is just kind of a general question obviously

but I I do think that it

it always come it just comes back to balance

and I and I feel like

that's what I'm trying to work hard to do

especially with my oldest

cause he's a you know

you deal with your kids at the level that they're at

now I'm telling

now I'm trying to communicate to him

why I ride him so hard you know

like now I'm trying to tell him like hey

you know like I'll give you a perfect example

he's a good basketball player for his age

and I I just find sports

to be you know

lately this year all of a sudden

like I didn't I've been working with

with he's left handed

and so we've been working on right hand layups

since he was probably a third grader

and now he's a fifth grader

and then all of a sudden this year

this kid

he's

I wanna say he's 7 for 7 right handed layups in games

and you know

it's like I'm I'm trying to like show him like

this is hard work paying off

this is what it looks like

this is what

but the end results maybe it's two years later

but once you get it now now you got it

he understands it and hoping like you said that

that it doesn't take something tragic for him to really

but I'm trying to explain it to him and

and hopefully you know

come to an understanding of why I do what I do

and not just bark at him and say

do this do that

do this do that

you know like

you went you know how you feel right now

you feel this way you feel so good right now

because of all that hard work that we did together

and you created that touchstone there and he know

maybe it's inaccessible to him

maybe he doesn't maybe he does maybe he gets it

maybe he doesn't

you have to connect the value back to the activity

I gotta re figure it out with my younger one

because my younger one my older one took to basketball

he's watching YouTube videos of Kobe Bryant

you know is

is much more the child of the era

how do I get him to now adopt hard work and

and not just what you're good at

cause he's a he's a reader

he's a good reader he's

he does he's naturally

he's a smart kid

no kidding oh my gosh

we gotta get them together I got some criticism yeah

yeah man I am

I was kind of late in life

I got some criticism from what are you like

you playing volleyball

agreed agreed yeah

that you and I I feel your pain because that you

you have the genetic sauce

yeah

I I like there's this one kid that I was like

I was like I don't know if he should

yes and then

and you know what and anyone who could play basketball

could play volleyball

come on man just get it in there

and you guys are both tall

does your daughter play any sports

yeah

she's gonna take to it like a fish in water

yeah

it's a

it's a it feels like an asset

100% and she's gorgeous right

and I'm just so thankful that she's a three sport girl

you know what I mean the

the what's waiting for her

but that that that athletics are so good

especially for young women

you know in a world where there's just so many weirdos

father and uh

and

and some place to be is just essential for every kid

you know some kids are gonna go to

that keeps them busy and active

you got to like

I wanna just take every kid in the world and be like

is your is your parents over 6 feet tall

back when I was in high school

you played high school sports

and you played all the sports

nobody like maybe you would be really really

really good and you'd end up going to college

and that would sort of naturally happen

you didn't actually have to design it out

to being good at baseball

and then you go to all the camps

and you do the club sports

and you're traveling around

and you're spending tons of money

and then maybe you'll go to a D3 school and and

and have a shot

it is and I don't

you know um

one of my challenges is trying to get my oldest son

Lincoln to really pick up

get serious about a second sport

what he wants to do he will excel at

he is passionate about he will work hard

he will do the least amount

but but

but to talk to what you just

said it's there's so much pressure

I mean he plays on an elite AU team in the fall

he's gonna play school ball

which I'll coach in the winter time

I don't love that but

but then what about the kids that do

do the three seasons right

you know and it's like I I it's just a

volleyball

and now he has a different kind of conditioning

and he can jump higher and he's

yeah

I I I definitely I've he plays a little bit of tennis

he's really good at tennis but um

you know once he gets in front of a group of people

he's not gonna

wanna be bad at something where people are watching

you know

one of the things that impresses me so much about you

is how open you are about like

just your messy life

and especially when it comes to parenting

you know and

and the

the journey that you have out there with your kids um

you know what what motivates you to do that

what I mean that's there's risk there

but there's you know what why do you do that

why why is that important to you

my wife No. 1 you know uh

she definitely got into social media before like

