July 10, 2025 • 26 mins
Free Gift for Dads: Get Larry’s Full Presence Training—a free resource to help you stop drifting and show up more fully with your kids.
🎁 Grab it here: https://thedadedge.com/fully-present/
Have you ever asked yourself:
- What did "good parenting" look like to me back then, and has my definition changed?
- Am I truly modeling the behaviors and values I want my kids to learn?
- Have I been intentional about learning parenting skills, or did I just expect to figure it out?
Today, Larry opens up about the raw truth of becoming a dad for the first time—from the excitement and overwhelming fear, to the anxiety of not knowing what “good parenting” really looks like, especially if you didn’t see it modeled growing up. He shares candid stories of his own uncertainties, the chaos of early family life, and the clumsy trial-and-error approach so many dads experience at first. Through heartfelt anecdotes—including a turning point moment that led him to create the Dad Edge movement—Larry lays out the most important pieces of advice he wishes he could have shared with his younger self.
This episode is packed with honest lessons about embracing mistakes, the necessity of learning and sharpening your skills as a parent, and the powerful influence of leading by example. Larry emphasizes that fatherhood is a skill that can be developed, much like any other, and that leaning into mentorship and building connections with your kids is the true foundation of lifelong influence. He also discusses why being present and intentional with your family trumps everything else, and offers a free resource on full presence training to help dads show up more powerfully—right now, not just “someday.”
Whether you’re a brand new dad navigating sleepless nights, an experienced father striving to reconnect with your teens, or simply someone determined not to go through this journey alone, Larry’s wisdom will remind you that it’s never too late to build meaningful connections and become the leader your family deserves.
In this vital conversation, we dig into:
- You Don’t Have to Know Everything
When I first found out I was going to be a dad, I was TERRIFIED. Part of me thought fatherhood would come naturally, but the truth is, like anything else worth mastering, it has to be learned. No one expects you to compete at black belt level in jiu jitsu without years of training—the same goes for being a great dad. - Stop Faking “Having It All Together”
For the first six years, I went through the motions, feeling like a fraud. I was scared to admit I didn’t know what I was doing, and I was terrified of making mistakes. If I could sit my younger self down, I’d say: Drop the ego and ask for help. Surround yourself with mentors. Start learning right away. - Your Actions Speak Louder Than Words
One of my favorite lessons from guest Devin Bandison: “The audio’s got to match the video.” Telling your kids to be healthy, disciplined, or open-minded means nothing if you’re not modeling those traits yourself. Your kids are always watching—become the example you want them to follow. - You Don’t Have to Always Lead—Learn Together
I promise my kids I’ll always be willing to learn something new with them—even if I’m clueless. Whether it’s hunting, fixing things, or just tackling a new hobby, the journey of learning beside them matters more than mastering the skill. - Connection Comes Before Influence
Without daily connection, there’s no real influence. Rituals like asking about the best part of their day or what they enjoy at school build trust, credibility, and authority when those tough conversations need to happen. No matter their age, it’s never too late to connect.
This episode is packed with insights to help you live with more intention, purpose, and connection as a father. So sit back, tune in, and get ready to take your dad game to the next level!
Here's what research and observation highlight about family relationships:
- Research shows that children are 82% more likely to imitate parental behaviors than to follow spoken advice alone.
- Studies have found that strong parent-child bonds can increase positive behavioral outcomes in children by up to 72%.
- Only about 12% of married couples report being in a happy, working relationship, highlighting how uncommon deeply sati
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
I first found out my wife
was pregnant in 2005.
I was very terrified to have them
because it had nothing to do with them,
had everything to do with the fact
that I didn't feel equipped for it.
I don't know what I'm doing.
I have no idea.
Like what to do. Like, what am I doing?
This kid cries, what if I screw this up?
That was all in my head.
I was absolutely terrified.
You think that because you're a man,
(00:20):
because you're a husband
that automatically equips
you to be a good dad.
And that's not the case.
The desire to be a good
dad is a piece of it,
but it's not all of it.
A lot of men want to be a good dad.
Are you willing to do the work
to be a better father?
To step into being mentored and leading
and being taught
and casting your ego aside
(00:41):
and just say,
I don't have this all figured out.
I have no idea what I'm doing
or someone please help me.
Man, what did you
feel like when you first found out
your wife was pregnant?
Or your girlfriend was pregnant,
or significant
other was pregnant, and you're like,
oh my gosh.
And you never had a kid before that.
And I go back to certain things
(01:03):
that I was thinking
and feeling and I'm like,
oh my gosh, I was
I was absolutely terrified.
