#39 Transforming Yourself Into The BEST Version of Yourself, with Curt Storring

Gentlemen.

Welcome to the Be The Man podcast.

I'm your host, Greg Denning, most of us make mistakes and have made mistakes in parenting and marriage rolling.

All we're trying to do best.

Well actually Sometimes some of those aren't trying to do our best, maybe we're just just rolling along just existing and we getting survival mode.

My guest today is Chris touring and he is the host of the the dad work podcast.

And the dad work movement and he's helping entrepreneurial dad's become as successful at home as they are in business and build that the only Legacy that really matters.

And he tells his story in today's episode of his transformation, he was a terrible dad, and husband in a man and he had, he had no direction and trying to figure it out and working like crazy and yelling, you know, at home because you didn't know what to do, and then creating this transformation, right?

This, this desperate, We all have to put an end to the chronic errors and mistakes and break the bad habits and broken systems that are keeping us from being our best.

And so in this episode, you guys are going to love this because we dive into a lot of specifics about how to even in complementing and building relationship with your wife and how to tackle things from your past and we call it the Undigested emotional hamburger, whatever, right?

And how to work through with thinking and journaling and have a good habits and routines and rituals doing hard things even down to home schooling and how men need to have more self-respect.

And one of my favorite topics, we talk about being hard to kill and easy to love.

So, dive in your love, this episode, take notes, if you can, there's a lot of Are that are going to help you be the best version of yourself.

Kurt, man.

Glad to have you here brother excited to have our conversation today.

Won't you?

Give us a quick background to how you got to where you are at right now in this, this message and this mission that humming you have right now.

Yeah, thanks for having me on.

I'm super excited to be here.

Love what you are doing.

I mean, how could you not want to be the man, right?

So yeah, man, I have been I'm doing this.

Let's see.

I guess for seven years now.

Like, we're just saying before the recording because I was a terrible dad, and a terrible husband.

And not a very good man.

I in fact, I didn't even feel like a man at all.

I felt like a little boy and so I had my first son, nine and a half years ago I was like 23 or something like that and I just had no Direction.

Didn't what to do didn't have any role models didn't have like literally anything in my life other than well hey great.

You got some friends who are older than you who have kids but you know, then we moved away and we didn't have Three more.

So here I am newly, married newly entrepreneurial, just quit my job to became a bit, become a business owner and we have this kid and I'm working like 16-hour days and he, you know, it as like a one-year-old, he'd come into my office, and I would just scream at him in.

I was screaming at him because I didn't know that there was another way to do it.

I would be so upset, I would be so frustrated that my life was out of control.

Whereas man, I built my identity on perfectionism on having full control and That was obviously, do not like a defense mechanism.

Little kids come in and they're like, I don't care about your control.

No, no exit ISM, like a wrecking ball to all the order we want in life.

Totally, you know what?

It's a lot of people talk about like marriage or travel being like the best way to level yourself up because it just throws you into crazy situations for me.

It was parenting rights.

Like dude, you have to look at who you are because the way you're acting, you see that every single day when you yell at your kid and then you feel terrible, About it.

It's holding up this mirror to to the underdeveloped stuff that's inside of us.

Totally.

Well, you already said something key and I think it's worth pausing to even dive in right away.

It was your frustration about the way you were doing life that comes out on the kids, sometimes, right?

Isn't that what isn't that insightful?

Where it builds up an irritation a frustration?

An insecurity and anxiety of fear, and in some cases like some self-loathing, right?

If we know, we're living below our potential and then when that whatever it takes, I don't know.

It could be anything, right?

But something hits.

And then we explode and we explode on the people that are close to us.

This is that law of proximity, right?

And a kid, might do a little thing and get the full load.

Yes man, there's two sides of that that I experienced one was I didn't know what I was doing, but Was unknown unknowns.

So I didn't know what I could be doing.

I was like something's wrong, it doesn't feel good.

I wasn't doing things to support myself.

Wasn't going to, the gym, didn't even know any of this stuff.

And so what you said is 100% true, it's like I don't feel good about this and there's someone smaller than me.

I can take it out on him.

It's not like I'm trying to do that but being underdeveloped, you just do it anyway.

And I've had to recover a lot from that.

But the second thing is that I noticed is that dude, I was living in the past, I was hurt, I was blaming, you know, my parents.

All these things that I thought I was trying to run away from were front of mine all the time.

I tell guys, I work with, I called the, the undigested hamburger metaphor.

And so here's what it looks like your kid.

And just imagine for a second, you eat a hamburger, right?

But instead of it digesting and moving through your body, you don't have a digestive tract so it just sits there.

And in this example, what that is, is it's a perceived hurt from your parents, from a friend from a bully.

That's like something that happens to you, that you don't have the emotional.

Digestive system to actually digest.

And so, what it does, what it does is it sits down into your belly.

This hamburger sits in your belly and man, it kind of hurts, it's a little bit uncomfortable.

Gas is forming, you're like, oh man, I don't know what's going on here, but nobody ever told me there's a digestion system, so I'm just going to keep going years.

Go by more years, go by your adult.

Now these hurts that you've been carrying this hamburger that's been lodged in your belly for years.

This is the original pain and Trauma, if you will, all of a sudden, you're at the The office and Bobby at the copy or turns around he elbows you in the belly.

Well, what's going to happen when you get triggered so to speak, it's gonna blow up.

Yeah, everywhere.

And without making it too graphic, it's going to come up one or two ends.

Yeah, that's what was happening with me.

I was like, nobody ever gave me time when I was a kid.

How dare you ask me for time now, son?

Because I wasn't allowed to have stuff.

I was allowed to have feelings.

So who do you think that I'm going to be talking to you as your dad now, and it's like, dude, you're living in the past, and To learn how to process all that by talking to people by getting coaches joining men's group, learning more skills to be an adult human being before, I was able to process that and then let it go.

And so, yes, it was, the present wasn't very good.

But dude, I had to get rid of the road blocks from the past, which I helped a lot of guys with now, because that's where so many of us are living.