we kind of did it at the same time actually

because I started with the podcast and

and she started with her her own kind of like um

building her own business online

at first like everybody it was annoying right

at first I was like oh man

I don't wanna do that that's stupid right

and and then as I saw like

oh oh

like this is this is becoming not just you know

lucrative but um

and then she was like you know

having fun and I was realizing that it

it she was reaching a broader audience

so that was No. 1 that I kind of opened up to that

and um

and um

it was kind of like The Daily Show for Portland okay

and over it

it deal in like when someone would recognize me

I would immediately

I took the extraordinary step of

deleting everything that I'd previously done offline

and

build a different brand

that's just gonna be fun and more accessible

which it you know what do I want them to see

what do I want I started coaching right and I was like

yo what do I want hey

take my kid for an hour right

and so do I want to alienate half the team

do I want to make these people feel uncomfortable

you know especially

cause I come from a hip hop background

and I kind of realize like their street credibility

I hear guys talk about how cool they are

how many women they have they were as a young man

I was inundated with this kind of stuff

you know like that that guy once I kind of you know

all those things kind of came together

and I realized like

there's really not a lot of dudes out here

especially like

I feel like there there wasn't a lot of guys

kind of just being like a public father

I like man it's so cool to like see you with your kids

and it's like oh

you're the you know

like you're like the neighborhood dad now you know

and it was how people reacted to that

and seeing how people you know

young men going like and and guys that like

you know I these are big scary guys

you know like these are tough guys

I'm not trying to be tough

so now they're like

I don't gotta be tough with this guy

he's a he's a dad and a husband

you know obviously

I don't want to embarrass my kids right

I don't want them to like resent me in the future

but I do think it there's a lot of value in kind of

just being open about the struggles that I feel like

are relatable

yes

you know men are just beginning to learn or you know

they are being forced to learn

it's like we have a castle

and you know look at how impenetrable my castle is

and you could you could have 1 thousand archers and

and trebuchets

and all of that stuff attacking my castle

and it's so strong that it will withstand anything

the measure of the strength of the castle

is how big the enclosure is

it's how it's how large the area that is protected is

then that's actually not as good

is if you have a weaker castle

that encompasses the entire region

willing to allow some risk there in order to be more

to have a bigger enclosure

and learn from those people

and buy things from those people

and barter with those people

and they bring in information and tools and money and

you know if you notice

like I watch a lot of cult documentaries

you know what I mean and it's cause you go oh

that's how that is right

and a lot of that

the true measure of strength is

how well do they do once they leave

did you give them enough tools to be productive

you know to be successful

Protection you know

or can they go out and be the protector

yeah yeah

I'm still working on it

so what values do you hope that your kids

carry from how you parent them

hard work compassion

definitely I want them to be empathetic people

I want them to understand that um

they've had a pretty privileged upbringing

I think I also Learned from my mom um

I I don't do like the unconditional love thing

you know what I mean even though technically it's there

right

you know what I mean like you

you and

and you can't talk to me any kind of way you want

you can't talk to adults any way you want

you can't behave any way you want at school

you know you

you I

you can't be fighting in school

you can't be you know there's

there's so I do think like

you know me

and my wife

are probably a little bit different on that

as far as like

you know my wife will will love my boy

I think about one of the big lessons for me about

about parenting has has

that I've managed to figure out

in the short time that it's been an issue

is it's all about managing tensions

between unconditional love

and letting your kids walk all over you

is a love that's unconditional

he was worried that he wouldn't be able to live with us

until he was 50

because my wife had told him that

he was gonna be out on his own someday

I told him I said listen

you can live with me until you're 50

as long as you wanna live with me

I want you here he goes

but there might come a time where you wanna move away

and if you wanna

if you wanna live with me until you're 50

you can live with me until you're fifty

I still want him to feel like you have a home here

no matter what

