April 24, 2025 • 34 mins
David Mills believes the mess and chaos of life make the best stories. In this episode, he shares how to infuse more fun and adventure into your parenting journey. You’ll hear real talk about dad guilt, finding your tribe, and why doing life with other men makes all the difference.
TAKEAWAYS
- An adventure mindset shifts how you view your circumstances so that even the challenging moments become stories worth telling.
- Doing hard things awakens the warrior in you.
- Every parent struggles with parent guilt, so give yourself grace.
- Do you have 12 men in your town you could call at 2 a.m. who’d show up, no questions asked? If not, it’s time to build your tribe.
GUEST
Dave “Goose” Mills is the Founder and Director of Men’s Alliance. Spending his career in the Air Force flying squadrons taught him how tribes are formed, how they operate, and how they save lives. He started Men's Alliance to surround himself with strong Christian warriors in order to keep his life on course. Goose has been married for 24 years and has four kids.
QUOTES
- "I believe we were literally designed for hard times... It's not just that it makes us better men, which it does, but it also awakens in us, you know, the heart that God designed us to have. We were born to do hard things." - David Mills [00:09:37]
- "You would be an absolute fool to try to do this by yourself. Like, don't try to go this alone. The myth of the lone ranger has been prevalent in our culture. The truth of the matter is everything important and big that's ever been done was done by a group." - David Mills [00:30:01]
LINKS
-
Apply to join the next DadAwesome Accelerator Cohort: Email awesome@dadawesome.org
-
Subscribe to DadAwesome Messages: Text the word “Dad” to (651) 370-8618
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:01):
Being a great father takes a massive
amount of courage.
Instead of being an amazing leader
and a decent dad, I want to be an
amazing dad and a good leader.
The oldest dad in the world
gave you this assignment, which
means you must be ready for it.
As a dad, I get on my knees and I
fight for my kids.
Let us be those dads who
stop the generational pass
(00:22):
down of trauma.
I want encounters with
God, where he teaches me
what to do with my kids I know
I'm going to be an awesome dad
because I'm gonna give it my all.
We were literally designed
for hard times, right?
(00:42):
Hard times to create strong men.
Men will go buy tickets
to watch another man succeed
in a hard time.
That's because that's what we're
designed for.
Something in our soul awakens.
You start canoeing down a river,
something in you comes alive.
You realize like, I'm made for that.
I'm designed for that, and that's
why I'm miserable and I'm
(01:03):
depressed when I'm sitting
too comfortable for too long.
This is episode 379
of Dad Awesome, and this week we
have David Mills.
He also goes by Goose, joining
us for Men's Alliance.
I'll introduce him in just a moment
here. I wanna remind you guys, I
love listening to voice messages
(01:24):
from our Dad Awesome community.
So write in the show notes, wherever
you're listening to this podcast,
you can leave up to a 90-second
voicemail for Dad Awesome.
And I take those voicemails, it can
be feedback from the podcast, it
could be a question, and it can be a
suggestion for a podcast guest,
but also just introduce yourself.
I'd love to hear about how Dad
(01:44):
Awesome has been helpful for you.
And if you're interested, let me
know. I'm scheduling one-on-one.
Calls, one-on-one calls with our
community about one or two of these
a week, and I've just been loving
the chance to schedule these
opportunities to connect with men
from all around the country to
hear about how is the journey
of becoming Dad Awesome going.
So leave me a voice message, we'd
(02:05):
love to invite that.
David Mills Goose is
the founder and
lead dude at
Men's Alliance.
Men's Alliance has 200
tribes across the United States
and these tribes, they meet weekly
for a rugged outdoor workout
and then a real-world devotional
around a fire.
(02:26):
So a really simple formula,
but outside the box for most men's
ministries. I mean, these guys are
working out together and then diving
into God's Word together around a
Fire. Their mission, they're saying,
hey, we're bringing men out of
isolation, out of their comfort
zone, away from their facades.
Their motto is tribal,
rugged, and real.
So David, we had a great
(02:46):
conversation. His kids, he's got two
kids graduating high school, another
teenager, and then one of his
kids, he's launched, is like 22
years old. So he's in that phase of
fatherhood. We hit a bunch of
topics, but I want to encourage you
guys, check out Men's Alliance as
a resource locally.
They've got, again, these over 200
chapters across the country, and
it was just really fun getting to
(03:06):
know David.
And then just, you know, here we are
shining a spotlight on another
amazing men's ministry doing great
work, so thrilled to introduce you
guys to David Mills.
This is episode 379.
(03:28):
How would your wife describe your
approach to being a father?
How would she just talk about you in
the dad life?
What a great question.
I can't wait to actually hear her
answer. I'm going to ask her this.
Perfect.
I think she would say, and
I hope she would say, fun.
I think that that would be
very real.
(03:53):
I've gotten very, very
good over the years
at apologizing.
I should be, I should teach a
class on how to apologize to your
teenagers because
I've certainly had the practice at
doing it.
So one of the things my wife and
I, we've always tried to do is model
(04:15):
how to apologize
correctly and how to own your
mistakes and admit you're not
perfect.
And so man, nobody on earth
brings your imperfections
to the surface like a teenager.
And they're, I mean, they're so
good at it.
They bring out the worst in you
(04:37):
and then they point it out to you.
And as frustrating as that is,
they are usually right.
And so that's been one
of our approaches is telling them,
hey, listen, we've never done this
before.
You know, this is my first time
trying to raise teenagers and have a
house full of them.
(04:57):
So we have to
give each other a lot of grace.
They're not perfect and and
neither is their dad but we
do try to we do
try to spend a lot of time together
practice having fun together
practice forgiveness and
modeling how
the richest person
(05:18):
in the world is the person
with the best relationships and
and you can't sustain
relationships without
having a lot of grace, a lot of
forgiveness.
If you don't have those things,
you'll be in relationship poverty.
You'll never have good
relationships.
So this has been one of the
messages. I hope that my kids hear
(05:39):
from me that...
That they've taken away.
I'm curious if the adventure side,
like with men and forming
experiences that have maybe never
been done before, like was there an
adventure thread with your kids?
Is that part of what you bring to
the fatherhood?
It's so funny,
our email address is
the Mills Adventure.
(06:01):
Let's see.
You know, and my wife and
I, we made that a
theme in our family very,
very early on.
I think when we had one
kid, maybe after our first
kid, we started this theme.
And I remember we had this quote
from Amelia Earhart in
our house, said, life is either a
(06:21):
daring adventure or it's nothing.
And so, you know, me being
in the military and us moving
all the time and
living overseas, we got to live
in Japan for three years.
And, you now, my wife and I, we just
decided to view everything as
an adventure.
(06:42):
And that really
is a pivot.
