the difference in so in excellence is not oh

I don't I don't ever have to touch the steering wheel

because I'm an amazing driver

it's I still touch the steering wheel

it's just the corrections I have to make are so minute

yeah I love that

and

when you get your opportunity to make that correction

you make the correction

based off of where you're going to be

30 seconds from now not where you are currently

so you are literally

you're pointing to a different place

welcome back to raising men

you know 80%

86% of us men

say that being a provider is the defining trait

of masculinity but for many of us

that pressure

it creates kind of a reactive trap that where

where we give our careers the best

and our families kind of get the leftovers

joining us today to provide a new roadmap is John Hoard

John is the founder of the Engaged Father Project

he specializes in helping high achieving dads

overcome the high achiever trap

and move from reactive survival

to radical intentionality

John welcome to the show

thank you Sean

I appreciate it it's great to be here

now let's start here

I I think that most men would agree with the statement

that a good father provides for his family

but as I discussed

there's a trap hidden in that sentiment

isn't there yeah

there is and I can tell you personally I

I directly connected my value as a father

to the amount of

basically money that I could bring into the household

and so yeah

if an opportunity came up to make more money and like

you know more stress and anxiety

would be tagging along with that offer

I was like well

I could be a better dad cause I'm making more money

and we could do more things and

and a a staycation two hours away at a

at a local lake

can turn into a trip down to the Caribbean

so like yeah

I yeah I'm gonna

I'm gonna do that I'm gonna be

willing to make that sacrifice for my family

that's that's how I used to think about things yeah

yeah and I

I think that

there's a little bit of a vicious cycle there because

and it's self serving right

because it's also good for your ego

you know

you know that kind of success is it makes you feel

it makes you feel good it makes you feel strong

it makes you feel masculine

and then so you're saying

you're willing to make the sacrifice for your family

but it's not your sacrifice

it's your family sacrifice

yeah and you don't

you probably didn't even discuss it with them

no no no

and if you ask them hey kids

hey partner

what would you rather have a more expensive vacation

or I'm around more and by around more

I don't just mean like physically present

but like I'm like with you

like I'm dialed in I'm there for the hard things

I'm there for the fun moments

and like I'm really showing up

like ask your family what they prefer

and I don't know if they say

you know what we like the luxuries in life

so like keep doing what you're doing

and that's what you wanna go do

then more power to you

yeah that's

that's one of the nice things about one of

one of my kind of central theses is that is that our

our institutions that kind of guided us and and

and got us to live life in a particular way

um are crumbling

you know people aren't going to church as much

people don't have the weekend bowling leagues they

they are we're not working from an office anymore

we're working from home a lot more and and

and those sorts of things

and the family structures changing all of that

and that is a real problem

in the sense that

the benefits of those institutions are now gone

but it's also an opportunity

in the sense that we now get to

if we're intentional about it

we can design our new intentions and

and we can you know

working from home has a huge benefit

which is I don't

I no longer spend 45 minutes each way on a commute

I can spend that time at home with my family

if I do that and I can be present with them

or on the other hand

I could also let my work invade my home life

and so we have to make a decision there

yeah and that's a slippery slope sometimes

right like

cause it it doesn't always happen all at once

um you know

again like

if we're connecting our value as a father

to what we're able to provide

um it makes it really easy just to continue to say yes

or to allow work to come into our household time

into our family time and

you know um

in my own experience that's what happened

and I went through something that was really

you know

emotionally painful and challenging and then like

even physically challenging

to the point where I had a panic attack uh

because of work stress and anxiety um

and things I

it was so jarring for me that it basically forced me

or really made it really easy for me to kind of

like pick my head up and look around

and to assess if the path that I was on

is the one that I wanted to continue on

and that's a that was a tough decision for me to make

um because it basically

you know I've been working my whole life

to continue down this path that I was on right

it's that American dream

my dad was really successful in business and

you know I thought that what you did is

you know you go to school and you get good grades

and you go to college and you get good grades

and you get a job and you get promoted and

you know you get status and responsibility and money

and then you retire and you have all these nice things

and that was like you know I

I don't know if that's the American dream or what

but it was like life in a box

and it yeah

felt like you just get handed this box

and then off you go and you do your thing

and uh I was on that path for a long time and I

I was I was really on that path like in a good way

I started part time um

at this job that I worked at for 18 years

and I eventually got to vice president

um six hundred uh

people in the company hundred year old

um family run company really successful

and I was going on you know

trips with the chairman and like I was

I was in and for my whole life like that was