And here I am.
I have four boys, 19 to 9.
And there wasn't one of them
that when my wife was pregnant I was like,
Wow.
What is this going to be like.
I was terrified like like I'm talking like
like roller coaster flying off the rails,
(01:25):
terrified before becoming a dad.
And I'll tell you everything
that's happened in these 20 years
give or take has been
some of it has been really, really scary.
Some of it's been euphoric.
Some of it's been a roller coaster.
Some of it's been sad.
Some of it's been angry,
some of it's been happy.
Some of it's been everything.
But I'll tell you,
it wasn't really what I expected.
(01:47):
Looking back on it
now, 20 years
and that's
what today's podcast is all about.
It's a parent focused podcast around,
me being 50 years old this month.
I just turned 50 last week, and,
and I've been a dad for 20 years
and it's the advice
I would have given myself
when I was 30
and just starting to have kids.
And for all
you guys out there
(02:07):
who are young dads,
or maybe you, maybe you're not young dads,
or maybe your dads
who've been dads longer than me.
You might be like shaking your head
like, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Or if you're a younger dad, I'd be like,
oh dude, please tell me.
Like what?
What were the mistakes you made?
Or the thoughts going through your head
so I can normalize
what's going through mine, right.
So if that's you,
you're in the right place.
You're in the dads podcast.
(02:27):
I'm Larry
Hagner, I'm your host and founder.
I am a husband of one,
a father of four,
the founder of the Dad Edge podcast,
founder of the Data Edge Alliance.
That's our lead Brotherhood
for hard charging
men who have 9 to 5 jobs.
The dad Edge boardroom.
That's our
lead brotherhood for business owners
who want to continue to grow
and grow their business
while cultivating an incredible
marriage and connection with their kids.
(02:49):
That's what we do here at that edge.
And if you're here,
you probably want those things too.
In this one
today is a parent focused
show around the conversation
that I would have had with myself.
And the idea around this theme
for the month of July was really
sparked by one of my kids.
He asked me,
he's like, man, what what,
what advice would you have given yourself?
You know, when you first became a dad?
(03:09):
And I was like,
oh my gosh, like, is there?
I feel like a laundry list.
But I do have some, some ideas.
So here, here's a couple of them.
So I want to start with a story of
if you tuned in last week,
you understood,
like how terrified I was to get married,
because I always thought that marriage
was pretty much the launching pad
for divorce.
(03:30):
If that's not the most pessimistic
thing in the world to think about,
like that's really what it was for me.
I really thought that, like,
whoever I'm going to marry,
I'm going to be divorced.
And doesn't
everybody get divorced and remarried?
And several times
it just sort of happens that way.
But if you look at the stats,
I mean, that is really
a lot of what happens to people
is, you know, 50% divorce,
50% of people get married, get divorced.
(03:50):
And, but if you really look at the stats,
like I said last week, it's it's
12% of people who get married
that are actually can actually identify
their relationship is working
and they're happy.
And those are
those are terrible, terrible stats.
And I really think that
we would have a better outcome
if we were taught things differently
or we
it's really twofold
if we were taught things
(04:11):
differently growing up,
but also as an adult,
that we took initiative
to learn new skills
to navigate these things,
because anything we do
well in life, we learn how to do it.
You know, you don't go
compete at a black belt level
jiu jitsu tournament and do well.
Unless you've been doing
jiu jitsu for 20 years
and you've earned your black belt right,
or I'm sorry, ten years,
I think it takes ten years.
Earn your black belt jiu jitsu.
(04:32):
So people have a deep desire
to do
jiu jitsu,
and they might have a deep desire
to compete in 2 to 2, but they,
they're probably not going to do
well unless they do the training.
If they learn the skills.
And when it comes to marriage
or when it comes to parenting,
what I have found,
that's lesson number one is,
is we gotta learn it.
But I'm gonna get back
to that here in a second.
So let me get back to the story of when I.
(04:54):
When I first found out
my wife was pregnant,
I first found out
my wife was pregnant in 2005.
And I gotta tell you,
we were married for two years
before we were able to get pregnant.
And, those two years,
I gotta tell you, I was
I was getting frustrated at the end
that we weren't getting pregnant
because I could
I could see my wife's frustration.
(05:15):
She was really frustrated.
She at that time in my life,
she wanted children
more than more than I did.
It's not that I didn't want them,
as I was very terrified to have them
because it had nothing to do with them,
had everything to do with the fact
that I didn't feel equipped for it.