It really defines kind
of how you're gonna view everything
that happens to you, whether you're
going to be negative,
frustrated and complaining when
things don't go your way or
if you're gonna view it as an
adventure and we would always say
this is gonna make a great story
(07:04):
to tell one day this is going to be
a great story to tell and you
know when our when our boys were
little and then fall and get hurt or
they spill the milk or whatever
just be like hey this is gonna be
a funny story one day and
and just trying to cultivate this
idea of life as
an adventure.
It's nothing that you're ever going
(07:24):
to perfect, it's never going
to follow the script you want it to,
it's always going to be messy and
just kind of do life this
way. We've had a
ball, we've had a blast, it has been
the adventure that we
wanted it to be and to
your question about having
fun with our kids and stuff,
(07:45):
we have always been
a camping family and
so my wife and I, we've
always been.
Tent campers and backpackers
and kind of turned our nose
up a little bit at the RV folks
You know, we're like, oh you're not
real camping and and
then the older and older we got
we we tried an RV for
(08:07):
a few years and as
you get older you need you start
like doing more stuff for your back
and But we
took our boys camp in when they
were in diapers.
We were tent camping
And I remember one time, we've
got this photo.
We took, we went tent camping
and we went fishing from a
(08:28):
canoe with
my oldest when he was probably
like one and a half
or two and we're
potty training him.
And we brought the
potty on the canoe.
My wife's on one side of the canoe,
I'm on one of the side of canoe.
There's way too many lines
with hooks attached,
(08:49):
swinging around.
There's snacks and there's a potty.
Yes.
And then there's fish, you know?
And so fortunately we didn't
flip that day, but I think that
picture of
me and my wife and kids
on a canoe with
the potty,
that's a picture of our life right
(09:10):
there.
Yeah.
Well, that jumps me into, I mean,
this, this I discovered as I
researched for this conversation,
but the phrase hard times
make great men.
I mean that goes for making great
boys, making great young women,
like hard times it
does make. So I'd love to hear you
just kind of riff on for the
(09:32):
family, but also for
men in our culture today, both
sides.
Boy, that's so true,
and you know, we've had people on,
personally, I love that quote.
And I know not everybody does,
and it's a little controversial, but
I think it's spot on, and
I love it.
And I take it in
(09:54):
a different step as well, in that
I believe we
were literally designed
for hard times.
It's funny, I was watching one
of the Mad Max movies.
There's like so many of them now.
I was watchin' one of Mad Max's
movies with my 17-year-old
(10:16):
son.
It's insane, right?
It's like high speed chases
through the desert with
explosions and mechanical
problems. Trucks are breaking down
and people are crawling under
the trucks repairing them
while they're getting shot at and
doing 80 miles.
And I'm watching this movie
(10:37):
with my son and we're totally into
it. And I am thinking to myself,
why on earth do we love
this movie so much?
Why do guys love this so much.
And to the point, I think
that's a hard time, right?
Hard times create strong men.
That you're watching a scene of a
very hard time and we're
(10:59):
drawn towards it.
Yeah, we are. Men will go buy
tickets to watch
another man succeed in a hard
times.
And I believe that's because that's
what we're designed for and that's
why something in our soul
like awakens when
we watch something like that
or we go.
(11:20):
Canoeing down a river.
Yeah, you start canoeing down.
A river something in you comes alive
Yes, right and you even just
watching a movie like that
because you realize like I'm
made for that I'm
designed for that and that's why
I'm miserable and I'm depressed
when I'm sitting
Too comfortable for too long
(11:42):
in the house, right?
It's like I got to get up.
I got a go somewhere I got do
something. I gotta let's plan a
camping trip or something because
It's not just that it
makes us better men, which it does,
but it also awakens in us,
you know,
the heart that God designed us
to have. We were born to do
(12:02):
hard things.
You know, sometimes we forget that
God gave Adam a job before
he gave him a wife.
Right? It's like, man,
we are designed to do stuff and
we're designed to do hard stuff.
And if we're not doing it, if we are
not living as we're designed, if
you don't use a product the way it
was designed to be used,
it's never going to work quite right
(12:23):
for you.
And I think in our culture today, we
see a lot of men not
being used the way they were
designed, right? It's like using an
iPhone as a paperweight.
Like, okay, you can kind of do that.
You can make it work, but that
thing's never gonna be
living up to its potential until
you, first of all, you got to figure
(12:44):
out what it was designed to do.
And the only way you're gonna do
that is by reading its manual.
And our owner's manual is
the word of God.
It's the Bible. And you read that
and you realize like, this is what
we were made for.
This is what were designed for.
Men are actually made
to be warriors.
And now it all makes sense.
Now you're like...
No wonder I love watching Mad Max,
(13:06):
because I was designed to be a
warrior, right?
I've just got to channel it properly
and be a Warrior for God.
Oh man, I just spotted my
oldest daughter, she's 11.
So I've got four daughters, oldest
is 11. So we're a chapter,
definitely a chapter younger than
your family.
And we got the girls, but I
spotted her reading a book and
she's a reader.
(13:27):
And I tell her, I'm like, you're a
leader and leaders are readers, way
to go. But sometimes the
book captures her for too long
of periods. I'm, like, let's go out
for a jog. Let's go running.
Let's do some burpees.
My girls are all Spartans.
They all did the Spartan race just a
few weeks ago. So these obstacle
course races, but I I think today's
culture the screen
(13:47):
Reading I'm still always gonna be a
fan of reading but the screens the
video game culture the easy Let's
not push our physical body that was
created to do hard things I'd
love to hear how did you how have
you played this balance in this
chapter of your kids?
I mean cell phones are very much
around for raising your kids Yeah,
how have your balance the screens
and outside and exercise
(14:09):
and and trying to move our bodies
the way God intended them to.
This is such an enormous
question.
I think it's a question that every
single parent has.
And I'm sure there's so much
out there on it.
Books and podcasts and
all these tips and advice and stuff.
So I'll just tell you, first of all,
(14:31):
I don't know how to do it.
Like, I haven't figured it out.
I'm not the
the go-to expert.
I always think
man, did we give our kids phones too
early? Did we give them stuff too
young?
We thought, you know, every parent,
you think you're doing it right,
you're doin' it the best you can
(14:52):
and you're lookin' at all these
pieces of input.
Well, here's what this one article
says and here's this expert
says, right?
And us being on
the front of
the bow wave of
we're the first generation
of parents to have this
(15:12):
question.
And probably a few generations
from now, they'll have it more
figured out.
But we're all making it up from
scratch right now.
So my oldest son,
this was funny, when
he was in middle school,
at some point seventh or eighth
grade, something like that, we gave
him a flip phone.
(15:33):
And like it had
no internet access.