that's what you want what you imagined a success

that's what everybody wanted

and I was I was doing cool things

and getting exclusive access to things

and in my mind

you talked about things that feel good like to the ego

I had opportunities to do things that other people

didn't

and so I'm like I'm walking around like look at this

like I get to you know

I'm not going out of my way to brag

but they might find out what I'm doing

and if I put myself in their shoes

they're probably jealous of me

like that feels kind of nice

like I'm breathing some rare air here

yeah and uh

I remember you know

after I cause I ended up leaving that job

I I talked about

you know

changing paths and and getting off of that whole trail

but when I went to an event

um

where I would have been in the suite

and there would have been

you know food and a fridge full of beverages and

and we'd be watching the hockey game

from one of these suite towers

well

now we were sitting up in the upper deck with my family

and it it's stung a little bit right

there's still a lot of me

and it's it's definitely moving in the right direction

but there's that that ego part of me where it's like

man I wish I had my family over there

because that would feel cool

like I'm really getting them to

to treat them to something special

and when I when I'm

I'm sitting there

and I'm kind of in my feelings a little bit

and I look at them like they don't care

they're not looking at the

the sweet

and the people over there wishing that they were there

we were just happy to go watch a hockey game

and so it's a it's something that

it is a it's a real trap

and I like the way that you use that word earlier

so what did you do what

what you know

what did you decide to do

you had this you had this kind of this panic attack

this realization opened your eyes to it

life is gotta I gotta live my life a different way

how do you set about doing that

I think a I mean

I've experienced that as well

and I didn't do anything about it I I mean

I literally just kind of all right

children of the Grindstone

you know this is this is what it takes

and that probably was the wrong call

so what did you do

well um

like I said earlier

stress and anxiety for me were at an all time high

and things were boiling over right

I wasn't if you're having a panic attack

you're it's basically your body

and your nervous system is waving the flag saying like

I I need I need help and the body's like

I'm gonna intervene

and I'm gonna shut some things down and

and you're not gonna like what happens

so when going through all that was like okay

I need some help here and so I go on

I had dabbled in meditation a little bit

I went on to YouTube and I did a search for meditation

for stress and anxiety

found one listened to it

this guy's voice was like really calming

and it felt really nice and at the end

he had his website on there and he's a coach

and so I go to his website and I'm scanning his page

and he says he offers like free

like 30 minute discovery calls

I was like yeah

like I can get

30 minutes live on the phone with this guy

that just like help me out

and I love the sound of his voice yeah

I'll I'll take him up on that yeah

and I did um and I ended up working with him as a coach

um you is it okay if I share his name police yeah

his name is David Elsie and he is a coach

and he specializes

in something called the Sedona Method

which is basically it's letting go letting go of uh

wanting control or wanting to

things to be a certain way

and just really sort of coming back into like

where we are putting our time and energy

onto things that we actually can control

and it was really freeing and and honestly

it

it changed how I saw and experienced my life in that I

I got this new perspective and I

it's almost like I was able to like

lift up the curtain

and see the mechanics of everything

that was going on inside me

and so I went from like being at the end of this like

like this whip where I'm just like

getting thrown around all over the place

and it just feels like everything is happening to me

to now being able to kind of trace it back and be like

oh yeah like no

no wonder I feel that way

this starts to make sense

and it opened up so many different

ways of thinking about things

and experiencing things

and it was utterly life changing for me um

and his last and again it's David Ellzey

his last name is E L

L Z E Y if anybody wants to look him up

he's yeah

we'll put the we'll put the link in the show notes

oh thank you

yeah he's an incredible human being

he really is um

so in the midst of so fast forward a little bit later

and I'm still in my professional career

I'm vice president of it

and then also a project management team

the project management team

I kind of came up through the ranks there

knew how to do that I have zero it background

they hired me to wow

to manage a transition

so somebody like that had worked in

he'd run the it department for like 30 years

he basically built the it department

um he was retiring

and so

they needed somebody to manage the transition of

of hiring somebody and this transfer of knowledge

and this updating of systems

because it was absolutely critical to the company

and so they trusted me to handle that transition

they did not hire me for my it knowledge

but I I took on all of that stress and worry and I

I tell people that being an

in it is like being a professional warrior

because like you're constantly

absolutely right yeah

you're looking

around for things that could possibly go wrong

and you have to have a solution for a problem

that hasn't happened yet and it's

and I was already a worrisome person

so like you now you can really understand like

why everything was weighing on me

and so uh

I start having more and more thoughts of like

is this the path that I wanna be on

and what else could I do

and I just started thinking about

being in that coaching space

and how how incredible