So I didn't know what I was doing.
It was a lot of
it was probably because of my upbringing.
I just kind of grew up in a rather
chaotic environment
and didn't know a lot about it.
(05:36):
But the thing is that
my my upbringing wasn't
necessarily special or unique.
I mean, some parts of it was like,
I didn't even meet my biological father.
1230 so I guess that is pretty unique.
But and we still have a relationship
to this day. But,
but I'm talking about more or
less the blended family, sort of,
you know, parents get divorced and,
you know, maybe dads leave or moms.
(05:58):
There's animosity.
There's all kinds of craziness
that happens.
And but back then, that was
kind of normal.
And some of it still sort of is.
And when you grow up that way,
if I'm speaking to you
and you understand that, you're
probably like, man, yeah, like I,
I know what that looks like,
but I don't know a good looks like
and that was that was my story too.
And I thought that
I knew what bad look like.
(06:19):
I knew I was like,
okay, I'm not going to like, abuse
my kids.
I'm not going to like,
you know, get drunk and go crazy on them
or beat them up
or do these horrific things.
So I'm not going to do that.
I'm not going to call them names,
but I don't
I don't really know what good looks like
either, like I've seen on TV, but like,
is that what you're supposed to be
like doing all the time?
Like, it's like the sort of like,
(06:41):
I don't know, like this
fairy tale type thing.
Like, that doesn't seem possible either,
because there's got to be problems.
There's got to be storms.
You got to figure out
how to weather the storm.
Like what are you doing?
Your kid does this or what are you doing?
Your kid does that.
Or when they misbehave,
or we lose our temper
or we lose control, or like what?
What do I do then?
Like, I don't really know.
And I'll never forget this conversation
I had
with my stepmom a week before
(07:02):
my oldest son was born.
It was just the two of us,
and my stepmom
is one of those people
that she is the easiest person
in the world to talk to.
She is the type person that you walk away
from a conversation like, man,
I can't believe I told her all that
and she's just very comfortable.
I'll talk to you and I'll never forget,
you know, a week
before my oldest son was born, she's like,
oh my gosh, you know, your week away.
You must be so excited.
And I don't know what
it was in that moment,
(07:22):
but anytime anyone came up to me
and was talking about
like how excited I would probably was or
I would,
I would just smile and fake
and be like, yeah, I'm so excited,
I can't wait.
And inside I was like, oh my gosh, like,
I can't believe it's going to happen.
I'm terrified, right?
Oh God, that's really what I was thinking.
So when she said that,
I don't know what it was,
but I just felt really comfortable
and I just told her
I was like, actually, I'm I'm terrified.
(07:44):
And she kind of laughed
and I think she thought I was joking.
I was like, no,
I'm actually really serious.
Like, I'm I'm really scared.
And she's like, what do you mean?
I was like, I don't know.
It's like, I don't know.
I was like, I don't know what I'm doing.
I have no idea.
Like what to do. Like, what am I doing?
This kid cries, what are we going to do?
And we have no sleep.
What is this going to do to my marriage?
Like, what if I screw this up?
Like,
what if I don't change a diaper, right?
(08:05):
What if I do something wrong?
Like, what if I lay him down wrong?
Like, what if I.
What if I'm just not the guy
to lead this kid?
Like I was all in my head.
I was absolutely terrified.
And it that terror did not go away
when I brought him home.
It stayed there for a very long time
because I constantly second
guessed every single move that I made
and everything that I was doing
(08:26):
and I was I was terrified beyond belief
of making mistakes.
And I think to be honest,
my first six years as a dad,
I was really clunky.
I felt really lost.
I felt like I kind of wanted to escape.
It wasn't that I wasn't a bad father
(08:47):
and it wasn't like I was abusive, but
I was totally like
just going through the motions.
Like, I mean,
you see those people
like, you probably remember going to,
like, playing a high school sport.
Maybe you're a football player
or a wrestler,
a basketball player, a baseball player,
and you knew people on that.
Maybe you were one of those guys
that like,
(09:07):
went all out all the time,
you know,
like Rudy from the movie Rudy, like, yeah,
you know,
the dude went all out every practice,
no matter what.
It was just
it was like the Super Bowl for him.
And the whole time, like
the kid was all heart, right?
And maybe you were like that
where you went all out
and you're just like,
you left nothing on the table,
and then you knew.
Or maybe you were this person
I know I was sometimes
when I wrestled in high school,
(09:29):
I would leave a lot on the table.
I'd go through the motions
because I was tired.