and I remember thinking I'm trying

my brain was just running at 9,000 miles an hour

because on the one hand

I want to give him the comfort he's seeking

I don't want him when he's 26 years old

I don't want him living at home

the time to have that discussion is when he's sixteen

I I get it man

my my wife just had a conversation with um

Lincoln because he he says to her

he goes mom

he was like what

what am I gonna do when I'm in college

cause he's got a signature afro

are you gonna come with me

cause like who's gonna do my hair

it's his own thing you know

our kids have very different hair from each other and

and I'm in the background like shit

a little thing called girls is just

they're right around the corner

and once he figures out girls and all that

so tell me what

what advice would you give to dads who feel like

maybe they're failing or

they're falling short of the ideal

they have in their heads

or what society expects from them

you know my son

success is

my son learning how to do a right handed layup right

it's trying and failing over and over and over again

until one day that thing clicks

like you you

you learn how to have different conversations

different ways you try it

it fails miserably you try it again

you know that's

you just you just can't quit

you literally can't stop being a dad

it's it's time for you to like

have a conversation about sex with your son

like you gotta you gotta like we

we gotta

we gotta get there before the school gets there

like you're right

you're right you know

I'm dreading it cause my kid looks at me

you know Lincoln

the older one he looks at me and it's take

take Rocky out take him out

have some dinner or something

and I sat down with Lincoln and we played chess

and we started playing chess and uh

and I'm like alright

you know we're

we're gonna have a

we're gonna do this every once in a while

we're gonna play chess we're gonna have a conversation

about some uncomfortable stuff

I mean I'm like

what are you saying like

you sound so stupid right now

what you know

and

and then so I'm smiling and I'm laughing

cause he's just making me laugh

I honestly have no idea what

but uh

I had a good time and

you know

and you know

you just gotta try to be an example

and the the other thing that I would say is if you're

especially if you're

if you're fortunate enough to live with the mother of

your children and if you're married especially

like you have to show your son how to love their mother

yeah you

you you have to show them what it looks like

because I do feel like so

so much of us you know

we talked about the career dads and these dads

and that dads and

and so a lot of us a lot of my friends grew up in

in single parent homes and so

but you know what every single friend that I have

that grew up in a single parent home

that I'm still friends with

yeah yeah

you know

my generation has done a really good job of kind of

breaking generational curses

but also showing these kids like

this is the only way to treat a woman

you know you can't

it is so important yeah

I I remember being so uncomfortable

whenever a man would show my mom affection

mm hmm

you know and so it was just like ugh

you know it was just gross

right

I was okay with

and took a very long time for me to like

accept any man that she liked

and advice that I would give is just show

yeah

show love love their mother as best as you can and

and that will I think

bring a a certain amount of harmony to your household

um that

that will be just invaluable

yeah I

I that's a really

really such a good sentiment

and I you know

there's

something that came to mind

when you were talking about

the first thing is that excellence is failure

the vast majority of the time

if you were perfect at something or if you just

you know if you

if you if you think you did it great

you probably didn't in the whole scheme of things

you were probably just measuring yourself against the

the very first time you did something

if you were excellent at it

if you thought you were excellent at it

you're not there and failing and failing and failing

and so excellence is about going out there and failing

and failing and failing and failing and failing

and then you look around and all of a sudden

you failed a little bit less

than the guy next to you or than you used to and

and so you know

if you're sitting there feeling like you're failing

as a father then you're on the road to excellence

if you're sitting there feeling like

you hung the freaking moon

I got news for you life is coming

and it's gonna show you how wrong you are

I think you're that's

that's the key I wish

I don't think I even heard that until I was like

out of school

yeah

fuck is failure you know

like failure is the greatest thing ever

yeah

right

no failure is how you succeed

you cannot no one does it right the first time ever

right

as men and then to impart that

you know just like dude

don't be afraid of failure

cause you'll never do anything

you'll never do anything you'll

you will you will create a sandbox around yourself

