This is how I like to tell people, is fertilizer.

I'm serious.

It is straight fertilizer.

But man, can it produce bounty.

It's how you.

It's how you take care of that.

The world has spoken, my love, and they wanted to hear from you.

So this is going to be a really good episode.

We.

Our last one was episode 54.

56.

That's close.

Whatever.

I think.

Yeah.

56.

56.

So this episode, I sit down with the wife we are going to.

Since episode 100 went live, it went absolutely incredible.

And we showed the world a little bit about our oldest child and what she is and who she's becoming and some such a strong follower in her faith and just this young, incredible, blossoming young woman.

And so I can't take the credit.

You get a lot of credit.

I'll take some credit.

But everybody's like, oh, amazing, dad.

And I appreciate it, and it makes it feel incredible hearing all that.

But you are the leading factor in this, in our.

In our home and in our children.

And you have changed me over the years and just been.

Just been whittling away and chipping away at this old, callous stone.

And you've helped me become a better man in the version I am today.

I owe a lot of that.

I owe all of it to you.

And obviously dragging me back into my faith, even though I've kicked and screamed for years.

And we have a pretty incredible thing going on.

And a lot of people ask.

They want to hear from Mom.

So crazy.

We want to hear Mom's point of view.

Let's hear from the wife.

Or let's hear from the person that has to deal with all of Bam.

So here we are.

So if anybody wants to catch up on our previous episode, we go into how we met and all the crazy, fun stories of our early days and relationship.

And so, yeah, you can go back and catch that in episode 56.

Yeah.

We met while driving.

So those new listening.

We met while driving.

If you want to hear how that goes, revert back to the yeah.

So episode.

But God's the artist.

I'm just the apprentice.

Okay.

So I got him the paint brushes and all that kind of crap as he paints you.

So I don't get all the credit for that, but I did intercede into that.

It's.

You did.

And I think that's an.

That's important.

That's something I want to share because we laid in bed and I was nervous coming on again, which is so weird after Christy.

Why?

Just because I'm I firmly believe that how you raise children, you set them up on the way to go and they get a lot of credit for that.

But looking back, we are very hands on.

And so, I don't know, it's like that feeling of she's, she's incredible just based on what has been planted in her and what is blossoming from that.

It's been a lot of work.

It's a lot of work and it's a lot.

And that was a big question.

Like I had a lot of fathers reach out and they're like, man, if there's one thing, what's the one thing that if I can do to get on track to have the relationship that you have with your daughter, what would it be?

And it's a really hard question because it's not just one thing.

It, it goes to being able to co parent and we're not fighting each other.

We're equally yoked in our marriage, in a.

In almost every aspect.

We have our differences, we argue, we fight, we go at it mainly over, actually I don't even know the last time we really thought file but it's over business.

But when it comes to parenting, that's where we are very equally yoked on the sense of even if, you know, we balance each other really well.

And so there's not a good cop, bad cop to say where kids are being able to go to mom, you're not stepping on me when I'm correcting you.

That's one thing that we don't do in this house is whenever a parent is correcting a child or giving criticism, anything what it may be, there's never the other parent.

I think that's a huge thing.

We see this a lot in parents where wives or mothers will, hey, don't talk to my kid.

And they're always stepping on fathers and, and shutting that down from a very early age with little kids.

And so there's, there's a lot.

I don't even know where we even.

We get asked a lot because of our girls.

And I, I have to preface by saying our kids aren't perfect.

We don't even claim them to be.

We're not perfect.

But a lot of people, I'm one of those people that listens to people's stories and I'm like, ah, mine's different.

I can't relate to that.

But the truth is everything that we do and how we've raised our kids stems from.

It sounds so cliche, but something that had to die in us.

And then be reborn and recreated.

So with that being said, you can literally change the direction of how you raise your kids.

Because I've done it, you've done it, We've, we've lived this.

Everybody asks us how we do it.

You have two great kids and they can interact with people.

And I, I wish I had this secret so sauce that I could give you the secret formula.

But it all stems with how you're interacting with your kid.

Being intentional.

A lot of people abuse that word.

Right, Intentional.

But the truth is it's just not being lazy.

As a parent, I cannot stress that enough.

I have a teenager that is turning 18.

She's, you know, and I personally don't believe they're ready to enter the world at that age.

Personally.

She still has some shaping, she still has some forging that she has to go through.

But you're looking at that from a mother that has been involved in every single aspect of her life as she has grown.

So a lot of people I feel would lean, oh, you don't think your kid's ready at 18?

If you're, and I see where you're coming from.

Right.

And as a dad, I want to be like, yeah, my kid's going to be ready 18.

But like, why 18?

But then I also see, I see both sides of what you're saying because a lot of parents are like, nope, 18.

They're ready to go.

But if you, if you, you sculpt these children from day one and you're involved in every single chapter of their life, are they ever going to be ready to leave?

Well, I was a mom young, so being my decision making at 18.

You see what I'm saying?

Sure.

So it's like, and then these kids are voting, they're able to sign a lease.

All this crazy.

And it's not a jab at the fact that I don't think there's 18 year olds that are, that aren't ready because I know there are some.

But what is the point of me kicking her outside the nest, learning how to fly if I still have things that I want to teach her?

Absolutely.

I have no, there's no timer saying that they have to.

We're the only culture here in the United States that just buy deuces.

Good luck.

Which is fine if that works out for everybody.

But my whole thing is why, if she's contributing to the home, if she's contributing to society, she's, you know what I mean?

She's producing the podcast, she's making money there, she's interacting with guests.

Why, why would I rush to get her out?

And so I think it breaks down.

A lot of parents try to compare their parenting style to what they think are parents like us that are doing a good job.

And the truth is, you, you literally just have to take a step back and stop trying to change the mold of your kid and learn your kid, because then you go from there.

For instance, our daughters are completely two totally different people.

You know, she cakey night and day complete.

Couldn't be more polar opposite.

And for those listening, when you have kids, ours are six years apart, which I have a lot of people that go, I'm sorry for that.

I'm like, why?

I love it.

I absolutely love that age built in babysitter.

I know I'm biased over it, but I loved everything about it.

I got six years of uninterrupted time with our oldest.

And then as our oldest is in that next chapter, I got another chunk of years of uninterrupted time with Keiki.

And so I look at it through a greedy mom lens.

I got two totally different sides in times with our kids, our girls.

Yeah.

But we just recently had this talk where I looked at him and I was like, okay, we have to do this again.

We cannot raise Cakey the same mold as we raised Christy, because totally different person.

We use the same parenting principles, but it's.

It's a different child.

Absolutely.

And it's.

And that's where I feel a lot of parents, you see a lot of really good first kids.

Yeah.

And then the middle child's got their problems, baby child's got their issues.

And a lot of parents put everything into this first child.

And then by the time the other ones are coming up, they're already tired.

They got all this in time invested.

And be like, you're just saying with this conversation we just had, we're like, hey, okay, she's 11.

We got all the, you know, there's so many.

11 year old is such a crucial age.

Oh, yeah.

For these little kids.

And this is where I think a lot of.

At least from my side, I think dads don't realize that 11, 12 year old range is such a terrifying phase for children from at least from my point of view, because this is where.

This is where they start searching.

This is where they start trying to find themselves.

This is where they're expressing themselves, finding their little personalities.

They're absorbing friendship personalities from friendship.

They're so.

This is where they're influence heavy.

And so you have someone like in our Situation, who we have.

She has an older sister.

She's, you know, more on the screen.

You know, her face is being shown.

So the last thing you want to do is raise this child in the shadow of the older sibling.

You see what I'm saying?

That could be sports because.

Well, because then they develop this identity of, oh, I'm gonna not be myself, so I could be like.

Or I'm never gonna be like, so I'm gonna revert to here.

And that's a lot of that people don't realize.

And here's the irony is I was an only freaking child.

And I firmly.

I will die on this hill that I'm able to see it the way I have with our girls.

And because I never.

I never had to live that sibling life, that either sibling life of survival or sibling life of like, I don't.

I don't give a.

About my other siblings.

Do you see what I'm saying?

Like, you growing up, the three of you all had your own little thing.

You and Dave kind of did your thing.

You had an older sister, you had your own identities, and your parents grouped you and your brother together, right?

Mandy was separate because she was a girl.

That whole type of thing.

Me, it was just me, man, smothered up and down.

So I'm able to look at it.

I feel completely different.

Why?

I. I had my parents.

I'm from a broken home.

My parents did their best.

I don't.

I know they're probably going to listen, but it's the truth.

I. I was conceived on 4th of July in a Sun City motel on.

Probably on cocaine.

So it's like, it wasn't this.

It wasn't this.

And I'm sorry, Mom and dad, if you're hearing this, but that's what I was told.

It wasn't this love we're trying to try for a family.

You know what I mean?

And I'm not saying I was never meant to exist, because obviously I believe differently.

I believe I was meant to exist.

And that goes part of my whole entire testimony.

But I just.

I look at things different because I grew up in a broken home, very tumultuous relationship with my.

My parents.

And I have a lot of memories with that that I've had to kind of gather and navigate growing up into a young mom and then young woman and then raising two daughters.

So I just.

I firmly believe I look at it different.

And the more.

What a lot of moms, if you're listening, it's one of the hardest things that you'll ever do as a human.

And that is truly take the time.

We say this all the time.

I swear, people ask us and we have the same answer for him.

And they're probably like, what the hell?

They're expecting some algorithm, some formula, something, some word.

And it's just.

You can't be lazy.

You just can't be lazy.

You have to be intentional with raising not all of your kids as a whole, but each individual kid.

It.

I can't even realize.

I. I sit back and I think, if I wasn't at home with them, helping them with homeschool, raising them, knowing every in and out, I wonder where they would be.

Like, that's what goes through my mind for sure.

And obviously, us pulling our kids out of the public system in 2020, you're able to.

You're never going to.

You could create your kids into something incredible, obviously.

But the path that your kid picks up, there's no correcting that.

I mean, I'm sure there might be, but that's gonna.

It's really hard.

As far as my kid's gonna be this, we're gonna be this, we're gonna dom whatever is in your head of what your kid is going to grow up into.

Scratch that.

That was one.

I was one of those people.

Yeah.

Oh, man.

I'm raising this with.

And then you start realizing, oh, my God, this one's extremely sensitive.

Oh, my God, this one has no emotions and will completely flip off the world and doesn't care.

So then.

Then when you have to step back, back, then realize, okay, this is what she's into.

Maybe she is in the princesses and ballerina and teddy bears and the doll and that there's that world.

Then you might have a kid that's extremely, you know, just rough and tough or whatever it may be.

But that's where.

When I was with the whole girl dad thing in the early days, trying to figure out how we're going to raise these kids, you know, you just have we.

What we had to do, what I had to do, what you helped me step back and realize was, okay, this is who they are.

This is who.

This is their personality.

But once you learn that, okay, let's start sculpting that.

Let's start.

Okay, she's very shy here.

Let's help her.

Bring her out of the shell and these parts of things, hey, she needs a little bit more work here.

So it was really cool to be able to, you know, during those times of the homeschool days, really learn your kids on how they think how they process their emotions, how they lear and then to be able to start really honing in the fine skills.

And I think that's been one of our biggest advantages of being able to put out, like I consider a top quality kid into the world that's ready is 100% because they are not in the public system.

I also feel a lot of parents mess up.

And what's so crazy is it's not like I'm just this freaking savant parent that understands how it works.

And I have this whole book.

I know that's not even it.

It's what I notice because I caught myself doing it as a mom.

And you have to.

You almost have to like, correct yourself is most parents think that they could use that same mold how they produced a.

Okay, Johnny turned out great, right?

I'm gonna apply the same mold to it.

And that is not the case.

I.

And they assume that's the biggest thing is, hey, I did it once, I could do it again.

I'm just gonna do the same thing I did with Johnny, right?

He's going to bsu, he's gonna kill it, this whole entire thing.

And it's like I was having a conversation with Keiki the other day and I brought something up and she's like, well, what do you mean?

And I. I forgot that I have to.

I have to re.

State it and re.

Instill it in a different way because of how I did it with Christie is completely.

It's.

It's different.

I had to correct myself.

Like a muscle memory.

Like what we discuss on all over.

I'm starting over.

I can't.

I cannot assume that this child knows that X, Y and Z is wrong or X, Y and Z is right just because chose right.

Does that make sense?

Because Kennedy has a completely different mindset on how she processes things and slightly analytical, right?

Like she wants to know why some.

You tell Christy, hey, you.

That's wrong.

Don't do that.

Chrissy's like, okay, right?

And goes about the day.

Kennedy goes, well, why is it wrong now?

Most people think, don't challenge me.

I know means no.

That's how we were raised.

We were raised.

No means no, and no does mean no.

But let me explain to you why.

I'm going to explain why to you.

I. I said no.

And then when I do that, she's like, okay, go.

Does that make sense?

She's like.

She'll either be like, okay, yeah, it makes sense.

Or she'll be like, now I don't get it.

Which Never happens.