I wouldn't want to try hard or,
you know, I'm just like, man,
I just want this practice to be over.
And I just sort of
just go through the motions,
just get through the practice
and just kind of check the box.
And that's how I was showing up as a dad.
And I knew,
but I didn't know what
what good look like.
But I knew that
there was more on the table.
(09:49):
I just did
not know how to access more on the table.
I didn't know good look like.
And to be honest,
there was even a part of me
that thought that, well,
if I really, really try and I go all out,
is that disingenuous?
Am I faking it?
Like, is this weird?
Like I had there were so many questions.
There were so, so much uncertainty.
There was so much insecurity.
(10:11):
And I see a lot of guys like that,
and I know guys like that.
And I was like that.
And the fear was like,
I don't have enough.
I'm not equipped enough to be a dad.
That's really what it boiled down to.
And if I could have a conversation
with myself
at 30 now, you know, if I could go out,
go back in time,
sit myself down
(10:32):
30 years old, and here I am, 50.
Here's what I tell myself.
Dude, you're a human being.
You're a man,
and you're going to make mistakes.
And it's not necessarily and the mistakes
you make, but it's also how you recover.
And here's what I would tell them too.
Here's the good news, man.
You think you have to grind
and muster your way through this process
(10:53):
and learning it.
You think that because you're a man,
because you're a husband
that automatically equips
you to be a good dad.
And that's not the case.
The desire to be a good
dad is a piece of it,
but it's not all of it.
A lot of men want to be a good dad.
Are you willing to do the work
to be a better father?
Are you willing to step into
being mentored and led and
(11:15):
and being taught and
and casting your ego aside
and just say,
I don't have this all figured out.
I have no idea what I'm doing.
Well, someone please help me.
Like, that's what
I would have told myself early on,
because it would have saved me six years
of agony.
Because it was when I started.
Good.
That project, which is now the that edge.
That was six years into my being a dad,
(11:36):
and unfortunately,
I made a promise to myself
as a dad
that I would never hit my children
out of anger.
And I broke that promise.
When my oldest was six and my
my four year old was four.
I'm sorry, my seven year old was four.
And so at the time, in my 19 year
old was six, and my seven year
old was four.
And I,
(11:57):
I spanked my four year
old and I stepped out of line.
I spanked him,
and right when I spanked him,
it was almost like this
heaviness, like, came over me and
the poor kid, like
when I swap
my swatted him on the rear end,
he lost his balance and he fell.
And my child, my son fell at my hand.
And that was a very surreal
moment for me that I hurt my son,
(12:21):
by my hand.
And it was me
that was out of control and not him.
And that's when I finally made
that surrender,
that it was really hard.
And what I'm talking about is like,
I don't know what I'm doing.
I have no idea what I'm doing.
This is not fine.
This is not good, and this is not right.
I've got to be better.
(12:42):
I got to figure this out.
And that's when I really started
thinking, could fatherhood?
Could parenting be just like anything else
we learn,
even though for some crazy reason
we view it as something different,
meaning like, well, you're a parent,
so you must. It's nature.
It's natural for you
to just know what to do, to figure it out.
And if you don't, you're less than.
But we don't.
We don't do that any, part of our life.
(13:04):
You might. My son, my my 17 year old son.
This same one who was just spanked,
came home just beaming the other day
because his grandpa, my father
in law, asked him to come over
so he could teach my son
how to change his oil.
And my son was beaming.
He was so happy.
He was like,
I changed my oil, learned how to do it.
(13:25):
Papa taught me.
And I thought that was so cool because
as simple as it sounds, my son
did not know how to change his oil,
you know, before he got there.
Now, granted,
he could Google it
or ChatGPT it or whatever, right?
But let's reverse the tape before
there was any resources out there.
(13:46):
And let's talk about a time
where you just had
to figure something out.
And if my son tried to change his oil
without any know how,
and he screwed something up,
like when we kind of expect that,
that he wouldn't get it right.
Like we're like,
hey, man,
you've been driving a car for a year.
You know where the oil goes.
(14:07):
You know what needs to be changed?
So, yeah, go to town.
It's it's under the car.
Don't worry.
You'll figure it out. Best time your life.
I don't know where the lug nuts at.
Don't worry.
You'll figure it out. It's about time.
Your life.
It's car fuel and driving for years.
On what kind of oil use?
Don't worry, you'll figure it out.
Yeah, it's.
It's a car.
It's Camry, so you'll figure it out.
You know what they take?
(14:28):
We don't do that in any other area.