it felt to just be in that space of presence

and awareness

and things just felt like so real and so true

and it's like well

I love being in that space

and then you know

I start thinking about like

well how cool would it be if I could help other people

like the way that I was helped

cause this feels life changing for me

and if I could help other people

like how awesome is that and then it's like

well I can also

you know find a way to make a living doing this

and provide for my family

it's like

so it was like three things that just really aligned

and so I I I

I up until that point

I've never been the entrepreneurial spirit

or just the person that's just gonna venture out

and see what happens I was the polar opposite of that

but the alignment was so true um

and I'll I'll never forget

so things were boiling over at work

inside me boiling over professionally

things were great and I was yeah

I was really on the outside

everything looked smooth and

and it's great in my job the engine was running hot

yes and I went to them and I said hey

I think I need to make a a major change that

you know has me not working here anymore

and I didn't blindside them with this

they knew that I was you know

having some challenges yeah

and so they said hey

we thought this conversation might be coming

we've already talked about it

take take some time off from work

take some time away from work

take one to three months and go

clear your head and just make a decision'cause

we'd love to keep you here

but make a decision from a clear space

instead of whatever

the weight of whatever it is that you're feeling now

which I didn't even know it was an option

it was it was yeah

good for them it was yeah

incredibly generous and so I did

and it was two months in I'm sitting on the back deck

sitting in the sun summertime

and for whatever reason I had the thought of like

looking back on this moment in time

this decision that I was trying to

to make my way through from my deathbed

so uh

I'm in my we'll say hopefully in my 90s

looking back at this moment in time where there

there is a fork in the road in my life

and I can go on the on the one path

that all this time and energy for my schooling

and in my professional career

it's all been to build this path

and it's there and it's so secure

and I'm making

more money than I thought I've ever made

and I feel like

this is what everybody else would want in a career

so that makes it even more attractive to me and my ego

and then there's this other one

which is like

it's just a question Mark out into the darkness

like I I have no idea how to start a business

what's involved with doing it

none of it I don't have the connections

I don't have anybody to be like

hey show me what to do

none of it

and when I put myself in that deathbed scenario

thinking about which one of those two scenarios

am I going to be happy with

and fulfilled by and proud of that

that 90 year old version of me

it was it was crystal clear

and so I called my wife and I said hey

I've made a decision made up my mind

she said I know

like what do you what do you like

what do you mean I was like

what do you mean you know

she goes I knew about a month ago

and I knew you just needed some time to get there

and I wanted to give you that space

wow and I was like wow

like you're awesome so there I go

um I

I go and I get certified as a life coach

go through this like ten month really involved

transformational

process doing a ton of like work on myself

it's like 50 50

you do this work on yourself and then the other time

you know

they're they're teaching you how to coach other people

it was incredible process

and it was actually one of my peers

one of my friends that I met

going through that certification process

where she had the idea it was a couple months after

we had kind of come out on the other side

and we were certified coaches

and she sent me an email and she's like hey

when you were going

when I was with you going through this whole program

and I hear about all these things

that you want to improve about yourself

as a person you kept talking about

how you want to improve for the benefit of your kids

and she's like

I think you should do that for other dads she's like

I think there's such a need out there for that

and I think you're the perfect person for it

I was like wow

it's like that's pretty fantastic

and so it was like a back burner thing I was like

you know what when I wanna do a group coaching thing

maybe I'll pick that up and develop it

and fast forward like two weeks

I was doing some work on my computer and had this like

lightning bolt moment I was like

that's the thing and I haven't looked back ever since

that's amazing what an amazing journey

and tell me you know

there there's something that

a friend of mine once told me

and it took me I

you know I still wrestle with it

trying to really incorporate the meaning

and he was kind of a spiritual guy and

and what he said was you make everything

like that car over there on the road that's driving

you make that and what he's really getting at is

you're the one who assigns the meaning to everything

in life

and a lot of our culture tends

a lot of our culture tends

to funnel people into a particular groove

and you were in that groove

uh huh and

and the groove LED you to despair

I mean it LED you into a really

really awful place and

what you kind of realized

maybe without realizing it

is you can engineer any kind of life that you want

yeah and then you ask for it

and I think a lot of people don't

a lot of people don't don't even

don't even they just

you know it's like I was describing you

it's well okay

let's get back to the Grindstone

that was a fun fantasy let's go

and we're trained for that

we're trained to and

you know that that's because there's attention

you need to have perseverance

you need to have grit

in order to be remotely successful at anything

but you also need to be able to give up when

