On this episode of the Dudes and Dads podcast, we talk all about quitting.
You're listening to the Dudes and Dads podcast, a show dedicated to helping men be better dudes and dads by building community through meaningful conversation and storytelling.
And now, here are your hosts, Joel Damana and Andy Layden.
Joel, I quit.
Oh.
You know.
I've been waiting for this day.
Not really. No, I don't know. No, I don't quit. I don't quit the show.
Not quitting the show. Not the show.
Gosh, we're gonna be talking about quitting.
Not the show, though. But not the show to be clear.
Yes. I'm.
I'm trying to quit cold turkey.
What do you think?
Cold turkey. Just cold turkey.
Just turkey that are cold. You're, you are going to be done with that.
I'm not gonna be cold turkey anymore.
I'm quitting.
Quit and cold turkey.
My.
Normally, when you say you're quitting cold turkey, there's something that you're quitting.
Yeah. Yeah. No, just literally.
And you're literally just going to quit cold.
Cold turkey.
I will do warm turkey. I'll do tepid turkey.
Maybe even lukewarm and or room temperature, but cold.
It's done. You're not going to do it. Well, hey, we are recording live tonight.
And like I said, we, we are talking about quitting.
So, so, but if we don't want to quit, if you would like to be part of this show and you were watching with the other fellow people who are watching, you can comment on our show.
Yeah. And we will see your comment and we will talk about your comment.
If you have anything that you want to say about quitting, we would love to hear it.
But first, before we get into that support for this episode comes from Everince dedicated to helping make Medicare an easy step through free educational seminars in individual consultants, consultations.
There we go. Learn more at everince.com/medicare-monday.
Securities offered through concourse financial group securities incorporated member FINRA SI PC.
Nice. Thank you, Everince. Thank you for answering our questions.
So quitting you, you, we, we, we had a guest scheduled for the day and we had to quit on our guest a couple of times actually.
Yeah. We had to reschedule a couple of times around comes around and then he called the day and said, Hey, I, I can't make it.
So I said, that's fine. That's fair. We cancel you last two times. So we're going to get you scheduled.
We're going to roll with it. But but I called up Joel. I called up you and I said, Hey, you, what should we do for this episode?
Because we don't have a guest and you had a great idea. So roll. Thanks. I appreciate that.
I'm interested in this idea of our approach toward quitting. How we talk about quitting.
Andy, I don't know about you, but I grew up with the expectation that quitting as a general rule was not acceptable.
Okay. Like quitting anything, obviously dropping out of school, but almost quitting anything. Anything. Okay.
Once you start, I think it's what we want to tease out to. We want to expand on this.
Once you start something, you see it through to completion. Yeah.
You go all the way because when you don't, that somehow is there's potentially like a lack of character or you're learning a bad habit.
Or if you start quitting now, you start quitting now. This is what we hear when we're younger.
You start quitting now.
When there are maybe fewer consequences for your quitting. What's going to happen when you're older? Like what?
Like fewer. Oh, you mean just in general. It's not that big of a deal. You quit the sports team. Yeah, whatever it is.
Whatever. Okay. No big deal. No big deal. All right.
But where there's not the, yeah, there's not the, yeah, the consequences are not as high yet.
Quitting can become in that context, quitting can become all too easy. It can become an attractive thing.
It can also have all kinds of other, it's possible, negative consequences.
But I also want to explore Andy the concept of quitting and what positive, the positive side of quitting.
I guess you can say the positive side of quitting.
And this really, for those of you that are interested, this idea comes to me.
This book that was written by Ann Duke, literally entitled just quit.
Did you finish the book? No. So you quit. You quit.
I haven't actually quit the book yet. I've just, I haven't quit, quit the quit book yet.
But I've got until early Wednesday morning to get this baby done because I've got a, I've got a book club.
I'm part of, part of a book club. Andy, look at you.
It is an executive, it's like an executive leader book club. Okay.
And we meet at 630 AM on like the last Wednesday of each month. And let me tell you, Andy,
that is early for me to take it around. Well, it's, it's just like,
because I got to be out the door by a certain time and I got to make it, I got to drive.