We wouldn't expect our son to flawlessly
change his oil on his own
without knowing how to do it,
or being taught how to do it
and just figuring it out.
It probably get something wrong.
And in my case,
in our case, for us,
for dad's sake, is,
sometimes we get a lot of things wrong.
But here's the good news.
I would tell myself that it's okay.
And what I'm telling you that it's okay.
(14:50):
And if you don't know what to do.
I've said this many times
before in many podcasts,
if you don't know what to do,
chances are
it really isn't your fault
because this hasn't
really been normalized yet
that you can go out
and find the help you need.
You can actually learn these skills.
The parenting is just like anything else
that you learn.
If you're going to be successful at it,
you got to learn.
No one tells you
(15:10):
that what they always tell
you is the opposite.
Like, you'll figure it out.
Oh yeah, it sucks.
Don't worry about it or whatever. Right?
But we can learn.
So that's one thing I would say.
Here's another one.
You know, I'll never forget
this was a podcast guest
when when the when the dad age
was still the good that project
and Devin Madison never forget him.
(15:35):
He still is a speaker today.
And he's got this,
he's a motivational speaker.
He's got this awesome New York accent,
and he's always like, Larry,
the audio's got to match the video.
I'll never forget him saying that.
That was like,
that was like nine years ago, guys.
I still remember that.
That's one cool thing.
If I could segue real quick.
One cool thing about doing this
(15:55):
podcast 1400
episodes is like,
I remember certain things
from every single guest
in some way, shape or form
or they come up in my life and I'm like,
oh my gosh, there that lesson,
there's that lesson.
So if I want to raise good children,
then what I need to do is
I need to another piece of advice
I give myself is
I need to raise
my own standard of how I live.
(16:16):
Because if you really think about it,
our example, what we do,
we are a walking, talking, 3D motion
picture of an example on our kids
are soaking it up like a sponge.
So I could tell my kids all day long
why they shouldn't drink at a party,
but they see me have a beer in my hand
when I say it.
I could tell my kids not to do drugs,
but they might see me smoking a vape.
(16:38):
I don't do that,
but like they might see me
doing that right?
I might be telling my kids
to eat
healthy as I'm
scarfing down Big Macs
and swallowing beer at the same time,
I should tell my kids
that they need to
go work out and be healthy,
but I don't get my butt off the couch
and do anything with them.
I could tell my kids to be consistent
and show up for practice day
(16:59):
after day,
to be better than they were before
the day before, to be
1% better every single day.
But if they don't see me
sharpening my own ax, my own sword,
you know,
and they don't see me getting sharper
and growing and being better
every single day
than what I'm saying out of my mouth
is meaningless to them.
In fact,
it actually has no credibility whatsoever.
In fact, they look at us like hypocrisy.
(17:19):
And I didn't know that back then.
I always thought
like, well, I'm
the dad, I should have the say
and I can do what I want to do.
I'm the adult and they're not.
So I'm going to teach lessons
through my mouth,
but I don't have to really do them.
I don't know if I was doing that
on the surface, like purposely,
but that's the way I was living.
My life is exactly through that.
My kids saw me do horrific
(17:40):
things wrong, right?
I would tell them to do something
and then I would just turn and do it.
Get off your phone and pay attention to me
as I'm scrolling through my phone.
As they're talking to me,
things like that.
So the thing
I would have reminded myself back then,
or I would have probably really,
really pounded into my head,
is that if you want your kids
to have a healthy body,
you have to show them
(18:00):
what a healthy body looks like.
If you want them to have a growth mindset,
a mindset that is always learning right,
then you've got to show them that it's
okay for you to continue to learn, right?
One promise I've always made my kids.
I'm not saying I'm perfect,
but I've had to do this
because I don't know
how to do a whole lot. I'm not kidding.
The reason
my 17 year old had to go learn
how to change the oil from his grandpa
(18:22):
is because
I've only done that a handful of times,
and I don't know how to change the oil
on these newer cars,
and I could easily learn, but he
he knew the resource to go to.
You know, it wasn't me.
But I will
tell you that
I've always made my kids one promise,
and that is,
I may not be able to teach you everything,
but if you ever come to me
(18:42):
and there's something
that you don't know
that you want to learn,
I promise I'll do it with you.
I promise I'll do it with you.
So, like my 17 year old
want to go hunting?
I've never hunted before.
Last year, he and I got his first year.
I'd never done it.
We took a class safety class to do it,
got it, got a license, did all the things.
And then we got his first year
and it was my first time hunting two
(19:04):
and certain things like that.
