if we were starting to act up

or she was starting to get irritated with me and Matt

fighting or whatever

um she would say 7

6 8 2

1 5

3 be what that meant was I'll call your dad

and we knew like if if

if mom gave us a punishment

it was go to your room for five minutes right

yeah but if you gave us a punishment

it was go to your room for a week and so

and get your butt spanked yeah

and so we would just absolutely be terrified

haha if

if she was gonna

if she was gonna dial that number and that uh

that scared us straight

welcome back to raising men

now

we say that raising men starts with raising ourselves

but in order to truly understand the men we are today

we have to have the courage to look through

the generational rearview mirror

so today's episode is a little bit different

in honor of Father's Day it's kind of a personal thing

my guest today spent decades under the high pressure

bright lights of elite television sports broadcasting

he navigated major media markets

interviewed the greatest athletes of an era

and he carried the massive

cultural

weight of what it meant to be a successful provider

in the 1980s and 90s he also happens to be my dad

Ted Dawson is sitting with me today dad

welcome to raising that thank you Sean

it's an honor to be here well

you have been absolutely instrumental in uh

in in this uh

in this entire project for me

and it is really really exciting uh

for me to sit down across from you like this

thank you I feel the same way

well let's uh

let's start with kind of a cultural mandate of your era

that kind of persists today

um so

there is a study from ecomundo

showing that 86% of US men

believe that being the primary financial provider

is the single most defining trait

of manhood now

this is something that I mean I

I gotta say candidly uh

this is something you knocked out of the park right

you provided you provided us with a life

incredibly rich in experience and

you know we didn't really want for much

we had an amazing freaking childhood and oh

thank you yeah

and more more

more than that you later reached out

and you helped me buy my first business

which is a move that literally

propelled me to financial independence

it wouldn't happen without you

I want to take this opportunity

to express my appreciation about that

and it completely like I said

it completely uh

changed the trajectory of my life

thank you um

as I know from now having my own kids

that level of provision requires a massive

internal toll

and so

I'm interested looking back at those high stake years

how do you how did you balance

that intense drive to secure our future

with the emotional needs of the family at home

did you think about that or what

you know no

how did you try to do that

I guess that's how I managed it

in that I was concentrating on my career

yeah we both know

you had an incredible mother who handled that

that was all I did was turn my check over to her

haha

she handled it she was the one that worried about it

so I was concerned with my career

I was concerned with getting the latest interview and

and going the latest sporting event

your mom is the one who faced the

the problem of providing for you

yeah and she did a remarkable job

as most women do

yeah we were

we were fortunate to have her

and we'll talk more about her uh

definitely uh

in the later part of the episode

I um

do you I mean

how do you feel about that looking back on that

was that the right call

or would you have balanced things differently

would you have done you know

how would you have handled it

absolutely it was the best thing for me

yeah I could concentrate on my career

my full concentration was on my career

and she had everything else

I did some discipline and very little

yeah I

I remember um

I I can almost produce your

your uh

work phone number in Los Angeles because there was this

um

uh yeah

it was 7 6

8 8 1

2 3

yes and the reason that I remember that that I mean

literally it's been 40 years

40 years right

um since I've

since I've heard that that number

the reason that I remember it is because Ma would

mom would say that if we were starting to act up

or she was starting to get uh

irritated with me and Matt fighting or whatever um

she would say 7 6

8 2

1 5

3 and that would be what that meant was

I'll call your dad and we knew like if

if if mom gave us a punishment

it was go to your room for five minutes right

yeah but if you gave us a punishment

it was go to your room for a week and so

and get your butt spanked

yeah and so we

we would just absolutely be terrified

haha if

if she was gonna

if she was gonna dial that number and that uh

that scared us straight

ha ha

it was more of a problem for me than it was for

for Matt Matt

um

man he did not get in trouble as much as I did yeah

well here's the story I like to tell yeah

when you were young

your mom and I would tell you to do something

no

I'm not gonna do it no

you can't make me do it no

absolutely not but then you would eventually do it

yeah Matt

well glad yes dad

what what can I do to help how

how can I help you let me do more what