And when you sit, when you sit down, this is the other thing, like when you sit down,
you're like, Oh, I need to have like an engaging conversation around this book that we've read
over this past month and everything. You're going to be away. Yeah. Yeah. I got to be with it.
So anyway, I will be, I'm going to be, I'm going to be ready to be one way or the other by Wednesday.
But this, this book that Ann has written just got me thinking about kind of some key points of
how we treat quitting, how we talk about quitting, how we feel about quitting,
maybe identifying sometimes that we have quit things in our life. Okay.
And then also maybe how we talk about quitting to our kids because I feel like those are different conversations.
Right. Okay. So, so you had mentioned in the opening of this, you said, you know, we, we get that from our,
we talk about that with our kids. Like, you know, we say, you can't quit, you can't quit, you can't quit.
Yeah. So let's, let's talk about that. So that, that brings in as an adult.
So I think that that brings in, in that same mindset where we say we can't, we're not going to quit.
That's what you've been trained because that's right. Your life. Yeah. Right.
And I think overall as a society, we have a tendency to, for the most part, over commit because I think,
I think a lot of times we, we don't like saying no, we don't like disappointing people.
So we don't say no. So I, yeah, I think there's a whole.
So you're talking about like when you're saying, okay, you're going to, you're making commitments to maybe other organizations, clubs,
yes, the, all these things that you're going to say yes to. And then you wake up one day and you're like, I've, I have got a lot of things on my plate.
And I, I potentially need to quit one or two of them. Yes. Yes. That's, that's essentially what I'm saying. Yes.
And how do you go about that? How do you go about deciding what it is that you quit? What it is that you hold on to?
How do you, how do you, what's the strategy and all of that?
Andy, can you think of something that you have, that you have quit in maybe the last year or two where you were like, I'm, I was doing this and I'm going to quit it.
Yes. So actually it just, it, I just actually did this just the other week. So I have been part of the Boy Scouts.
I've been a leader in the Boy Scouts. I joined when my boys joined. They joined several years ago.
I joined and said, Hey, you know, this is something that I want to do previously that, well, actually two things.
I started, I had been, when you were youth pastor here, we were helping out doing the youth leading.
Like we were doing Wednesday nights with the youth. We continued on after you had left a little bit.
And then eventually I, when, when the boys joined Boy Scouts, I said, you know, Hey, that's something that I would really like to do because I feel like my time is better used there.
And not, not in a bad way. I mean, I think because I, my goal was to help kids and to help them see Christ.
Yeah. And I think for me here at the church, I was, I was, I'm trying to use my words right. Yeah. Wisely here.
The kids here needed me to write, but I felt like I had a better reach of unchurched kids. Yes. Absolutely.
That were at the Boy Scouts. And so I quit here. Yeah. And I went to do the Boy Scouts. Yeah.
And just this past couple months, my life has got a lot more hectic, I will say.
And so that I, I felt like in order to better invest my time with my family and with just in general, it would be best for me to quit the Boy Scouts.
And some things of that have, have been because of other situations that came in.
Like, I didn't just want to leave them hanging, but my son, Micah had aged out of the Boy Scouts.
And so he actually became a leader. Right. And then another leader, another younger guy just stepped in and, and became a leader too.
And so me leaving in the midst of two new leaders came, I felt okay about that.
Now, again, it was tough for me because I really kind of did want to, to work with Micah. Sure.
Because, you know, lead alongside of Micah, but I also felt like this was the right time for me to step out because of the fact that there was an abundance of leaders there.
This would be appropriate for me. So you kind of looked at the whole situation there and you said, you know, okay,
what probably at the beginning of your, and this, this translates again, I'm just using Andy's example here, but obviously this translate,
this can translate across the board different circumstances. When you initially joined or jumped on that, there was a need, there was much more to clear need.
Oh yeah. Right. A clear need.
Well, and I'd say when I jumped on to, yeah, it was, I wanted to do something with my boys. I wanted to be there and to help and be involved in their lives in doing this.
And I knew this is something that Micah really enjoyed doing. Right. Right. I knew, I knew Micah really, like this was his thing.
This is where he, he shined. Yeah, for sure. He was there and he's a Boy Scout through and through. Yeah.
And so like, I knew I wanted to be, I knew that he, well, he enjoys youth group that he was going to shine there.