I mean, I remember taking them to Lowe's
because I didn't know
how to put up a backsplash
and I'm like, let's
go take one of those classes
and we'll all learn together, right?
Just things like that
that we all get to learn together.
I started doing jujitsu
before I got hurt with my oldest son
because I've never done jujitsu.
Neither did he.
And I was like,
I don't know how to do that stuff.
(19:25):
Let's go learn together.
So what's really cool about being a dad
is that we don't have
to have it all figured out.
And this is what I would tell myself,
you don't have to have it all figured out.
But you know,
what's really cool is
if you go on the journey
of learning with them, right?
Go on the journey of learning with them.
So that's a piece of advice
I'd give myself as well.
The other thing too,
I have learned
(19:46):
and there's so many lessons,
but I'm going to wrap this up
with just one more,
because I think this one's really,
really important.
I think it's one that
we really, really miss
is that without connection,
I have no influence with my kids.
Without connection, I have no influence.
So, like,
for instance,
if I don't take the time to connect
with them,
to talk with them, to be curious
about their world in their life,
(20:06):
to have conversations every single day
about their life
and what's going on and not
how is your day?
I'm talking like questions like,
tell me about the best part of your day.
Tell me about who you set
aside at
lunch with,
who's your best friend and why,
and tell me about that.
And and all these conversations
that we have day
after day, rep after wrap,
day after day, wrap after wrap.
Is that connection
(20:27):
connection connection, connection
connection trumps everything.
And then when I do need to have
a difficult conversation around
maybe behavior
or wrongdoing or something like that,
or I need to get a point across,
I've got that connection
so sealed up that when I do
talk, I have credibility,
I have authority,
I have influence with them,
I have encouragement,
(20:48):
inspiration,
and I have a voice inside their mind
and their heart
that when I talk
and I need their attention,
that they do listen.
But that connection has to come first.
And what I always thought is, well,
I'm the disciplinarian.
I'm the authoritarian.
Like they need to listen to me anyway.
And here's the thing they should.
They really should. Right?
But the thing is, is we don't control
(21:10):
how much they turn our voices off
when we're actually talking to them
or with them.
We don't have a whole lot
of control over that,
but we do have influence over that.
And if we have connection,
we have influence.
And if we have influence,
then we have their attention.
So I would have spent a lot more time
in their early years
with that connection piece.
I'm glad I recovered when I did,
because I really started to get
(21:30):
my act together
when my oldest son was six,
so it was kind of just in time really.
If you're listening to this podcast
and you have kids that are older, it's
not too late for you.
It's not you can
you can still have connection.
I mean, you're talking,
you know,
you're listening to a guy right now
who's 50 years old
who for the past 20 years has had
a connection
and a relationship with his dad
that he never had growing up.
And he met when he was 30.
(21:51):
So it's never too late.
My dad and I have a great relationship
now, and,
you know, 30 years
my life went by
and he wasn't a part of it.
So it's never too late.
You know, it's never too late
to have that connection.
So whether you have a teenager,
whether you have a little kid,
doesn't matter.
Connection will always trump
everything else.
So if you want their ear,
you want their attention,
you want that credibility.
You want that
(22:11):
a thought
that that authority in their life.
The deeper that connection
is with your kid,
the better off you're going to be.
So that is
that is that
is my podcast for you guys today.
As it relates to this,
I have something in here for you guys.
It's totally free.
(22:31):
And it's something that I created
actually a while ago, and it's called,
full presence training.
One of the things that we battle
with as men
is and dads is our attention to them.
I mean, we
we live in a world of
absolute distraction.
I don't have to tell you guys
all the distractions out there.
All you got to do is
go to your kid's little league game
and just look around the bleachers
and you'll see what I'm talking about.
And just by me saying that,
you know what I'm talking about,
(22:53):
and I'm right there with you,
I'm there too.
I have have that problem here
and there too.
But I created this full presence training.
Course, it's
like I said, it's totally free.
There's a video course in it,
but basically what it does
is it helps
you get
really grounded
in the presence with your kids.
And when you find your mind drifting
and you find your thoughts drifting
and your attention
(23:13):
drifting with your kids,
you can use some of these skills
I talk about in this training
to really, really, really dig in
and be there 100% present with your kids.
It's been a game changer. I've been new.
I've been
I developed that about four years ago,
and it's something that
we're bringing back,
and it's something that I think it's,
it's going to be really, really useful for
you guys
(23:33):
as far as like if you're
if your connection is, is waning,
you know,
and you don't know
exactly what to do or
you don't know
exactly how to improve it,
I'm going to have that training
in the show notes for you guys.