But a lot of these kids and people wonder why some of these younger kids are still making these mistakes is, well, we talked about it and I said no and I'm taking your phone away.

Well, let me explain to you why I'm taking your phone phone away and that this is not gentle parenting.

Let me be really clear.

I do not believe in gentle parenting.

I, I'm not saying I put hands on our kids.

That's not the case either.

But it.

To me there's this huge disconnect with how we were raised and why we challenged the system.

And I've, I preach this, this is going to be like my slogan if I ever have a T shirt is I'm not going to teach you what to think.

I'm going to teach you how to think.

You're going to have your own opinions one day.

You're.

I, we tell Christy, you're gonna disagree with politics with us one day and that's fine.

You may not.

I, I don't.

The biggest thing with children is majority of us are teaching our kids what to think instead of how to think.

Absolutely.

And it's that critical thinking that's true survival thinking.

And where we up as a society is we're trying to make these kids that follow the rules and stay in the lines and be nice and.

But the truth is I want to teach my children how to survive and thrive in a life and to pivot when shit gets hard and to be empathetic, to be compassionate about the world.

And that is not just born with them.

I don't care who you are.

That is implanted.

Well, some program.

Something so huge about not teaching your kids what to think, but teaching your kids how to think is preparing them for the real world.

What if they're.

You have this young daughter and she has some boss that tells her to do something and they're just going to follow along because they.

You have just told them, okay, this is what you think.

This is how everybody else thinks.

This is how we've been raised in 12 years of high school, then off to college.

You've literally gone through the same phases, but instead of how we've taken the approaches.

Why would you do it like that?

Does that make sense to you?

Make that make sense to me of how you're explaining that to be able to create that thing, thought process.

So when they were in the real world and there's something let's just use.

Our government wants to come out and force you to take something.

Okay, Go through the process.

It just Got developed.

They're trying to force this.

There's an agenda behind it.

I want my kids to sit there and call me one day.

Hey, dad, this doesn't make sense.

Okay, well if it doesn't make sense, what do you think?

Yeah, I'm not going to follow it.

Just like we had to go through.

And this is where, you know, when the whole, all the pandemic and all this came out and you came to me, I'm like, none of it makes sense.

None of makes sense.

But like that's my big thing for when they're young adults is going into the workforce, going into the, the world on their own and ha.

Being able to question questions.

Not just the earth is round or spinning.

Throw thousands of miles to earth.

Oh yeah, Are we?

Okay, cool.

I'm gonna believe that because the government tells me it's true.

Everyone thinks that questioning is a form of anarchy.

And if you could radicalize anything, right?

Like anything could be radicalized.

Absolutely.

But questioning something to me develops the true form of intelligence.

Because when you hear the other side of it that a way that you didn't quite believe in, but you hear like, okay, I could, I could understand that.

And that's how I'm raised.

That's how we're raising these girls.

It's like a lot of people.

I'll give, I'll give the world an example.

Our 11 year olds going through the changes and I, the world is torn on when to teach them about sex and their body and this whole entire thing.

Now am I gonna explain sex to my 11 year old like I would a 17 year old?

Absolutely not.

There's a way to explain it that their little mind can process and then it shuts up the questions.

Right.

Like I'm not, I don't have to go into this crazy detail.

It's enough.

It's almost like the PG rated version that just kind of.

Okay, do you have any more questions?

No, that's it.

Cool.

Little does she know.

I didn't even explain the whole process, but the next time it gets brought up, we graduate to another form of that conversation.

Absolutely.

And questioning.

What we have to remember is these children, even our teenagers, their frontal lobes aren't developed.

So a lot of people like doctors and stuff tell us that.

Right.

Well, you know, they're gonna make irrational decisions because their frontal lobes aren't developed.

I'm well aware of that.

I'm not trying to change the science of it.

But with our 11 year old, if I could kind of instill that critical thinking not to radicalize and chat and make her challenge everything, but just to think that's a muscle.

You're improving this muscle with how her.

You instill it now with how she's going to process things in the future.

She's either going to be a weapon of mass destruction.

Yeah.

Or who knows?

But my whole thing is you're not.

It goes to mean.

We've spoken about this.

I like to com.

Go back primally.

Everything is primal to me.

A mother bear or mountain lion or whatever is not going to kick off the cub until they know that cub is ready.

Right.

And that instinct in there.

And my whole thing prime in a primal aspect is I'm not sitting here speak saying, I speak bear and know what that bear is saying.

But my job is to instill as much survival content programmed into her as possible.

It's not to live in this paranoid state.

It's not to sit here and tell her to be afraid of everything.

I want her to live.

That's the whole point.

You want to teach your children to live and enjoy, but be vigilant, be aware, think critically.

Right?

And that is that primal aspect of we're not going to be around.

So are you comfortable right now?

The mom's listening.

If you were to die, Lord forbid, are you comfortable and confident that you.

Okay, I taught her this, this, this.

Whether she's going to use it's on her.

That's the hardest part about a parent and that's the hardest part about a mom that I feel nobody truly talks about.

Because until you are spending a lot of time with your children, it actually makes it very, very, very hard to kick off those cubs, if you know what I mean.

Because then you're going through the Rolodex of, well, have I taught her this?

Does she know this?

You know what I mean?

But it's the basics.

It's the basics to me starts with critical thinking.

And we're not trying to raise some freaking, you know, anarchists.

Like, it's just.

I might get to that.

It's just thinking critically for survival aspect and for thriving aspect.

You just look at these kids.

They're all just clones.

None of them are asking questions.

None of them are thinking.

They all just go through the motions.

They're all depressed, they're all miserable.

And you see these crowds of these kids and it's just like you're.

What are the parents speaking into them?

What life is that kid being hearing all day, every day from their parents.

And they're not, because they're just shoving Them off to a daycare all day until they're screen or screen.

I actually, it was dinner last night when sis and I were in Montana.

There were these two parents and they're sitting there with their kids, not one phone, including the parents, the whole entire meal.

And I actually, like, thanked them for.

I wanted them to know that, no, hey, yeah, here's the product.

Here's my soon to be 18 year old.

Or we just sat at this dinner table for two hours and talked the whole entire time.

Do not give in to the electronics because the parents that are giving into the electronics, especially these parents that are sitting at a dinner table and all the kids just start pulling.

You're lazy.

You're an absolute lazy parent.

I'll die on that hill.

There is no excuse for your children to sit at a dinner table with you and not even be interacting.

And if they're bored, then they're bored.

Children should be bored.

How many times.

Look at our youngest.

She got it from mixing her food at the end of the night.

You got mashed potatoes.

She's got green peas in there.

What?

And she's building this, like, castle.

I would rather my kid be sitting at the dinner table playing with her food than scrolling at 7, 8, 9, 10 years old because you're too lazy to entertain your child.

And meanwhile, you and your wife aren't even speaking at a table.

Like, what are you, what are we even doing as a society at this point?

It's crazy because if I take everything.

I'm gonna put this in perspective.

If I take everything that you love about me, right?

You're some of your favorite parts about me.

And I split them in half.

Most of those parts were developed with me as a child being extremely bored.

I was an only child.

I wasn't.

I played soccer.

I was in karate and stuff like that.

But not to the level that we pushed our kids, right?

I was extremely bored, had no siblings, lives in an apartment.

My mom was a single mom.

She would have to take me everywhere, right?

So I had to learn to entertain myself really fast.

And at the time, you don't know any different.

And that's where these parents I.

It's almost like these millennial parents where I look at them and I'm like, we didn't have phones.

You survived.

Like, what.

What did you do to survive?

And I think a lot of these parents give the screens to these little.

The toddler thing is heartbreaking to me because you have no idea what you are doing to that child.

And then how it's Just going to get worse from then on out.

But then these 11 year olds that you're putting a phone in their hands and we all know how we feel about that.

And to me, it's a really, really, really dangerous game long term than your short term.

Temporary moment of silence.

100%.

We were at Kennedy and I are in a waiting room and we're sitting there and you know, you see these moms, these kids lean over and they want to watch something on the phone.

And there's this.

And I'm gonna relate with the audience right now.

There's this immediate human flesh part of me where I'm like, oh, we could watch something together, right?

Why not?

We could watch something together.

And then it dawns on me I didn't know any different.

And the problem is these parents forget that them growing up, they didn't know any different.

Your child is going to be okay if they don't have a screen.

And the sooner you could pull that, I promise you, the better it is.

Because you know what happens when I didn't fall into that very, very minute temptation of watching something with Kennedy.

She's sitting there and we have.

When she's like, let's play I Spy.

I'm like, oh, my God, I don't know what I'm gonna play for the 10,000.

It's either I Spy or would you rather.

So I'm, I'm of like, let's do.

Would you rather I like.

Would you rather Way better than I Spy?

Because half the time she'll be like, green.

And they're like, there's green everywhere.

And it'll be on the bottom of someone's shoe.

Like, I ain't looking like that.

I'm not a kid.

But we the.

Would you rather.

And then we end up laughing.

And the next thing you know, we get called.

She never knew the difference.

She never had something to scroll in hand, the kid, a freaking magazine.

I had to color.

I had to learn all this kind of stuff, talk to the kid, challenge them with questions.

And I know this is triggering for a lot of people because you're probably.

Well, I work this crazy schedule.

Or I just had a baby and I can't deal with my toddler.

Oh, well, no, I'm saying they're triggered over this whole screen thing.

But you're triggered because you know it's true.

You're convicted.

They're convicted because you realize how lazy you are.

It's.

How unintentionally are you with your kids and you're giving them you took a pacifier out of their mouth and put a pacifier in their hand.

That's.

You're doing that 27 minutes of that Coco Melon video.

What you're getting for that peace of mind.

So you could scroll or do whatever it is damaging.

I, and I'm not trying to target people, but it's true.

Oh, look at the studies that are coming out.

All of the mental issues that are coming out.

The God Ben talked about it on a show with the family IT guy of how these behavioral issues are just increasing from these children because of the screens, the blue lights, all this stuff.

They're getting pumped with the endorphins.

You're getting the rise already.

You're giving your, you're giving your 11 year old a dopamine drop on a phone.

That's the equivalent to almost a narcotic hit in a lot of cases.

More addicting.

And you're starting your children on this.

That's what I'm saying.

This is where as a, like, as a father being where we are now and I, I mean, how many times we see it, we go to dinner, there's a whole table, kids are pulling out giant ass iPads.

They all got their things and they're eating one hand and they're scrolling.

What are you doing?

Like, that's where as a parent, you, you brought this child into the world.

You get one shot with them and this is what you've chose to do because of the level of laziness and not being an intentional parent, of being able to just sit at a table with your child and have a quality conversation with them, even if you and your wife are talking, guess what?

They could learn to sit there and shut up and entertain themselves.

We all did it.

And how about just giving them, you know, those little dairy creamers at restaurants.

Stack a pyramid, Stack them up.

Make a fake smoothie.

Smoothie, Take our orders.

All of us millennials and older forget that we were raised without it.

So if we turned out okay, right?

We turned out okay.

Like I said, some of your favorite parts about me are it developed in boredom.

Actually, a lot of the that I have was developed in discipline where I got in trouble and I had to write sentences and I had to read.

Well, something I think that's really cool is, you know, our youngest is turning 12 soon and this is the age where these young girls are starting to, you know, get into the makeup and, you know, more of the preteen stage.

She's outside playing with horses and her toys all day because she doesn't have the influence of the world, of the Internet.

The, the sex, the crime, the, the violence, all of it that's being fed to these kids.

And if you're like, well my kids on YouTube Kids, you're a idiot.

Like that's, that's, you've already lost this argument.

If you're like, well I, I watch my kids.

A lot of people don't know.

They don't know.

And that's the, it's 20, 26.

We, we.

How long are we gonna live with this?

I just didn't know.

The ignorance is bliss, babe.

It's.

The ignorance is bliss.

They think we just had this conversation.

We, we downloaded bark.

We're okay.

Well, is your child okay?

Yeah, their little iPad tablet stays home.

They're going over sleepover little Susie's.

Do they have bark?

We don't know.

Right.

I was wondering, bark.

Is there a 17 year old brother that the parents don't watch you.

They have it on his phone that they're using.

I think a lot of it.

Once again, I'm going back to primal.

We get lazy, we get complacent in society as parents and we think it's not going to happen to our kid.

It's not going to.

I'm hands on.

No one's that dumb.

I'm, I, I know I got in trouble.

I can see it coming.

The craziest thing is I freaking like Rapunzel rappelling out of a freaking apartment window.

Younger than Christy.

And my mom didn't know, didn't catch me until I didn't come back home.

My mom probably could have put money.

I would have never have done that because I made it back in every time.

You see what I'm saying?

So I, I can't apply this logic like she can't get anything past me.

Bullshit man.

Times have changed.

Oh yeah, times have changed.

Yeah.

And it's now in their hands.

And I get it, I 100% get it.

You want the moment of peace, you want to doom scroll, do all that kind of thing.

But I'm telling you, I cannot stress it enough.