And so I wanted to be there with him and come up alongside of him and also again, there was a need. Yeah.
And so I stepped in and I filled that. But then I was able to see, I think, I think that this is an important thing.
And we may get into this later when we're talking more about the quitting, but like, I'm listening to the people around me.
So I'm listening to my own, like my own mental, my own thoughts and I'm listening to all like my own body and realizing I can't do all, I can't do everything.
You know, I'm looking at my schedule and going, okay, you know, Monday nights, there's not a lot going on.
But you know, right now, Reagan goes into tennis and then we also have 4-H and Julie's doing more at her job.
And I'm, you know, and then doing the Boy Scouts and Wednesday we're doing this and Thursday.
Like, it's like for me, I knew that I couldn't do that all because I needed, I needed a little bit of a place to rest.
And I was picking up more work on the side doing my podcast business, consulting business. So that's good.
Yeah. And let's just be clear. Let's just be clear. Andy's a big deal.
I don't know about that.
No, no, seriously, friends, you don't, Andy does not mention this frequently.
I think it's fair just to make the point of people that have been along our journey of this spot, of this podcast have again and again said,
who just talked about the quality that comes and I'm always very, very clear about where the quality comes from as far as the production side and all of that.
And yeah, no, people have noticed and people that are interested, I think they're doing the absolute right thing and getting in touch with you and finding out more about how they can, you know, how they can use your expertise.
And you want to be that person for people, right? Right. Because I think so many times, and this is another area too, where it's like,
if I can be a help, I want to be a help. But as always, I have only so much time, only so much bandwidth.
Right. And this is something that I think all along, like we, you know, I was joking, like we, when we first got married, like we kind of tossed around some things and came up with the title like layman creations.
And if you've known me on social, like that's my handle on a lot of things. And I was doing wedding videos and stuff like that.
And like, I got a check the other day that was written to layman creations LLC, because I had just recently formed the LLC.
Yeah. And I messaged or called Julie and said this, like, I just deposited a check. Yeah. That it was written to layman creations.
Like it's about dang time. Like, right. I mean, like it's been, we've been married for almost 20 years and we talked about this, but this is the first time that like it's kind of become official and felt official.
And so yeah, anyways, that's a side thing. But, but yeah, I mean, I knew that I was doing more of that stuff and I was doing, you know, more and more.
So I knew I wasn't going to be able to completely fill my time and give where I felt like I needed to give. And again, honestly, for me, when I evaluated, like I felt, okay, I met the boys guys every week, but I'm not mentally giving it my all.
Because just because I'm not like, I mean, I haven't been like there's enough leaders. I'm kind of feeling like I'm like I'm I'm giving myself an out. And so like my time there was was great.
I appreciate it all of my time there and everything that I was able to do there and the friendships that I made. But I knew that it was time to step out.
Yeah, not everything is forever. Right? Right. Some things are seasonal. Some things are going to be a year to five and then done.
You know, I find myself already thinking ahead with some of the some of the stuff like, you know, serve as a PTO president.
And I'll naturally after after next next year when my kid ages out of the school that he's at, I won't have another child at that school for the time being like that's a natural quitting spot, right?
And to be clear, right, I will be quitting that job. Not because I don't love it, but because it's like that it's something that it's something that has to be shared with other people.
Right. This is a part of what I think I think just to kind of camp on this.
Sometimes you're quitting opens up another opportunity for someone else. Right.
I think that if you're doing it, if you're doing it well, if you're like doing like a rage quit or a quit quit or a or a silent quit, you know, there's good ways to quit and bad ways to quit.
But if you're doing it the right way, it can it can offer another another opportunity for someone else to come in who possibly has more more resources or maybe a specific skill in an area or whatever.
So there can be there can be a virtue. There can be a virtue to that.
Andy, have you ever can you think of some of something of a time, maybe not for you, but maybe for somebody else where you're like that person should have quit a while ago.
And they're holding on.
Yeah, and doing and maybe doing harm or damage like to harm or damage.
Yeah, I think especially there have been times that I've seen people and I'm not naming names in the show.
But I have seen people who have held on way too long to positions and things and it's evident in their passion. Their passion isn't there anymore.
