father can I be then?

I know what kind of father I am now, you know, on my current timetable and, you know, my current career.

But how do I evolve as a father the more my time gets freed up?

You know, how do I evolve as a husband?

How is that time shared with my family?

You know, a lot of taking care of my kids and creating an environment where my kids are.

Feel nurtured and supported and strengthened.

And all of that comes from how well I'm managing my relationship with my wife.

And, you know, that hasn't always been the case.

You know, the children seeing how we are as partners is, I think, the stage that they're at right now.

So they're watching how dad loves mom, they're watching how mom loves dad.

They're watching how we handle conflicts, knowing what all the words are, completely understanding context.

You know, they're able to, even if we're not involving them, they're a part of what's happening in our adult life right now.

And so, you know, I want to do that well, for the sake of the kids.

Yeah.

And so it's.

It's.

It's weird, but it's turning into one of my endeavors to better take Care of my children is how am I taking care of my wife?

How am I taking care of her, her feelings and her emotion and where she's at in her life right now, you know, you know, we're all at different stages and, you know, and Katie will, you know, no doubt is at a different stage.

And so, you know, I want to make sure that I'm evolving with my wife and not just living this core focus on my children are about to leave the house and, you know, what do I have to do there, you know, because with Katie, it's forever.

With my kids, it's like four, five, six more years.

Yeah.

And so, you know, I want to, I want to strike the balance appropriately.

Yeah.

And.

And I feel the closer I get with Katie, the more the, the, the stronger my bond feels with the family and the kids in general.

Right.

And so, yeah, that's a, that's a big part of it is, you know, holistically taking care of the family in order to create the foundation for the kids.

You just reminded me, I meant to ask you this earlier.

I had a.

We spent New Year's together a couple days ago, and I have an interesting observation.

There was a point where the dads, there were five or six of us, were standing around the fire pit.

We were talking, talking like dad's talk.

You know, it was edifying conversation, but it's adult.

You know, we're talking about whether it's sports or politics or whatever.

And at some point, Cal, your 12 year old, walked up to the group of guys and, and what's interesting is in our, in kind of in our friend group, there's not a lot of boys, there's a ton of girls.

Yeah.

And Cal stood in the circle of men around the fire for five or 10 minutes and I was just kind of observing the, the conversation from the dads was hardly modified in terms of topic of conversation.

And I don't want to give the impression that it was like lewd in any way or there was a ton of profanity.

But I just, I just noticed that Khaled, you know, it's the proverbial.

He bellied up to the bar with the men.

Yeah.

You know, what is that, what is that like as a father of a, of a 12 year old boy as he starts to, you know, transition into, you know, preteen adulthood, get exposure to those, those.

What's that like for you?

It's such a big deal.

And I'm very aware of that moment when he stepped up there.

I.

There was a You know, it changed for me, you know, and I was looking at him and I was like.

I was like.

It was a moment of pride.

I was like, my son is here, and he didn't have to walk up to this fire pit with all these guys telling these big stories, big, loud stories.

You know, everybody twice as tall as he is.

But he stood there and he kind of was, you know, he didn't stand there sheepishly.

Yeah.

You know, he was around the fire with us, and I was just like.

Yeah, I was appreciating his.

His boldness and, you know, his willingness to.

Just to be a part of that.

But it is a glimpse of what's to come.

You know, he'll be standing around the fire with, you know, with his own group of men, and, you know, just to see him growing up and to see him at a point to where he could approach us and to see how confident that little boy is to stand there.

And he's confident because he feels safe because I'm there.

Right?

And so that's a little microcosm of what's going to happen for the rest of his life.

He's going to feel safe showing up because I was there.

And I'm grateful, and I'm grateful that there's men in my life that my young son can walk up to and receive some of that influence.

It's so important.

You know, you talk about, you know, our influence on our children and raising them.

You know, it is.

It is several measures, greater influence when a close friend of the family, it leans in and influences.

That's like, you know, when you're.

When you're your kid's soccer coach versus when they have a different soccer coach, and they have.

They have to answer to that.

And it's a.

It's different and.

And I'm very grateful for it.

But, you know, to see my son start to age is.

And show up in these different environments is a sign of the times.

And, you know, I do feel a sense of pride.

You know, I feel like I've done a pretty good job, despite how proficient we are at knowing where we didn't do so good.

You know, I feel that.

I feel that I've done a good job of loving them.

You know, I feel like I've done a good job of, you know, showing them.

Showing them the importance of gratitude and love and, you know, showing grace and, you know, trying to instill the important pillars, you know, that I think will get them around just, you know, a.

A test.

I don't know what the test questions are they're going to be hit with, you know, know, a lot of hard things in their life.

I don't get to know about any of it, but I get to know how they're prepared for it, and I get to be a part of that.

And so.

So, yeah, watching him.

Watching him grow up and.

And, you know, he's got hair on his body.

His voice is changing almost completely.

His voice is changing now, you know, getting so much taller just in the last year.

You know, it's like, okay, here we go.

Yeah, here we go.

It's happening.

Yeah.

Okay.

Well, I think it's cool to be a part of that.

It's cool to be in your life and to be in his life.

I don't have sons, and it's.

It was.

It was a cool experience, even for me.

Like, I noticed that he.

That he stepped up to the conversation with the.

With the men, and I thought that was a really cool.

Yeah, thank you.

Yeah, I was aware of that, too.

And it was.

It was.

It was a good moment.

Yeah, it was a good moment to have.

All right, last question.

I'm trying to close these with a very similar question for everybody.

And so.

And I'm.

I'm still struggling with asking this the right way, but when you.

When you think about when.

When you're gone, when you're.

When your time here on Earth is over, what do you hope that your kids understand about you?