what can I do for you dad and they wouldn't do it

so I always figured you were better

it was better to do it your way than Matt's way

well it was better for

it was better for Matt to do it his way

it was better for you if I did it my way

yeah

so yeah

Matt yeah

Matt used to say that I mean

he would just watch me be like

what an idiot what is this idiot doing

and I remember there was one time

uh

I was I don't remember how old we were

we were still in the Hollywood house

oh and um

I used to get spanked all the time man

I really like

I feel like I spent my childhood getting my

getting my my ass whipped by you

and there used to be this just there

it was like being on death row

there was a whole process involved in getting spanked

you'd we have to go to a room

she hated it she hated it

oh man

I I yeah yeah yeah

I imagine

well so when we would

we would we would go to our room

we did we'd be sent to our room for like an hour to

await the punishment right

and then you know

to sit and dwell on what we did

and then you know

after the hour was up

we would be brought into your room

which was down this long hallway from our room

and you'd be sitting on your bed and

and you know

you'd we'd

we'd get draped over your leg and you'd

you'd smack us and we'd scream and cry

and then it was over

and so there's only one time I remember

I I

I got spanked all the time

but there's only one time

I remember Matt getting spanked

and I don't remember what he did

my recollection is that I probably

goaded him into doing something that I knew

would get him spanked and so

like I I

I arranged for the situation

that resulted in him getting spanked and

and I remember sitting with him in that hour

before the actual event in

in the death row time and he was really scared

he was really nervous

and he was like and he was

I don't know he's probably

he was young

he was probably 3 or 5 or something like that

so I would have been yeah

I would have been eight and

and he was just he was terrified and

and he was like oh

you know what's it like

and I was like oh

it hurts a lot and I was milking it right

you know I wanted

I wanted him to experience the negativity and

and uh

he's like and he's like

and so I was telling him and he's like

well maybe I could put a book down my pants

so it doesn't hurt as bad

I said well

you know

he'll feel the book and so he'll know that you're

and then that's just gonna make it all the worse and

and he you know

he was you know

I could maybe I could put toilet paper down there

and it's the same thing man

I mean he's

he's he's gonna know that you have padding there

I said I think it's just best

you're just gonna have to

you're just gonna have to go through with it

so when he finally when it finally became time

and mom came to our room to get him

and to march him down the gallows

and I was following behind

mom draped him over your

over your knee and you gave him two quick swats

and Matt stood up and he looked around

he goes

that wasn't so bad yeah

I know yeah

and I was watching this happen and I was just

oh no

and you grabbed him and in my recollection

you beat him to within an inch of his life

I'm sure that's not what happened

I'm sure you hit him a couple more times

that was the deal

but I did give him a couple of big ones

ha ha ha I just remember watching this whole thing

happen just going oh no

oh gosh that was did you fake your kids

no you don't

no we

it's not necessarily we rough house a lot

I rough house with my kids a lot

but never it's never an angry thing

um

I have video of you throwing like across the room

yeah what

across the room I

I'll see if we can share some of that video here

because that is that

that is a a great time

he's probably 18 months old in that video

I know exactly what video you're talking about yeah

I loved it he was cackling like

like nobody's business he had so much fun

yeah we um

yeah we don't

we don't we don't use physical violence

um like that

um and I don't

it's not it's not something that I

it's not like a philosophy that we've sat down and oh

you know we don't do this or we do do that

it's just not it just hasn't

hasn't been part of our our thing

I haven't really thought that deeply about it about it

I like we we do rough house a lot

and there is no shortage of times when

I'll be rough housing with lake

and he'll end up crying or mo um

same thing you know

she'll just like I mean they'll

they'll

they end up crying a lot because things get out of hand

but but yeah

we don't we don't

we don't spank them but not in punishment

what in punishment at your house

yeah we end up

um

you know

I wouldn't necessarily call it so much a punishment

like we use natural consequences a lot

like there are just consequences of one

one of the things that we've been dealing a lot with

with lake you know

he's 7 now and

and we've been dealing with um

what are essentially honor code violations where we'll

we'll give him trust to do something

um so

for example we had an

is a situation not too long ago where

um he's not allowed to watch YouTube

and we have that lockdown because YouTube