Your short term relief is taking a cost long term on those children and you could change it now.

It's gonna suck, but you have to do it.

You have to.

If you, if you, if you want to start having children that you have a relationship, a true relationship with, there's no need for your kids to be on any.

Let me put this in perspective, okay?

So I'm gonna compare me I to our youngest who's gonna, who's gonna be 12 soon?

So I was about a year older than her.

Now she's not in school.

I was in School at 13.

I was still playing with Barbies, but no one knew about it.

Now when I say playing with Barbies, I wasn't like, hi Ken.

Hi Barbie.

It wasn't like that.

But I dress them up.

I love styling.

Everything Barbies were, were life.

There's no way in hell I was telling that to people in middle school.

In middle school, my identity was formed around the fact that I hadn't started my period.

I was a late bloomer, but all my friends had.

I wanted to fit in.

So here I am secretly playing with Barbies and then lying that I started my period like, what the hell, right?

Well, now looking at it, I look at our youngest, who I said this in our first one.

You almost preserve them in time for sure.

They're almost.

And it's not in a way that people like how we used to think homeschool kids are weird.

It's different.

It's no offense, but it's reversed.

Kennedy can have a full blown conversation with neighbors, sell bread, get raking jobs, negotiate with business with her little raking.

We'll, we'll pay you 10 bucks for the front yard and 10 bucks for the back.

She's like, actually it's 20 bucks for the front yard, 20 bucks for the backyard.

And they're like, okay, like this is coming from a 10, 11 year old girl.

And here she's outside of that influence and here she has no shame playing in the front yard, her horses.

You know what I mean?

That's one of the biggest things, one of the greatest things that I have picked up on from homeschooling and our kids being out of the public system is that you almost put a time capsule.

You get time back.

You get a lot of time back.

You put this time capsule around them because they're not evolving with the trends and the fads and everything that's going on in their class with them and the girls, like you're saying, wanting to be cool, lying to fit in.

You just have this innocent child that's living in their own little world, granted, socializing how all the ways we do.

But there's no pressure and they're not seeing and hearing all the vulgar, just horrible that these kids are into and looking at and searching all day every day and bringing to the classroom with him.

Now it's like we have these, this little time capsule of your child in there and it's like, as a dad, why would you not want to preserve their innocence for as long as possible?

And then you see the other kids their age, you hear how they're talking, you hear the conversations, what they're built around, how sexualized these little kids are already speaking.

And you sit in, she comes home, they're saying, they said this, and it's like, oh, my God.

And it's, it's, it's probably quote unquote, normal conversation for this age group.

But I don't want my kid to be normal.

I want to preserve that.

Where instead of her worrying about her shoes or her clothes or fitting in with the cool kids and all this other stuff, she's building a business.

She isn't door knocking.

She's watching the kids in the neighborhood.

And all the parents are just, here you go.

So she's, she's building so many life skills by dodging the.

That these kids are dealing with all day.

And then here she is just playing.

There's horses and dolls and everything all over.

We look, we have the most white trash yard.

Yeah.

In the neighborhood.

You should throw that up.

Throw.

Except the address, but yeah, there we

literally have the most white trash yard because bikes, easy rollers and toys and little trinkets and there's a little house built out of moss and a lean to.

A lean to.

She built.

And yeah, as a dad, I pull into the driveway and I see her.

She builds this whole rock walkway for her little mushroom town that she made out of clay and builds all these characters.

And I'm sitting there in my truck watching.

I'm like, that's what I want.

Like, why do I want to walk in my house and my kids scrolling at 11 years old, got their own iPhone already like this disgusting.

It's really sad.

No, it, because.

And that's where I have no sympathy toward our generation, the millennial generation.

Because we know better.

We know better.

I firmly believe, and so many people agree with me.

We were the last, truly last great generation.

We had one Y2K, right?

We had one foot into the future and then one foot out.

Like, so we had the, oh my gosh, the Internet's gonna take over and Apple, ipod and all this kind of crazy dial up and then still drinking out of hoses you had to call houses.

We were the last, to me, great generation.

And those saddest part is that there's so much negative around millennials.

I spin it opposite.

I'm sitting here going, us millennial parents are so dumb because we know better.

The boomer Generation.

I feel bad for them.

They were the most lied to generation, right?

Here we are, like I said, one foot on each side of the generations.

We know better.

We're just better.

We're lazy.

But that's what I'm trying to say.

The millennial generation is, is one of the most laziest generation.

We want to blame these young kids, but it' they felt.

This is what I want to tell if the, the other millennials, I want to be like, you fell for it.

You know what I mean?

Like, you fell for it.

Because I have never once been felt comfortable to be like, here and prop this up.

If, even if I, when I see it, when I see other people do

it, I'm always like, especially in a stroller.

You got a kid in a stroller holding an iPad at 12 years old.

They don't know any different.

These kids don't know any different.

So you're literally programming them.

So it's like, I could preach about this and rant on this thing all day, and it's sad.

And if you feel upset about it right now, you're convicted.

You could change it.

You truly, you truly can.

It's gonna suck depending on the age the child and how long they've been dependent on it.

But you and I both know if you can't put your phone down, okay, and you're a effing adult with your frontal lobe develop, imagine a child.

It's sad, man.

When you put it in that perspective, it's, it's, it's really disappointing.

I really feel bad.

I truly.

That's what it really is.

Like, I see that.

That's why I wanted to go out of my way last night and like, and thank those parents.

Tell them that I notice, hey, this is, you know, and I'm like, it's not going to be easy.

And yes, it's, it's tough.

Sometimes it's worth it.

It's so this time, right now, for the next year or two.

But at the same time, when you're like, oh, my kid just won't sit at a table.

Shut the.

Up, up, shut up.

Like, you can't control your child sitting at a table.

Oh, it is just too much because you aren't enough for that child.

The, the fact that you are as a grown ass man or woman, I can't.

It calms them down.

It distracts them.

You're the problem.

You are.

You're drugging your job, you're drugging your child.

They're getting a dopamine hit now.

You wonder why your kid has behavioral issues and they're.

You have to force them.

The only way they calm down is.

Is giving them their drug a.

The electronic and you can't process that as an adult.

That's where I'm okay, I'm out.

Well my whole thing is think about the parents who don't think that way and then they're trying to parent and then they take the phone away and think this will teach them.

It's like no offense but you've made that child dependent off that phone.

You know what I mean?

And you're pulling it what I'm telling

my kid needs a phone.

Your kid needs an.

You need always go check their emails and their social stat.

No they don't.

You know how you punish your kid?

You take them with you to run effing errands or you take him to work with you.

Yep.

We're going to talk.

We're going to what music you want to list to put on.

I don't want to be here and they're going to look out the window the whole time and it's.

It's fine.

But.

Well, this is your punishment.

Like you know what I mean?

Now you're going to learn the difference.

Our kids are not perfect.

Our kids had to learn.

And it takes we.

How you know and correct me if I'm wrong but how the worst part about when we discipline our kids because there's always two forms of discipline.

There's discipline as in consequence and then there's discipline as in instilling it.

Right.

And it's hard.

It's.

It's very hard.

Sometimes it's a dance and I think everybody makes excuses because she doesn't listen to me or he doesn't listen to me.

There's.

There's a huge disconnect.

I didn't.

My mom and I had some major issues growing up and being 37.

You know hindsight's 2020 so looking back and raising daughters now, I know my mom did her best with the circumstance that she was given.

And I owe a lot of who I am now because of what I had to go through with my parents and just how I was raised not co parenting wise.

You know what I mean?

My parents may beg to differ, but it's true.

Looking at it, I. I know what I see and what I didn't see.

And the hardest part about disciplining, you know you're doing a good job when it sucks on having the like const.

Like we call it yanking the chain and take the how you want, but we give them enough room to roam with rules was with.

You know what I mean?

Like bumpers with bumpers.

And that's just survival mode.

That's being the parent.

When you.

When they hit that bumper and you're like.

And they did it deliberately and you know that you have to grab and just.

God dang it, no one enjoys doing that.

You know, you're doing a good job with your kids if you hate doing that.

And I'm not talking in the aspect of, oh, I'm trying to be your friend.

I don't want to discipline.

It's the okay, this is gonna suck.

But let me tell you why you knew.

You know what I mean?

And it's not that it's the.

It's like the end of the world type stuff.

No, but that's where I feel how we run our home is much different than probably 99 of the homes in this.

In our.

That we know of is because we run our home very, just.

Very.

Just very raw.

Real and honest.

Real, raw, honest, straight to the point.

We don't.

And that's.

That comes from us figuring out our generational curses.

And I grew up in a home where I'd watch my dad beat the out of my mom and then we'd be fine the next day.

Nobody would talk about it.

And I grew up having to over explain everything, always having to talk about something, but I didn't want to talk about it.

Right.

So you have those two cultures, knock

down, drag out bras, the family, happy family in the next day.

And so that's where I'm like, oh, absolutely.

No, not so.

When it came to breaking the generational curse.

Curse from my family, that's where, okay, we got a problem.

We're going to address this.

We're not going to bed angry.

We're going to see how do we get to the bottom, the root of this and how do we address how do we move forward.

And I think that's been a really key part of our family is addressing these.

Not in an angry, mad way.

But if, you know, I mess up.

Girls, whoever messes up.

Hey.

Okay, come on in.

Sit down.

How do we.

What happened?

Let's talk this through and just see where we're at with this.

And that's helped a lot.

But when it comes back to being running a home, that's fair and just.

That's.

It's hard.

It's really hard to do because especially me as the father in this home and running the house how I want it Run with my rules and things, and obviously yours as well, is not just, you know, me setting it, but if I'm like, hey, I want you home at this time.

This, this is just an example I'll use for people listening.

Hey, I want you home at 10 o'.

Clock.

She knows by who I am as her dad and how I run my home.

10 o' clock means 10 o'.

Clock.

That's not 10:05, that's not 10:30.

It's 10 you're late.

If it's 10, you're late in our home.

But at the same time she knows, hey dad, I'm a few minutes late.

I'm a little bit behind.

I'm just giving the heads up.

Perfect.

No problem, kid.

It's not the 10 o' clock isn't the problem.

It's the rule of running a fair just prince home.

It's the principle of having that rule.

But we're not setting this rule that if it's.

There's no that's it or nothing.

She knows it.

Hey dad, everybody's staying a little bit later.

Can I get an extra hour?

Absolutely.

Have I ever said no?

So I've never, I've never every time she's ever.

No, she's not calling every single time.

But that.

But, but if she's late, hey, guess what?

Now I need you home by 9:30.

Just because your kids have to know if you have this rule in your home that it's set for a reason.

And there's so especially from my point of view, is traveling the world seeing what's out there.

I want my kids, when I tell them to do something, they're doing it.

They're not questioning as an effect of like hesitating.

Obviously we talked a little bit earlier about, you know, asking questions, but hey, I need you to do this now.

Get it done.

Boom, they're on it.

Hey, I don't need you to do this.

This is how I want.

This is how things are going to move forward.

And then obviously I'm trying to think of other examples.

You probably have some good ones.

But when it comes to running a house, that's fair.

Just the.

Even though they're little rules and they might be little for you, it's letting your children know this is set for a reason.

And he, this is why.

And so when that rule is broken, that's when there's repercussion on, not in this huge negative way, but they need to know, hey dad, when dad says this, this is when it's going to be.

But they have all the freedom in the world.

Does that make sense?

Yeah.

I don't know how to explain that down to.

There's gonna be authority in life.

Yes.

So if you sit and you go, hey, question authority.

Right.

That's.

You have the radical side of it.

But if it comes down to okay and I this goes into.

We could talk about how great our kids are and how we do it, but the truth is you have to die to yourself in order to lead anybody.

Anybody, whether it's a your kids, a group of people, people that depend on you.

This all stems.

The best part about every story all stems from faith.

There is always a root of faith.

It rings truth.

And in order to lead anybody, you have to die to yourself.

In order to be first, you must be last.

Right.

So my whole thing is we didn't just become these.

We pump out these great kids.

It literally took versions of us healing that we were like, hey, this is not normal.

Right.

In order to raise children.

And I think a lot of listeners forget that.

We listen to the Mel Robbins.

We listen to all these little tick tocks and you get all this great little parenting advice.

We're like, oh yeah, we're gonna instill that.

But they never do.

We never do.

The truth comes from you.

How your children are being raised stems from you.

And there is a point in time where you didn't like all that in the front yard.

And that's the truth.

And I think that's where a lot of people need to hear the versions that we always talk about.

I'd get irritated that, that you had to die to.

And that stems from that generational curses of a lot of dads.

It comes through that control thing, like they're not listening.

I, I hate coming home to a dirty house.

I hate.

And they bottle and they bottle it in and then it comes out in other.

And you and I both had to literally kill versions of each other not only to make our marriage stronger, but you cannot raise successful kids in the same home.

Let me preface unequally yoked and, and different parenting styles.

I don't care who you are, it'll never work.

Challenge me, leave a comment, whatever.

It.