Even if we want the big Vision, there's roadblocks all over the place.

That's a bit about my story. 100% is right there.

It's amazing.

How much?

Trouble.

Those, I like the undigested things.

It's like the unprocessed stuff.

It brings up trouble and it's interesting you alluded to it.

Like how will we experience something and it wasn't pleasant and yet, ironically, we turn around and do something really similar to our own kids.

I remember meeting a gentleman one time.

We were in some foreign country and and he was abusing his Denied become aware of it.

I'm like, hey, man, what's, what's going on?

And he's like, look up and he felt terrible.

He's like I beat my kids because I was beat as a kid.

And in the irony of that stood out and like it was just his, it was, his simple equation of like do I got beat?

And so I'd be my kids and my God's term like yeah, we just pass on the pain because it never got digested or processed.

I'm writing my book right now.

And just this morning, I was writing about Carl you and calls it.

The shadow, right?

We all have this Shadow and so we have these dark kind of corners of the Soul, so to speak, or the mind or whatever and you're in the undigested stuff, right?

We should Get in there and I love how you say that we don't have we don't have the developed enough digestive tract to really do something with it.

We don't either don't know how or we do want to face it, right?

He always talked about that you don't want to face the shadow.

So we suck these things in the corners but they don't go away just because we buried them doesn't mean they die.

It's like more likely.

We bury it and it is Sprouts into trouble, right?

And then the trouble comes up in instances like you're talking about where anybody does.

Then in bam, there it goes.

Totally.

Yeah.

And that's, that's a lot of the stuff that I talk to guys about, it's like the shadow is where you don't want to look, but as soon as you shine light on it, you typically realize it's not quite as gnarly, as you might think it is, but you're living in this.

This, you know, you don't have a flashlight when you're going through, inertia in your life and this is where I think intentionality comes in is like, are you looking, are you journaling?

Are you thinking on the places in your life that are not serving you?

And if you are Our then it's like shining a flashlight to see that.

Oh, dude, that's actually just you in the shadows as like a scared six-year-old, okay.

And when you can Shine the Light and be like, hey dude, it's not that scary.

We don't need these coping mechanisms anymore because we're not actually six, that's when everything happened.

So I think I tell guys to communicate everything with a trusted Mentor or man or whatever their men's group situation is like and journal and just sit in quiet Solitude so they can think because until we do that, you're just A million miles an hour in the wrong direction into the Shadow and you don't even realize it.

So I'm glad you touched on that.

Yes, and when I know you gave those are like Rock Solid strategies.

They're even even intentional thinking and especially journaling, man.

That's one of the things I love to say my wife.

And I, when we were coaching people, what we say all the time, like, take it out on paper, not on people like you, that is so good.

Get it on the paper.

Like vomit, right?

Like, whatever, say all the The pain, the hurt, everything get on paper.

And then, if you need to destroy that, like, tear it up, burn it, whatever you got to do with it, great, but get it up, get it work through, get it processed and then, then you can connect with people, then you can talk, right?

And talk to it to trusted people.

Sometimes we go, and we're like, hey man, I gotta get something off my chest and so we vomit all over like a friend or neighbor or spouse or even a kid, heaven, forbid and afterwards, you feel better, but the poor recipients like covered in our emotional vomit now.

All right.

Dude.

This is like that was that was trouble right there.

So processing it in a healthy way is indispensable.

Yeah.

Do I love that I have so many people that I need to tell this to.

I will I run this down so I can give you credit man.

That's an incredible statement.

And in fact it's one of the things that we do regularly in our groups.

I will get people to write letters to their fathers or their mothers and I'll give them a specific like three or four.

Step process to do this.

Because honestly, this thing for me my dad died, I think, oh my eight years ago now, just about to the day.

Actually, and dude, I would spend it was a couple of years now.

Yeah.

It's a few years where I would every day in the shower for some reason, the shower maybe is because I was alone and I just break down to be, like, man, this sucks.

I miss him as I don't have any leadership from him like man, why did this have to happen to him?

It was totally random.

And so, it wasn't until a few years down the line, I wrote him a letter to tell him everything I felt About his death and everything.

I had done until that point.

After he died with my fought with my family, my kids and dude that paper was tear-stained.

I tell you what I can hardly read it afterwards but when I finished writing that and when I sealed in an envelope and put it away, obviously you don't have to send this.

Even if your parents are still alive, but you put that away and after you write it down, dude, the weight was gone every once in awhile, you know?

Oh yeah, that sucks wished.

Dad was still around but it's not a crippling thing anymore simply because So I wrote it down and in fact I was I don't know where was.

It's like an Instagram real.

Jordan Pederson was talking about this and there is a study and I want I don't know the exact things you have to look up Jordan Pederson, but it was basically two groups of people going to psychotherapy one group wrote down their story in a way that basically gives meaning to their suffering.

The other group, just went to talk therapy of the two, groups of the first two weeks of the ones who wrote their stories down there were actually a little bit worse because it was fresh and it was hurting but it was it's very raw.

That's why people don't do it because it hurts.

But six months later the people who went through that intense two-week period of having written everything down, they saw the therapist weigh less because it was gone.

There was no wait left over.

And so yeah, man, like I love the way you put that and I just said jump on that because guys, if you're not journaling intentionally, he got to start exactly so powerful.

I remember hearing that from Jordan Peterson and multiple other sources as well.

There is a therapeutic Power to writing and we can either we can we can type it out but there's actually this really cool.

TED talks on this, just people who want to geek out about the the tactile movement of writing with pen or pencil on paper and and how it connects with the brain and they saw, they watch brain the brain light up and how it works and it lit up in a different way.

Really lit up when we're doing tactile movement versus typing it didn't do the same.

Wow, that's cool.

So there's there's interest what you're saying here is just getting this down and just Getting it all out.

There's, there's like this magic power to that, man, and it seems so simple.

So Elementary but many of us haven't touched it.

Did you, did you have a good relationship with your dad before he passed?

Man, it was, it's one of those ones where he was there, but he was only there, physically in a sense.