It was a flip-phone and you could
use it call your parents.
And man, he was
super not thrilled about
that, right?
Like all the other kids,
it is school, of course,
according to him.
Every other kid in school had
(15:53):
the latest iPhone and he
had a flip phone.
And we were like, this is your
phone because he played lots of
sports and we were always
picking him up for practices and
taking him to tournaments and stuff.
He played everything and so
we were like, logistically you need
to call us and we need to call you
so you get a flip phone.
(16:15):
All the way down to now our
youngest, you know,
that was my son who's now 22.
My daughter who just turned
15,
I'm sad to say she has
my old iPhone.
She gets sad to hand me
down iPhone.
And you know so it's
(16:36):
like, are we slipping a little?
Are we, should we be stricter?
Should we be better?
Listen, I think every
single parent
struggles with parent guilt.
There's dad guilt, there's mom
guilt. You're like, you know what,
should we be making our own pasta?
Should we be composting?
Should we using cloth diapers?
(16:56):
Should we?
So many
schooling.
Should we have a garden?
Should we raise our own chicken?
It's it's like listen
get some pampers,
buy some canned spaghetti sauce,
do some things the easy way.
Don't make life so difficult on
yourself as a parent that you burn
yourself out.
(17:17):
Give yourself grace, you're not
gonna get it right. You're gonna
give them something too early.
You'll crush it in one area.
There's probably areas that I've
been a better dad than
most dads.
And there are definitely some areas
where I've seen a below average.
Area.
And you know what parenting
is the hardest job in the world
(17:38):
and so as parents I would
say give yourself grace
man you're gonna give them a phone
too early or too late and
you're going to feed them some
unhealthy meals because you're in a
hurry don't worry about
any of that don't get
so wrapped up around the details
the most important thing is
just that we're there for them
(18:00):
that we are praying for them that
we're hugging them.
I tried so hard.
I tried to make my kids
readers.
This is hilarious.
I am a huge reader.
I read to my kids
every day when they were young.
And as soon as they were old enough
to say dad, please stop
reading, they did.
(18:22):
And they're
not readers.
And I've had to let go of that.
I'm looking at my wife, I'm like,
how on earth did they turn out as on
readers.
They were surrounded.
They grew up on a pile of books with
me reading to them.
And so some stuff that we really
try hard to make them, it
backfires and they don't do
it.
(18:42):
And so that's one area where I'm
like, okay, you know what?
I had to tell my son a couple years
ago, he was probably like 14 or 15.
And he expressed to me
that he was feeling a lot of
guilt at not being a reader.
And I had, I had take
that one.
And he was like, can you please
stop trying to get me to
(19:03):
read?
I don't want to read,
but every time we have these
conversations, I'm feeling guilty.
And I was like oof,
okay.
You know what, dude?
You don't have to read.
I'm gonna stop pushing you to
read and you know what?
He's young, maybe he'll become a
reader in his 30s. Who knows?
But as parents,
(19:24):
I think, especially American
parents, We
can err in the opposite
direction by trying too hard
to make them too perfect in
too many categories areas.
It's like, listen, they're not
all going to be
star athletes or
road scholars or
homeschool teachers or
(19:46):
neurosurgeons.
I had a buddy of mine,
he was homeschooling years
before we started homeschool.
So he was giving me some really good
homeschool advice.
And I was like asking him questions
about like, well, what about this
program? What about this
programming? How do they get into
this school?
And he just looks at me and he goes,
(20:06):
dude, he goes I don't know the
answer to any of that stuff you're
talking about. He goes, our goal
is just to raise
good humans.
And that hit me and I took
that from him and I made that my
goal I shared that with my wife I
was like listen I think we're
worried about too many little
details and programs I said let's
(20:27):
just make make it our goal just
to try to raise good human beings
and as parents
we got to give ourselves grace
we got, to give our spouse grace
kids grace and ourselves and
that alone right
there when we do that and we say
that to our kids and we give them
permission to not play a
level sport or be readers.
(20:50):
We can lower the anxiety
level in our house.
And, you know, we've got a
huge national epidemic of
anxiety amongst teenagers.
And I think,
I have no study to support me here,
but I think that the kids are
anxious because the parents
are anxious.
(21:10):
You see, you see pictures now,
there's anxious dogs.
There's anxious pets, right?
Anxiety is contagious.
And if you live in a house where
everybody's anxious you're gonna
have trouble with anxiety.
And so, I think parents could
reduce anxiety with their kids
by just chill out
and stop trying to make them so
(21:31):
great.
Just enjoy your time with them, it's
very limited.
I've already had one
leave and I'm about to have two more
leave. And so you realize, you're
like, you know what, time is really
short.
This was a super long way to
answer the question about what
age do you give your kid a cell
phone.
My answer is love it.
(21:51):
I don't know do the best you can
sit and don't beat yourself up
because you're gonna get it wrong
Yeah. Dave, I want to point out,
which I love long answers, by the
way, when you said lower
anxiety level, but the other
thing that you're increasing
by your connection that
would happen with your son when he
was able to have a conversation
about this I feel when you're
(22:12):
pushing reading on me.
I just want to celebrate that
type of connection that a son can
say to you, hey, this is
how I feel when you're pushing this.
Can we back that off?
That connection and warmth that
you're safe here is
such a big deal.
It is that really is and
you know i've i've
learned to prioritize
(22:33):
relationship over
just about anything else i
mean just about anything else uh
i wish that my
son and i were reading c.s lewis
together but instead
we're watching mad max and
you know what i don't care as
long as we're together as long
(22:53):
as as long he wants to be with me
and we're in a relationship
together.
Take it, take the win and
enjoy watching Mad Max.
Yes.
And the upstream to all these
parenting tactics.
A small percentage of our
conversations are about tactics.
What do you think about this and how
(23:13):
have you approached that?
Who am I becoming as dad?
What am I prioritizing?
We talked about doing hard things
already of like that hard times
make good men.
The other side though, you've got
three...
I mean, there's several just areas I
want to dial in on that are at the
center of men's alliance, the that
you founded and you lead.
(23:34):
Isolation is one of them.
So you say we're bringing men out of
isolation, out of their comfort
zone, which we talked about a little
bit already, and away from
their facades.
Could you?
You can pick any of those three
or all three together.
I'd just love to hear you express
why this is such a big deal.
Oh, sure, man.
And you know what?
This is, this is
(23:56):
equally as big a deal for
kids.
You know, my, my focus,
my ministry is on men, but
those three things are
equal problems for
kids, for teens.
And so, you know, just to
touch on them all three real
briefly,
the motto in Men's Alliance,
(24:16):
our motto is Tribal Rugged Real,
because each one of those words
is the opposite.
That problem that you just
described.