It's the truth.

I've lived it on the other side as being from a divorce home.

I had a dad, you know, pick me up once a week, see me every other weekends.

And then when I was a teenager, moved in with him.

I had all the, the rope in the world to hang myself with.

And then, you know, being living with my mom, I Had a lot of restrictions there.

Just completely different everything.

And so am I going to bring that into our marriage and unload that this is how we're going to raise our kids.

I went through some messed up stuff and did a.

Made a lot of bad choices.

And here you came from Christian home.

You know, mom would stay at home.

Everything's hunky dory, but no one knows what's going behind closed doors there.

Are you going to bring that into this marriage?

And I think a lot of these parents that are listening and thinking they're like holy.

They haven't healed that form of them as a child and it's coming out into their kids.

Absolutely.

It's true.

My, the version of my dad used to come out in the girls with the anger, everything, the irritability.

I need just all that.

And then once it came to really processing how I was not raised but more watched than obviously my influence.

And then in my, into my teen years and that's what I really realized.

I'm like, God, what?

Like, yeah, my dad was a great dad growing up.

He did, he.

They did their best.

My parents did their best.

But for me it wasn't good enough.

Especially in my teen years.

And I look back at it now and I'm like, I want nothing to, to be anything how my parents were, especially me as a teenager and young adult.

That's.

That's where I want to 100 break that generational curse.

It's like, well, this is how I have so many men that reach out to me.

Well, this man.

I don't know what it is with my anger.

You know, I just, I'm so much like my dad.

There's.

There it is, there's.

The root of all evil is when you're, when if you're acting like your parents, but you don't have a relationship with your parents, how does that not trigger you to wake up and go, huh?

Yeah, I should probably rethink of how my parenting skills are.

And that's what it took me.

Oh, you pushing on me.

Do you want to know what it was?

Is I grew up with the.

My dad will never listen to this.

I grew up with the textbook daddy issues.

I was raised on my dad's side, very independent.

You need to never depend on a man.

I was part of the boss babe movement.

Gross.

Right?

Like I, I was.

That's why I feel so passionate about how I am now.

And I'm not sitting here saying I'm trad wife.

That has nothing to do with it.

I was Raised literally in my younger years.

Boss, babe movement, Be an independent female, travel the world, don't settle down, date as many as you.

This is coming from my dad, right?

This is coming from my dad.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

I was radicalized.

My mom was a lot.

But I was anarchy toward my mom.

Right.

There was a disconnect there.

And looking back, my dad, I.

The epitome of daddy issues.

Now, one would argue, well, your dad did his best.

He was working.

He worked out of the city, you know, and it's not his fault.

You could bend that as many different ways as you want.

But when you really break it down and when you're truly like.

Like, awoken to childhood trauma and stuff that you had to navigate through in order to be a better wife and parent, now is.

My dad never once ever told me I was beautiful or ever said he was proud of me, ever, ever.

And I think you're pretty beautiful.

Thank you.

And thank you.

I would literally challenge that now, like, if my dad were to leave a comment.

That's not true.

So this is what I'm trying to get at is I take that, and I'm like, oh, that's really weird.

I didn't notice that until now.

Hey, you.

You're treating your daughters like sons.

They're not sons.

Right.

It's really important with that masculine energy to bring out that feminine energy in two totally different ways, because we have two totally different girls on how they bring it out.

There's, like this science, chemical science behind it.

So what I'm trying to say is my scar and my generational curse, what most of society is like, I'm daddy issues.

That's why I do only fans.

That.

That to me, is just no jab at anybody doing only fans.

But that's just the band aid to what you haven't healed for sure.

And my whole thing is, I took that.

That trauma wound, which didn't bother me growing up, that I thought that I see now, and I. I have to sit here and go, okay, all this scarring is in vain if I don't correct what you're doing now and how it'll pose absolutely to them.

Absolutely.

And it seems.

And may sound messy, but it's not.

You truly can heal a part of you, no matter what it was, through how you raise your kids.

Because I. I make the joke that Christie is who I always wanted to be, Kennedy's who I never got to be.

Two totally different people, two totally different versions of myself.

And you're able to give that to them now.

I will get scarred all day.

I will go back in time, live, walk the same.

I went through, get those scars if I have the same outcome, for sure.

So you're able to.

You're able to turn it for good.

Obviously.

God has an incredible way of doing that.

So, like, everybody listening, everybody thinks that all my trauma, my wounds, no matter what it is.

Right.

It could be made for good through how you raise your kids.

And you could change that.

It's incredible.

You could even use it on how to make your spouse the best version of your spouse.

It's funny because there's this thing floating around right now, if they haven't already seen it.

It's this divorce lawyer.

I think he's with Mel Rob someone.

He's on some podcast.

He's this famous divorce lawyer, and he talks about how you should.

Your spouse should be your most favorite person.

And if your spouse doesn't make you the most authentic version of you, we have a problem.

And my job is to make the best come out of you.

I don't want you to.

People think that they have to change.

It's a.

It's not really a change.

It's like a shedding, aligning.

And it pays off.

It pays off because those listening, we have friends that they've known the.

That you and I have gone through.

We have married, killed, divorced, four to five different versions of each other.

And man, it.

There's fruit at the end of it that.

That is the hope I want to leave listeners with.

With that they have to make the one a change, though.

The word intentional is.

Don't let it.

Don't let the abuse of it floating around, because that's what happens.

People abuse a word and it loses its validity.

Like, it loses its weight.

Right?

Just gets thrown around.

Intentionality is huge.

It is dying to yourself to serve whatever that person is in the best way as possible to make them the best version of them.

And that should be not just in your marriage and in raising your kids, but in anybody you come in contact with in life.

Absolutely.

We're all woven together.

So.

And just being intentional is.

It could be so simple.

You're, oh, I gotta go run the Home Depot.

Grab one of your kids.

Yeah, you wanna come with me?

Wanna go?

Come on, let's go.

If they go.

No, because Cakey does cake.

Like, not really.

Get your shoes on.

Driving.

Well, we're going anyway.

Yeah, get your shoes on.

We're going anyways.

Yeah.

And then guess what?

We get a little Tinder Joy thing.

Crap at the checkout.

You're always yelling at us about.

Because I let them get it.

But they walk.

You walk through the store.

You're gonna go to the grocery store.

Let's go.

Come on.

I'm gonna show you something.

Yeah.

Show your kids at a young age how to pick fruit, how to pick vegetables, how to check out.

That's what it comes down to, to being an intentional parent.

It doesn't mean you're sitting every night and kubaya and having family conversations and meetings and how.

I've got three ring binders and we're going to.

This is what we're going to talk about this week.

That shit doesn't work.

Just be there for your children.

Let them know that they're heard.

Let them speak their voice and just be there for them.

Just be in their life.

But now with technology and everything that's going on is like you have these other people that just live in your home and you're just feeding them for 18 years and then off they go.

And it just, just.

It's so bizarre to me.

But just being intentional is the biggest thing that you can do to raise incredible kids and just show them, show them what you know, take them places.

It's.

The more to me the quality of life because the more your children enjoy that.

Because they do, these kids.

On the contrary, some people may be like, I disagree.

They kids, I feel, crave structure.

Absolutely.

And discipline because, you know, it does something to the brain.

And for the longest time, like, let's go way back in time when I was forced to freaking read and write sentences because I got in trouble.

I. I love reading and I could read extremely fast.

I can, I have all these strengths from it.

And some people are like, that's not a strength.

I would count.

Well, to me it is.

And so to me, it's now something I instill in our kids because I think it's a dying trait.

Like I.

To write.

To read and write is dying.

We're texting, and if we're not texting, we're voice talking.

No one knows how to write anymore.

Barely anybody knows how to read.

Because you have an audiobook.

Not knocking it.

All I'm just saying is you're able to instill things in these kids that they deep down hardwired inside, actually crave.

And the more structured and just you are and treating them on the level to where they respect you, not necessarily fear you, they want to spend more time with you, they want to include you in things.

You're not sitting there trying to like, beg for little snippets on your kid's life from the wife or from the aunt.

Like, how many stories do you hear where the children are closer with the aunt than they are the parents?

One of my biggest fears.

Thank God I don't have siblings.

Thank God I don't have any aunts.

Thank God our kids.

Don't gotta worry.

I would want my kids attaching to my sibling now.

I'm not knocking that.

I have an incredible relationship with my aunts.

I'm also a different generation.

I couldn't go to my parents for f. All.

Okay, so what I'm trying to say is when you have to recreate the kink in your family chain, I feel be proud of that.

For the longest time, I was always sad I couldn't give you sons, right?

Really?

Yeah.

I was really not, because.

Not.

It's not like a regret, but I know every man wants a son, right?

Well, I'm not saying every.

Some.

You.

You don't even act, don't even phase.

But yes, you had a phase.

What I'm trying to say, I don't have that now, but there.

There's truth behind it.

And I get really deep into this.

Like really freaking deep into generational curses.

And the way everything works out is my mom and dad, technically.

I'm sorry, mom and dad, but you guys were never supposed to be together.

They.

They got pregnant with me and then my dad got married, which I'm sure was what was considered the right thing to do back then, but they.

They just weren't compatible.

Looking at it now, it just would have never worked.

And for I have many reasons on why I think it would never work.

But.

But I used to think, okay, I'm a daughter.

My dad.

My maiden name ends with me, right?

It ends with my dad.

On my dad's side of it, my dad.

The.

The townly maiden name no longer continues through my dad.

It will through my dad's brother and all that kind of stuff, but through my dad.

And I'm sitting here thinking, I'm like, God, that's.

That's freaking wild.

And then hear you.

You didn't create.

Your brother passed away.

He has two boys who are marshals that'll continue there, but through you.

It ends through you.

And I used to think like, man, this freaking sucks.

But then everything shifted in perspective.

And this is where I nerd out on this is I believe that your chain link was meant to be broken through you because your father has a father wound.

Oh, big time.

Okay.

You have a father wound.

And think about how far that goes back.

We don't even know how far it goes back.

I have no idea if your dad's dad has a father wound.

Right.

I'm looking at mine.

I'm going, okay, my dad has.

I have a father wound with my dad.

My dad has a father wound with his dad.

My dad would tell me growing up, he was never told I love you by his own dad.

Yeah.

My dad had all kinds of a.

His dad's a piece of.

When you really break down, really break down, there's no excuses there.

It's almost so in your face where you're like, oh, starts with me.

There it is.

You are literally.

And this is how a redeeming God works, is he looks at you on your side and he's like, you know what?

You're not meant to have sons.

You're going to have daughters, and they're going to change from there.

It's like a.

It's like a.

A blank slate.

And some people, depending on your perception, may look at that bad, but to me, I look at it absolutely beautiful because we get to.

We, you and I get to be the chain breakers with that.

And then watch where our girls roll with it, because they're gonna get married, take on a name, they're gonna mesh their culture with their man's culture and then grow something.

Absolutely.

And then I. I hope that gives some little bits of hope for people out there who struggled with whatever they grew up with.

You can literally change it.

I firmly believe that how you approach it.

And I'm a woman of faith.

I'm a woman of God.

When it comes down to it, he will give you that insight if you ask for it.

And sometimes it is frightening on how.

Eye opening.

He makes it.

It.

And then you get to run from it with their.

Your children are.

Are yours to Stewart.

They're not yours, but they're yours to Stewart.

And man, it is really incredible.

And that's.

That intentionality.

That's what I was getting at, is being intentional of stemming it back.

And how do I make it great from here?

Let's talk homeschooling a little bit.

Unless you want to keep going.

No, I'm here for days, but I

know there's a lot.

There's a lot.

There is.

We'll cover some.

So homeschooling is a big part of our life.

Huge.

We made the decision.

You made the decision back in 2020 and came to me and you sat me down and you said, I'm pulling the girls out of Public school.

You're either with me or you're against me.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And here we are six years later, and it's been one of the greatest decisions that we have ever made as a family.

And.

Yeah.

So my question to you is everything that you know about having kids in the public system and then now having kids in the homeschool life school system, would you ever put your kids back in public school?

No.

Never.

Not never.

If anything, and I've said this before, I wish I did it sooner.

I do believe in timing, though, that it was supposed to be at the time it did.

Okay.

But first and foremost, there is worlds within worlds of homeschooling.

And there's a divide.

You have the people who, bless their hearts, were teachers in the school system, saw the negativity on it and decided to do homeschool and make a co op.

And they believe this is how you homeschool.

You see what I'm saying?

So there's, there's groups of homeschoolers that don't always disagree.

But this is what I, I want everyone to understand.

Home school is exactly what that is.

They're home and they're learning.

You have to remove whatever you think is the standard.

How we grew up, we're told you have to take this test to make sure you're falling under standards.

The state of Idaho standards, state of Montana standards, California standards.

Where's your child lie in seventh grade standards?

We are programmed to think that our children have to learn something by this time in order to be successful.

And if they don't learn it, they're left behind and good, good luck.

And they don't meet the standards.