Yeah, and when I look back I am so grateful.

I had to degree of a lot and that was grieving both his death but also what I didn't get from him because I was like, I was being I was being childish, I was blaming him for things as though he should have done better.

We're in reality man, I'm so blessed because he was a great man.

He was a great dad but I look back and go.

Why didn't you You teach me anything, man.

Like I had all the freedom in the world and that was good when I was 16.

But in hindsight, man, I wish I had Direction.

I Wish that he had taught me certain things.

I wish he had expectations for me and near the end, man.

Yeah, I would, you just it wasn't a very close relationship.

I don't think he was, I think on his fourth, marriage, by that point.

And I think that when I told him I was getting married, he was worried for me because it hadn't worked out for him.

Sure, that was his reality.

It was his reality and it caused a rift.

So, you know, the thank God, the last thing I can remember of my dad in person, he drove me to the airport.

He let me drive his BMW M3 convertible.

We had one of those little cigarillo things together and I remember hugging him and saying, I love you, I'm so blessed.

That is the very last thing we said to each other in person.

But it was a mixed bag.

Man.

Wow.

That's I want to really emphasize and re-emphasize what you said there of Longing to have more Direction in more training.

So, so for the listeners, Those of us who are dads or going to be dads or even Grandpa's like that that hit for me like we've got to level up as men.

And offer Direction and guidance and training, obviously, needs to be done.

Very tactfully with diplomacy and needs to be, you know, where there's a good relationship.

You're not trying to force stuff down people's throats.

Nobody likes that.

But if you have the relationship, yeah, we want the direction we want the training.

So my dad, he was gone when I was with a really little, my parents split and the stepdads came and went and none of them, right?

The five or six of them, that was there.

None of them.

Did that like, I mean, like I had to ask a buddy how to shave so it's like, dude.

Huh?

I don't know what to do with.

I'm getting some peach fuzz, like, I don't know.

What are you doing?

Nothing?

Right and dating and those are all the all the things like by Tire.

Or what?

Like fixing anything, a car, like what?

I don't even what's a bank account?

Like, I was trying to figure out all this crap.

Same thing like wishing I'd had the direction to training and I think we have we have a huge Opportunity.

But I would also say a moral obligation.

Two.

Give leadership and guidance in life skills and mentoring and that's huge.

This is one of the things that I think is like an underutilized tactic and becoming a good dad is think back to your childhood.

What would you have wanted?

Yeah, and then do that.

And what did you hate?

Don't do that.

I think like for me fatherhood is support but more importantly it's guidance, its support with guidance and support with leadership.

So when they fall down you help them up.

The bike that they tipped over on and whereas mom might be more of the oh no it's okay like just come here.

Only support dad goes hey come here bud.

Now get back on the bike.

Yep.

And that sort of thing, man.

I know so many men who long for that and we feel like there's this generational split or generational Gap where it's like we have to learn everything ourselves because there seems to have been a large group of dads beforehand, who just didn't teach.

And that is Who knows why?

That reason is we could debate that all day.

But I am witnessing so many men who feel as though they have to be the everything they don't know the skills.

Like I've got a list of like 100 things and I want my boys to learn.

I've got three sons and some of them I know like I can get them to be very disciplined, I can help them work out.

I can help him start a business but I'm not a fish.

I don't know hunt.

I don't like fix a car.

I don't know any of these things and it's like man.

I wish that I had a dad who taught me this stuff.

Is he new?

There's a lot of stuff that he knew and now I'm like oh man, that's a lot to take on.

So when over the next 10 years until they launch from my house, am I going to do that?

And at first, I was like panicking.

It's like, dude, I'm never going to give my kids.

Everything they need, that's tragic and I will feel like a failure until I went.

Oh, other men, that is the answer and it's other men who know how to do that.

So, I have a good friend, he's in one of my groups, he lives locally, he's going to take my oldest boy and I hunting.

And then I am so excited because I would never have been able to do that for my son.

But now with introducing other good men, it's like I'm recreating my father basically with new impactful males in my life and I think all of us could use that because no no matter how good we are as dad's, we're always going to need more because we just can't be the end and the beginning we can't be everything exactly.

We're going to need that.

So that's one of the things I'm trying to do to replace that for my kids.

But also kind of for me, man, because there's a lot that I still Learn something around.

Good man.

Has been manatees.

So impactful huge and that's one more good reason to have this Brotherhood of men around and and to seek out mentors and training anything from learning a language to any kind of life skill.

You want anything you want to master, we lit like we legit.

And I know go almost every generation says this, but we legitimately live in like the greatest Generation in the history of the earth, man.

Because it's whether it's books or podcast like this or videos or reaching out like you can go to any kind of training or course like you can get the most elite training from cool dudes, you know, and you pay for it, but it's worth every investment.

We spend tens of thousands of dollars every year to make sure our kids are having that kind of training, those kind of experiences and it's a game-changer.

This is an absolute Game Changer and and the more we do it with them.

Look like you're saying man, then you have the bond and the skill and the experience and the memory.

That's gold.

Man, this is gold.

This gives me all excited.

I'm um, I'm taking two of my boys, and we are going up into the way way up in the north of the northeast of the country.

I've never been up there and we're going upwards going in the middle of nowhere and we're just going to do some rough camping man.

Awesome experiences right?

Nice.

Ice and but we've been doing that for years.

The say really what you're saying of try and we will sit down and we'll say what what do we want to experience?

What do we want our kids to learn?

And again, this is built-in and I know you're doing this too.

Is you think through it?

Like, who do you want your children to be as adults?

Like, what's the endgame like, what's the big Vision here, right?

And the think, we'll, okay.

Now, what are the experiences memories lessons?

They need to learn on the way and then my wife and I will sit down with, Okay, what-what can create that And then you start dreaming and say well, how could we do that?

How could we make that hat?

What can we do?

And you take your kids and you just go out.

You have the most epic experiences, and it makes you that much better of a father and the relationship, but they are that much more capable as well.

Yeah, dude.