And so the first big problem is
isolation.
And I see this so
rampant with dads.
They go to work
where they have
(24:36):
to, you have to
be that
man at work who
has it all together.
You have to the professionally
competent achiever
at work, and that's
great. But you also
have to stop being that
man as soon as you come home
(24:58):
and a lot of men don't know
how to turn that off.
They don't how to hang that hat up
when they walk in the door and put
on the dad or
husband hat and so that
I don't need any help I've got
it all together competent achiever
hat that we wear all day at work.
That hat will destroy you
at home.
(25:19):
It will destroy your friendships,
your relationships, and everything.
Because it's isolating and
so we want men to
close their laptops and
stop pretending
they've got everything together,
stop pretending you're fine, be
real, that's the real part,
and get outside, get out of your
(25:40):
comfort zone, that is the rugged
part. So if we can get men
out of isolation, out of their
comfort zones and away from facades
of having it together,
I think what we will do as
a culture is we will be able to
greatly reduce the
suicide rates,
the addiction rates, the depression
(26:01):
and the anxiety that men,
these things are bigger
problems with adult men than
they are any other demographic,
which surprises a lot of people.
You tend to think of like, you
know, the stereotypical
person most at risk for
anxiety, depression, addiction
and suicide being like.
(26:22):
Teenager or something.
No, it's a 55 year
old man. He's way more at risk
because he's carrying
the weight of the world on his
shoulders. He has got the family and
the mortgage and the career and
he can't afford to mess up and
he knows it.
So he's holding the whole world
together and he
cant let on that
(26:43):
he's terrified,
that he is frustrated and that
leads men to their breaking point.
And so.
With men's alliance, we wanna get
men outdoors around a
fire, bonding,
building that band of brothers that
can only be done through
a really strenuous
workout because that's how men bond
(27:05):
is through shared physical struggle.
So first we're bonding over that
and then we're being real.
And as soon as a guy starts
talking about his problem,
his real struggle,
absolutely guaranteed 100%
of the time other men around
that fire have the same problem.
And so it's just, it's like the
(27:25):
floodgates just open and you're
like, why are we all,
why are all not talking more about
this stuff?
So that's our motto,
that's those three elements and
you know, as we think about them as
men, it's important to
remember our
teenagers have the problem.
(27:46):
One of the game changers for me
was sitting at my
dining room table with my kids.
Drawing the questions out of
them.
Like, give voice to the
questions you know they must have.
So I remember one time I said
to, I just threw it out there at
(28:06):
the dining room table one night, I
was like, haven't you kids ever
wondered, have you guys ever
wondered how do we know that
somebody didn't just make up the
Bible? How do we that it's
true? And like, the kids were
I'm like, yes,
I've been wondering that.
Resonates. Right, so.
They're wondering it.
They've got the questions and
(28:27):
they're afraid to ask.
They're afraid they might get in
trouble for asking.
And a lot of dads don't want
them to ask because they don't know
the answer anyway.
So you're creating this house of
silence, this house with cards.
And the second one
college professor destroys
it.
(28:47):
The kids are gonna think it was
destroyed.
The truth is it was never destroyed.
The answers have always been there.
So dads, when you start asking
the question for your kid, hey,
haven't you ever wondered?
Hey, have you ever been curious
about how we know,
how we can actually prove that the
resurrection occurred?
(29:07):
Kids are like, you're kidding,
really? Yes, I've wondered this.
And so then we just have a
good conversation.
They didn't even have to ask the
question, but they're learning.
And I have found that the best
moments for talking with my kids.
When we're riding together
in the truck running errands
together. When I get a kid in the
(29:28):
truck and we're going to
the grocery store, we're going to a
gas station and I just
open the door.
If you just crack the door open dad,
all you got to do is crack the open
and that kid will
know that their
faith is real.
Yes. They'll be able to defend it
and they won't become a statistic
(29:48):
when they go to college.
Dave, I wanted to, just before we
kind of come in for landing here and
have you pray, a short prayer for
us, was there any, just one
or two more minutes, anything on
your heart that you're like, I want
the dads to hear this.
Any last thoughts?
Oh man, it would definitely
be dads,
you need a tribe.
(30:09):
Like you cannot,
you would be an absolute fool
to try to do this by yourself.
Like, don't try to go this alone.
The myth of
the lone ranger
has been prevalent
in our culture.
The truth of the matter is
(30:29):
everything
important and big that's ever been
done was done by a group.
It was done a team, it was done by
a platoon, it's was done by a posse,
it done by tribe.
Nothing gets done by the individual.
That's a myth and you've got to
reject it.
And so,
a good test for
(30:50):
men that are like,
well, you know, I don't know what he
means by tribe, but I've got some
friends. Okay, here's the test.
Here's how to know if you have a
tribe. Do you have
12?
Phone numbers of
men who live in
the same town with you.
That's key.
We are not talking about your
buddies that live two states over.
(31:12):
You have 12 men in your
phone that you could call at
2 a.m.
That will be at your house, no
questions asked.
If you do, congratulations.
You're in a very rare group.
You've got yourself a valuable
tribe.
Keep doing what
you're doing and you know,
nurturing those relationships, but
(31:33):
most men don't.
Most men, they would be
thrilled if they had two to three
men in their town that they could
call.
But you think about this, this
is the example that Jesus
set for us.
This isn't Dave Mills's
idea.
Jesus, before he
(31:53):
started his ministry, He
formed his tribe.
He built his tribe and notice this
he went and he found
them and he made it happen.
So he took the initiative.
He didn't sit at home saying, I'm
always the one who initiates lunch,
how come nobody ever calls me?
That's a ridiculous question.
You've been blessed with the
(32:15):
ability to be the starter.
You're the starter, you're the guy
who makes the calls.
You're, the guy, who goes around and
tells men, hey drop your
fishing nets let's go get lunch at
Mission Barbecue.
Right? So That's what Jesus
did.
And we have to do the same.
If Jesus needed 12
buddies, why would we think we
(32:36):
need any less?
So that's my number one message
to man is build your
tribe.
Yes. Dave, thank you for
this charge.
Can you say just a short prayer over
all the dads listening?
Father God, I just thank you
for this opportunity here,
Lord, to exercise
the freedom that we have in this
country, to talk to men
(32:58):
across a podcast
platform, across a
video, to pray out loud
in your name.
Lord, you've given us
so much, so many resources
and so many
freedoms and help us
to not them help us to not
squander them help us to
(33:19):
Take this fight to
the enemy every single day.
God, help us to be better husbands,
fathers, and leaders.
Help us to become the men that you
designed us to be, God.
We pray this in your name.
Thanks so much for joining us for
episode 379
with David Mills.