That was the hardest, absolute hardest thing in the homeschooling journey that I had to, like, program out of me, detox out of me, because it's no secret, when I pulled the girls, I'm like, I could do this.

I'm a super mom.

Right?

And then next thing you know, I'm like, what the.

I'm trying to teach.

Two months in, you're.

I don't think we can do this.

Oh, dude, wrecked.

I'm trying to teach a, a seventh grader and then a first grader.

I'm like, like, okay, guys, you're working on this.

Okay, well, what time is it?

It's 2 o'.

Clock.

We're 30 minutes late on math.

That is, that's a recipe for failure.

But there are those types of parents,

and I'm not knocking it.

We are not those parents.

What I'm trying to say Is this.

You have to remove that standard.

Yep.

You have to remember that this is your child.

So, for instance, Kennedy really struggled on eight and nine fact families, multiplication, fact families.

Okay?

I'm sitting here thinking, oh, okay, yeah, cakey.

She got horrible on, like, a time test.

And I'm like, okay, well, yeah, it's all right.

We'll move on to the next thing.

I had to realize, you know what?

That she doesn't know it.

Do I want her going as a freaking 37 year old because she didn't master it.

Now, don't get it twisted.

I'm not sitting here with a ruler making sure she has to know everything.

But why would I bypass her on learning something new if it's going to make her struggle?

Because she's not solid on eight and nine fact families.

So what do I do?

I go, you know what this is?

We're gonna eat, sleep, breathe eight and nine fact families to where you're.

You are good with it.

And I feel comfortable moving on now to the outside world.

She is behind right to the standard, to the state standard, to the federal standard, to a standard of people who have never met my child, telling me that she's not smart enough to move on to it.

Get the.

You want to see me lose it?

Have a group of people who have never met my child making standards for my child now argue all you want with it.

It's the truth.

You're.

If you.

If your child doesn't know something, it is your job as a parent to make sure that they understand it, or else you're setting them up for failure.

Christy.

And I'm sorry, love, I don't mean to pick on you.

Christy was in the system till seventh grade, okay?

So when I got her, she was on the struggle bus for algebra 1, okay?

For algebra run.

Some people get it, some people don't.

That doesn't mean you're dumb, and that doesn't mean you're smart.

So I'm sitting here pulling my hair out because I don't understand how she doesn't get it.

It's algebra's rules, right?

It's a set of rules.

Math is a set of rules.

I had to literally rewire her, go back in time and figure out where.

Where did it blip in her brain or where did they skip her ahead?

Where's the missing link to where we lost her, right?

We lost her on the.

On.

Where was the disconnect?

And that was the biggest eye opener for me.

So then when I had Kennedy roll around with advancing in Math.

I'm like, oh yeah, we're not, we are not going to learn anything new until you understand it.

Which is crazy because obviously our little.

An Excellus and that program will not let the kids move on till they.

Yeah, it'll keep feeding the same stuff to that child and help videos until they understand it.

Now this isn't a fire.

Depending on your child.

Aelis is a fire and forget.

Okay.

Like you, if your child's independent, they could go and they could do 40 hours in one week.

It's an, it's an accelerated.

For Kennedy.

It's used supplementally because she's a hands on visual learner.

She's both.

She has to fidget with something and watch you do it and actively do it.

But that's one of the best things that I think about homeschooling kids because you have those, those style kids that are fidgeters and they could sit there and just be off the whole entire time.

And then you ask them and she'll nail it.

You know what they call that it?

ADD or ADHD.

Okay.

100 break in school.

But in, but in life.

I even hate homeschool.

I think we should, we need to change the term to life schooling because that's where I think we are more life schoolers for our kids.

But you take our little kid in here, if she was in a public school.

We need to talk.

She's labeled.

Yep.

She has add.

We need to put her on this method because she just can't sit still.

But here we are.

Pull her kid out of school.

Hey, here's a fidget spinner.

Here's a whiteboard with a margin eraser.

Go to town.

And she's sitting there just drawing with stuff.

And then you go through a whole lesson and you ask and she could tell you every single thing from it.

So she is, okay, here's what I learned.

And I live this so I, I understand it.

There's a time where I was teaching her, I'm like, pay attention.

You know what I mean?

Repeat it back to me.

And she was just not.

And I'm sitting here like, oh my gosh.

Right?

The same logic that you try to apply with another kid.

Totally different kids did all this reading, found out that she's under, under stimulated in her mind.

So when she's bouncing on the chair, going up and down in the computer chair and she's not repeating caterpillar back to me, spelling caterpillar back to me, right?

I'm like, you're so smart.

Why, why is this not happening in school.

She'd be labeled ADHD or add.

You need a medicator.

Blah, blah, blah, blah.

This whole entire thing.

So what do I do?

I go, okay, let's try something different.

All right, Kennedy, take this marker.

I'm going to give you a word, and I want you to spell it.

You have one chance to spell it right.

If not, you lose a point.

Right.

Okay, so she's now challenged.

She.

I'm trying to over stimulate her.

So not only do I give her a time frame on when to get it done.

Task right.

So a countdown.

She has to spell it right and make it back to her seat by a certain time.

And people are probably like, what the.

But that's how she spelled caterpillar.

That's how she was able to spell things by.

Okay, all right, are you ready?

This word's gonna be hard.

She's like, I could do it.

I could do it soon.

What does she stop doing?

Stops going up and down on the chair.

You see what I'm saying now?

Not every kid is made equal.

Every kid is different.

I'm not saying that's you as a

parent learning your child.

That's me not being lazy, not accepting something that I'm told to just accept.

It's me going, nah, we're going to try something different.

Here we are.

So now everything is a challenge.

So Kennedy isn't ADD adhd.

She's under stimulated.

Her brain wants more.

That's why her hands are trying to fidget with something and she's spinning on the chair.

I'm not.

Not stimulating my child.

Yeah.

So that's where it comes down to.

Nor's a teacher that has 30, 40 kids in a classroom, and then now your kids in the back unstimulated, and they're left behind.

Left behind because they.

I believe you were one of those kids left behind 100.

Everything that I see now and look at it, it's heartbreaking.

It's heartbreaking because I have limited myself in so many things throughout my life because of how my mom took zero effort, nothing on pushing my brother and I as far as academics to push and to.

To make sure we were.

And back to the boomer generation, they just don't know anything.

So here I obviously wasn't on any ADHD medication, but they're like, oh, he has a learning disability.

Oh, he's got their.

This.

He's dyslexic.

Dyslexic.

And then now I'm, as an adult, I'm looking at all this stuff like What?

Nobody ever took the fucking time.

Every child is teachable.

I was just sat in the back of the class and nobody ever called.

Nobody ever took any extra time.

My mom did not force us to do anything when we were home and never read, never wrote, would knock out my homework or have a.

When I got older, have some kid or girlfriend do it for me.

I just skated through it all.

And then I look back, now I'm like, God, nobody took any time like you have taken for our kids.

Kids.

Nope.

We're gonna learn this.

Nope.

We're not moving until we figure this one out.

And it's just, it's really, it's incredible what we're able to do now for our kids.

But it's so sad, me being a product of that and always having doubt in my head, being able to go after certain things and jobs and it affects you.

And this.

Okay, so this, I want to put this in perspective because a lot of parents think that they're not qualified.

I am not a teacher.

My God.

But, no, but here's the thing.

The world, the world.

Because you have these teachers who were not pro school system, but you need to have some type of structure with this.

This is what I'm trying to say.

If I can teach my child, this is to me the cherry on the cake.

I'm not, not qualified to teach a classroom, but I am qualified to teach my child for sure.

Okay?

And if I teach my child to think critically and to not, not to be okay with not knowing everything, but to search for that answer, to question and to look into it, like I said in the beginning, true form of intelligence, true form of intelligence is knowing and possibly understanding both sides and then developing an opinion on that.

And if I'm teaching her how to think, not what to think, I know she'll be successful because when she's older and she doesn't know something, she will know how to get it.

Either she will hire the right person who knows it, or she will create the right thing that could do that for her.

And that's how, in how far in advance as a parent you have to think in order to do that.

And you set your child up.

It's incredible.

They're not always going to do what we want them to do.

That is, that is just human.

Okay?

But if I raise her a certain way that's imprinted and programmed in her, she could go off the beaten path if she wants to.

That's a choice.

She'll find her way back.

But regardless, I could sleep at Night knowing that I'm teaching them not how to be successful, but how to become successful.

Absolutely.

That is what I want every parent to know and to understand is that your child, no matter how many you have 1 to 12 to 15, they are special.

They have a special way on how their brain is working, how you have influenced that.

They watch you.

They are.

I did not realize how in tune they are to our lives until homeschooling and discussing business around them.

It's hilarious because you and I will talk business or be talking about something and then they'll chime in and us is in the middle of this heated.

Not conversation or.

Or confrontation, but whether we're arguing or saying we disagree with something, they'll kind of chime in and we're kind of like, what?

You know?

And they'll.

And we're like, oh, that's actually kind of good idea.

Yeah.

And they're like, what are you talking about?

Well, never mind.

It's crazy.

Yeah, you're just.

Man, we forget.

We forget we're.

We're raising little people and they're going

to raising the next generation.

And you're raising the next generation by sticking your kids in fluorescent lights.

That have built around a program that mimics the prison system.

They ride in buses and they got to raise their hand to go to the bathroom and the speak and sit in rows and do what you're told and take these tests and no critical thinking.

And like that's.

That's raising the next generation.

Or you pull your kids out of school.

You're teaching them how to critically think, how to think for themselves, how to process things, how to handle stress, how to develop into their own person.

There's doesn't even compare you.

There is not one person on this planet that could ever convince me that putting your child in a public school is better than homeschooling them.

There's.

There's.

There's nothing.

There's nothing on this planet that would ever convince me otherwise.

Be just because of the.

The product that we are putting out from our children of since getting out of the system and then being able to watch their peers still in the system and seeing how this is your children.

Then we went homeschool and then all the rest just stay.

It's just this cookie cutter every year.

Christy, where were we?

Oh, the airport.

These kids are just clones.

All the same.

Dressed the same, all the same haircuts, all look this.

It was just like these little packs of kids and we're all like watching them like there's no originality in any of these kids.

And so the fact that you just be able to branch out into so many different ways of their own style, their personality, what they're into, their own fads and trends and all this stuff, you're not keeping up with the Joneses.

It's, it's like I said, it's the greatest decision that we have ever come up with.

And the whole.

This is something to me.

How do you, this is a big question I get.

How do you, how do you do it?

Like what, how do you teach your kids?

That's the, that's the secret sauce.

You get to raise your kids however you want.

Now if you're the, if you're the parents, like, we're up at 8 o', clock, we're gonna be on school by 9 o'.

Clock, we're gonna have breakfast at 8:30.

And then this is this and this and this and this.

Keep them in school.

I mean, if it works for you, it works for you.

We're not those people.

The girls might go three or four days without doing any school.

But we might be on the road, we might be working on a project.

They, if they want us.

This is one of those things that I'm so glad kids are able to do and that's sleep in.

You.

A lot of people think that their teenagers are sleeping in because they're lazy.

And granted, a lot of them are because you have let your kid have their phone in their room all night and they're up till 3 or 4 o' clock in the morning, then they got to be up for school and they're sitting in classroom exhausted all day and they're eating dog food at the public school system.

They come home and they crash.

Yes, I get all that, but there's so many hormones, there's so many changes going on in your young children's lives.

Why are we forcing these kids to get up at 5 o' clock in the morning to get on the bus to ride to school and all this other.

That to me is child abuse, especially in these early development years.

But then you pull your kids out of the system and it's now it's like, cool, dude.

Granted, we're night owl people, but are allowing our kids to be able to sleep into a certain amount of time, to be able to make sure their bodies are resting and healing and being able to develop.

Develop.

That to me is one of the huge benefits of being able to have our kids home is because of these developmental state phases of their life.

They're able to actually grow, heal, develop, whatever it may be.

A lot of parents think, well, my son has behavioral issues.

But they're not realizing that behavioral issues on some of the younger ages to like pre teens stem from sleep.

Yes.

Like a child needs at least, at least 10 hours of sleep.

Now.

We're.

I could relate to parents out there.

There's a certain time where mom is closed.

Unless you are throwing up, feeling like you're dying.

Something our kids are old enough to.

I could do that.

But it's very sad because you have a lot of these pre teens and even younger who are like, hey, go to bed.

And they're like, yeah, good night.

And they're either playing video games or they're scrolling or they're watching TV or whatever it is, is.

And you're just kind of out of sight, out of mind because you're tired and you have to go to bed because you need sleep.

You forget.

So this kid has, you're in there and you, you're pissed off because you've had to wake him up now four times.

He's not getting up.

He has problems paying attention to school.

He's talking back to the teacher.

That kid has some more issues, but I bet you one of them stems from, from sleep, from lack of sleep.

So when we let our girls sleep in, because here's, here's another crazy part is that you have a 17 year old and then an 11 year old who would typically, according to societal standards, aren't going to coexist or mingle worlds.