when or or change tack when it's appropriate to do that

and you need to be able to manage that tension

and recognizing even that you're able to do it

allowing your mind to get into that place

where you're able to do it

is a real is a real challenge and a real victory

and yeah you were really fortunate to have

a company that was gonna be supportive of that process

yeah a lot of companies would be like well

you know

they would try to pressure you in in various ways

and yours didn't

they accepted it and you were really fortunate for that

but that was also not as much luck as it was

you surrounded yourself with

with the kind of people that would do that

yeah

and you were also really fortunate to have a partner in

your wife that is gonna be supportive of that

and that's that that's something

the importance of those two things

the importance to surround yourself with people who

are going to bully you as opposed to weigh you down

is that is so important

maybe the whole key to it right yeah

you know I can't

I can't give enough credit to my wife

for how she handled all of that because

you know

when I was having some of these initial thoughts

about walking away from my job

and leaving a good salary on the table

to go make no money for a while

to make an investment to spend money in coaching

and then on like

betting that I'll be able to make money at some point

or that I'll learn how to do it

she

the way she handled that she was just always supportive

she just said John

I want I want you to be happy

I can see that you're not happy

and we'll figure it out and

you know if the

if the roles were reversed

I I don't think

I would have been able to handle it with such

Grace and compassion like she did

I'll be honest I

I don't think most people would

but she on a scale of 1 to 100

she was a 100 through that

and I and I'm just

I'm so I'm so grateful

yeah that's amazing

so tell me more tell me what

what came of that is called the Engaged Father project

and so tell me more about that

yeah so the Engaged Father Project in and of itself

it's an eight week program that I created

really with the goal of helping dads

carve out some time

to get really clear on how they're handling fatherhood

are they are they living up to the version of the dad

that they wanna be and I

I I go back to that

you know later in life scenario again and again

where it's like I will be the

the dad that's

I'm always sitting on a dock in this scenario

I'm sitting on a dock

and I'm looking out over the water

and I am going to feel so good

about how I showed up for my kids

during their formative years

and for all of their life

but especially the young years because

we are we are teaching them how to be people

and we teach them with our actions

not our words

and I'm not saying that we shouldn't have good

meaningful conversations with them

but they learn far more based off of our actions

you know yeah

and in particular how we handle the tough moments

and that's what's really tricky because

you know I

I I tell people that we've got

like two playbooks as a human being

the first one is when things are going well and like

we're calm and we're happy

and we're loving and filled with joy and like

all these positive things

and then yeah

happy path it's really easy to be happy

when you're on the happy path

yeah and then there's the other playbook that's there

when things are like stressful

you know the stuff's hitting the fan

the house is melting down

you feel like disrespected or I don't deserve this

or I work so hard and I come home like whatever

like we we've all

I've certainly experienced that

and I think it's pretty common that most people have

and you got that playbook where like

this is how you handle tough situations

and playbook 1 goes out the window when

when things are stressful

so like as a dad

if you actually stop

and you're honest with yourself about like okay

what's playbook No. 2 look like

am I raising my voice is like my

am I wrinkling my forehead

and like my face just looks like really serious

like what's happening in that moment

it's so hard for us as human beings to be aware

of what's actually going on in those moments

for ourselves

cause we're just we're reacting in that moment

so the engaged father project

that's one of the things that we do is we like

we dive into that and we figure out

how are you showing up in these tough moments

and does it align

with the type of dad that you wanna be

well what type of dad do I wanna be

I don't know you tell me

like it's not hey

do what I do or parent the way that I parent

it's like what are you going to do

what can you do now

that's going to make you feel amazing

when you're sitting on that dock when you're 70

and ah interestingly

and we we spent a lot of time talking about it already

but

all of the professional aspirations

of being a provider that so many men have

like most of those guys they have a

a three and

a five year and 10 year plan when it comes to work

promotions and all that stuff

and more than likely

they've got very well defined financial goals

that's right as it relates to entire retirement

or other expenditures

not many dads have a goal when it comes to

what type of parent do you wanna be yeah

other than I wanna be a good dad

what does that mean

what's a what's a good dad

like that is such um

that's such a subjective term right

and it gets passed around a lot yeah

and in fact if you don't think about it

if you're not intentional about it

you're gonna default to OK

good dad makes lots of money

so I guess I'll go back to the office yeah

cool check in that box so I can just continue

and it's also kind of funny that you know

is good like truly good enough for you

like is that an area of life where

good is what you're going to settle for

um like

if you were going to assign

like a numerical value between like

1 and 10 to like the word good

like what would you what what value would you give it