Yeah. And for whatever reason, they're still there, whether that means, you know, they need a financially, they need it for whatever reasons.
Like they're still there and it brings the organization down. I think because yeah, because they're not fully invested in it.
I get really, I don't know. I get leery in some situations where I've got someone telling me like they're frequently reminding my other myself or a group or whatever, like how long they've been.
I've been doing this for 30 for 30 years and and or however long it is.
And like that's great and all.
But if your investment or your commitment to something is be is because you feel like now your identity is based in the I have.
I've been here this long and I have not quit.
And now that's who I am. I'm the person that hasn't quit this.
That can be that can be problematic too.
It's in this book quit. She outlines this whole idea of quitting as a virtue, which we don't like again, as we said at the beginning, we talk about quitting is like that.
It was negative. I mean, we see it negative most of the time because I think you yeah.
Anyways, and you know, it's the great line from our buddy Kenny Rogers.
You got to know when to hold a Mandy and you got to know when to fold them, right?
And and so points out in the book actually that poker players like when they when they quit when they get when they get out when they when they fold.
Professional poker players do that way more than amateur ones do really.
And so that there's this there's this idea that there is there's a wisdom that as you gain experience and wisdom, you you just know when it's like, OK, this is not my hand.
Right. Right. This is I am I this is not good.
But I could just try to persevere because this is what this is automatically where we can go and sometimes it's like, yes, persevere through things.
Yes. Yes.
You know, such your such your mind something.
But there are times and I think this is where wisdom and guidance and I think surrounding yourself with the right people where it's like, OK, this thing that you're in.
You just trying to to muscle your way through it is going to do more harm than good.
Or maybe you've been at this thing so long that it's going to be really hard for you to objectively know if you should if you should stay or not.
And I mean, I can think of a few I aren't Andy, I think you and I might actually share maybe I would share a couple of organizations, maybe that we would know where I've seen people in where it's like I understand the value of longevity and of wanting to stay around and continue to make an impact.
But you your presence here is now concerning me about, you know, about, you know, about the longevity, about the longevity and kind of the the organization or whatever it is, the club or whatever it is moving forward in health because you you were unable or unwilling to to quit step down to pass on.
And so now you've left this place, you might be leaving this place a weaker spot. And I will say there's an order. There's kind of a club that Andy and I both both are a part of where one of the leaders has has sort of backed has backed up, but has brought has brought new people in.
And and and there's a strength there. And I think that like I would I'm like, wow, that yeah, that's a person that I want to follow.
Let's talk let's talk a little bit about that. I think that's a good virtue to do. I think that especially, I mean, depending on on the situation, I mean, obviously sometimes like for me with with stepping out of the Boy Scouts, I saw that there was that that opportunity to to do that.
And I felt it in my in my spirit. I felt like this is it's my time. It's getting my time. Then I also realized that there are other leaders coming up who are younger, who could do it better that that were there to take my place.
But sometimes you have to cultivate that right. I mean, sometimes if you're going to quit something, you might have to bring your replacement in. And I'm not even talking about like a job like we're talking about volunteering things here.
I mean, jobs jobs are a whole different animal. But but in this case, like you might have to bring in other leaders, other peoples to take over and to train those people to to to leave.
Wow. Yeah. And some and that leaving isn't easy, especially if it's something that you either you started. I mean, that's even harder when you started an organization or you started a group like that.
That's really hard. I mean, that's but again, I think I think you have to evaluate like like is is is me being here.
Mm hmm. Detrimental to me. Yeah. Because again, you have to know, OK, this may be time for me to step out because I need even though it's going to be hard for me to leave this.
It's going to be better for for me and and maybe even stepping down in a into a different position. So maybe it's not leaving the organization all together or leaving it all together, but stepping down from maybe being head honcho to something something, you know, just volunteering.
There's a there's a humility component to this, no matter no matter what. And there's a humility component and there's a question of identity and what you find, where you find your value and how you see how you see yourself.
And though all those things get very get easily intertwined with each other and be really, really difficult.
So I do think about you mentioned jobs and quitting jobs.
And how you've like how you how you navigate that that decision to right because there's there's quitting the sports team, there's quitting the club or the or the organization or whatever it is that you volunteer for or whatever it is.