(33:39):
All the conversation links, links
to the Men's Alliance website.
David's book are all gonna be
at dadawesome.org
slash podcast.
So I wanna encourage you guys to
check out those, you know, we have
transcripts, we have the top quotes,
the top takeaways are all going to
be at that website.
And again, encourage you to leave
Dad Awesome a voice message.
(34:00):
We'd love to hear from you.
Looking forward to scheduling a
couple one-on-one phone calls every
week. And those are so fun to listen
to your voice messages.
And then I reach back and get those
set up.
So, guys, thank you for being a part
of our community.
So grateful for the ever
growing movement of
Dad Awesome. And it's because of the
dads in this community.
So thank you for listening.
(34:20):
Thank you for sharing this podcast
or other Dad Awesome episodes that
have been impactful.
Praying for you guys.
Have a great week.
Being a great father takes a massive
amount of courage.
Instead of being an amazing leader
and a decent dad, I want to be an
amazing dad and a good leader.
The oldest dad in the world
gave you this assignment, which
means you must be ready for it.
As a dad, I get on my knees and I
fight for my kids.
Let us be those dads who
stop the generational pass
(00:22):
down of trauma.
I want encounters with
God, where he teaches me
what to do with my kids I know
I'm going to be an awesome dad
because I'm gonna give it my all.
We were literally designed
for hard times, right?
(00:42):
Hard times to create strong men.
Men will go buy tickets
to watch another man succeed
in a hard time.
That's because that's what we're
designed for.
Something in our soul awakens.
You start canoeing down a river,
something in you comes alive.
You realize like, I'm made for that.
I'm designed for that, and that's
why I'm miserable and I'm
(01:03):
depressed when I'm sitting
too comfortable for too long.
This is episode 379
of Dad Awesome, and this week we
have David Mills.
He also goes by Goose, joining
us for Men's Alliance.
I'll introduce him in just a moment
here. I wanna remind you guys, I
love listening to voice messages
(01:24):
from our Dad Awesome community.
So write in the show notes, wherever
you're listening to this podcast,
you can leave up to a 90-second
voicemail for Dad Awesome.
And I take those voicemails, it can
be feedback from the podcast, it
could be a question, and it can be a
suggestion for a podcast guest,
but also just introduce yourself.
I'd love to hear about how Dad
(01:44):
Awesome has been helpful for you.
And if you're interested, let me
know. I'm scheduling one-on-one.
Calls, one-on-one calls with our
community about one or two of these
a week, and I've just been loving
the chance to schedule these
opportunities to connect with men
from all around the country to
hear about how is the journey
of becoming Dad Awesome going.
So leave me a voice message, we'd
(02:05):
love to invite that.
David Mills Goose is
the founder and
lead dude at
Men's Alliance.
Men's Alliance has 200
tribes across the United States
and these tribes, they meet weekly
for a rugged outdoor workout
and then a real-world devotional
around a fire.
(02:26):
So a really simple formula,
but outside the box for most men's
ministries. I mean, these guys are
working out together and then diving
into God's Word together around a
Fire. Their mission, they're saying,
hey, we're bringing men out of
isolation, out of their comfort
zone, away from their facades.
Their motto is tribal,
rugged, and real.
So David, we had a great
(02:46):
conversation. His kids, he's got two
kids graduating high school, another
teenager, and then one of his
kids, he's launched, is like 22
years old. So he's in that phase of
fatherhood. We hit a bunch of
topics, but I want to encourage you
guys, check out Men's Alliance as
a resource locally.
They've got, again, these over 200
chapters across the country, and
it was just really fun getting to
(03:06):
know David.
And then just, you know, here we are
shining a spotlight on another
amazing men's ministry doing great
work, so thrilled to introduce you
guys to David Mills.
This is episode 379.
(03:28):
How would your wife describe your
approach to being a father?
How would she just talk about you in
the dad life?
What a great question.
I can't wait to actually hear her
answer. I'm going to ask her this.
Perfect.
I think she would say, and
I hope she would say, fun.
I think that that would be
very real.
(03:53):
I've gotten very, very
good over the years
at apologizing.
I should be, I should teach a
class on how to apologize to your
teenagers because
I've certainly had the practice at
doing it.
So one of the things my wife and
I, we've always tried to do is model
(04:15):
how to apologize
correctly and how to own your
mistakes and admit you're not
perfect.
And so man, nobody on earth
brings your imperfections
to the surface like a teenager.
And they're, I mean, they're so
good at it.
They bring out the worst in you
(04:37):
and then they point it out to you.
And as frustrating as that is,
they are usually right.
And so that's been one
of our approaches is telling them,
hey, listen, we've never done this
before.
You know, this is my first time
trying to raise teenagers and have a
house full of them.
(04:57):
So we have to
give each other a lot of grace.
They're not perfect and and
neither is their dad but we
do try to we do
try to spend a lot of time together
practice having fun together
practice forgiveness and
modeling how
the richest person
(05:18):
in the world is the person
with the best relationships and
and you can't sustain
relationships without
having a lot of grace, a lot of
forgiveness.
If you don't have those things,
you'll be in relationship poverty.
You'll never have good
relationships.
So this has been one of the
messages. I hope that my kids hear
(05:39):
from me that...
That they've taken away.
I'm curious if the adventure side,
like with men and forming
experiences that have maybe never
been done before, like was there an
adventure thread with your kids?
Is that part of what you bring to
the fatherhood?
It's so funny,
our email address is
the Mills Adventure.
(06:01):
Let's see.
You know, and my wife and
I, we made that a
theme in our family very,
very early on.
I think when we had one
kid, maybe after our first
kid, we started this theme.
And I remember we had this quote
from Amelia Earhart in
our house, said, life is either a
(06:21):
daring adventure or it's nothing.
And so, you know, me being
in the military and us moving
all the time and
living overseas, we got to live
in Japan for three years.
And, you now, my wife and I, we just
decided to view everything as
an adventure.
(06:42):
And that really
is a pivot.
It really defines kind
of how you're gonna view everything
that happens to you, whether you're
going to be negative,
frustrated and complaining when
things don't go your way or
if you're gonna view it as an
adventure and we would always say
this is gonna make a great story
(07:04):
to tell one day this is going to be
a great story to tell and you
know when our when our boys were
little and then fall and get hurt or
they spill the milk or whatever
just be like hey this is gonna be
a funny story one day and
and just trying to cultivate this
idea of life as
an adventure.
It's nothing that you're ever going
(07:24):
to perfect, it's never going
to follow the script you want it to,
it's always going to be messy and
just kind of do life this
way. We've had a
ball, we've had a blast, it has been
the adventure that we
wanted it to be and to
your question about having
fun with our kids and stuff,
(07:45):
we have always been
a camping family and
so my wife and I, we've
always been.