yeah I'm with you

I'm like a 7 so a 60 or a 70% right

I think yours is a d or an F

and I think mine would be like a a C minus C minus yeah

right like

I know I'm kind of making a joke

but do you just wanna be a good dad

and like no

I don't and I refuse to just try to be a good dad

I'm going to be a freaking incredible dad

and I have my flaws like I'm not perfect

I I laid an egg last night

things got stressful and I didn't yell

I didn't raise my voice

but like my emotions got raised and I

and I handled the moment differently

than I would have liked to

but I can also

point to the fact that I've made tremendous progress

with how I handle tough situations

and I've also like

empowered and enabled my family to give me feedback

like in real time if I'm getting frustrated

and that was like just a couple weeks ago

my wife gave me some feedback

she was she was quietly keeping some notes

and I love her for this um

she noticed that I would display frustration

at some point not boiling over

but I would either visibly

like my tone or my face

or something where I would show some frustration

with one of my kids and she said hey

I wanna let you know that over the last two weeks

it's been almost every day

where I've noticed there's something

where there's been some frustration

and that that felt like such a

I don't want to say punch to the gut

it wasn't like a sucker punch

it just it stung to hear that news

yeah yeah

and I was like thank you for telling me one

if that's not easy for you to say to me

um I

really appreciate you saying it

and then I said keep tracking it

and watch what happens over the next two weeks

and it was like that happened like three weeks ago

so last night was like

the first time where I missed the Mark

so I was like 20 for 21 to the good where I was

my run rate before that

I was 0 for fourteen alright

and again I wasn't like doing damaging things

but frustration was showing up

and and I don't want that for my kids

and so I told them

I had this conversation with my wife

and I came up with this idea where it's like

we had this little green frog

and he had like a peace symbol on his chest

and he's like sitting cross legged on a Lily pad

and he's got like his hands on his knees

it's like a peace frog okay yeah

it was like getting moved around the house

and it was probably like getting ready to get donated

but I saw it and I was like

OK I got an idea

I'm gonna put this on the mantle

where everybody can see it

me especially and

and I put this bowl right beside it

that this frog could go in

and I told my family I was like hey

this is what I'm doing

I've been showing my frustration

and I don't wanna do that anymore

so here's what I'd like you to do

if you notice me getting frustrated

you pick up the frog and you just put it in the bowl

and I'm gonna check the mantle every night

and if I get to go to bed

and that frog is on the mantle

good pass you did it

you had an intention

to manage your emotions successfully

and you accomplished it if the frogs in the bowl

it means you slept a little bit and I

I'm so

I'm so proud of myself 1

for taking hard news like that

and making a positive change right

but to it to empower my kids to be able to like

raise their hand and say like

hey dad like you said

you didn't wanna show up this way and you are

and so I'm gonna tell you that you are

because you told me like one

not only is it okay to do it

but two like that you want that feedback

I just I can't imagine what that must feel like

for a kid to feel valued

in a respected member of the family

that way yeah

so yeah I don't mind you know

patting myself on the back for that one

I think it's a great idea

it's working

I'll uh

I'll point out a couple other things that come to mind

with that and um

the first is that your wife was aware of the standard

right

you must have communicated to her at some point in time

that my ambition is

to not be showing frustration at all

the successful management of my emotions

means that I don't have an outward

demonstration of frustration

and so she must she internalized that

and then she noticed that you weren't

living up to that standard

and so you know

rather than just you know

scream at you or yell at you or

or or do something

which would have been counterproductive

she just knew that you're a data driven person

and that if you

if I show you a chart of the last 14 days

and 13 of the 14 you miss the Mark

well then you're gonna respond to that

and um

so that's that's an interesting I mean

that is that's something that really strikes me as

as a really important tool

like

you need to be able to explain what the standard is

and then then you get to spend your time

if you're not living up to the standard

like doing the next thing that comes out to me

which is she called you on it

and you reacted in

by coming up with a specific action plan

and a lot of I think the the

the the tendency is I'm already good enough

and so that means I don't have to do anything different

it's just oh

I just need to try harder or now that I'm aware of it

it'll magically fix itself

but if it was gonna magically fix itself

if the system were already such

that it would magically fix itself

then it wouldn't be a problem yep

and so you need to change the machine and

and you came up with a specific action plan

in specifically okay

let's

let's give my family a way to communicate this to me

and so now it's both things

I am gonna try harder

and I am gonna try to maintain more awareness

but then here's a way

for me to measure whether or not I'm doing it

and this is the frog

and I just love those two aspects of it

knowing what the standard is

and then knowing how to know whether or not I'm gonna

gonna gonna live up to that

I remember

when I was first getting started in business

I uh I

I had my first employee it was a contract employee

and they were doing a specific project for me

and I sat them down and I explained everything and