So for this training,
you want to go to the data edge.com/friday
216 for this show.
Again the data edge.com/friday
(23:53):
216 for this show in there.
You can subscribe to that free training.
You can watch a video
I also have a PDF in there for you.
But it's a great way
a very simple way to do this.
Also, if you are,
sick and tired of just doing life alone,
you just want to be around,
common men, learning uncommon
skills and doing uncommon things.
Then you can join our elite brotherhood.
(24:15):
If you're a career guy,
over at the Alliance.
So that's our brotherhood.
That's our leap brotherhood
we've had for nine years.
Over the alliance,
we've helped over 4000
men in that program.
I'll tell you, it's a game changer.
I like all the things
we talk about on this podcast.
All the skills around
parenting and marriage and,
health and wealth and mental health and
all of the things
that are so important to us as men,
(24:36):
that's what we do there in the Alliance.
And for all my dads out there,
all my entrepreneurs,
my business owners out there,
we got the boardroom for you.
We've been doing that for seven years.
That's for our elite.
It's our elite brotherhood for,
for our business owners.
We help you continue to grow
and scale your business
while also creating
the marriage of your dreams
and the connection with your kids
you've always wanted.
Entrepreneurs were highly driven people.
(24:57):
And the,
the high drive
and the the success that comes
with building a business,
sometimes comes with the sacrifice
of the attention that we give at home
and in the boardroom.
We teach you how to do all three,
so, you know, not leave one behind.
So I'm gonna have all those links
in the show notes for you guys,
for the free training,
for the presidents training for
for the Lions, for the boardroom.
And if there's ever
(25:18):
anything I can do for you.
I'm not. I'm not hard to find.
You can shoot me a DM on Instagram.
I answer all my own Instagram
messages, my own Facebook
messages, the whole nine yards.
So head on over to the data
edge.com for Friday 216 for the show.
Again, the data Edgecomb forward slash
Friday 216 go out
live legendary gentlemen.
I first found out my wife
was pregnant in 2005.
I was very terrified to have them
because it had nothing to do with them,
had everything to do with the fact
that I didn't feel equipped for it.
I don't know what I'm doing.
I have no idea.
Like what to do. Like, what am I doing?
This kid cries, what if I screw this up?
That was all in my head.
I was absolutely terrified.
You think that because you're a man,
(00:20):
because you're a husband
that automatically equips
you to be a good dad.
And that's not the case.
The desire to be a good
dad is a piece of it,
but it's not all of it.
A lot of men want to be a good dad.
Are you willing to do the work
to be a better father?
To step into being mentored and leading
and being taught
and casting your ego aside
(00:41):
and just say,
I don't have this all figured out.
I have no idea what I'm doing
or someone please help me.
Man, what did you
feel like when you first found out
your wife was pregnant?
Or your girlfriend was pregnant,
or significant
other was pregnant, and you're like,
oh my gosh.
And you never had a kid before that.
And I go back to certain things
(01:03):
that I was thinking
and feeling and I'm like,
oh my gosh, I was
I was absolutely terrified.
And here I am.
I have four boys, 19 to 9.
And there wasn't one of them
that when my wife was pregnant I was like,
Wow.
What is this going to be like.
I was terrified like like I'm talking like
like roller coaster flying off the rails,
(01:25):
terrified before becoming a dad.
And I'll tell you everything
that's happened in these 20 years
give or take has been
some of it has been really, really scary.
Some of it's been euphoric.
Some of it's been a roller coaster.
Some of it's been sad.
Some of it's been angry,
some of it's been happy.
Some of it's been everything.
But I'll tell you,
it wasn't really what I expected.
(01:47):
Looking back on it
now, 20 years
and that's
what today's podcast is all about.
It's a parent focused podcast around,
me being 50 years old this month.
I just turned 50 last week, and,
and I've been a dad for 20 years
and it's the advice
I would have given myself
when I was 30
and just starting to have kids.
And for all
you guys out there
(02:07):
who are young dads,
or maybe you, maybe you're not young dads,
or maybe your dads
who've been dads longer than me.
You might be like shaking your head
like, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Or if you're a younger dad, I'd be like,
oh dude, please tell me.
Like what?
What were the mistakes you made?
Or the thoughts going through your head
so I can normalize
what's going through mine, right.
So if that's you,
you're in the right place.
You're in the dads podcast.
(02:27):
I'm Larry
Hagner, I'm your host and founder.