That's such an important point.

I have my guys go through and write down their parenting goal because a lot of guys get into it and it's like, Like, oh, we're just, we're just going to make it man every day one day at a time and it's like, okay, good to be mindful, but like, where you going?

If you don't know what direction, your ship is is setting.

Like you're going to wind up in middle of the ocean.

You're going to run out of supplies so if you don't know exactly what direction you're going with parenting.

So 100%.

If you don't have your values, which will help to guide the actual goals you have for your children, I don't mean like they better go to law school, they better become a doctor, those are the type of goals.

I mean, are they going to be resilient human?

Are they going to be loving?

Are they going to have the ability to feel loved and self-respect?

Are they going to be like service-oriented?

What kind of human beings not like the doing aspect?

But the being aspect, do you want to raise?

And then that doesn't just happen by accident.

You don't want to just like, get to the point where you're like wiping your hands and you know, it's been 18 years, they're launched and we wish that.

I mean this seems ridiculous that guys don't know this better, but I wish that people understood just how impactful Dad was like, think back to your own child to think back to your life.

How much of an impact does your dad have?

Probably a massive one.

In fact, I guarantee it's a massive one and we don't seem to take that we seem to take it for granted.

Actually, I should say a little bit too much and we can do so much more we can dream so much bigger.

Like you were saying for them and come up with these experiences and learnings and guide them along the way to become to Eclipse us as men.

Ryan McClure of order of man has his awesome quote, where he talks But wanting to make himself Obsolete, and I've latched onto that.

It's like, man that is exactly what I want.

I want to carry the burden for my family until I can start to unload it on to them but when they're ready rather than all at once so it crushes them and I think that's a huge distinction so I'm going to take that on but you can be sure that I'm going to make sure they carry it farther than I ever could.

And so you got to have goals to get there in the first place though.

Absolutely that vision of what you're working too.

To see what you're working towards your not just drifting along and then I love what you're saying.

We're that the vision then becomes the guiding Foundation of what we do day in and day out and week in and week out, man.

You're so right, we have to get out of this kind of default, survival mode.

And man, it kills me when I hear people say like we just gotta survive.

I for example, you hear a lot with teenager right teenagers, get such a bad rap.

There's like, oh, we we can just survive these teen years.

Unlike what are you talking about?

Like, the teen years were the best, like a culmination of all the parenting you've been doing the incredible but if it's off, like, you got to lean in proactively and do something about it and make that change.

Man this stuff is awesome.

Oh yeah so what do you think are some of the and we've already talked to a touch touched on several here?

What are the underlying causes of the biggest problems for men and dads husbands?

Like what do you think?

What's your observation even your own experience?

Like what's, what's what's the underlying cause I loved it gets a, what's the underlying problem once the underlying cause of the underlying problem?

Yeah, so when I look at things, I see I see two things.

I'm battling against personally in my mission with Dad work.

One is mediocrity in men and that is an acceptance of not being excellent, and that for me, especially in my role as father, that's not acceptable.

Average is not good enough.

The second thing I'm fighting against, if you will, is what modern society says is acceptable.

Which is basically Comfort at the expense of virtue, and that's also unacceptable.

So, those are the things that I'm trying to help man combat, their own acceptance of mediocrity, mediocrity, and society's acceptance of comfort.

And, you know, those don't immediately seem like, oh, they're all that bad.

But you look around and I don't know how you could not be scared too.

Of what's happening to our young children, what they are being taught, what they're being led to believe who they are being led to believe.

They are thinking that they can just, you know, make it up as they go along and not be supported in that.

We're not calling up parents to a higher standard and that's another tragedy.

It's like, you know, you got these wine mom Facebook blogs and you got these do you know, Dopey, dad, Facebook pages?

Sharing means like, bro, is that what parenting is to you?

Are you kidding me?

You're like making Plumbing.

Jokes and wondering like you know, it's just it's totally ridiculous or even jokes about their own parenting or lack of parenting.

I saw this guy, we took our kids to the water park for my son's birthday on Saturday, and this guy was there with his dad and I observed him multiple times or was a lot of people there because it was kind of overcast which made it sweet for us, there's no lines.

But he had this shirt on and it said, adulting one star.

I was a one star rating and then he said not And in the listeners.

Can guess what?

He looked like physically, dude.

And they can guess how he was showing up as a dad that day.

Hmm.

And he's wearing this route.

Like he's like wanting this like I don't want to adult, I don't want to parent.

I mean, what's he just kept thinking, like, do your senior walk around saying I avoid responsibility because it's uncomfortable.

Comfortable.

Hmm, right.

And that can only lead to mediocrity.

Yeah.

And then, what's underneath that?

That is the question man.

I try and talk about this stuff as much as I can and I'm still exploring the why I think you could go as far back as you wanted.

You could go to the beginning of, you know creation if you will you can see original sin.

Maybe that's part of it.

I'm sure that is part of it.

But recently in terms of like what's happened, I think you've got a generation of men and women.

Who I mean dude.

Know how far back you want to go but you can go to World War Two, you get a lot of men to leave.

You get a lot of women in the workforce and you get fatherless children even for those few years.

And when they come back, they're no longer able to emotionally be there for their kids.

And so, what does that do?

Well, it gives the kids exactly what we've been talking about, which is no direction and these were hard men.

These were good hard men, but they had been taken out of their world and put into hell.

I can't imagine what that did for a generation and then, Many of them died, how many of them did not come back and they left their wives and their kids like that to find their way alone and that is tragic.

But then what happens after that is those children without a leadership role and with everything, having been so, so good for a while.

After, you know, they came back in there, everything was roaring, you know, you get that Meme which is like Hardman create good times.

Good times create soft man, soft man, create hard times and hard times.

Create good men, strong men.

And I think there's some of that going on absolute where you get into sort of the You know the peace and love and rock and roll generation and everything gets turned on its head and we're trying to find out where we're going, who we are.

What is there for young people for for Life basically and I think there's just not been an answer that people have enjoyed because I think as the world's become more globalized as we get more connected to each other, we just find that we're going to be comfortable.