Tent campers and backpackers
and kind of turned our nose
up a little bit at the RV folks
You know, we're like, oh you're not
real camping and and
then the older and older we got
we we tried an RV for
(08:07):
a few years and as
you get older you need you start
like doing more stuff for your back
and But we
took our boys camp in when they
were in diapers.
We were tent camping
And I remember one time, we've
got this photo.
We took, we went tent camping
and we went fishing from a
(08:28):
canoe with
my oldest when he was probably
like one and a half
or two and we're
potty training him.
And we brought the
potty on the canoe.
My wife's on one side of the canoe,
I'm on one of the side of canoe.
There's way too many lines
with hooks attached,
(08:49):
swinging around.
There's snacks and there's a potty.
Yes.
And then there's fish, you know?
And so fortunately we didn't
flip that day, but I think that
picture of
me and my wife and kids
on a canoe with
the potty,
that's a picture of our life right
(09:10):
there.
Yeah.
Well, that jumps me into, I mean,
this, this I discovered as I
researched for this conversation,
but the phrase hard times
make great men.
I mean that goes for making great
boys, making great young women,
like hard times it
does make. So I'd love to hear you
just kind of riff on for the
(09:32):
family, but also for
men in our culture today, both
sides.
Boy, that's so true,
and you know, we've had people on,
personally, I love that quote.
And I know not everybody does,
and it's a little controversial, but
I think it's spot on, and
I love it.
And I take it in
(09:54):
a different step as well, in that
I believe we
were literally designed
for hard times.
It's funny, I was watching one
of the Mad Max movies.
There's like so many of them now.
I was watchin' one of Mad Max's
movies with my 17-year-old
(10:16):
son.
It's insane, right?
It's like high speed chases
through the desert with
explosions and mechanical
problems. Trucks are breaking down
and people are crawling under
the trucks repairing them
while they're getting shot at and
doing 80 miles.
And I'm watching this movie
(10:37):
with my son and we're totally into
it. And I am thinking to myself,
why on earth do we love
this movie so much?
Why do guys love this so much.
And to the point, I think
that's a hard time, right?
Hard times create strong men.
That you're watching a scene of a
very hard time and we're
(10:59):
drawn towards it.
Yeah, we are. Men will go buy
tickets to watch
another man succeed in a hard
times.
And I believe that's because that's
what we're designed for and that's
why something in our soul
like awakens when
we watch something like that
or we go.
(11:20):
Canoeing down a river.
Yeah, you start canoeing down.
A river something in you comes alive
Yes, right and you even just
watching a movie like that
because you realize like I'm
made for that I'm
designed for that and that's why
I'm miserable and I'm depressed
when I'm sitting
Too comfortable for too long
(11:42):
in the house, right?
It's like I got to get up.
I got a go somewhere I got do
something. I gotta let's plan a
camping trip or something because
It's not just that it
makes us better men, which it does,
but it also awakens in us,
you know,
the heart that God designed us
to have. We were born to do
(12:02):
hard things.
You know, sometimes we forget that
God gave Adam a job before
he gave him a wife.
Right? It's like, man,
we are designed to do stuff and
we're designed to do hard stuff.
And if we're not doing it, if we are
not living as we're designed, if
you don't use a product the way it
was designed to be used,
it's never going to work quite right
(12:23):
for you.
And I think in our culture today, we
see a lot of men not
being used the way they were
designed, right? It's like using an
iPhone as a paperweight.
Like, okay, you can kind of do that.
You can make it work, but that
thing's never gonna be
living up to its potential until
you, first of all, you got to figure
(12:44):
out what it was designed to do.
And the only way you're gonna do
that is by reading its manual.
And our owner's manual is
the word of God.
It's the Bible. And you read that
and you realize like, this is what
we were made for.
This is what were designed for.
Men are actually made
to be warriors.
And now it all makes sense.
Now you're like...
No wonder I love watching Mad Max,
(13:06):
because I was designed to be a
warrior, right?
I've just got to channel it properly
and be a Warrior for God.
Oh man, I just spotted my
oldest daughter, she's 11.
So I've got four daughters, oldest
is 11. So we're a chapter,
definitely a chapter younger than
your family.
And we got the girls, but I
spotted her reading a book and
she's a reader.
(13:27):
And I tell her, I'm like, you're a
leader and leaders are readers, way
to go. But sometimes the
book captures her for too long
of periods. I'm, like, let's go out
for a jog. Let's go running.
Let's do some burpees.
My girls are all Spartans.
They all did the Spartan race just a
few weeks ago. So these obstacle
course races, but I I think today's
culture the screen
(13:47):
Reading I'm still always gonna be a
fan of reading but the screens the
video game culture the easy Let's
not push our physical body that was
created to do hard things I'd
love to hear how did you how have
you played this balance in this
chapter of your kids?
I mean cell phones are very much
around for raising your kids Yeah,
how have your balance the screens
and outside and exercise
(14:09):
and and trying to move our bodies
the way God intended them to.
This is such an enormous
question.
I think it's a question that every
single parent has.
And I'm sure there's so much
out there on it.
Books and podcasts and
all these tips and advice and stuff.
So I'll just tell you, first of all,
(14:31):
I don't know how to do it.
Like, I haven't figured it out.
I'm not the
the go-to expert.
I always think
man, did we give our kids phones too
early? Did we give them stuff too
young?
We thought, you know, every parent,
you think you're doing it right,
you're doin' it the best you can
(14:52):
and you're lookin' at all these
pieces of input.
Well, here's what this one article
says and here's this expert
says, right?
And us being on
the front of
the bow wave of
we're the first generation
of parents to have this
(15:12):
question.
And probably a few generations
from now, they'll have it more
figured out.
But we're all making it up from
scratch right now.
So my oldest son,
this was funny, when
he was in middle school,
at some point seventh or eighth
grade, something like that, we gave
him a flip phone.
(15:33):
And like it had
no internet access.
It was a flip-phone and you could
use it call your parents.
And man, he was
super not thrilled about
that, right?
Like all the other kids,
it is school, of course,
according to him.
Every other kid in school had
(15:53):
the latest iPhone and he
had a flip phone.
And we were like, this is your
phone because he played lots of
sports and we were always
picking him up for practices and
taking him to tournaments and stuff.
He played everything and so
we were like, logistically you need
to call us and we need to call you
so you get a flip phone.
(16:15):
All the way down to now our
youngest, you know,
that was my son who's now 22.
My daughter who just turned
15,
I'm sad to say she has
my old iPhone.
She gets sad to hand me
down iPhone.
And you know so it's
(16:36):
like, are we slipping a little?
Are we, should we be stricter?
Should we be better?