Then there's like your actual like profession, right, and quitting and quitting something, particularly if you're quitting something that feels pretty comfortable to you or pretty natural.
So, so would you say like identity like it's your identity or what do you what are you saying here?
Well, I think like how do you know when to quit a job? Like how you know how does how does that occur? Because I think there are, you know, for me, man, it feels like it has to be like it has to be like a crystal clear like neon flashing neon sign.
Right. Well, I mean, I think I think part of that is because your job kind of becomes ingrained in your everyday.
Yeah, your everyday who you are and it becomes comfortable. Right. I mean, I think that and that maybe that may be a good quality. I mean, not a good quality, a good sign that it's time to quit anything.
Yeah, because like I was even talking about with the Scouts or whatever, like there was something in me that even though it was comfortable and I liked doing it.
Yeah. There was something in me that went now is the time. Yeah.
Yeah, I would be and I, you know, listeners, I'd be interested like to hear from you guys here any reflections that you guys have on when you quit when you decided to quit.
Yeah, what were the what were the things that that informed that decision and what reservations did you have and obviously like financial financial reservations are definitely are definitely one.
Um, you know, can I afford can I afford to quit at the same time? It's like it's super hard when money is the thing keeping you in something with job or you know, whatever.
Um, right. At the same time, we have that pressure like we want to have to provide for the family. I put food on the table. Right. I do all those.
And I think that's easy. I mean, especially like looking at jobs in particular, like it's pretty, it's pretty easy when you go, okay, this next job is going to be more financially beneficial for me.
Right.
Than my current one. But what if it's not? Yeah.
What if your next job is not financially beneficial for you? Yeah.
But it's better.
Maybe it's better. Yeah. Or there's there's some there's some added, added benefit. And I mean, I think, you know, or or some or sometimes, and as this was the case with with me all now too long ago, like I just really began to think about
like where
I don't know that this is a realization I've had, you know, being in pastoral ministry as long as I as long as I was and when I decided to quit that and go and do
work for a different kind of organization and have another different kind of leadership position. I in doing all that I realized like it has been a kind of a slow process and uncovering of, you know, again, like where my
where my identity was or what I found what I found comfortable. The biggest thing is for me, and you know, I'm just realizing that a lot of my
like a lot of my own like spiritual journey was largely attached more to like an organization. Maybe it was more than I think some of the other like some other relationships that I should have been specifically my relationship with God but like
sometimes, you know, and this is a slightly unique situation to mine, but not quit not quitting and holding on and doing the same thing. It was, you know, ongoing was covering up some things for me.
Okay, you know, it was it was not having it was it kept me from having to take a real look at like what is really important to me like where is my priority really in life. So in that way it's like quitting
made things hard like it made some things harder for me. And just because I have to, you know, had to look at things differently.
You had to reshape your identity. Yeah, I mean you had to you had to take a hard look and say okay, is this like what makes me who I am. Like is it my job. Is it the job in in this case particularly in the church in a pastoral ministry.
Or, or is it something else that makes me Joel Demont. Right. And there's this there's this fear of failure thing too. I mean, this is the deal. Andy, like there are, and this may be true in other I'm assuming it is another professions, like there's just this stigma of quitting around, like something must have gone really wrong with you or with the job or whatever in order for in order for you to quit.
I mean, I make the joke all the time, like when I meet with the, when I meet with other community groups out there or whatever, some in Christian spaces and some and not where I'll say where they ask like hey, what did you do previous, you know, previous to this and it's like well I was in vocational ministry for seven, you know, over, you know, however long over 17 years.
And then I had, and then I jokingly, but jokingly and or half seriously say, however, I did not leave pastoral ministry because I was, you know, unfaithful to my wife stole money for an organization or led with an iron fist in my, in my staff, you know, were traumatized by my, by my leadership, right.
For those of you that are listening, I hope none of you are traumatized by my leadership, but that's the goal.
There's a whole support.
There's like there's a whole, Joel traumatized us, I hope not.
But there, there, there was a very, there's just been a very real, I think, a very real experience of, man, upon quitting and doing something different.
A lot of new things were uncovered and not a lot of new opportunities have been, have been offered up and I feel like I am probably getting a little closer to my sweet spot of like what I'm good at and what I'm I think designed to do and.