And they do, they do.

Christy and, and Candy.

They stay up and color.

Yeah.

Work on scrapbooking stuff.

Very, very rare times.

But we do allow it sometimes, especially if it's a weekend that they could watch something.

Right.

They could watch a movie together, but there's no scrolling.

And that's how we run our house.

There's that just.

You know what I mean?

There's that give take type of thing.

But I, I'm.

The truth is you cannot live raising your child according to standards that are built by people who know nothing about your child.

By the Roth Childs.

Nothing about your child.

They don't know what they're good at.

They don't know what they're just.

I feel every child is smart.

Every child where we are come into this world with, with inquisitiveness and curiosity that is snuffed in the beginning.

Immediately.

Immediately.

I said no.

Well, raise your hand.

Why?

Right?

I was a why kid and I was told, shut the up.

I said no.

But you know what I did?

Because I just wanted an answer.

I just wanted to know, why did I challenge the system a hundred percent?

I. Freaking with an iron fist, like anarchy.

But where did that stem from?

You know what I mean?

We're told.

We're.

We teach our kids.

Don't touch outlets.

Don't do this.

Oh, we don't touch it, bro.

I'll slap their hand.

I want them to be like.

Because that hurt.

Do you see what I'm saying?

They learn.

They learn.

And it's all how you're influencing them.

And I.

That is not pressure on you.

It should be pressure.

You're their parent.

How they go off in life, they're gonna make mistakes that you would have never done, but you've made worse mistakes as a younger kid.

For sure.

They're going to challenge that.

That's part of it.

Start from the very beginning, man, and lay the foundation with it.

I can't.

I cannot stress that enough.

I cannot.

What's one of the biggest advantages of homeschooling your kids?

One of the biggest advantages is I'm very selfish as a mom, and I love spending time with my kids.

I believe you're one or two people.

You either have a countdown and when Your child turns 18, so you could celebrate, or you have a countdown that you are dreading of when Your child turns 18, because it is rough.

I am on the struggle bus.

It's going to be a hard day for you.

I can't even talk about it.

It's gonna.

You're gonna be a trainer.

I was all in my feels, but.

But it's different, though.

And people are pro.

You know, the people are like, oh, because, you know, I.

When her video went live, I had some.

Not a lot.

It was actually very surprising how little hate I got on, you know, me being emotional.

And.

How do you hate on that?

Well, it was.

You know, it was.

It was either from like, some bro or cops, honestly, a couple of cops.

Wounded people.

And so I lost track of where

I was going with that, about what is the advantage of staying or homeschooling your kids.

And there's a.

There's a countdown.

Some people celebrate it, some people dread it.

And that's been one of.

And it's hard for you to speak about because you.

That's one of the greatest things about homeschooling your children is you're consumed with your children all day.

There's some times where I'm like, y', all, we need a break.

Let's.

Let's go on A date night.

Let's.

I need out of here.

And that happens.

And it's completely natural because it's just I need my wife time.

I need my one on one, get the kids out of the house for a little bit.

I need some mama time.

Yeah.

Which is more than healthy.

But the shitty part about homeschooling your kids and then being around 24,7 in your always there is that that becomes part of your life.

And then you start realizing, oh dude, we got a 17 year old about to be 18.

Like what?

How is this house gonna function without her?

But that's, that's if we were.

If she was leaving.

And so this is to me, I feel most.

A lot of people don't talk about it.

I would like to assume this is an assumption that majority of people who have kids wanted to have kids.

That's the assumption.

Right.

Whether that's the truth, you could try to fit that as whatever size boxes you want.

I want to assume that anybody who has children wanted to have family, wanted to have kids.

I feel with everything that what I've gone through, you've gone through, we've gone through together is these.

Nobody discusses what being truly involved in your kid's life, there's a huge cost.

There is a cost that you are never prepared for.

And I am so sometimes stuck in my routine and world with them.

That thinking and remembering that I'm going to be their past and not their future is difficult.

But that's, that's my job is to make sure that when she does fly, I could count that she'll be good.

Right.

And she knows that mom is always home.

But the cost that it comes with is accepting that holy this is temporary.

Our kids, we have them for a temporary amount of time that we have to steward them, take care of them, nurture them, fill them with empathy and compassion that the world needs before we set them out to go and duplicate that.

And I've told you this a million times, but I try to.

Anybody that asks me, I try to tell them I like.

You have to remember that us women, we are the hands that rock the cradle of the future.

And the men are the ones who build it.

So it's like there's this cohesive synchronized dancing in a way with parenting and it takes effort.

It takes effort.

And so with that effort, all that hard work pays off in the fact that you are dreading your child leaving and you're not counting down as to when you're just hoping one more year.

You know what I mean?

Because when the time comes where I know that Christy feels confident that what she wants to leave, I will have this piece that she is ready.

You know what I mean?

And I.

That's my job as a mom.

Yeah.

Trying to instill that which I didn't have.

And so I'm walking proof that you could come from a completely different background, culture, life situation and re.

Change it.

Yeah.

It just takes effort.

And when that gets hard, you don't quit.

You're a mom.

Over stimulation is a real thing in the mom world.

I catch myself getting over stimulated, believe it or not, when I'm in my luteal phase of my cycle.

And again, there's chemical science behind that.

That's just how we're wired.

We.

Testosterone's peaking.

You know what I mean?

Like, everything kind of just irritates I.

For the moms, like, I just, I have to get away from my kids.

I just have to get away from my husband.

To me, I would ask what.

There's.

There's something rooted there.

Either not trying to offend anybody, but either you weren't ready to have kids or didn't want to have kids, or there's some type of disconnect.

Because any time where I'm like, I just need to get out of here.

I've never had that.

The only, and this is honest, real, real talk.

The only time where I was like, I need to get out of here was when I was breastfeeding and all I wanted to do was go and tan.

I remember that all I wanted to do was just go in tan.

I just wanted to feel good about myself.

But there's that root.

I was not feeling good about myself.

So that's what I'm saying.

Every disconnect has a root.

There's.

Think about what the term disconnect means.

Yeah.

The other side of it isn't matching.

There's something off.

And so I think that those women that feel that you either need to have a really raw, real conversation with your partner, spouse, significant other, that in.

In regards to why you feel this way, I'm the last person to ever say, like, go get medicated.

You just need to kind of stem where is this coming from?

And there's a lot of it.

And I think a lot of that movement come, that overwhelmed mom movement comes from a disconnect either with the husband or her situation.

I, being a single mom, I couldn't imagine.

You know what I mean?

And I have, have.

I was raised by a single mom.

My mom did the best she could.

Could she have improved in other ways as me being a mom of two daughters, now 100 at the same time.

That generation was just pumped full of.

And I. I think looking back, could she have done better?

Yes.

Everything takes effort.

Every single thing in life.

If you are making more of an effort at your job or more of an effort making money than you are spending that time at home, good luck, man.

Because that money will only get you so far.

So many people ask us that.

So many people ask us that.

It's like we choose each other after failing so many times of chasing the wrong things because you think that'll make you tighter.

Think that money is going to fix the situation.

We've had times where we've had.

Had a fu.

Amount of money, and then we've had times where we've had zero money.

I'm pawning jewelry, negative money.

You know what I mean?

Everything comes back to the center of how are we doing?

And if we are equally yoked, yoked together in life, on leading our kids, I feel that's where it's at.

I feel the majority of families are not 100%.

I don't know how many.

I could probably count on one hand of how many I think might be yoked.

And that comes down to so many things as far as discipline, teaching, prayers.

Prayers.

I can say this with the utmost, pure confidence.

The entire Internet can come after me, and I'm okay with it.

I have lived unequally yoked with you.

Yeah.

I've had times where I'm like, this is not going to work.

We're not going to make it.

We're not going to make it.

I have forced it.

I have done every single thing that every wife in my situation is probably thinking.

I have done it to try and get you where I'm at.

Right.

I cannot give any credit to anything other than prayer.

I. I can't.

Prayers and praying.

I wish I could tell you that you could feed him something.

You could give them all the sex in the world, all the laundry in the world, everything that you could give this man, any man, to make them happy.

If there is a hole in them, it is the size of a cross.

And the amount of lingerie, the amount of sex, the amount of women, nothing could fill it.

And being unequally yoked with you was extremely difficult and trying and at times hopeless.

I literally give all the credit to praying.

It's the only thing.

It's the only thing.

I never ceased to pray.

But.

And one could argue that you.

Very difficult person.

Very difficult person to be married to.

Especially in the beginning when you didn't get a handle on your anger and where a lot of that stemmed from.

And man to the wives out there.

Like, you literally have to pray without ceasing.

You literally have to pray.

There's nothing that you could do and there's nothing that he could do that man could get a Bible in his hands and go sit down in a pew at church if his heart is not primed and he is filling a cross sized hole with shit.

All you have is prayers.

It's all you got at the end of it.

I didn't want you lying to me, telling me you changed.

I wanted you to truly change.

I needed you to truly die to yourself.

Took me a bit, man.

Dude, there was a point in time where I was praying and I'm like, lord, I swear I'm gonna share this.

I don't know if he is like, if you're working on him.

Like, Michelangelo, I know you're an artist.

Like, I know just by how you create a bird.

I know the detail that goes into everything.

And I'm not trying to speed you up, but if you could just kind of hurry, I would be so grateful.

Like, this was like a conversation that I had.

I know you're working on it, but I think you're only on one leg.

We gotta do the rest of the 240 pounds.

The six, three.

Okay.

And that's how I know that divine intervention is true.

Because it was praying without ceasing.

It was the.

That's the only thing.

There's nothing that you could do.

So everyone listening right now.

There's nothing that you could do to change the other person other than praying for them.

You cannot physically give them anything.

You'll.

You'll band aid it for a while.

But it's the truth.

I live and die by that.

I can't argue it.

You can't.

I watched you do it.

Oh, man.

And I fought you for years on it, man.

There was times where I was like, okay, I'm gonna stay with him for at least six months and try to see.

Like, that's where my mind was thinking.

Because it was just so toug love.

And I think you and I.

One thing viewers don't already know this already.

I have no shame in talking about our testimony and the realness of our.

Because I, like you, always tell me I'm.

I'm help you make be the most authentic version of yourself.

And with that comes with the other side of it that not everyone sees.

And the one thing I. I respect about you and what's made me the most authentic version of myself is that you are a real.

Like, you cannot be more real on the mic than you are off the mic.

And thank you.

It comes at a cost, right?

It does.

Oh, yeah, it does.

But it took me years to realize I wouldn't change that about you.

That's what makes you super authentic, and that's what makes this marriage authentic.

And with an authentic marriage and us putting ourselves out here like we're doing or I.

There's no secret.

I was struggling with Christy coming on the podcast because I'm mom.

All I want to do is protect.

And I know how the Internet works.

For sure.

But the Internet also needs light like that.

Absolutely.

So zero regrets.

And then when Kennedy's of age, she's gonna come on and the world gets to see who that is.

Oh, man.

And.

But the authentic is what makes people feel better that we probably.

We could have divorced a multitude of times and we made it through.

And our marriage has never, ever been stronger.

Not just marriage.

Our relationship has never been stronger.

And I take a lot of pride in that.

And that pride comes from sharing the testimony of the.

That we've been through.

I've put you through some.

This is how I like to tell people, is fertilizer.

I'm serious.

It is straight fertilizer.

If you.

The.

Like, you know when you step on and you're like, God is right.

But man can it produce bounty.

Can prove me wrong.

You're wrong.

It can produce some fruit.

Some fruit.

And it's just how you.

It's how you take care of that shit.

It's horrible.

People are like, that's how my mind works.

It's the truth.

And I'm very open about that.

That.

And we're very open about it with our girls and.

And teaching them, because that's life at the end of it.

It's.

It's life.

But praying for your spouse is one of the most selfless things that you could do.

Because when God intercedes and works through them, they bring out the authentic version of you.

It can't you.

It goes back to dying to yourself.

You have to you.

What is the point of living if it's only about you?

Yeah.

What do you get out of it?

No one wants to be around you.

Your kids don't want to be around you.

You just.

Mass casualties everywhere.

But when you die to yourself, develop true humility.

Right.

Own it.

And you're able to share that with people who are in that.

That Pre cocoon phase.

Learn, master, repeat and everything you do.

Learn, master it, repeat it and everything.

I'm just.

I'm proud of you.

I'm proud of man, the work you've done as a husband and the work you've done as a father.

Thank you.

And anybody listening?

There are some.

When we choose to be with men like this, it is good lord trying

not for the faint of heart.

It is not for the weak.

I will say that it is not for the week.

That's why we have this joke like if any other chick comes by, like, good luck, he'll be back.

You won't freaking handle it very long.

Like literally.

Okay, honey, good luck.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Okay.

Yeah.

You know it's true.

Godspeed.

Yeah.

But life, art, where we're at right now, I'll go through everything.

Oh, to be where we're at that.

It sucks.

It took me as long as it did.

It was meant to.

But that's how I look at it.

Because.