and did everything and they came in

and they worked for like six straight hours

really diligently

and they came back to me and the result was garbage

and I came up with Sean's first law of management

at that moment I was like

in order for somebody to be able to do a job

they need to know what the job is

and then they need to know how

to know that they were doing it right

and if you haven't conveyed both of those things

then you failed as a manager

uh huh

to give them the tools they need in order to succeed

and and so if that applies to yourself too

if you don't um

if you don't give yourself

a way to know whether or not you're succeeding

other than your wife having to keep track and

you know pester you about it

well then that's not

that's not who you want to be right

yeah I

I and go ahead

I personally um

I am constantly

looking for the things that I want to improve on myself

in myself as a father and I'm not saying that

like all of my focus

goes on the things that I'm doing wrong

um but I'm

but I'm I got the feelers out for him

and so I could because I want to notice those things

and I want to improve them

and I you know

I asked my kids on a fairly regular basis

uh what am I good at

and whatever their answer is like

oh thank you

like cool

I'll I'll do more of that

if that means a lot to you

I'll do more of it where could I be doing better

and again like you

you gotta be ready for the answer that you hear

cause it's probably going to sting

um but I'm okay with that trade

because I know it's some short term pain

it's you know

you go to the doctor and you get a shot hurts

like nobody

just wants to go receive some pain for the doctor

but like hey

this is gonna help you long term

you're gonna feel better okay

cool trade I'm I'm here for that

it's it's kind of like that so I uh

I measure there's a there's an author that I love

called Doctor Benjamin Hardey

and he wrote some really awesome um

personal growth books

but one of the principles that he teaches

is to measure backwards

and to not just have a goal in front of us

into look

at all of the things that we need to do

to hit that goal but to look back into

see where we started and where we're at now

and the the book that talks about this is called

The Gap and the gain and so like

if you've got two points you know

like where you started and where you wanna be

and like you're in the middle

like what do you wanna focus on

do you wanna focus on the gap all your shortcomings

or do you want to focus on

all of the things that you've been able to do

to get yourself to this point

and it changes our energy and and it makes

you know forward progress

like all of a sudden we're being pushed down this path

because we're able to see like

all these amazing things that we've done

instead of using like fear or lack or all that stuff

and feeling like

like we really have to pull ourselves forward

and so I measure backwards and

and I and I hear it and the things that my kids say too

they'll they talk about the old me

they'll say old dad would have done this

and like that is music to my ears now

I could be like I could take that and be like

oh man like

I could have shame over whatever old dad did and like

I'm so sorry that I was that way

and I could get stuck in that

it's it would be easy to do that

but for there to be an old dad

it means there has to be a new dad

that's right and

and that is my progress and to hear

them

for them to be able to articulate

the difference in how I'm handling things now

versus how I used to

to come from two kids that aren't that old

it's just it's just like yeah

like I want that for everybody

I want that for everybody

it's progress as people like again

we're not we're not trying to be perfect here

we're just trying to improve and just do

do better as a dad and I don't know

it's right there for all of us

yeah I

I have this uh

one of

one of kind of the principles that I've identified in

in this space is um

that excellence is failure

right and which is that

that you need to continuously fail

you need to fail and recognize that you failed

and then take corrective action

and then that gets you closer

to and you're going to I

I remember watching this um

Blue Angels debrief on YouTube at one point in time and

you know they were in the debriefing room and the

the these guys were talking about

just the

minute mistakes that they made

during this practice performance that they did

oh you know

when we did the high speed pass

which is when you know

two f a teens approach each other at

and 12 miles an hour closing speed or whatever it is

I was I was 15 feet low

15 feet right

and um

and I was thinking man I

I would struggle to get within 100 feet of the target

you know they're flying on a knife edge and

and noticing that they're 15 feet low

and the way that

that happens is they didn't start off 15 feet low

they started off being able to be within

you know 100 or 200 feet

and then they notice that and then you

you take a little bit of corrective action

and I feel like I feel like we all have

in any given moment we have a capacity for correction

it's like

you can only touch the steering wheel one time

every 30 seconds and if you're doing that

and your car is just wildly

careening all over the road

then every touch of the

steering wheel has to be a pretty large correction

but if you're if you're focused on okay

you know you really recognize

I can touch the steering wheel once every 30 seconds

so that means every 30 seconds

I really do wanna touch the steering wheel

and I do really wanna recognize

and every time I touch the steering wheel

I wanna say okay how far am I away from center

and really be intentional about how much

I move the steering wheel

then over time you're gonna get better and better

you're gonna get more and more

in the center of that lane

and pretty soon

your corrections are gonna be a millimeter here