We want everyone to get along and want everyone to be comfortable.

We don't want to do the right thing anymore because perhaps, and don't quote me on this.

There was that That dearth of strong men who were not able to come back because they sacrificed it all.

So, that's one thing that I have suggested that I have seen good friend will on Instagram.

Rent of men is as handle.

He talks about this stuff, a lot in terms of where did this week Society come from strongly recommend that.

But man, it's it's just that you bring it to you today.

Let's just bring it today for two seconds and you get the guys who are in our shoes were parents who they had a father who wasn't there, even if you only consider One generation never mind.

Everything else.

I just said, if you consider one generation who didn't have a dad who was there for them and I mean there for them in the way of yes, they were there physically and financially providing but they're also they're emotionally.

And a lot of guys are like I just need to be hard.

Yeah, you do.

But you also need to know when and where to apply the emotional empathy in the validation that your kids need to prove to them that they are worth it.

That's one of the things that John Elders talks about in his book, sits like a boy, needs to know that he's gone.

What it takes from his dad and a girl needs to know that she's worth pursuing.

That's where the emotional connection comes in.

And if your dad didn't have that because his dad didn't have that and you're going out into the world and you're launching like so many of our young people these days with no Direction, no guidance.

Like like I felt where you don't know what you're actually supposed to do.

And of like you're just going to go into the easiest path or what everyone else is doing.

And if what everyone else is doing is degenerate, which I think it mostly is these days, man, you're signing your life away.

So pardon that in normos ramp that was very poorly poorly.

Put together, but those are some of my thoughts.

Yes, fantastic in it lines really well.

I don't know if you've read the book, The Fourth turning but he talks about those generations and he just spells it out exactly.

I mean, he, he literally gives evidence.

These guys are researchers.

They went back 500 years and without an exception, they saw that pattern that every every approximately 20 years his attorney.

And they go through the turnings and they literally describe what you're describing that each of these generations and it trickles, there's Trickle Actor, what I call the Cascade effect or just rolls down and then we get to situation we are and it can happen as a society or it can happen.

Like you're saying in a family and I think man, I want to I want to will two points.

One is Like I want to emphasize something like, we think, sometimes we want our sons to be tougher, daughters to be tough.

And so we have to be hard on them.

And, and there's obviously a place for challenge.

There's obviously a place for some, like, you got this.

Let's go.

Let's push through this but I'm with you, man.

If they know that there's an emotional connection and it's okay to feel emotions and it's okay to express themselves and have this really healthy emotional well-being from the inside out.

I think sometimes we ignorantly think, like know if if we have this feeling side then our boys, our kids won't be tough, they won't be able to Hard things, not true.

And as we built this beautiful relationship, my wife and I, with our kids that the right timing, dude, my my teens, they're Unstoppable, man.

We've taken them to do just grueling hard things, all over the world and they're like, bring it.

Let's go nice.

And and they'll set challenges themselves.

So I'm going to smile the whole way.

I'm gonna do this.

I know it's gonna kill me.

I'm going to be jovial, I'm going to talk to other people.

I'm gonna smile.

I'm going to stay positive, even though I'm in so much pain, from from whatever the challenge.

We climbed we climb this peak.

And we were got up to like, eighteen eighteen thousand, five.

I mean, you get above fourteen fifteen sixteen, it everything starts to hurt and my teens are like, let's go, let's go, dude, I want this, right?

So your kids can be so tough.

In fact, I would, I would say, I would argue they'll be tougher.

If they have a whole soul in a whole being with with the emotions and everything that's in there, that that's that connection, right, dude?

That is so inspiring to me, I really appreciate that because my oldest is 9, I'll be 10 in like four or five months or something like that.

And I'm getting the point where it's like, you know, the rubber is definitely meeting the road here and everything I'm seeing as either a lesson or a moment to be together.

So they know I care and One of the things, my friend Jason told me we're on, this were about to go for a hike and he's like, dude, Tough Love Without Love is just tough.

It's like that.

Like blew my mind because, you know, you want to do the tough love thing when so many dads are like, well, I just need Authority.

Well dude, if you are requiring, like bullying to get your Authority, you've already failed.

Yes, if you haven't failed, this is not an authority messes bullying and you're not doing a very good job.

So when guys think tough love is it like it has its time and place but It requires love underneath that and if your kids don't feel that love even if you're like oh of course, I loved him.

I work 40 hours a week to provide for them.

How could they say it's it's implied bro.

If you don't tell your kids you love them and if you don't show them every single day that they are loved like even when I screw up and I screw up a lot because I'm human being.

But when I screw up, man, when I'm sitting with my kids afterwards, first thing I'm doing is not only am I apologizing, but I'm letting them know, even in this moment where I expressed anger or disappointment.

Appointment or whatever.

I did.

That was wrong.

I love you.

And there is nothing you can do to make me.

Not love you.

This Parts on me that Parts on you.

Let's work this out together.

But first of all, I love you.

And if you can't say that to your kids, if your kids don't know that, when you come home from work and you think they'll pick it up because, like I'm doing whatever.

Like, no, dude, no, they were opportunities.

Don't ya, don't make them assume, don't make them.

Guess don't make them question, is it?

Saddest things man, is it?

Yeah, is it without doubt?

One of the things I like to ask my coaching clients is like is it, is it so obvious that would it would hold up in court.

Right.

That's love asking the questions.

Is it so obvious that it would hold up in court?

And if your kids are like, I don't know, my dad just got out after me.

I'm not, I don't know if he loves me like, whoa, you're missing something, you're missing something or?

Yeah, my dad works, but I don't, I'm not sure why he's doing it.

They're questioning mode isn't things.

Yeah, we got to make it more obvious.

Yeah.

And I gotta tell you guys like this is one of those things that we see and we like future project we go like I hope my kids aren't That sounds bad.

I work with guys who were these kids?

And who are now adults and are telling me in group in coaching sessions?

Yeah, I like that, my dad loved me, that's a good question.