And I. I want the dad, you know, because since episode 100 went live, this huge demographic of dads that have followed you know, along and I was not the dad or husband I am today.

Even five, seven years ago.

It.

It's take a lot of reflecting and just humbling myself to realize in so much just self thinking.

It's.

It's like, man, do I want to be the next generation?

Do I want to follow my grandfather that my dad followed that I'm following?

And the answer is no, was not.

It is.

It'll always be no.

I don't want to be anything like them.

I. I want a relationship with my kids.

I want to be able to have them call and talk to me at any point.

Like, I want to be that dad.

And you can't be that dad by being selfish.

By picking women, drugs, alcohol, work, all this other.

And putting it before your kids.

And that's where.

I don't know, man.

It's such a. I wish I could help everybody and just be like, God, just listen to me.

It's so much better on the other side.

100.

Like, I used to be the dad driving home to just pissed off for whatever.

Why?

How many.

How many times?

How many times would you be like, why?

Oh, dude.

And then why are you mad right now?

What?

We have healthy children.

You have.

We have money in the bank.

Bills are paid.

Bills are paid.

We have food in the fridge.

Why.

Why are you acting like that?

I couldn't even give you an answer.

And it shifts the whole dynamic of the house.

And what A lot of people don't realize is.

So like, when is wrong with anybody part of the family, it's always under the house.

Right.

Because everything that energy stays in there.

And so the dad is on a good one.

The mom, the wife is going to match whether she knows it or not.

Right.

She's going to meet him with that same type of energy.

And then what's crazy is when you have girls and kids like we do that are really in tune to our life wife, they're picking up on this weird energy shift.

And the next thing you know, we're like, what the hell is happening?

Like, why.

Why are we here?

Why.

Why are you so upset?

And that's where it stems down to is as a wife, you.

I'm.

I'm very conservative when it comes down like our marriage.

Right.

That's how we teach their own type of thing.

But I. I will say I'll never undermine you ever.

I will never undermine you.

But when that door shuts and we're behind it, I'm going to correct you.

And then what you end up doing is you go and fix it.

Right.

And I think there's a.

It always stems with communication.

I think that there's a lot of women out there who undermine their husbands in front of their children, which it has.

You're messing with fire with that.

It's it.

That is a problem.

Why this is an opinion.

I feel that if I were to undermine you now, if you are, which has never happened, but if you are saying really horrible things and like targeting our children in a way that is hurtful and harmful, I.

Yes, I'm gonna sniff that and snuff that out.

I'm talking.

If you undermine a man as he is trying to be just and disciplining his children, those kids are going to know that you're always going to save it.

You're gonna save the situation.

They're.

They're gonna take what dad says is surface level because mom will come through and change it.

And then they look at you in a less respect way.

Yep.

You're just the angry.

Okay, dad, sorry.

And they're like, what the right.

When.

Because mom's like, stop.

You're doing.

You don't need to react the way you do now.

If I think you lost it, but you're not hurting them in a way or targeting them in a trauma way, that door closed.

I'm like, hey, you up here.

You said this is this.

And I don't agree with it.

And you damn well know that you're taking your anger out on them.

You sit, chew on it a little bit because I never force you.

I do want you to chew on it, though.

And then most of the time when you do chew on it, you walk out and you fix it and you do it publicly in front of them.

Them.

So if you speak to me a certain way that I don't like, you do it in front of them.

So it's like these kids, I feel need to show there.

There's going to be confrontation.

We're not living this life where, hi, honey, here's your cherry pie.

And yeah, don't beat me today.

Right.

Like, that's not how we're living.

You're gonna make mistakes.

We all are.

It's how you correct them and heal them in front of the kids.

Yep.

That's how we raise our house.

Anybody disagrees, that's how it's working in our house.

House.

And it goes back.

This isn't my parenting advice is just my pure life advice.

I cannot tell you how to be a parent, but I will just the same thing I give my kids.

I need you to.

Trying to teach you how to think like a parent.

Yep.

My parenting style is not going to be for everyone.

Works for me.

I just need you to think and be a parent for your kid.

So it's.

It's wild, man.

Life is wild.

I never in a million years, I was such a bag teenage girl that I had everybody telling me, good luck, your turn's coming.

Good luck, your time's coming.

And I'm like, like crickets.

Like, what time is coming?

I. I wanted to change that.

Teenagers, huh?

Sure.

Have fun with that.

Why?

Because they're just pumping full of hormones right now, and you just don't know how to handle it because you, you get.

Get offended over everything that your teen says when there's ring of truth behind it.

Yeah, that's.

That's.

That's how I know if I ever have there's ever a dude like a girl dad.

It's like, oh, good luck with teenagers, huh?

Good luck.

I know immediately we'll never be friends

because Be real with your kids.

Yeah, be real with them.

Why?

Why?

What luck do I need with my kids?

Because I've been intentional with them and have a relationship with them.

I don't, I don't need luck.

I, I have.

I have a relationship.

And that's where these guys and I can't.

When.

Good luck, man.

Girl dad, huh?

That's because that dad checked out 100 so many dads that just what Check out.

I think that's because the wives just pound and pound and pound and pound and undermine them and undermine them and undermine them and step on them in front of their children that eventually these husbands just go, oh, it.

Then you got it.

I see it every day.

Or they blow up.

Up, right?

They blow up because they're told, they're shut up.

They're shut up, shut up.

And then they blow up to try to do it.

And then the wife's like, absolutely not.

Oh, the whole.

You don't talk to my kid.

You don't talk to our kids.

Like, especially if your husband's correct, if you're.

If you tell your child to go sit down and they go to get up and your husband goes to correct them.

And no, we don't talk to him like that.

Good luck.

Yeah, good luck.

I come find me in 10 years and let me know how that worked out.

Out.

Yeah.

Because then that is showing the kid, like you just spoke about undermining the father.

But then eventually, this dad that's supposed to be leading his home because you're a boss, babe, and you're going to correct him on everything now because it's not you like and think is perfect now.

You're.

Now you're just.

You're suppressing this guy and putting out the flame.

Putting out the flame.

Putting out the flames.

Eventually his dad's gonna be like, I don't give.

And then that's how you end up as a good luck as a teenager because now you don't have a relationship with your daughter because your boss, babe, wife has stepped on you for five, ten years of being a father until eventually that these guys, they just throw their hands up and they're like, oh, okay, cool, whatever.

And then that's when the divide happens.

And that's when you stop being intentional with your kids because every time you want to correct them or do something with them, you have this wife.

Don't do this.

Don't talk to him like this.

Not easy.

Why does it have to be like this?

That there needs to be authority in the home.

There has to be authority.

And your kids need to know when they're dead.

Dad speaks.

Hey, we're not.

We're done.

Lock it up.

Hey, go brush your teeth.

There should.

Why?

No, that.

Those are the things.

Just give them time.

Just let.

That is where I think we are so not you and I, but as a society, we are so unyoked because they're these husband and wives or, you know, dads and moms do not sit down and be like, hey.

When I'm correcting my child, unless it is above and beyond where it needs to be, then you pull me to a side and correct me there.

But you'll never undermine me while I am making a correction to our children.

And that is something that I think has been crucial in our home because there needs to be that authoritarian or authoritative authority.

I guess it's just position.

Yeah, just position.

And there's times where you've come in the room like, hey, you need to go correct this, because I can't be the bad guy right now.

But that's where they know you're not going to come in and be like, hey, listen, no, don't do this.

And vice versa.

I come in full bore sometimes and that's when I need you to kind of be like, hey.

So it's like I said, it's a dance, it's sequence.

It is a dance being synchronized together.

And it.

When you undermine the other parent without pure justification.

Right?

Like, meaning if you were.

If they.

We caught them eating in the middle of the night and you're like, listen here, you want to be a fat piece of.

Yeah, we're not talking like that.

Right.

My job as a mom is when you lay the rule of something, my job isn't to come in and let it happen behind your back, because that's the same thing.

My job is to enforce it.

Absolutely.

And sometimes it's hard, you know what I mean?

Because I know they're.

There's innocence behind it.

But if you bend, this is where that child craves, that strength from parents, mom and dad, and that respect.

Because I'm not.

If I just bend at every rule that you establish.

What.

What's the point?

Nothing.

You're just getting this fake respect from these girls.

You see what I'm saying?

So me, I'm doing you an in service as not just the man, but my husband, their father.

And the next time that they're doing something, and even.

And I'm not for it, but I bent the rules.

So it's like it's.

It's this balance.

It's this checks and balance with it.

And I feel.

Parents, husband, wife, partners, whatever you need to have that conversation and communicate with each other.

We've had times where you didn't agree with how I handled something.

And I tell you I didn't agree how you handled something.

You take it on the chin, right?

Have a nice slice of humble pie.

Because truly, after you chew on it for a while and you hear the other perspective.

Majority of the time, you're like, you're right.

Yeah, you're right.

Absolutely.

And we get heated, and, yeah, you're right.

I realize I don't always handle things with tact.

You don't always handle things with tact.

It's the execution, but then it's how you.

It.

It's how you repair it.

And I. I wish I had some secret freaking.

Download this book and it'll tell you my secrets to being a great mom.

I.

It.

I'm just not lazy.

I. I don't know what else to say.

Intentional.

If I know there's something wrong with my child, my child that I brought into this world, I cannot go.

Okay, well, let me know if you need anything, honey, and go lay down.

Like, no big deal.

I'm gonna get to the bottom of it.

I may not have the solution, but there's a sounding board.

I could help you at least.

So.

I wish I. I wish I had answers.

I don't.

Just experience.

Experience has answers, though.

Yeah.

Just true.

Be there for your fucking kids.

True intelligence is just.

Just hearing all sides of it and making a decision there.

Yeah, I know.

What are we talking about now?

What do you want to know?

Ask me a question.

Ask me a question.

Ask my question.

So with everything that you've learned from dealing with our entire history and improvement, self improvement, and checking your.

And correcting it, that's.

I feel, what's made you a stronger husband and a stronger dad, and if only more men did that, because it's been the secret or not a secret for a long time is men.

I feel bad for a lot of, like, women are always targeted, though.

You have the radical femininity movement, you know, the feminism and all that kind of stuff.

But.

But nobody talks about the attacks that men get and how hard it is to mentally check yourself with that in order to pivot and be the leader that you want to be for your family.

And I. I think especially since you started that community, the Bam Nation community, you've learned a lot.

And I can only imagine what's going on in there.

And that's.

That's what I want to know.

I want to know what you've learned in there and the type of men that are in there, because I tried getting you into a men's group for a really long time, and it just wasn't happening.

God, no.

So when you came to me and you're like, hey, I want to start this community.

That's why.

Yeah, I needed to start a community because the Ones I was went and checked out and sat in.

It was like a. I felt like a therapy session in a way, with guys I didn't even know which.

Obviously a community or not.

You need to get to know the people.

And that's where it came to me.

Me, because I'm one of those.

My, My friendship application list is.

That's been closed for a long time.

Yeah.

And.

But at the same time, us as men, we need to be able to lean on and ask questions and, and have mentors, not life coaches and all these other guys that think that they're experts in everything.

And I just, I can't ever buy into, I couldn't ever buy into that.

I'm just, I'm just not one of those guys.

I'm not gonna go and join some dude Jimmy, and I'm gonna blue collar dude and tatted up and I'm, I just, that's not me.

Yeah.

I can't get into these, those type of things.

And so this is where I'm, I said, well, I just, I'm gonna build my own.

And I feel like I'm one of the realest, rawest people on the Internet.

Facts.

And that's how I'm gonna do this.

And these guys that I see and I meet these life coaches and I, I get to know them and I start thinking, this, dude, this is more fucked than I am.

This guy's doing way worse shit.

It.

And so I can't, I can't join somebody and have them mentor me if I, if they haven't been in the trenches and they don't know half of this stuff.

And so that's where it really came to me.

And I really started thinking about how, how, how do I bring men together?

I'm in my DMs all day talking to hundreds of dads, I'm talking to hundreds of husbands.

I'm spending all this time just individual, individual, individual.

And so I was like, what if I just bring this together and build a community?

But not, not like a community built around an influencer because he used to be blue trades and now he's helping dads get fit, whatever.

As if you have it all already all figured out.

Figured out.

And so that's where I feel when it came to this community.

Okay, I, I can't sit here and teach you and mentor you on, on your porn addiction.

I don't have a porn addiction.

I've been an.

I've been angry.

I, I have my own demons that I can, I can help a lot of Men with.

With.

But I know, and I have friends that have.

That I have been in the trenches of battling porn or alcohol or drugs or their anger, divorce and things like, along these lines.

And so when I was looking at building this community, I'm like, okay, if I'm going to.

If I'm the guy that's never going to join a community, I'm never going to fall for some influencer wanting me to join and do all this stuff.

How am I going to.

What would I join?

Coin.

And.

And I really started thinking about.

I'm like, man, I have.

I have a lifetime of men that I have either served with, been in the trenches with, got to know on a very personal basis that have mentored me, led, led, gotten me out of trenches and out of dark times.