Listen, I think every
single parent
struggles with parent guilt.
There's dad guilt, there's mom
guilt. You're like, you know what,
should we be making our own pasta?
Should we be composting?
Should we using cloth diapers?
(16:56):
Should we?
So many
schooling.
Should we have a garden?
Should we raise our own chicken?
It's it's like listen
get some pampers,
buy some canned spaghetti sauce,
do some things the easy way.
Don't make life so difficult on
yourself as a parent that you burn
yourself out.
(17:17):
Give yourself grace, you're not
gonna get it right. You're gonna
give them something too early.
You'll crush it in one area.
There's probably areas that I've
been a better dad than
most dads.
And there are definitely some areas
where I've seen a below average.
Area.
And you know what parenting
is the hardest job in the world
(17:38):
and so as parents I would
say give yourself grace
man you're gonna give them a phone
too early or too late and
you're going to feed them some
unhealthy meals because you're in a
hurry don't worry about
any of that don't get
so wrapped up around the details
the most important thing is
just that we're there for them
(18:00):
that we are praying for them that
we're hugging them.
I tried so hard.
I tried to make my kids
readers.
This is hilarious.
I am a huge reader.
I read to my kids
every day when they were young.
And as soon as they were old enough
to say dad, please stop
reading, they did.
(18:22):
And they're
not readers.
And I've had to let go of that.
I'm looking at my wife, I'm like,
how on earth did they turn out as on
readers.
They were surrounded.
They grew up on a pile of books with
me reading to them.
And so some stuff that we really
try hard to make them, it
backfires and they don't do
it.
(18:42):
And so that's one area where I'm
like, okay, you know what?
I had to tell my son a couple years
ago, he was probably like 14 or 15.
And he expressed to me
that he was feeling a lot of
guilt at not being a reader.
And I had, I had take
that one.
And he was like, can you please
stop trying to get me to
(19:03):
read?
I don't want to read,
but every time we have these
conversations, I'm feeling guilty.
And I was like oof,
okay.
You know what, dude?
You don't have to read.
I'm gonna stop pushing you to
read and you know what?
He's young, maybe he'll become a
reader in his 30s. Who knows?
But as parents,
(19:24):
I think, especially American
parents, We
can err in the opposite
direction by trying too hard
to make them too perfect in
too many categories areas.
It's like, listen, they're not
all going to be
star athletes or
road scholars or
homeschool teachers or
(19:46):
neurosurgeons.
I had a buddy of mine,
he was homeschooling years
before we started homeschool.
So he was giving me some really good
homeschool advice.
And I was like asking him questions
about like, well, what about this
program? What about this
programming? How do they get into
this school?
And he just looks at me and he goes,
(20:06):
dude, he goes I don't know the
answer to any of that stuff you're
talking about. He goes, our goal
is just to raise
good humans.
And that hit me and I took
that from him and I made that my
goal I shared that with my wife I
was like listen I think we're
worried about too many little
details and programs I said let's
(20:27):
just make make it our goal just
to try to raise good human beings
and as parents
we got to give ourselves grace
we got, to give our spouse grace
kids grace and ourselves and
that alone right
there when we do that and we say
that to our kids and we give them
permission to not play a
level sport or be readers.
(20:50):
We can lower the anxiety
level in our house.
And, you know, we've got a
huge national epidemic of
anxiety amongst teenagers.
And I think,
I have no study to support me here,
but I think that the kids are
anxious because the parents
are anxious.
(21:10):
You see, you see pictures now,
there's anxious dogs.
There's anxious pets, right?
Anxiety is contagious.
And if you live in a house where
everybody's anxious you're gonna
have trouble with anxiety.
And so, I think parents could
reduce anxiety with their kids
by just chill out
and stop trying to make them so
(21:31):
great.
Just enjoy your time with them, it's
very limited.
I've already had one
leave and I'm about to have two more
leave. And so you realize, you're
like, you know what, time is really
short.
This was a super long way to
answer the question about what
age do you give your kid a cell
phone.
My answer is love it.
(21:51):
I don't know do the best you can
sit and don't beat yourself up
because you're gonna get it wrong
Yeah. Dave, I want to point out,
which I love long answers, by the
way, when you said lower
anxiety level, but the other
thing that you're increasing
by your connection that
would happen with your son when he
was able to have a conversation
about this I feel when you're
(22:12):
pushing reading on me.
I just want to celebrate that
type of connection that a son can
say to you, hey, this is
how I feel when you're pushing this.
Can we back that off?
That connection and warmth that
you're safe here is
such a big deal.
It is that really is and
you know i've i've
learned to prioritize
(22:33):
relationship over
just about anything else i
mean just about anything else uh
i wish that my
son and i were reading c.s lewis
together but instead
we're watching mad max and
you know what i don't care as
long as we're together as long
(22:53):
as as long he wants to be with me
and we're in a relationship
together.
Take it, take the win and
enjoy watching Mad Max.
Yes.
And the upstream to all these
parenting tactics.
A small percentage of our
conversations are about tactics.
What do you think about this and how
(23:13):
have you approached that?
Who am I becoming as dad?
What am I prioritizing?
We talked about doing hard things
already of like that hard times
make good men.
The other side though, you've got
three...
I mean, there's several just areas I
want to dial in on that are at the
center of men's alliance, the that
you founded and you lead.
(23:34):
Isolation is one of them.
So you say we're bringing men out of
isolation, out of their comfort
zone, which we talked about a little
bit already, and away from
their facades.
Could you?
You can pick any of those three
or all three together.
I'd just love to hear you express
why this is such a big deal.
Oh, sure, man.
And you know what?
This is, this is
(23:56):
equally as big a deal for
kids.
You know, my, my focus,
my ministry is on men, but
those three things are
equal problems for
kids, for teens.
And so, you know, just to
touch on them all three real
briefly,
the motto in Men's Alliance,
(24:16):
our motto is Tribal Rugged Real,
because each one of those words
is the opposite.
That problem that you just
described.
And so the first big problem is
isolation.
And I see this so
rampant with dads.
They go to work
where they have
(24:36):
to, you have to
be that
man at work who
has it all together.
You have to the professionally
competent achiever
at work, and that's
great. But you also
have to stop being that
man as soon as you come home
(24:58):
and a lot of men don't know
how to turn that off.
They don't how to hang that hat up
when they walk in the door and put
on the dad or
husband hat and so that
I don't need any help I've got
it all together competent achiever
hat that we wear all day at work.
That hat will destroy you
at home.
(25:19):
It will destroy your friendships,
your relationships, and everything.