where you get to only succeed in this tiny

little domain

and then you're nowhere you can do nothing

but if you're comfortable failing

then you you can do anything in the world

yeah yeah

I love to uh uh

end these conversations by putting people on the spot

and so I will do a very brief apology

by putting you on the spot

but I wanna ask you

what is one principle

that you like to live your life by

that you could share about how to raise powerful

compassionate men

uh

don't be a dick

right like

being a dick and what I

what I mean by being a dick is like you

you start you cross over from

from assertive into dickishness

when you start cutting people down

yeah

but you you gotta follow it up with like dude

you're you're great at this

you're great at that you just gotta get better at this

you know you have to

you can't just tear a kid down and then walk away

right

yeah

I hold grudges to this day

yeah

coaches I will never speak to again

you know what I mean like you

I pass them in the street

they go hey Shawn yeah

how you doing how you doing Doug

you know what I mean like

keep it keep it

keep it pushing

you don't even remember it but I do

I

when I was in second grade

um I had been in

I had been in private school my whole life

kindergarten and 1st grade right

not not much of a life

but I talked my parents

into putting me in public school um

for 2nd grade

I I

I can't I don't know why

my parents would have listened to a 2nd grader um

it it

it's insane

it's insane I lived in we lived in Hollywood California

this was an inner city public school

I ended up leaving this school because one day my mom

or so my uh

I was out in the playground after school

because my mom was working

and she would come pick me up around 5 or six PM

and so

and we would just be out in the schoolyard playing

afterwards no official after school program

anything like that just out in the schoolyard playing

and I was playing this stupid

game with a buddy of mine who what

and the game was we would go to the drinking fountain

and fill up our mouths

and then spit the water on each other

and haha and so I

I went over to the drinking fountain

and I was filling up my mouth

and I heard my buddy sneaking up behind me

and I was like oh

I'm gonna get him I filled my mouth up with this giant

massive water

and I swirled around and spit it right into his face

but it wasn't him

it was a sixth grader

oh

I was a big second grader

but behind him was another sixth grader

who was about your size today

in my memory he was I don't know man

this kid in my memory

he weighed 355 pounds and was 9 feet tall

and I looked at this guy and this guy goes

you're dead and I took off running

and I ran for a good five minutes

it felt like and I was running around

I look back and like this

the kid was falling behind

the sixth grader was falling behind

I'm like yeah

I'm doing good I'm doing good

and I look in front of me and all I saw was chest

and it was the sixth grader

the other his friend

and he had cut me off and I banged into him

and this guy wheeled me around

he held my arms behind my back

and the sixth grader who was my size

the spit the one I spit on

just started wailing on me

and just beating the crap out of me

and it was like

and I and I remember thinking what time is it

there's no way

my mom's not gonna be here for an hour and a half

I'm screwed

and I hear from the other side of the playground

I hear this banshee wail

was screaming at the top of her lungs

she had come an hour and a half early

to come pick me up

and she had her heels in her hand

and she was running across the playground

and she was screaming at these kids

what are you doing and

and and she rescued me

and that was the last day I spent in public school

um but while I was at this public school

um

I started off in second grade and within about a month

I was in third grade and

and about a month later I was in third grade

but doing fourth grade reading

and I was just kind of marching up

I was just like

I just got this stuff that they were teaching

and it turns out that the teacher hated me

and I didn't know

and so one day

I actually didn't even realize this

until 20 years later and I had to go to the bathroom

we needed permission to go to the bathroom

and so I raised my hand and she didn't call on me

and I stood there

sat there with my hand up for about 15 minutes

and I had to pee so bad man and I

I felt this pressure

and just a tiny little bit of pee leaked out

and I and I caught it and

the

the feeling I had that that

just

this relief that I had from that pressure in the tiny

little amount of pee that

that that leaked out it felt so good

and I looked down and you couldn't even tell thought

oh man you know

maybe I can you know

maybe that's okay maybe my pants will absorb it and and

and it'll be alright and I let a little bit more out

and then I ended up letting it all out

and then it came time for me to leave

the third grade classroom

and go over to the fourth grade classroom