it turns out is very addictive for him and

and it will he'll like

end up wanting to do nothing

yeah right

I mean it's not just for

for him it's for us too and

and so um

we had a we had a situation a couple months ago

where

he lied to us about getting his morning checklist done

he said he had it done when it wasn't done

because he just wanted to get to YouTube faster

and so then of course

when it was time to go to school

he had nothing done and we're like

wait a minute what the heck happened

and like dude

you lied to us you just lied like

and he doesn't lie and so times like

that's a really serious thing for him

and I um

I got very upset with him

I I made it really

really clear about how disappointed I was and that

that really affects him

um a lot

and he um

he actually started asking me for a while after that

what's our level of trust

you know and he wanted to

he wanted to know what it was in percentages

oh and

and I was like okay

you know our level of trust is like

like 40% right now and he's like 40%

he's very upset and then

and then but as

as you know

we gained more trust he was

what's our level of trust now

and I said well

you know

I think it feels to me like we're around 60 or 65% now

he's like really

oh that's great

and so it was weird and um

so we had this situation where we started

we let him watch YouTube again

same thing happened I just let him watch a couple shows

and the same thing happened

he didn't get his whole checklist done

it's like okay well

you know I mean

you know what the consequence of this has to be

we can't we can't let you watch YouTube in the mornings

and you know

he's like yeah

I understand it's and he's sad about it

but you know

I mean we do

we do a lot of that

there are often times where we get overwhelmed

like I I

I really don't want to lose my temper with them

but I'm really tempted to a lot um

I get really mad at the kids um

not a not a ton

but there are things that they do that just really

really tick me off and

but I don't want to be screaming at them

and stuff like that and so in those circumstances we

we we

you know we count them

which means we count to three and at three

you know

they're in their room for a period of time like

and they hate that and so

you know that's

that's probably about 90% of it okay

I I do want to correct something though

you weren't a bad kid I mean

he's stretching the imagination

so you didn't get spanked that much

ha ha ha it may seem like it

but it wasn't

I I feel like I was at odds with you and mom

I feel like I argued with mom constantly

I think you were at odds with her more than me

yeah yeah

we just um

we just I

we are a lot alike I think

and we just butted heads quite a bit and she

she didn't have to let that happen right

I mean she could have just shut me down

or she could have called you in

and there were times she did

but I think she wanted me to

I think she wanted me to be able to stand up for myself

and be able to argue be able to yeah

well I want to explain something to your viewers

and that is

and I think you you know this

whether you admit it or not

but you were always the smartest person in our family

always from the time you were 3 years old

you were smarter than anybody else

so we had to deal with that

we had to deal with your intelligence

so that was part of our challenge

yeah I

I I get that I

I have to deal with that with lake

he's unbelievably smart

I think he's smarter than I was

and it's it's

it's very very difficult

I'll tell your viewers a quick story

when you were 12 maybe I'm not 11

12 you play baseball and you were pretty good at it

but you wanted to pitch and you want a lot of people

so being a sports caster in Los Angeles

I arranged for the Dodger pitching coach to work with

you

remember we went to Dodger Stadium

I do I remember why

we went to the bullpen

and the pitching coach worked with you afterwards

he came to me and said

really good thing he's smart

hahaha

yeah

yeah I don't uh

you know that's funny cause I

I came away from that

with the feeling that I was a really good pitcher

from that whole session like

I mean it was

it was a formative um

it was a formative thing in my life

and like I remember it and it's sort of emblematic

of the kinds of opportunities that I had as a kid

that nobody else would have had right

you couldn't pay any amount of money to get an hour

with the Dodgers pitching coach

yeah as

as an 11 year old kid and yet I got that

I don't know if it was an hour but

but it was something and um

but I came away from that like feeling like I was

like I was this great pitcher and that I

you know because I had access to this stuff and I

and you know and I wasn't

and I don't know whether or not

it would have been better for me

to have been disabused of that

or what I like what should have

you know what

what what should have happened there or what

I know and I end it

go ahead

there's no question in my mind I did the right thing by

by

supporting you yeah

and pleasing you and pushing you

there's no question in my mind

even though I knew you you didn't have the talent to

to make it in the picture in