And I ask it that way because I. I'm not asking how do you want to be remembered?

I'm not asking, you know, what do you want them to say about you, necessarily, but understand about you from the standpoint of it's something that you can't really.

Something that you can't tell them, but that you hope that when you're gone, that they know about you, they understand.

Like, at the core.

You know, there's so much.

You know, I hope that they.

I hope so much.

You know, I hope they understand.

I hope they understand the value of people.

I hope that they.

They see in me how carefully I wanted to approach them and the people around them, that there is a way to be in service to other people in your words and your actions, that makes a difference to them.

It makes a difference to the world around you.

It changes your world.

But I guess if I had to boil it down, the culture that they create for themselves, you know, culture is.

Culture is a byproduct of how we treat people around us.

Whatever comes from those interactions, whatever resonates from how you Interact with people, creates a culture, and that that culture is your life, and you engage with that.

And so I hope that they see the value in just taking care of the people around them.

You know, one thing that, you know, since they were kids, I would say, you know, in disagreements or in opportunities, I would always say, choose love.

Just choose love.

It's so easy, you know, to, you know, from.

From a world that wants you to be cynical, to, you know, people that want you to be prideful.

You know, sometimes just looking at life through a lens of just choose love with others and just be a supportive person, you know, and just in a way, you know, when you read the Bible, read the red letters, look how Jesus treated people.

It's a very good example for.

For how people can carry themselves and engage with other people.

And in life, you can build your culture by design, by choosing how you want to react and what you want to say and how you want to feel.

And those choices of emotion and those choices and decisions of the words we use will in a large part define their path in their life and create opportunities.

It'll close doors and open doors.

And so, you know, amongst all the other things I'm going to think of after I leave this interview about that question, it will certainly be their power of influence around them as they grow.

I have.

I'm a man of very few friends.

I. I have a handful of guys that I'm very close to.

I have trust issues is really what it is.

And I spent a lot of time from probably 17, 18 years old to probably my mid-20s, maybe, or maybe early 30s, with an incredibly cynical perspective about people.

And I was having a conversation with a guy that we used to go to church with back in East Texas, and he said, you know, you could change your life if you would just assume the best in people.

Give them.

Start by giving them the benefit of the doubt.

You don't have to trust them.

Just start by giving them the benefit of the doubt.

And that dude that changed, that changed my life.

Defaulting from expecting the worst in people, expecting malicious intent, to just changing my mindset, to giving people the benefit of the doubt as a default, changed mind.

It changed my life.

It changed my hap.

My internal happiness.

And so what you just said really resonates with me.

You know, that's how I was.

I would.

I would say maybe one of my early struggles and a struggle that stayed with me for my whole life from when I was a kid.

I say struggle, not struggle, but I've always been a very optimistic person.

I've always been very positive.

And as a young kid, I would always give everyone the benefit of the doubt.

And all the way through my life to today, I lived my life that way.

And numerous times throughout my life, I would be taken advantage of.

Yeah.

Numerous times I would be considered gullible.

Yeah.

Or, you know, any number of things, because that is the position I took on life.

And I've always said that the.

The, you know, my.

Whatever.

Whatever negative outcome would ever come to me in my life because I choose to look on the bright side and choose to look on the positive side and choose to give that benefit of the doubt, whatever negative consequence comes to me.

Has 100 always been worth it?

It's never been a downside to accept the.

The negative side of just being so open and being willing to be gullible.

Okay.

Now, yeah.

If you said that, it might not be the case, but I'll believe you to.

To do that and.

And be tricked or stumble along the way because of it was.

Was always paled in such comparison to how great it's been to enjoy a positive life and just embrace people where they are.

Despite.

Despite the times where it bit me.

It's always been worth it to live life that way.

Yeah.

You know, and that's a.

It's a good point that you bring up.

That's a.

It's a.

You know, if my kids can see the value of that and live their life that way, it's powerful.

It's really powerful.

Yeah.

All right, James, thank you.

Thank you.

We will.

We will do this again.

I would really look forward to this.

You know, the only thing that happens when you ask these questions is a flood of information and how do you funnel it into something?

But there's a lot of content here.

You know, I'm very passionate, you know, not just about my kids.

I'm very passionate about children.

You know, when I get around other kids, I feel that same sense of, where are they?

How can I influence them?

What do they need from me right now?

It is a.

It is a near and dear subject to my heart.

There is no greater responsibility on this planet than raising young human beings into being good, responsible adults.

It is.

It's not for everyone, but once you're there and you embrace it, it creates a lot of things to talk about.

So, yeah, I would be happy to.

To meet you at the table again and bring any of this back up.

Yeah, that's.

The whole reason we're here is.

You know, he said it the other day.

It's it's not about perfection.

It's about direction.

This isn't a destination like, we're never going to arrive there.

And as we figure out the format and as we figure out the questions and the guests and.

And.

And the content, you know, we're gonna continue to change and try to make that as best as it can.

But at the core, the reason that I'm doing this is because I felt a need for this in my life, and I didn't find.

I couldn't find anybody else that was doing it.

And it's.

It's normal guys who have real experiences, but just creating this.

This vehicle to just share mistakes that were made.

Because the reality is this episode.

10 people might listen to this.

I don't know, 20 people might listen to this.

If of those 20 people, one person takes one thing that was said from today and it makes them a better father, husband, if it makes their life better in any way, this was 100% worth it for me.

Absolutely.

Well said.

Because if you made it better for him, you made it better for his children.

That's right.

You made it better for his children.

You're passing that on.

It's a long line of benefit.

Yep.

It's awesome.

I'm happy to be a part of it, and I'm proud of you for getting out of the gates on this.

It's a good deal.

Thanks.

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We'll talk to you guys soon.

Thank you.