and a millimeter there yeah

and but you're still gonna be making corrections

you're still gonna be making

the same number of corrections

you're still gonna be touching the steering wheel

every 30 seconds but instead of these wild swings

it's going to be these minute corrections

and the difference in so in excellence is not oh

is not oh

I don't I don't ever have to touch the steering wheel

because I'm an amazing driver

it's I still touch the steering wheel

it's just the corrections I have to make are so minute

yeah I love that

and

when you get your opportunity to make that correction

you make the correction

based off of where you're going to be

30 seconds from now not where you are currently

so you are literally

you're pointing to a different place

and that to me is like that's intention right

you're not reacting you are making a conscious decision

based off of evidence and circumstances

and a desired outcome and you're

you're acting based off of that

and like I that's one of the things

that's one of the lessons um

in the eight week course that I do

it's talking about responding versus reacting

and that's basically that's a total parallel

to everything that you just said

it's a you know

they sound similar um

but they are miles apart in terms of the outcome

yeah

so you started a community on school and on

which is a which is a platform

tell me a little bit more about that and

and where can people get in

what's it about and where should people get involved

oh thank you

um yeah

so I

I opened the doors to my school community that's s k

o o L um

about three weeks ago

and it is a place where dads that are willing to

you know raise their hand and say

I don't have everything figured out

but my kids mean so much to me that I

I want to improve and

and I and I know that I'll be more likely

and more energized to do it

with other people around me

that feel the same way that I do

and you know

that's it's only been open for a couple weeks

and there's already 26 people in there

and to see

we're doing this thing that I call the 30 day

light your fire challenge

so one of the cool things about school as a platform

is they kind of gamify things

and so

if you're active on the platform for 30 days in a row

you'll get a little fire icon by your name

and I was thinking about that

and it's a symbol of you know

how intentional

how dedicated you are to doing this work

and the platform

platform will reward you with this little icon

and so I was like well

let's get some dads in here

and let's be active for 30 days in a row where we just

we set a goal

or an intention for how we wanna show up that day

excuse me show up that day as a father

and maybe it's like I wanna be a better listener

and one of the things that

that I did was when my kids talk

I'm going to let there be some silence

uh naturally

and I think a lot of people do it

like we we rush right in

they finish talking I'm not interrupting

but they'd finish and then I'd say something

yeah and just the day that I did it

the the two things that I ended up learning

from my daughter

as a result of just not talking for a couple seconds

was unbelievable and so like that's one example

so you show up in the morning

like hey

this is what I'm gonna try today

and then you come back in the evening you're like hey

this is how it went

and sometimes like we miss and it's not a success

but other times like

there are these moments that these dads are in there

and and their intentions are making it possible

and it's so cool to see it happening

and now there's dads in there and like

this is feedback that I've received from them

they're like I'm shopping around

looking at what these other dads are trying

and it's like a menu of things that like

we don't have to necessarily

you know recreate the wheel

and come up with these things ourselves

you're like oh

look at what this guy did

you know one guy talked about his no phone zone

that he's set up in his house

where he doesn't take his phone upstairs

because that's where the kids bedrooms are

and that's where playtime is and all that stuff

so as he's going up to his kids room

phone goes on the banister

and he just leaves it behind

and other people are like

oh that's really cool

I'm gonna try that so it's

it's a place where you can get support from people

you can get ideas you know

we're challenging each other like there's

there's moments where people ask questions to like

maybe dig a little bit deeper

on things that are going on

and uh I honestly

I'm just kind of blown away by the initial response

and like the value that people are getting from it and

uh yeah

it's free

so if anybody's hearing this and they think like

now's the right time to uh

you know

to put in some work when it comes to being the dad

that they wanna be the DOC dad

the guy that's sitting on me on the dock

and we're just sitting there

petting ourselves in the back

knowing that we just absolutely crushed it

when it came to being a dad

yeah come join us

like there's again

there's no cost come jump in

come do the 30 day challenge

and just kind of watch what happens

that sounds awesome yeah

I uh

and so

the links to all of those things are in the show notes

and I'll tell you what John

I'll I'll make a commitment to you

I I will join the

I will join the platform

and I will do the 30 day challenge starting today

awesome as soon as we get talk

as soon as we get finished talking

you'll see me on the platform and and

and I'll get on there that's so cool

well

then then the

the invitation to anybody that's hearing this just got

uh a little bit richer

come come join Sean

like you're already listening to his podcast

come join him and do it alongside him and

and I'm in there as well I'm not just in there

like trying to lead the thing

I'm on day 14 right now so it doesn't matter

you don't have to wait for the thing to reset

there's people on different days

just yeah

just jump in see what happens