even maybe in high school

but at your age I wanted to support you

yeah and I would do it again

I wonder

you know I ended up falling in love with sports much

much later in life I

I fell in love with volleyball when I was 30

right and I was pretty good

I think if I'd

played volleyball when I was in 8th grade right

no I

I

I would have had the talent to do something meaningful

because I ended up

having the talent to do something meaningful

as an adult almost right

I just didn't have the years of experience

everybody else did and um

you know I

I wonder like

I worry about that for my kids

I want my kids to be excellent athletes

and I

I actually have to suppress that in myself because I

because really and I've

I've talked about this a lot on the show

um where

where

you know a lot of that is my own ego

I want to be the dad of a

of an elite athlete and I

I really struggle with that

and I I don't know

I wish that I guess I

you know I

I'm glad that you didn't

one thing that you absolutely did not do is

force me into a a particular rut or

or anything like like you weren't

if I if I wanted to play football great

if I didn't want to play football

that's great too

and you know I

I think you probably you instilled in me

you and mom both instilled in me that

you know if I committed to something

I had to finish it out but other than that

I wasn't forced to do anything in particular

but the drawback to that was that I

I didn't you know

I was a

little kid trying to figure out what I wanted to do

and I was kind of stupid with respect to that

maybe I would have benefited

from some of the parental wisdom uh or

or some guidance there I don't

you know

there's a tension there between those two things

and do you feel like

like how do you feel like you navigated that tension

you think would you do it differently now

no looking back

absolutely not because we let you do a lot of things

yeah I bet your viewers don't know that

you were a great actor

you were a wonderful actor when you were young

so that was your outlet yeah

and you started as Edmund in a Lion

the witch and the wardrobe

yeah that was a pretty yeah

kind of a major production

yeah yeah

and you were the star at 10 years old

or 11 or something so

and you were really good at it

so you made me buy my first video camera

hahaha yeah

I still remember having those VHS tapes laying around

somewhere

man too bad we don't have any video of that

I'm glad we won't be showing that

that's kind of funny

what

you know what do you think that

as a family

what do you think we did great

and then

what do you think we should have done differently

uh

well we all loved each other because

because we we all gathered around your mom

she was the central figure in our family

and her goodness shine down over all of us

she made us all better that's what I think we did best

now what we could have done better

I don't I honestly don't know

thinking back and I have

I can't imagine what I could have done different

yeah I

I

yeah she was a kind of a

kind of a rocket ship for us and

and it was

you know she was never out there in the arena right

but man

was she just an unbelievable cheerleader

and that's for sure and yeah

I mean I

I I'm with you

um

yeah yeah

I think we we really did do that great

she can make friends with anyone

I mean she had friends who were bumps on the street

and she was friend with Princess Diana

so I mean

she was that kind of person

I mean how do you look back on

I mean it's so

I don't I don't know

the audience might not know

we lost her when I was 21 years old

um which is

it was weird for me I mean

I have talked about this on the show

it was weird for me

when I finally crossed the boundary of

I became older than she ever was

and that was actually

that's part of the motivation for even doing the show

because it was like

in my mind she was this giant like

she could do no wrong

right and her memory is so powerful it

it's actually her memory is probably

far more powerful than she would have been

if she were a person now

probably

and because you would have gotten old and like me

crippled up and

and our voice wouldn't be as strong as it was

and all those things so to us

she will always be perfect

yeah yeah

yeah yeah

she man

she crushed it

what do you

I mean how do you feel about the path that you guys

worked together what would you

what would you tell her now

if she were still around or

boy did we have a great time

I wouldn't change a minute

not one thing

she she supported me at every step of my career

she never said oh

I enjoy living in Portland

why do we have to move to Los Angeles

she never said that

they just had a new brand new house

we just bought a brand new house

I got offered the job at CBS in Los Angeles

and she never blinked an eye

and we moved into a condo in Los Angeles

from a beautiful house in Portland

Oregon and she never blinked an eye

yeah and you had a one year old kid me yeah

yeah

yeah yeah

she was

yeah she was gun ho like yeah

I mean yes

yes and in every

in every way and she

she always used to say that