for the reading

and so I got up and I left

and I didn't know this

but there was a puddle of pee in my seat

and so they came over they

the teacher sent kids over to the 4th grade classroom

to come and get me

and I had to go and get a bunch of towels

and clean it all up in front of the whole class

and that teacher

she did it on purpose

she knew I was holding my hand in the air

she she saw that

she just didn't call on me

because maybe she thought I was gonna say something

I don't know I

I still to this day don't know

but I remember it like it was yesterday

and it actually helped like it guided my life in a way

I became iconoclastic

I became anti authority as a result of this because I

I realized I mean

this was evil what she did

I mean to a little kid

a second grader 8 year old kid

I and I

I I mean

to this day it

it's been you know

40 years and uh

it still affects me

it's nuts

yeah

don't be a dick

Ja

yeah

isn't it is it just me

or is like I feel like nobody ever wants to be

I think people get I

I think some people get their sense of empowerment

from being able to you know

it's like

I used to have this girlfriend back when I was single

I had this girlfriend who

it was almost like

she got her sense of how much I loved her

by how

how much she could ruin my life

like just how much pain she could inflict on me

and then and then she felt like oh

you know if she had a flat tire

I would come help her do it

and so she was constantly having emergencies

that I had to rescue from

and stuff like that I think it's like that

I think people some people

get their sense of empowerment

from how much they can affect someone else's mood or or

or someone else's life and I think that's what it is

it's crazy but I mean there

you you know what

that you should feel that way

you should feel a sense of empowerment

of how much you can affect someone's life in a good way

like why

isn't that

where you're getting your sense of empowerment

it's easy to I mean I remember I went

I went I went through this period where

when this was still kind of a thing

I would drive through the drive through at McDonald's

and I would pay for the person behind me

and I just realized that for something like 10 bucks

I could make someone's day

and I I wouldn't do it

I wouldn't do it even every day

but once a week

yeah

cause I imagine

how would I feel if somebody paid for my stuff

and I don't know maybe they'll pay it forward

and so that's what I did

I went and I felt so freaking great after doing that

and I never even met anybody

it's so powerful

what you're saying and and what

what what

what we're both kind of getting at is I think the

the the

the power behind this this show

this podcast

when you ask the question

what makes someone a dick

what what makes them what wires them that way

they were raised by a dick

yeah

that humiliated them

that is such a powerful statement

yeah

that's that's how they show love

right

they're probably gonna do to someone else

yeah or what they witness you do to a third party

so that's why yeah I always like I will

that is like a hard line for me

if I ever got a call that my kid was bullying somebody

picking on somebody that would be

that would

probably be the hardest conversation we would have

yeah

yeah

cause life is too precious

life is too precious it's too short

it's too finite

yeah

and you have the power to do that

you have the power to make someone's day

just as much as you have to destroy it

yeah

yeah

if I see especially an older woman right

and she could be 40 feet behind me

if I'm opening a door

I look behind me and I and I see a woman

you know I'm gonna hold that door

I know I have this calculus there

because I also don't want that woman to feel like

she has to rush in order to do this thing that yeah

yeah yeah

take your time

yeah but then

you have to say it in such a way that makes it

clear that you're not being ironic

I mean that's

I think about this

I think about how far in front of somebody should I be

in order to hold the door

that's really funny

yeah

I was too

yeah

that's that's great

your your mom and my mom would have been really

would have gotten along I think that's

yeah it was

it was uh

it was great yeah

she was uh

she was she was great

I wish she was still with me

we lost her when I was 21

which is so early and uh

man there's nothing

I wouldn't give it for her to be able to meet my kids

I would you're

you're so fortunate you have that

yeah well

you know it

it's the fact is we

she was amazing she was

she gave us the best life

and she was taken from us too soon

but I wouldn't trade it for the world

uh she I

I I was glad to have had her

for the amount of time I had her

she was really really really spectacular

and that's a beautiful place for

for us and my guest today has been Sean Harvey

he's the co host of The Kids Are Asleep

and he joins us from Portland Oregon

thanks so much Sean

raising men is produced by Phil Hernandez

this episode was edited by Ralph Tolentino