Why don't I bring all of these men together, as we'll say quotes, mentors, and then build a community where, man, I got Ben, the cyber security, the family IT guy's been on our show twice.

Hey, Ben, why don't you come on.

Would you be interested in coming on and teaching dads how to keep their kids safe online?

Absolutely.

Hey, Austin, another guy.

You want to come on and teach guys how to.

How to get in the real estate and start investing?

Zach, one of my best friends, dude, how do we help these guys get more fit?

And so that's where my mind started thinking, like, dude, okay, if I'm going to join this and if I was going to join my own, a community, community, I don't want to just hear from one single individual because I don't feel anybody has anything figured out now if a dad or a husband wanted to come to me because they have up a lot and made some really stupid mistakes and decisions in their past when it came to their marriage or their kids, and then they're bettering themselves or want more advice.

I could talk on that all day because I've been in the trenches of being that piece of to now having an incredible relationship with you and my daughters, but I can't talk to all men on what's going on in all their lives.

So I was like, you know what?

I'm going to bring some of the best subject matter, matter experts that I personally know that have helped me get through these times or have taught me things and give them to the community.

So that was like a big reason or a big part of building this out was, man, I just want other men to be able to lean on and have the opportunity to be able to learn.

And so.

But to Answer your.

I guess your second question is what I have learned inside of this community is that men just need to be heard.

They need a place to be able to talk.

They need a place where there's no egos, where there's no titles, and where they can just express themselves, but in the most real, raw, honest way.

And I feel, with me leading that part of being real and honest, because you're never gonna.

That was one of my big things.

Even though I've always been the most real dude or always spoke my mind mind.

I lied to myself a lot about who I truly was, and that was with you and us.

And having just raw conversations helped bring a lot of that out and made me check myself in a lot of ways.

But in mentally, I'd be like, yeah, yeah, I got.

I got it.

But then I'm doubting myself or I don't have enough confidence to be able to do what we just spoke about.

And so that's where I want these guys.

And this is where they are coming together and being able to lean on.

On dudes that have been divorced or gone through horrible divorces.

And now I got a young dad that's going through the same thing right now, and he's able to talk to guys.

Hey, man, these are.

These.

This is what's happened.

This.

Here's the light at the end of the tunnel.

Hey, I'm really struggling with my marriage right now.

I'm disconnected with my kids.

I have a problem with one of my children.

What.

What are your.

What's your guys's advice?

And then that's where it comes to these guys.

Being able to connect with other men in there or myself.

Being able to reach out and be able to have conversations with guys that have started hiking that trailhead before them and being able to lean on them for advice.

And it's not just built around, like, a single person.

You have now.

Men that join this community for help now being able to provide help because they either have grown children and they.

They realize being able to reflect, they don't.

Some of them might have an incredible relationship with their kids, and some might not not.

But they've had that time to be able to reflect, and now they're able to help almost mentor these younger dads in their mistakes like I'm doing.

And then I learn from those guys, and then I have a young kid in here that's gone through all these.

These girls in the dating world is crazy.

Now I'm learning from the generation now I get to almost help my daughter Because I'm listening to some 22, 23 year old kid in this community talk about what it's like to date.

And then now you got all the old uncs that are in there, I guess in air quotes, listening to this young kid talk all like, holy.

Like it's terrifying to date at this age.

So it's been really cool to be able to see all walks of life, from I T nerd experts to the.

The military, law enforcement, dad that's battling his anger and wanting to be able to lean on somebody, to be able to help.

And that men, one of the.

I guess one of the biggest things that I've learned there's so much.

But one of the biggest things that I've learned is that men need to purpose.

Yeah, men need purpose.

And without purpose, we are lost.

That's where our minds start going in different directions and that's when we get in trouble.

And that is one of the things inside of the BAM Nation that I really try to hone in on is purpose finding, helping these men find their purpose.

And I talk about a lot in the veteran law enforcement world where a lot of guys, I feel, lose their purpose after the military and they don't know.

Know what the next chapter may be.

And so having those guys to be able to ask the questions and to be able to lean on, where are we at?

How are we doing?

And just go almost going through a checklist of chapters of my life.

And then until I can flip to that open chapter, be like, all right, bro, here, here we are.

Chapter 12.

This is where I was at this stage in my life.

This is how I was able to overcome X, Y and Z.

This is what got me through this.

This is how, how I corrected my mistakes in this chapter.

So in a way, everyone's mentoring everyone.

Yes.

Do you want to hear something crazy?

You put it in perspective for me is when you said men need purpose, what's really crazy?

And I've noticed this with you, so that's why I can, like I could attest to this is purpose from a man has always been, go way back in time, regardless of what you believe in, way back in time to provide.

Right.

Just call it for what it is.

What is providing.

Some people will be like, I want to make sure my family has everything they need.

One man's gonna say, I want to make sure that we have our bills paid in an abundance of things.

And one guy says, I want to give my wife and kids the life I never got right.

That's.

That's what providing naturally feels like.

Now, on my end of it, it's your wife, your handler, always with you with every dream that you want to go on next.

Right.

What's really crazy is the full circle of what purpose and providing really is.

Your purpose is to provide.

And the true providing for a family is safety and security.

And in order for a wife and children to ever feel secure, that man, what he is and what he's doing is what is going to provide the security.

And then it's this crazy domino effect for sure.

It's not always financial.

Let me be clear.

Bills pay the.

Or money pays the bills.

I get it.

There's dead.

There's.

All these factors don't come for me.

All I'm saying is true, providing is your purpose, and that is the security that you bring your family.

And that leadership and being one with the creator, that.

That did it.

And that's how us, as wives, no matter what anybody says, that's where we get our security, is when you're good, and if you're good and that dude's good and the other dude's good, like the houses are good, good, then you have the.

You know what I mean?

Like, harmony.

That was a big thing for me, and I think we.

We.

I don't know where it got disconnected.

As far as the purpose of.

Of a husband in a home is to provide.

Right?

To provide.

To provide.

Everyone thinks financial, financially, I got to.

I got.

Dude, I have all this pressure.

I got to provide.

I understand that obviously, like you said, that finances are what keep a home going.

Yep.

But we get so fixated on that when our children, they don't.

They don't know.

They don't know that you're.

That you're stressing on this.

And this is weighing on you here.

This is where it took me a long time.

Yes.

Okay.

I have.

I'm at work.

I'm stressed out.

Bills are tight, money's tight.

But it was that disconnecting from that walking in the front door and picking up the next piece of the.

The purpose puzzle.

Be like, okay, my kids need me now.

They need their father.

They need to be heard.

They just want the attention.

And that's where I love helping these guys realize when you step through that threshold of your home, it's a new purpose we have as a man we hold.

So this is where the weight.

We have so many purposes, right?

My per.

I got to provide.

I got.

I got.

I got it.

I got.

I got it.

But then when those start weighing on each other, we Put the quality time to the back burner.

We put that individual kid time to the.

To the backside.

And so then it just becomes fixated on work and the bills.

And then we start struggling, and then

it's just this much further from your family.

And then you're detaching because now you're chasing this purpose that we think is a man.

When in reality, I'm sure if you just sat with your wife and she'd be like, honey, I just want you happy.

Here's what's crazy.

How many men, realistically, if I were to ask you, is there a price on having a sound mind as a man?

It's like priceless, right?

There's no price on that.

How many dudes listening just want to.

It's the power of a sound mind just to be able to think clear, calculated, serenity, courage, wisdom.

Them.

You have all this stuff, and that is that purpose.

And you have someone who.

Someone giving you that purpose.

I only got it.

I only got that when I got closer to God or got back closer.

That's my whole point.

That's the power of that sound mind that every man wants you.

Because normally the purpose I gotta provide pulls me detached from my family.

What happens when the head of household crumbles?

We all do that.

We're just pillars in your family.

Like, you know what I mean?

Important pillars.

I'm not.

Not minimizing that for sure.

But that power of a sound mind that only he can give you, and he gives you that purpose.

And we all, all of us just targeted different walk with that lack of purpose.

And it comes from, I feel on the men's side because I lived with it.

With you, is if I know I'm in a good place.

Because you're in a good place because I match your energy and I feel it.

It.

We're in tune with each other.

And let me be clear.

When I say energy, I'm not talking rocks.

And okay.

I'm spiritual in energy.

I know that you're not in a good place and you're chasing something that was.

You weren't told to chase.

And that's the misconception.

Yeah.

Is if every man just kind of realigned with, okay, does my wife feel secure with me?

Me.

And I'm not just talking financially, physically, mentally, emotionally.

I know in some of our rough patches that we went through, I was not as close with you emotionally as I am now.

Oh, absolutely not.

That's how I know.

And no, I can't get away with nothing.

Yeah.

I walked through the door, what's wrong?

And then you try to tell me some dumb.

That nothing's wrong with.

It's insulting.

It's insulting to me.

Me.

That's so what's wrong.

What's so crazy though is just seeing the full circle on.

It's all about perspective.

And it took forever for you to shift your perspective.

And I just.

That was huge.

That was huge.

You hear these guys, you hear people talk about these motivational speakers and all this other stuff, talk about, you know, your perspective on things.

And, and I.

You get sucked into this fake world, especially with social media.

And I think one of the things that helped me realize what I truly had and to take a different look on, of a perspective look on what I, what I have.

Excuse me, what I have built and created is when I'm looking at these dudes that are worth millions of and millions of dollars, they have everything that I would just.

Please, God, please, I just want crumbs.

Just give me crumbs of this.

And I just, I don't even need what they.

But then I, then I meet these guys and then I get to know them and dude's got a four million dollar home.

He's got a Lambo Ford Raptor.

Got this, got that.

I'm sitting there like, then you get to know him.

I'm like, this dude's miserable.

As this dude's kids walked in the house and didn't even acknowledge him.

His wife's been in the house for two hours.

I saw her walk by one time, hasn't even said a word.

I'm sitting here going, what?

I'm chasing money.

This guy has everything.

This guy is sat across me, has everything that I would kill to have, but I would not trade fucking shoes with him for a second.

So then I start thinking, okay, like, truly, money does not.

Money buys happiness.

Money cannot not buy what's.

I just lost the word.

I was gonna say wealth.

Happiness is temporary.

Joy is eternal.

That, okay, that's, that's the way I look at it.

And that's it.

And so I'm sitting here looking at these guys and he's got everything I want.

And it's like, well, he's not happy.

Oh, this guy's got this guy's worth.

Look at all the businesses.

They just sold a company for $50 million.

Miserable.

Look at.

Miserable, miserable.

And I'm sitting here like, well, if I have, I don't have.

If I had all they had, am I still going to be miserable?

So then I really had to take a step back and start thinking, okay, okay, God, we're going to have this conversation.

I'm supposed to lean on you right now.

Show me what.

What am I so grateful over?

And I start thinking.

I start watching.

I got a daughter that's playing in the front yard with chalk on this chalk all over every neighbor's yard and driveway and sidewalk.

I know that's my kid.

I can follow a little trail right to our house.

I got a beautiful teenage daughter that's not out running amok doing stupid TikTok trends and just throwing herself at every single person.

I look at my wife, I'm like, man, I got.

You were my best friend.

How am I not grateful for that?

And so that's where my conversations and my prayers and your prayers for me.

Me of just God, just show me what I truly have.

Show me what I am truly grateful for.

It's this heart.

I'm not.

I swear to God, I'm not even crying on this episode.

But there's so much joy.

And I'd be angry.

Why am I angry at this?

Why am I in my house and I. I'm building businesses with my kids, building a relationship over my wife.

Why am I irritated over this?

Over something that's so minute that we could just put away or correct or pick up and then the problem's done?

But then I started fester on this.

And that's just when I was not connected with God.

I still have my relapses and I'm not perfect by any means, but that's where I really started the process.

Okay.

I have.

I know so many people that have everything that I would kill to have, and none of them are happy.

And it all came down to my perspective on what I have.

My joy, my.

My.

My fulfillment of.

Okay, I got healthy kids.

Check.

I got a best friend as my wife.

Check.

I got food in my fridge.

Check.

Bills are paid, check.

Okay.

What?

What?

I. I want to chase the guy.

I want.

I want to be him.

And he.

He's miserable.

He's more miserable than I am.

He's got everything.

I think social media.

And that's where it comes down to.

And I'm look, you scroll and you see these dudes and I'm like, look this at.

Dude.

You know what?

A lot of it was early days of the podcast.

Well, dude, that it has this social media paints this lie that if you're not where this video is, this video you're watching, if you're not at that level, you're behind.

Yeah.

And I do want to state for those listening, especially the men you and I have had this conversation is my testimony.

I. I look at Christianity, very unique.

I feel that.

That most people aren't going to question God when things are good.

No, they question God when things are bad.

And the kindling of when your faith skyrockets is through doubt.

And that doubt should be if you have that doubt of who God is.

I think I firmly believe he smirks at it and enjoys it in a way, because.

Because that pull will pull you closer to him.

I. I lived it like, you know what I mean?