you bloom where you're planted and

you know she didn't man

I mean she had

she had like you said

she had so many friends and was so powerful in that way

she could make friends with anybody any

in any station or anything

and yet she it was like

she could be friends with those people from far away

that's fine like

she didn't have to like

she could be anything she could do anything

it was yeah

she was really really amazing in that way

yeah she was pretty amazing

I'll tell you a quick story that you may not know

but once you your kids were in school

she wanted to get a job

so she went out and she got jobs for people

whatever that career is yeah

yeah she got jobs for people

and her greatest accomplishment was one year

she made more money than I did

and and she thought that

that was the best thing that ever happened to her

it was that good that's amazing in

in her side gig

yeah yeah

that's fantastic

you know what

what do you think you know

if like looking back on it with

you know sort of the wisdom of years now

my recollection of your relationship with her is

it was bulletproof

like I didn't

I mean you guys would get in one fight a year

and it was usually a pretty bad one

I never really knew what they were about

or anything like that that was

that was sort of beyond me

but you know

I could tell when it was going on and but man

like it just seemed like

you guys were just really in each other's corners yep

what do you think are there

are there you know

strategies that you were intentional about

to make that happen or you did you just get lucky

I mean was it

well part of it was getting lucky

part of it is a mental thing where you just gonna

I'm gonna support you no matter what

I'm not gonna criticize I'm not gonna question

I'm not gonna

give you grief about anything

I'm gonna support you

and that's the mindset we both had

and she was better at it than I was

because she was an expert at everything she touched

you know you know what I mean she was in real estate

and she may not have sold a house

and I know she didn't sell very many

but she made 500 friends

that remained friends all her life yeah

that was her gift yeah

there's something about that that

kind of unwavering support

I'm behind you all the way that I mean

I definitely witnessed that and I would second that

I'd I absolutely think that was the case

and I think that that

she didn't

wait to make sure that you were worthy of that

if you know what I mean

she didn't

she made you worthy of that by trusting you to

be worthy of that and as a result

you became worthy of that

you might not have started out worthy of that kind of

support but you were in that relationship

you ended up worthy of it

is my that's at least my sense

or at least the vast majority of the time

I'm sure you fell short in some way

well I

I definitely felt sure we were dating

because I dated a lot of women haha

including while I was dating your mother

hmm and she hung with me despite that

interesting

yeah I

uh that's

I'll tell you what almost ruined this

once I had a penis I was going to San Jose

I was flying to San Jose to broadcast a football game

and over the Sierra Mountains

I had an a a a

a pancreatitis attack

and it turned around go back to

I'm not I'm serious

go back to Reno and have the numbers happen back to me

the hospital my mother came to see me

well one of my six other girls

she was not happy

but that's when we knew that I had to stop this

and she knew that I better stop it

or that would be the end

wow

your relationship with your own father

how did that influence how you became as a father

both in positive and negative ways

well my father was very supportive of sports

my mother was very supportive of music

my mother wanted me

involved in music my dad in sports

so I had to do both to please them

I was always trying to please my parents

and they were child of depression

they were never really satisfying

so you never could please them

so that was

it was difficult yeah

but

an interesting thing happened

that your viewers might appreciate

but when I dropped out of medical school

become a sports caster

my parents very upset

and they wanted nothing to do with me

so

you know I had nothing to do

I married your mom I had

we had you

and my parents weren't involved

but when I went to Los Angeles

I was invited to play in the big Crosby National

Pro am golf tournament

and my parents saw me playing golf with Lawrence Welk

he was my playing partner

and my parents

who had danced to Lawrence Welk in South Dakota

as teenagers

decided that oh

I must be OK

and that got us back together again

wow

wow yeah

um

well your parents

your mother uh

sure loved Matt hahaha

she she didn't care for me at all because

because Matt was yes

yes grandma

anything you want that's right

yeah man

she uh

she and I did not get along

she did not like conflict

no no

I mean she like conflict

if she was a child she likes conflict plenty

ha ha ha

yeah she just wanted to be on the

on the winning side of it all

right

well

you were a teacher

you think that

I mean do you think

there are any aspects of your relationship