So in this case, you would say quitting has actually helped you shape to be a better person, more aligned with your actual, I don't want to say skill set, but you're.
Yeah, it's made.
Is that what you'd say?
I mean, I don't want to put words in your mouth, but.
Yeah, I think I think I was very much within my skill set for a certain time developed certain things unexpectedly and then by a bench, like once they got to that certain point, I said, Hey, I'm going to quit this and do something different now.
And experience experience a lot of successes experience some kind of new things that would not have been possible. Had I not done those previous things?
Because those are all very like, you know, for me, like, ministry life and things like that.
I mean, it definitely formed a lot in me and definitely developed a lot of stuff, but I, I don't know.
I just, I don't know.
I think, I think.
Well, I know this for true. A lot of my, a lot of fellow colleagues that I had on the ministry side, I get in again and again.
I've just had a really intense conversation about this last week.
They don't quit because they don't.
This is probably a whole other show. They don't quit because they don't know what else they would do.
They just, they like, it's not that they're, it's not that they're staying where they're staying because they are like, Oh, this is the right fit.
They're staying where they're staying because they're like, I have, I don't, I just can't imagine other options or see another way forward, way forward where they would experience fulfillment and, and all of that.
So it's interesting.
It's interesting what you, all the things you have to, you have to weigh.
And I know, again, quitting gets a bad, quitting gets a bad rap because
there, there is something powerful about sticking with an overcoming what that does to us.
Even in terms of like neurologically, how it trains our brains and all of that.
And so in early, in early life and how we're training our kids, there is something to be said for like, I mean, Andy have, I don't know if any of your kids have like joined the club or something and then wanted to quit halfway through it.
And you've had to have the talk with them about.
Okay.
So let's talk about that though.
Why, so why as it as an adult, are we saying it's okay to quit?
It's okay to look at your, look at where you're at and go, okay, this is not for me, but as a kid, we tell our kids, this is, you know, not something you should do.
You should stick with this.
Right.
Blah, blah, blah, blah.
Why, why is that okay for, so for kids, but not for, for us as adults?
I wonder if part of it is, I think part of it is, is that when the kids, it's usually the timeframes are way different.
So what we're saying for a kid is, hey, you pick to be part of this club or this team that you're going to be on for three months, you're going to be on for three months.
Okay.
Right.
And it's going to naturally, this thing comes to a natural end apart from you deciding to stay with it or quitting.
Right.
Like it's not something to be ongoing.
Like four H season, four H season will come to a close and then you will decide whether you want to re up with that or not.
Or this team, even, even Boy Scouts, I mean, you could say like, let's, let's evaluate in a year or whatever.
It doesn't have a natural close to it.
But again, there is a, a season to it, if you will.
And so there's, there's part of that where it's like, number two, number two, they're, and I think with a team or something, there's the sense of, okay, for a certain period of time, there will be other people depending upon you.
But really after that, not so much.
Right.
Like in jobs, Andy, like us, like we are, here's the deal in our jobs.
The vast majority of us, unless you're, I don't know, you have some really magical job, you are totally replaceable.
Like someone else, right.
Someone else can do my job.
Someone else can do your job, Andy.
And, and God forbid, but maybe better out there somewhere.
There's, there is, there's, I, people I hang out with, they're super smart.
I know that there's other people out there.
Do my, do my job better than me, you know, inevitably.
But I think with our kids, it's much more about commitment, like making a commitment and seeing something through to, to like a start, a middle, you know, there's a start, a middle and an end point.
Versus like our jobs where it's like, we could go and do that sucker for 30 years, you know, or whatever.
And have a, and have a good season at the beginning of it and an okay in the middle, but then there comes a point where all of a sudden it's, it's not good anymore.
Yeah. Well, and I think too, as we're talking with our kids, we're helping our kids develop something where we're saying you need to develop this, this, you can't just quit as soon as something gets hard, right?
Like life is going to be hard.
Jobs are going to be hard. They're going to come, come things that you have that you don't want to do, but you have to do them because they're your job and you can't just quit when it gets hard.
But at the same time, we're saying, okay, and I like what you said earlier, like, or what we've talked about.