and I'll be there and I hope to see

I hope to see a bunch of our listeners over there

as well how cool is that

now I always love to finish up these conversations

by putting the guest on the spot and uh

and so I I

I know I didn't warn you about this

but um

what give me one principle that you think

what comes to mind when I ask you for one principle

about about excellence in being a dad

and in particular in about

about raising men

hmm

well a

something that I've really been leaning into as of late

is vulnerability

and

that is something that if

that I hope to instill in my kids um

because I wasn't that way

I always wanted to present kind of a facade

a version of myself that I

I thought would get approval from people

you know socially

it would be promotable at work

and it's just it's so

it's so exhausting and it's so draining

to try to create this version for other people

so being being authentic

but in order to be authentic

and just speaking for myself is I

I have to be okay with being vulnerable

and sharing things that I've

hid for a long time so

you know I cry a lot and I think it

it's it's something that I've hid for a long time um

and my family they tease me about it now lovingly

you know if we're watching like

America's Got Talent and somebody's like

singing this incredible performance

they'll look over like dad

you crying and like there's like a coin toss that I

that I'll have a tear kind of coming out the side yep

but I I used to hide things like that

and so now the conversation is changing

where I'm talking to my kids about like hey

it's okay to just to be a real version of yourself

and yeah and the interesting thing is like

when we stop trying to create a

a version that we think people will like

and we actually just start being

the real version of ourselves

like magic happens because people can sense that

and when you're real with somebody

they're more likely to be real with you back

and like that's when like

human beings

can start just being humans with each other

instead of feeling like we're in this competition

or this race or being unwilling to show that like

life is hard and that we all have challenges

like there's something so refreshing

to be around another person

where it's just like ugh

like we don't have to pretend like we can just yeah

we can just be real people around each other

so there you go be vulnerable

be authentic I love that I I uh

I definitely still to this day

feel shame if I start to cry

and as as I I think as you get older um

the propensity to cry gets higher I

I mean for whatever reason

and just things seem much more poignant to you and

and so it's definitely happens to me

I'll cry in movies where I wouldn't have 20 years ago

and I'm reading a book

right now called super Communicators by Charles Duhigg

and he goes so far to say that there's no connection

without vulnerability

that there is actually a physical

thing that happens in our brains

when we connect

and where we get on the same wavelength literally

and that connection doesn't happen if

or you can jumpstart

that connection by being vulnerable with one another by

by by having an emotional discussion and

and it doesn't happen if you don't you can

you know

you can have a planning discussion and that's fine and

and that's you know

there's there's nothing wrong with that

but that's not where connection is

connection is in an is in that vulnerability space

and I think that we're getting to a point where

connection is becoming a lot more important than it

than it used to be in professional life

in our ability to succeed in our culture

in just about everything

and that's part of what I consider to be the

masculinity crisis that we're going through is

we're not trained

we are not by default wired to connect with one another

that's what women do and they're better at it

and so

they're more suited to the modern world than we are

in that respect and we gotta get good at it

yeah and

and that's that's part of it

I love it yeah

and I I agree with everything that you just said

and I think you know

when you think about artificial intelligence and

and what it's going to do

I think the value of authentic

human interaction is only going to increase

yeah and so I

you know if you start thinking about AI

it's really easy to go down a dark path

and just to think about what could happen

um I am choosing to be optimistic about it

and to think that

it will cause the pendulum to swing in a direction

where

where people seek out real human connection

because it will be more scares

but it will then by default

be more valuable that's exactly right

I I

I think you're right about that

and I hope we end up in that future

I do I really do

and you know what I

the arc of history tends to go that direction

and so I think the optimism is warranted there

but the pessimism is also warranted

like if you worry about it

then we can prevent the bad future as well

mm hmm yeah

well John

it has been an absolute pleasure

thank you so much for spending the time today

and coming on the show

and I look forward to seeing you on the engaged father

a school platform I

I'm I'm really

really excited about taking that 30 day challenge

awesome uh

and thank you for the time Shawn

you are incredible this has been an absolute blast

um to share this time and this space with you

so I really really do appreciate it

thank you likewise

and uh

and to all of our listeners and watchers

if you're ready to stop reacting and uh

start leading your son with radical intentionality

um and

and practice some of the things that John Hoard

shared today

head over to the Engaged Father Project and uh

and and join

join the school platform um

that's and

and I'd like to see you there

and please reach out to me

or you can visit Raising Dot Men for today's episode

tools and remember you are a great parent

raising men is produced by Phil Hernandez

this episode was edited by Ralph Tolentino