I don't know, he never said it, but I think he probably did and to watch a grown man say, I don't know if my dad loved me and then you put the pieces of their life together and you go.

No wonder this is so hard.

No wonder this hurts so much for you.

So dads right now, if your kids don't explicitly, Ali know that you love them, they will grow up to be these men who are always unsure of themselves because men and boys, at least require the fact that they are good enough in their data has their back and their dad loves them.

And if they don't the entire life becomes a shaky Foundation, always, second-guessing always being a yes-man, always being a nice guy and that leads to pain and suffering.

So if you think that even no matter how young or old or mud, how many times you screwed up as a dad if you think it doesn't matter.

I work with grownups.

Suns, that's who men are.

They are grown-up sons and man, you're hurting them.

This is too important to get wrong.

So, whatever your, you know, issue is right now, dad's figure it out because our kids don't wait around for us to figure it out, and I love that you're emphasizing that I see the same thing that the things we do, especially the habits and patterns, there might be little instances, but the habits and patterns especially will stick for decades, 20, 30 40, 50 years later, It's still a challenge that men are trying to overcome.

So now we have this again, awesome privilege and responsibility even an obligation to seriously level up and to get get ourselves right from the inside out so that we can show up more.

It's actually it's actually a good transition.

Love to ask like what what's working for you?

Like habits patterns, routines rituals Jules what's working for you as as a husband, a father and businessman.

What are you seeing out among men?

Like, what's working man?

So I I've changed my tune a little bit on this because I finally tried it.

And the thing that's working is like, just doing more hard things, nice, and don't, nobody wants to hear that.

But I am on fire, the last couple of months because I, you know, I'm taking my own Listen, I have coaches, I have coaching programs and I'm part of.

And as I get in there, like, I pride myself on being probably like 80 to 90 percentile and discipline and skills and getting stuff done and, you know, jack of all trades, master of none.

But pretty good at a lot of things and I feel good about that.

As soon as I see someone that makes me feel like a lazy SOB.

I'm like, oh, I need to sign up.

I need to be around you and so that's what I did and I'll just drop them a quick note.

It's called superhuman fathers.

And these guys are incredible.

Kyle, I had in mind.

A podcast recently.

So inspiring.

So, I have been doing more my schedule these days.

I'm up at 4:30.

I get up.

I do my stretching.

I pray, I read the Bible and I'm out the door.

I'm doing a challenge right now.

It's 20.

I'm on day 24.

It's 400 meters of walking lunges.

Every single day.

Yeah, baby turtle, his brutal man.

So, I've been picking that up and then I'll go to the gym.

Five days a week, come back, make breakfast.

For the kids, we're starting home school this year, so he's just figuring out how that works.

And we just had a big meeting last night.

So I'm coming home, doing stuff with the kids.

We bake muffins this morning going to work coming back out having lunch with the kids doing a little bit more work.

They've got soccer tonight, they got Jiu-Jitsu on Wednesday.

So like there's all that kind of stuff but then you can walk rolls around martial arts hitting the meals, nicely done.

Yeah.

So like the things that are working are to break it down, you must exercise.

I think you must wake up.

Up earlier than you are, you must have some sort of mindfulness meditation, prayer journaling, ritual.

Usually, as early in the morning, I do it all day.

I use a program called ROM, which is like Evernote, but I'm also looking at four different journals on my desk.

So I'm doing that all day and then for a lot of guys, if this is not your normal, this is sort of how I started.

I just put calendar reminders in my phone.

Go, compliment, your wife.

Go do something for her based on her love language.

She most feels loved with spend one-on-one time with your kids, at least a little bit every day and then garbage time, if you will, I talk to a guy called Isaac on my podcast Isaac Tolkien he's got nine kids and he's like, dude, quality time is great.

But quantity time if your present is almost better because you get to see more about how they react when it's not one on one with them, they're feeling special and they're acting differently.

You can breathe into the lives better.

So spend time with your kid complement, your wife do hard things and have A gigantic purpose that you're always facing and I don't know what else to add to that, man friends.

Oh shit Brotherhood.

Yeah, and you're hitting on homeschooling, that's awesome.

We hope score, Kidd 20-year nights while we're gone.

Amazing and we and we call it we call it World schooling because we take them all over the place but love that because then there's more time with them and more Direction, more responsibility, of course, but that's who you want.

And always you're doing meals with your kids who it's for So engaging that which is awesome.

And then in, you're right, I am wholeheartedly an advocate for both quality and quantity.

And I've learned that, like, if you, if you want it bad enough, you can make it happen if you make it a priority, put it in first.

Then the other things will fit I guess that was one of the things I wanted to and it fits right now to the circle back to before it's like you know whether it's whether it's as a society or in your family like in mind, right?

Let's so my dad wasn't there, my stepdads weren't there and I could still be using that as an excuse, you know, in my 40s.

I'd be like, yeah, man, I don't have a father figure.

I don't know what to do.

I could still be playing that card.

And for a time, like, in my late teens early twenties, I was the mayor of victim Bill, man.

I would like to know it's everybody else's fault, but at some point, no matter what lot you were given no matter what happened to you, All of us like it's some point gentlemen we have to draw a line in the proverbial sand and say from this point forward, my life will be what I make of it.

It's going to be mine and and maybe you didn't have a good relationship with your dad, maybe didn't have a dad or maybe you went through some terrible stuff, like it's some point.

Yeah, I'm sorry that stuff draw the line and say from now on from now on and and that's where we can lean into this and take full ownership of everything.

We're doing your right and just get up early hit hit the exercise.

Right.

I love the the walking lunges.

Man, I did that.

I did that for training.

I have a 40-pound vest.

So I'll put on my 45s go out front with an audiobook and just lunge and lunge and lunge and lunge and lunge and just burn but it's phenomenal training for mountain climbing.

If you're racing an adventure racing, all things I'm doing, right?

And so you get out, you guys challenges and then I love the other thing you got going on.

Now, this is see, those are just good solid habits across the board.

Yeah, and it's not rocket science, man, like it's simple.