Like, let's reevaluate this. Like, you know, maybe this is hard, you know, maybe the fact that you're, you're playing soccer and you've never played soccer before and you don't, you know, the kids in your team that are way better than you.
Yeah.
Like let's evaluate this though, once you've gone through a season and see if you want to continue.
Yeah.
Because there, there, there may be things that we can do as, as parents to lead our kids into to train them better. You know, maybe that means on soccer off season, we get them a soccer coach.
Or maybe they need a different team.
Or, or whatever.
Maybe they need a different team that's not playing at the, may be at the same level or that would offer the kid more, you know, more experience or better.
Those are the, those are all really valid considerations.
I think the, the danger of quitting and the, what we're concerned about and I think rightly concerned about when it comes to our kids is that is them learning either overtly or, or kind of covertly or,
passively or just overtly or just overtly.
Them learning this lesson that they can say yes to anything and then say no to it immediately after and it's totally fine.
Well, and, and I think that there's some, some value in saying, okay, no, no, like we as parents have paid for this.
Like it's costing us something too.
Yeah.
So, I know it's not just costing you your time and your, and your whatever, but it's actually as parents, it's costing us because we, you know, paid to put you in this sport.
We've bought you cleats.
We bought you a soccer ball.
We bought you whatever.
Yeah.
And so like it's also teaching kids like there's value to money and financial monetary.
Not saying that that comes above your comfort or, or how you're feeling as a kid and you're, you're wanting to do this sport.
It's not coming above that, but there is that, that you have to, that you have to put in.
Your wife brings up a good point here.
She says staying in the course can create grit and I agree.
Yeah.
And that's what we want to form in our, we want to form in our kids.
Yeah.
And I think we've, we've seen that and I'm sure you have to Andy.
I think we've seen that in a lot of ways.
I don't want to do that again.
Then okay.
Okay.
So let's run this by you.
So, so have you or would you, if you were going to be quitting a job
or a leadership position or a volunteer position that you were doing,
would you discuss that with your kids and say, hey, this is why I'm quitting?
Yeah.
I think now I think with the, I think,
Aaron and Josiah, the two old, I mean, the both teenagers now and maybe,
maybe Matthew, I think now I would, I would probably have that conversation with them.
I think that could be a really powerful learning, you know, learning opportunity.
Right.
Well, and I did that with, with Michael when I, when I left the Boy Scout leadership
of Scoutmaster, I basically said, Hey, you know, Micah, like,
I've really enjoyed this time with you.
I've really enjoyed being your leader and I really would love to serve alongside
of you in leadership.
But for me, this is why I'm, I'm, I'm leaving.
Like, I, you know, it's not, it's not because I don't want to be with you or whatever,
but like it's, it's not because it became hard.
It's because I felt the need that there was a replacement for me between you
and the new guy, the other new guy that started as well as, as just this is why
I'm moving on, not necessarily quitting, but moving on because I feel like I need
to do this.
There's other places that I need to invest my time in.
And so I let him know this, it's not just me going, Oh, this is hard.
I'm quitting or I don't want to do it anymore.
I'm quitting.
This is the reason that I'm doing it and why I feel okay with it.
Yeah.
It can be, you know, they, we can make quitting as, as terrible of an experience
or as meaningful and experience and positive experiences we want to, but I think
exactly to your point, you, if we're willing to do the work around our quitting
and to have the necessary conversations around, around it, I think it'd be good.
I think that can be good.
I've had, I've sat across the table from people as a, as a leader who are informing
me that they're quitting and I've had really good, good conversations about that,
productive ones where it was like, okay, I, man, totally understand your reasons,
value those things and also appreciate them, the manner in which you did it.
Like you, you did this in a way to be, to be helpful.
Then there's other, there's other ones where it's like, okay, you're, you're quitting,
you're rage quitting right now.
You know, you're, you're upset or you're whatever and you're going to quit in the most,
in the most harmful way pot, you know, the most harmful way possible.
And then it's like, well, no one really learns from that experience.
You know, that just kind of leaves everybody a little bit bruised.
So yeah, I think there's a consideration for how you do it, when you do it,
the motivations behind it.