with your dad that you felt was a counter example

that you that you wanted to not do

yeah my dad was always soft spoken

it was always gentle

it was always friendly and lots of friends

and I wanted to be like that

yeah I never wanted to be critical like my mother was

yeah yeah that's for sure

yeah that's interesting

I can I can see that

but I can see that I mean

my mother's background

I think I've told you the story about your grandmother

yeah your grandmother

my mother's mother

was born in the back of a wagon on the Oregon Trail

in 1876

that's how old I am

so when they went to their homestead in South Dakota

and built a homestead there

she was one of 12 children

wow and they had this homestead

and one day

a tribe of Lakota Indians attacked the homestead

killed her brother and kidnapped her

so you your great grandmother was a captive of

of an Indian tribe for eight years

until she was 12 years old

so that's the background my mother had growing up

so that's that's pretty tough

yeah

yeah yeah

she was a great story about how she was rescued

a 19 year old cowboy

saw her washing clothes by the river in Montana

and that night snuck into the camp

got a hole in her tent

pulled her out

threw her on the back of his horse and raced away

and I returned her to her family

wow and seven years later

that cowboy became my grandfather

that's funny wow

what a cool story you know

they were tough people yeah what a cool story

I uh

I like to finish up these conversations um by asking

people more or less the same question

and you've listened to the show

so you've you've heard the question

and that is oh shoot

actually before we get into that um

I think one of what you know

obviously

one of the central aspects of your entire life

has been sports you covered sports at every level

from high school basketball teams

all the way up to the Olympics

yes and

I mean you've seen athletes at every level

give me a sense of

what do you think the importance of sports is

in raising excellent men

teamwork

working with other people

depending on other people

even in individual sports

other people have to coach you

they have to direct you they have to motivate you

you have to work with other people to be good in sports

and that to me

is the best lesson that you can learn in sports

hmm

you know I guess sports is

in fact you don't have to be good to learn that lesson

yeah don't participate

it helps you learn that yeah

my wife um

I mean

you know this but she was a professional athlete and um

that open so many doors for her just in and

and you know it helped get her in the law school

it helped get her first um

her first jobs outside of law school

it's it's an interesting you know thing to talk about

but it's also it it also signals

to the kind of people who are wondering

whether they should invest in you

that you can

you can stick with it right

you and it's

it's not it's not gonna be here something with you yeah

music does the same thing sure

if you're involved in music

it does exactly the same thing

you have to rely on people you're part of a team

uh

I don't know whether you even know this or not

but as a teenager

I was a trumpet player and was named to the America

All American Orchestra

and I played

first trumpet for the All American Orchestra

and we played at the White House

nice for President Eisenhower and President Kennedy

so wow that had a huge influence on me

I was able to meet those people and uh

it's just because of my grandmother again

who was born in the back of a wagon

flew in an airplane to Washington

DC to meet President Eisenhower and President Kennedy

he stood next to President Kennedy

and Kennedy loved her story

she just he thought she was just really incredible

and my grandmother says you know

you're an awfully nice young man

but I could never vote for you

I'm a die hard Republican hahaha so

and and President Kennedy said

I don't care you don't ever have to vote for me

just don't never lose that smile

that's what he said to her wow

I bet you would have voted for him hahaha

after that no

maybe never would have

maybe not never got the chance I guess

but that's your heritage

interesting yeah interesting

yeah I remember uh

I remember the so I had never seen you play the trumpet

um

I never knew that you could

we didn't have a trumpet at home or anything like that

and I broke my hand playing polo

so I couldn't use it anymore

yeah oh interesting

yeah okay

and I but I remember going like

we were at a

um

we went to a fair and they had like a little band there

and somehow you ended up playing the trumpet with these

with this band I was like

I was blown away when I was a kid

I was blown away that you wow

you know how to play the trumpet

it was really interesting

yeah that was a big part of my life

yeah that's so funny

well you don't have to do sports if you're not inclined

and and if you do sports

you need to love it you need to absolutely love it

it's like you need to love music

if you go that direction or

or studies I mean this

whatever it is yeah

I think you need some kind of discipline in your life