Well, as I'm as I'm putting together my program right now.

Like, my thing is, I want to make dad's harder to kill an easier to love.

That's it, you know?

Like that is.

That's mature masculinity, right?

Thanks pound on both of those brother expounded.

Okay, so man, I've been thinking about this for a long time and my own personal vision is to be harder to lat.

Yeah, her love harder to kill easier to love and have more resources for effecting change over the next like you know, 50 years.

And so that counter is that you miss Look there, but that's perfect, because a lot of guys, inadvertently kind of the default, they're harder to love and they're quite easy to kill.

Yes, the default setting is the opposite of what you're talking about.

Where science is the intentional.

Deliberate effort is what you're talking about.

Yes, keep going.

Sorry, I didn't.

Yeah no, that's awesome, man.

It and it's just like when you're harder to kill which just means being you know honestly a slightly more fit than the average person these days which is nothing when your Her to kill because you're training your discipline, you have skills, your body is actually working.

You've got all these things and you're not making dumb decisions.

That means that you will just simply be more in a place of authority.

And that means for yourself, your wife, your kids, you'll be a better leader.

You will also not be so weak so that when things happen in life and this is why we do hard things.

When guys are like, why do you wake up at 4:30?

Why do cold showers?

Why do these lunges?

Why you go to the gym every day?

It's like dude so that when hard things Unlike real hard things like I'm trying not to scream at my kids.

My keep my, you know, they become a teenager, they make a terrible decision.

I got to be cool with that so that I don't blow it out of proportion, and ruin everything.

Those are the hard things in life.

Those are the challenges and heaven forbid.

Something happens.

That's, you know, existential and I got to deal with that, but real quickly is ready, exactly a real crisis and nobody's nobody's doing that right now.

So, when I feel harder to kill because I literally am I have so much more confidence and I feel a sense of self-respect and I think all men have been talking to, my friend Ryan about this a lot.

It's like men don't need self-love, they need self respect more than the self love.

So all of these things, make me feel like a million bucks.

Dude, this morning, I have been dreading this morning all week because it's like day, it's day. 24 of my lunch Challenge, and I didn't get a great sleep and I am just bagged.

So, I'm waking up.

And I'm like, this is terrible.

I'm dragging my feet a little bit.

I get out of side like five minutes later than I usually do.

Crush my lunges.

I'm like, okay, I think we got this.

Go to the gym and it's like squats weighted lunges more squads Romanian deadlifts like dude, I don't want to do this but as soon as I did it and then I crushed an ab workout afterwards.

I felt Unstoppable.

You can guarantee I came home and I was with my kids and I was smiling and I was happy.

I was serving my family because I was harder to kill.

Yes.

But dude that made me easier to love the other side of that.

Yes, it's simply being a better human being.

So you're easier to love in the first place, you're serving more, you're being less selfish, you're actually sacrificing for your family.

You're holding their burden on your back, gladly and rejoicing about it.

But you're also then learning the skills that most of us didn't get from our parents to be emotionally in tune.

Like we were talking about before.

Can you express your love?

Can you be there with your kid or your wife?

When she is expressing something?

And you're not like, trying to fix it?

You're not being like, well it doesn't make sense.

What are you just do this?

You're actually holding that space.

And just being there, and being present, and being loving, and being empathetic, and being validating and affirming your kids.

You can't do that.

If you're some knucklehead, who thinks emotions are weak, dude, they are not weak.

It's one of the hardest things in the world to have control over your emotions.

That is strongman stuff.

So, yeah, I want to be harder to kill easier to love because I will then become the best father and husband and man.

And dude, all inspire people, my kids are gonna want to follow that because who wouldn't want to do that?

And I think there's a sense of inherent Goodness about that when I hear that I'm like I don't even know what that means, but I want that I want to be harder to kill an easier to love because those are good things.

And that's what a good man does.

So anyway that's that's a little bit about where I'm headed right now.

Huge.

I love it man.

And want to just re-emphasize couple things you said they're like when we will make space to just listen just hear just understand before we present Not on the phone, not distracted by our own stuff.

Not whining about her own problems is only there, and then expressing emotions expressing the desire being whole and being when it's your turn to share like being all in and sharing that love.

You're right.

It just it circles, back again and again and it wins admiration and respect and that is how we get influence, right?

Influence is always earned.

Yes.

And if you are Harder to kill and easy to love.

You'll have the influence and you'll have the respect and especially man, I cannot emphasize this enough.

I I try to say this every time I have an opportunity to speak or teach.

I try to say this.

Most men lose influence with their kids when they become teens and young adults, because men are usually leveling off instead of leveling up and they become easier to kill and harder to love.

Write using phrases there.

But if we stay on our a game, just as a way of, I'm really just a way of being, this is just how we do life.

We get up early, we do hard things, we push ourselves.

You just stay on your game then.

Yeah, you're harder kill easier to love and you ready for whatever is coming.

Yeah.

And you know what, it's funny like there's all these things out there like 75 hard, it's awesome.

And all these kind of things are challenges and then, guys finish them.

They're like, oh man, I feel good about myself because I completed then they go back to their old ways.

It's like, bro.

That's how does make any sense.

Oh, and when we had people over last night and one of them was like, so like one of those program end It's like never exactly.

Will never end because I will never stop trying to be harder to kill an easier to love.

And the thing about that is to like, dude I made a post on Instagram the other day which is like it's a little bit tongue-in-cheek, but it's like real.

Men can bench press their wives and outrun their kids dude.

I am not gonna let lug though, not let that go.

Because dude, I want to be there pushing them.

Because like you said, if I level off suddenly, their trajectory is my kids, my son's, especially they're going to To keep up with me, no matter what I'm doing, they're going to want to follow it.

So if your life sucks, your kids lives are probably going to suck until they get out of your out of your influence.

But why don't you just make their lives Awesome by pushing them and if you're going a million miles an hour until the day you die, and I mean, that not to burn yourself out, but to be whole and rounded and stuff like that too.