Is it because things are hard or because, or because you have other,
you have other opportunities and you're going to, you're going to pursue those and,
and because you think there's a new season of life in, in front of you, which is,
which is great.
Ultimately, I think just a lot of, a lot of the influence about our quitting decisions is all,
is probably rooted in fear of failure, being, being perceived as a failure.
I know I felt that like when, when pastors quit, like out of menace, it's not like,
not like when it's not a matter of like, when they leave one church and go to the next or one,
one ministry, go to the next, but when they are like, when they quit, there is,
there's a, there is a little bit of a stigma to that or, or, or, or if you were, I don't know, Andy,
like if you were someone well versed in like a technology field or whatever, and one day you just were like,
I'm giving this up and I'm going to go be a goat farmer. No offense to goat farmers.
Love our goat farmers, by the way, past one on the way in here.
But like took a real 180. Yeah. Right.
There would be, there, it's easy to think like there would be like people are like, gosh, what, what happened?
What the heck happened or whatever. It's like, no, maybe, maybe I found a new calling on my letter.
And obviously this happens because the vast majority of our college graduates, they, they don't,
they're not working in the area where they graduate. Like those kind of decisions are being made.
Yeah. So, so don't fear them. Don't fear them. It doesn't have to be an act of failure.
It can be an act of reinvention. It can be, it can be strategic as long as you are in the driver's seat making the decision, I think.
So, yeah. So have, have you guys, our listeners, have you guys had to quit something?
What's been your experience? Have you had to stick something out?
Have you had to work with your kids on sticking things out? What's your experience with that?
I would love, we would love to hear from you from that, from you.
You can call our voicemail line 574-213-8702 again, 574-213-8702 or pull out your voice memo app on your phone.
Love those memos. Email feedback@dudesandadspodcast.com.
And we would love to have that. Joel, I think in closing for me, I think the, the one thing that, that I would advise is,
listen to those around you, whether that mean a life coach, a somebody who's mentoring you, your spouse,
anybody who's really close to you that knows you as a person and, and balance these ideas off of them.
Ask them, you know, like, hey, I'm thinking about quitting this.
Is this something that you see being a good thing in my life or not?
And a lot of times those people who are the closest to you know you well and can speak into you and, and no, can, and can go.
No, you know, Andy, I don't think this is your time. I don't think this is time to do this.
I think you need to stick it out or yes, it is time to quit XYZ.
I've been meaning to talk to you about that for years now.
Right. So that's my closing thought. Joel, what, what are you closing thoughts on this?
What I'm, what I'm thinking about is, you know, it might be helpful with my, with my kids.
It just might be helpful for me to have the quitting conversation with them.
And I think to read, you know, maybe to, to have a conversation about why we quit or why we don't quit outside of the immediate pressure of like a quitting situation.
Right. So we're, so like no one's thinking about quitting anything right now, but we'll have a proactive conversation.
Want to have an intentional conversation about it and, and help them think through those things because it's going to inevitably.
Some, some, yeah, it's going to come up.
It's going to come up and those challenges are going to come up.
And Andy and I, I mean, Andy, I, in as much as it feels like we can be reactive so many times to things, it's always great when we can kind of be proactive and address those things ahead of time and kind of have a game plan as best as we can.
So I think that would be, that's just what's kind of in my mind and what, yeah, what I'd like to, what I'd like to leave everybody with encourage everybody like, hey, why, why are we or why are we not doing this thing in terms of.
In terms of sticking with something or, or leaving it. So yeah, that's, that's for me, Andy.
Awesome guys. Well, we would like to remind you to subscribe, like tell others about our podcast, please.
We, we appreciate every each and every one of you. We appreciate you not quitting on us.
Nice. That's a callback right there. That's nice.
But yes, as always, can head over to dudes and dads podcast at gmail.com send us ideas for shows, people you think we should interview all that good stuff.
We'd love to hear from you.
You can do what Joel just said or call our voicemail line 574 213 80702.
Joel, I'm a champion of that line. Thank you so much.
Dudes and dads podcast.com or now dudes and dads.com dudes and dads.com. It'll also take you there to the magical online wonderland.
Check out previous episodes, all that good stuff. Guys, thanks for hanging out with us. Love to hear more from you.
And until next time, grace. Peace.
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