other than just book learning

yeah but either music

music and sports work for me

you know those are

those are some of the institutions that are

getting really strained I mean

there are still sports teams

but you know

it used to be the case you could just play

you'd you'd play sports in high school

and in high schools you know

schools had teams and then you would just play there

and that was the deal and now

you actually

can't really get into sports in any major way

unless you play club sports

and essentially

you're turning pro when you're 12 years old

if you do you have to

you have to focus on a particular sport

if you want to excel at it

and that's the only way you're getting into college

it turns into this freaking profession right

and so the institution has gotten

you know it's gotten corrupted and and

and we don't have

we don't have true amateur sports as much in the

in the way that we did even when I was a kid

and I really struggle

I really struggle with what to do with my kids about

you know my kids have the genetic material

to be unbelievably great at a sport

or maybe more than one sport

and I want them to

for my own reasons and for their reasons

and I wanna cultivate in that

that in them I also don't

necessarily have the time to drive them to 1,000

different sports games

and try a thousand different things

and you know

I don't even know that they're gonna be into it

that they're gonna love it the same way

you know I didn't right

I you know

I played football a little bit

I didn't love it I

I didn't enjoy going to football practice

I didn't enjoy I

I never enjoyed sports

until I started playing volleyball

and then I fell in love with it

and yeah I just don't

I I

I I think that

I think you have to take your ego out of it

I think you have to

and I think you just have to cultivate the love of it

for them and

and it's not the love of excelling

it's the love of doing the thing participating yeah

yeah and I

I really struggle with that I

because I think

part of the reason that I loved volleyball

is because I was really good at it

from the very beginning and I excelled at it

you know compared to what I could have done and

and and lake has that same sort of drive

he loves being good at things

and he hates being bad at things

and it's it's a real

it's a real struggle for me yeah

just point it out to them

and I'll let them I'll try everything

well I like uh

I always like to finish these conversations with uh

by asking everybody the same question and um

you've listened to the show

so you you probably know what the question is

so you you have the benefit

that a number of other people don't

which is that I'm not necessarily springing it on you

but here's the question

if you had one principle that you would share with

parents

listening to this show about raising excellent men

what would it be

support your child

support them no matter what they do

support their their drive

support their passion

give them everything you can

and it doesn't mean money

and it doesn't mean the greatest coaching

it's whatever you can do to support them

and the biggest thing is to praise them

and tell them that's

you're not the greatest but you've increased today

you've got a little bit better today

always praise your kids

that would be the advice I would give

no dad

I uh

I really wanna thank you I wanna thank you not only for

uh for

for being on the show today

and for kind of having the courage to

to look back through uh

the rearview mirror with me and sit in

in this space together but more importantly

for all the support you've given me

throughout my whole life you know

thank you I

you know no

nobody's perfect and there are certainly ways that I

there are things that I will

that I'm changing about my approach to fatherhood

that are different than what you would do it

because I feel like I can improve upon them

but man you

you're you

you are a great dad thank you

thank you very much you're a great son

haha and I

I just appreciate it and uh

thanks for marrying mom she

man she was amazing

and you know

I miss her every day

oh I really

I really enjoyed it I really appreciate it

I appreciate what you're doing and what you become

and the kind of father and husband you are

it's very special

well thanks for that and happy Father's Day

thank you and to everybody listening

I want to challenge you this week

you know it's coming up on Father's Day

so pick up the phone and you know

think about dropping the kind of safe

performative

small talk about the weather with your own dad

if he's still around

just call him up and ask him a real grounded question

yep

about the choices that he's made and in your childhood

and it's I'll

I'll tell you from experience

that's what I tried to do in this little session

and it's it's really

really rewarding

and uh

and again dad thanks uh

thanks for being part of it

thank you for asking me

until next time I'm your host

Shawn Dawson keep uh

keep it up keep showing

up and remember that you are a great parent

raising men is produced by Phil Hernandez

this episode was edited by Ralph Tolentino