Because it's isolating and
so we want men to
close their laptops and
stop pretending
they've got everything together,
stop pretending you're fine, be
real, that's the real part,
and get outside, get out of your
(25:40):
comfort zone, that is the rugged
part. So if we can get men
out of isolation, out of their
comfort zones and away from facades
of having it together,
I think what we will do as
a culture is we will be able to
greatly reduce the
suicide rates,
the addiction rates, the depression
(26:01):
and the anxiety that men,
these things are bigger
problems with adult men than
they are any other demographic,
which surprises a lot of people.
You tend to think of like, you
know, the stereotypical
person most at risk for
anxiety, depression, addiction
and suicide being like.
(26:22):
Teenager or something.
No, it's a 55 year
old man. He's way more at risk
because he's carrying
the weight of the world on his
shoulders. He has got the family and
the mortgage and the career and
he can't afford to mess up and
he knows it.
So he's holding the whole world
together and he
cant let on that
(26:43):
he's terrified,
that he is frustrated and that
leads men to their breaking point.
And so.
With men's alliance, we wanna get
men outdoors around a
fire, bonding,
building that band of brothers that
can only be done through
a really strenuous
workout because that's how men bond
(27:05):
is through shared physical struggle.
So first we're bonding over that
and then we're being real.
And as soon as a guy starts
talking about his problem,
his real struggle,
absolutely guaranteed 100%
of the time other men around
that fire have the same problem.
And so it's just, it's like the
(27:25):
floodgates just open and you're
like, why are we all,
why are all not talking more about
this stuff?
So that's our motto,
that's those three elements and
you know, as we think about them as
men, it's important to
remember our
teenagers have the problem.
(27:46):
One of the game changers for me
was sitting at my
dining room table with my kids.
Drawing the questions out of
them.
Like, give voice to the
questions you know they must have.
So I remember one time I said
to, I just threw it out there at
(28:06):
the dining room table one night, I
was like, haven't you kids ever
wondered, have you guys ever
wondered how do we know that
somebody didn't just make up the
Bible? How do we that it's
true? And like, the kids were
I'm like, yes,
I've been wondering that.
Resonates. Right, so.
They're wondering it.
They've got the questions and
(28:27):
they're afraid to ask.
They're afraid they might get in
trouble for asking.
And a lot of dads don't want
them to ask because they don't know
the answer anyway.
So you're creating this house of
silence, this house with cards.
And the second one
college professor destroys
it.
(28:47):
The kids are gonna think it was
destroyed.
The truth is it was never destroyed.
The answers have always been there.
So dads, when you start asking
the question for your kid, hey,
haven't you ever wondered?
Hey, have you ever been curious
about how we know,
how we can actually prove that the
resurrection occurred?
(29:07):
Kids are like, you're kidding,
really? Yes, I've wondered this.
And so then we just have a
good conversation.
They didn't even have to ask the
question, but they're learning.
And I have found that the best
moments for talking with my kids.
When we're riding together
in the truck running errands
together. When I get a kid in the
(29:28):
truck and we're going to
the grocery store, we're going to a
gas station and I just
open the door.
If you just crack the door open dad,
all you got to do is crack the open
and that kid will
know that their
faith is real.
Yes. They'll be able to defend it
and they won't become a statistic
(29:48):
when they go to college.
Dave, I wanted to, just before we
kind of come in for landing here and
have you pray, a short prayer for
us, was there any, just one
or two more minutes, anything on
your heart that you're like, I want
the dads to hear this.
Any last thoughts?
Oh man, it would definitely
be dads,
you need a tribe.
(30:09):
Like you cannot,
you would be an absolute fool
to try to do this by yourself.
Like, don't try to go this alone.
The myth of
the lone ranger
has been prevalent
in our culture.
The truth of the matter is
(30:29):
everything
important and big that's ever been
done was done by a group.
It was done a team, it was done by
a platoon, it's was done by a posse,
it done by tribe.
Nothing gets done by the individual.
That's a myth and you've got to
reject it.
And so,
a good test for
(30:50):
men that are like,
well, you know, I don't know what he
means by tribe, but I've got some
friends. Okay, here's the test.
Here's how to know if you have a
tribe. Do you have
12?
Phone numbers of
men who live in
the same town with you.
That's key.
We are not talking about your
buddies that live two states over.
(31:12):
You have 12 men in your
phone that you could call at
2 a.m.
That will be at your house, no
questions asked.
If you do, congratulations.
You're in a very rare group.
You've got yourself a valuable
tribe.
Keep doing what
you're doing and you know,
nurturing those relationships, but
(31:33):
most men don't.
Most men, they would be
thrilled if they had two to three
men in their town that they could
call.
But you think about this, this
is the example that Jesus
set for us.
This isn't Dave Mills's
idea.
Jesus, before he
(31:53):
started his ministry, He
formed his tribe.
He built his tribe and notice this
he went and he found
them and he made it happen.
So he took the initiative.
He didn't sit at home saying, I'm
always the one who initiates lunch,
how come nobody ever calls me?
That's a ridiculous question.
You've been blessed with the
(32:15):
ability to be the starter.
You're the starter, you're the guy
who makes the calls.
You're, the guy, who goes around and
tells men, hey drop your
fishing nets let's go get lunch at
Mission Barbecue.
Right? So That's what Jesus
did.
And we have to do the same.
If Jesus needed 12
buddies, why would we think we
(32:36):
need any less?
So that's my number one message
to man is build your
tribe.
Yes. Dave, thank you for
this charge.
Can you say just a short prayer over
all the dads listening?
Father God, I just thank you
for this opportunity here,
Lord, to exercise
the freedom that we have in this
country, to talk to men
(32:58):
across a podcast
platform, across a
video, to pray out loud
in your name.
Lord, you've given us
so much, so many resources
and so many
freedoms and help us
to not them help us to not
squander them help us to
(33:19):
Take this fight to
the enemy every single day.
God, help us to be better husbands,
fathers, and leaders.
Help us to become the men that you
designed us to be, God.
We pray this in your name.
Thanks so much for joining us for
episode 379
with David Mills.
(33:39):
All the conversation links, links
to the Men's Alliance website.
David's book are all gonna be
at dadawesome.org
slash podcast.
So I wanna encourage you guys to
check out those, you know, we have
transcripts, we have the top quotes,
the top takeaways are all going to
be at that website.
And again, encourage you to leave
Dad Awesome a voice message.
(34:00):
We'd love to hear from you.
Looking forward to scheduling a
couple one-on-one phone calls every
week. And those are so fun to listen
to your voice messages.
And then I reach back and get those
set up.
So, guys, thank you for being a part
of our community.
So grateful for the ever
growing movement of
Dad Awesome. And it's because of the
dads in this community.
So thank you for listening.
(34:20):
Thank you for sharing this podcast
or other Dad Awesome episodes that
have been impactful.
Praying for you guys.
Have a great week.
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