If you're doing that, they're never going to do that.

What you just said which is sort of like eclipse and go over this flatlining, Dad, their lives are going to be epic as long as your loving them through that and not sure.

Shaming them to be better than you are.

That's I guess a little caveat and leading the way exactly leading the way.

And I love this brother, this is I guess so excited about this.

Yeah, right love me.

Love, you know, seeing and feeling your passion for it, and you're just just knowing he's critical points for all of us.

That it's, it is within our power, all of us, I don't care where anyone who's listening, I don't care where you at where you've come from, it's within our power.

Any moment to just Pause and say, I'm going to choose a better way.

I'm going to pick an area of my life.

That's maybe a little weak.

No I haven't been showing up and I'm just going to lean into it and I always always tell people it's astounding how quickly results can come.

How quickly could like you can transform your life and if in a few months, your life could be beyond recognition.

Like I can't even believe like we were living like that and now we get to live like this.

Yeah, you make those Transformations.

So yeah and guys, nobody's coming to save you.

Yes, the thing nobody is coming to save you and the sooner, you accept that.

Instead of being a victim, the better things are going to be and you'll probably have to let go of things being the other way.

And that's, that's one point that I don't hear talking about a lot, I Had to grieve to remove myself from from victim Ville, as you were saying, you know?

Like I had to be like, oh, that's never happening.

I'm never getting the ideal childhood or, like whatever it was that was holding you down.

It's like, I'm never getting that.

And I got to be sad about that for a while and then I can move forward because I know it's not like it's literally chaining me to the Past.

Whereas I need to be forward-looking and have a massive vision and have daily habits and I got to clear those roadblocks.

I think we're talking about before, but you gotta be sometimes.

Grieve them.

But again, it's you you are the one response one.

I tell guys this, sometimes whatever happened to you in your life especially as a kid, probably not your fault, but it is 100% your responsibility because only you can change your life so it's not your fault.

Let go of the guilt.

Now, it's your responsibility.

If you're not doing anything with that, maybe you deserve to feel a little bit of guilt and shame to fire you up, get angry about the fact that your life is an awesome use it.

Yeah.

Use it for fuel man.

And like you said, it could take Like literally one small change to ignite an entire fire in your life.

I can't imagine if you just pick one thing and I got my guys doing like self-audits.

It's like a wheel of life where they give themselves scores 1 to 10 in like ten areas and it's like, dude what is the thing or next?

30 days?

You can take this from a 2 2, A 2 2, A 5.

Let's just start with that.

If you're having a hard time with this I mean to to attend, we'll get there but 225 over a month since like I guess I could like do 30 minutes of exercise every day.

Dude you can't do 30 minutes of age.

For 30 days if they're there are so many things that we will put up with and not do the hard thing a little bit.

Like do 30 minutes out of a 24-hour day, are you really telling me you can't suffer for 30 minutes come on?

But at the end of that 30 days that five is going to look much closer to attend because now the rest of your life is following suit with all that discipline and all that drive man.

This stuff is exciting.

If guys are not gone on this, you got to get on this guy's.

They gonna feel so much.

Much stronger, so much better about yourself.

Yeah, there's so much power and and what like you're saying a moment ago where there's pain, there's power, maybe they're feeling some pain, turn that pain into power and if there's pain in the past like what you were saying a moment ago, it's like we have one hundred percent responsibility.

In fact you and I and each of us we are the only ones.

You are the only one that can.

You can't change your past but you can change the way you see your past and Only you could do that and when you can see the benefit in the value from it, now it becomes a, an experience of power.

It actually gives you fuel.

It's so so important to reframe that.

I have learned in my life that my biggest strengths, all of them grew in The Gardens of my deepest wounds every one of them.

And so, I look back on everything that's happened to me, and I just give, thanks, yeah exam.

Thank God, I've struggled and suffered because now I get to have Have the gifts that came from that so if you're struggling and suffering man I can't imagine what happens when you start telling that Garden, pull up a couple of weeds and start tending to it.

You are going to be super just amazing.

That's awesome.

Let's switch gears here.

A little bit.

What is there anything you haven't talked about yet?

That you personally are chasing just something you're super excited about focused on.

Is there anything?

You're kind of obsessing about?

It's like just just a personal thing where you're like you know what?

I'm going I'm going dude.

That's that's hard because it's all intertwined it's all in that big vision for me right now, like I'm super into pushing myself fitness-wise.

I want to get to know low enough body fat to get AB veins.

I am chasing those, a veins man.

I am so discipline with my die, with my gym, crushing it like that.

So that's one of the things and also like Brotherhood and fellowship.

I thought for many years, like I'm so tough.

I'm so cool.

I don't need Friends, what a mistake.

So, I'm trying to go all in on, just developing friendships and relationships with other good men, who are doing good things that I want around my kids, and that's taken.

It's a lot of work and taking a lot of time because you're investing in people, but man, between Fitness and relationships.

That's where I'm heading into the next sort of like 92 365 days outside of this home school thing.

Which dude I'm super interested to hear more from you because it's intense man, but it's so good.

Yeah, that's me man.

I'm excited.

To get back in the hockey season here.

Now personally ice.

That's right up north Man.

Who Loved hockey in Canada.

That's awesome and right love it.

Alright.

Anything else is it's on your heart or mind that you haven't said yet or talks about anything else you want to share.

You know, I think I feel so.

Yeah.

I feel good, man.

Like I would love to leave you with like this little clip, but I think honestly to go back and listen everything we talked about and no, just listen again, so many good things right there, so, okay, how can people connect with you brother?

Best way is on Instagram.

Dad work, dot, Kurt vad, wo RK .c U RT, that's where most active.

I think there's like 50000 people on there.

Now, dad dot work is our website so you can find coaching applications group opportunities resources.

Cast as well.

Apple Spotify, all the rest.

So, that would be awesome to hear from you guys.

Love it.

Brother, thank you again, so much for being on here and sharing all the time, and thank you for this platform and thank you for your fire.

Because I am fired up because of you, this has been a great conversation.