I am a husband of one,
a father of four,
the founder of the Dad Edge podcast,
founder of the Data Edge Alliance.
That's our lead Brotherhood
for hard charging
men who have 9 to 5 jobs.
The dad Edge boardroom.
That's our
lead brotherhood for business owners
who want to continue to grow
and grow their business
while cultivating an incredible
marriage and connection with their kids.
(02:49):
That's what we do here at that edge.
And if you're here,
you probably want those things too.
In this one
today is a parent focused
show around the conversation
that I would have had with myself.
And the idea around this theme
for the month of July was really
sparked by one of my kids.
He asked me,
he's like, man, what what,
what advice would you have given yourself?
You know, when you first became a dad?
(03:09):
And I was like,
oh my gosh, like, is there?
I feel like a laundry list.
But I do have some, some ideas.
So here, here's a couple of them.
So I want to start with a story of
if you tuned in last week,
you understood,
like how terrified I was to get married,
because I always thought that marriage
was pretty much the launching pad
for divorce.
(03:30):
If that's not the most pessimistic
thing in the world to think about,
like that's really what it was for me.
I really thought that, like,
whoever I'm going to marry,
I'm going to be divorced.
And doesn't
everybody get divorced and remarried?
And several times
it just sort of happens that way.
But if you look at the stats,
I mean, that is really
a lot of what happens to people
is, you know, 50% divorce,
50% of people get married, get divorced.
(03:50):
And, but if you really look at the stats,
like I said last week, it's it's
12% of people who get married
that are actually can actually identify
their relationship is working
and they're happy.
And those are
those are terrible, terrible stats.
And I really think that
we would have a better outcome
if we were taught things differently
or we
it's really twofold
if we were taught things
(04:11):
differently growing up,
but also as an adult,
that we took initiative
to learn new skills
to navigate these things,
because anything we do
well in life, we learn how to do it.
You know, you don't go
compete at a black belt level
jiu jitsu tournament and do well.
Unless you've been doing
jiu jitsu for 20 years
and you've earned your black belt right,
or I'm sorry, ten years,
I think it takes ten years.
Earn your black belt jiu jitsu.
(04:32):
So people have a deep desire
to do
jiu jitsu,
and they might have a deep desire
to compete in 2 to 2, but they,
they're probably not going to do
well unless they do the training.
If they learn the skills.
And when it comes to marriage
or when it comes to parenting,
what I have found,
that's lesson number one is,
is we gotta learn it.
But I'm gonna get back
to that here in a second.
So let me get back to the story of when I.
(04:54):
When I first found out
my wife was pregnant,
I first found out
my wife was pregnant in 2005.
And I gotta tell you,
we were married for two years
before we were able to get pregnant.
And, those two years,
I gotta tell you, I was
I was getting frustrated at the end
that we weren't getting pregnant
because I could
I could see my wife's frustration.
(05:15):
She was really frustrated.
She at that time in my life,
she wanted children
more than more than I did.
It's not that I didn't want them,
as I was very terrified to have them
because it had nothing to do with them,
had everything to do with the fact
that I didn't feel equipped for it.
So I didn't know what I was doing.
It was a lot of
it was probably because of my upbringing.
I just kind of grew up in a rather
chaotic environment
and didn't know a lot about it.
(05:36):
But the thing is that
my my upbringing wasn't
necessarily special or unique.
I mean, some parts of it was like,
I didn't even meet my biological father.
1230 so I guess that is pretty unique.
But and we still have a relationship
to this day. But,
but I'm talking about more or
less the blended family, sort of,
you know, parents get divorced and,
you know, maybe dads leave or moms.
(05:58):
There's animosity.
There's all kinds of craziness
that happens.
And but back then, that was
kind of normal.
And some of it still sort of is.
And when you grow up that way,
if I'm speaking to you
and you understand that, you're
probably like, man, yeah, like I,
I know what that looks like,
but I don't know a good looks like
and that was that was my story too.
And I thought that
I knew what bad look like.
(06:19):
I knew I was like,
okay, I'm not going to like, abuse
my kids.
I'm not going to like,
you know, get drunk and go crazy on them
or beat them up
or do these horrific things.
So I'm not going to do that.
I'm not going to call them names,
but I don't
I don't really know what good looks like
either, like I've seen on TV, but like,
is that what you're supposed to be
like doing all the time?
Like, it's like the sort of like,
(06:41):
I don't know, like this
fairy tale type thing.
Like, that doesn't seem possible either,
because there's got to be problems.
There's got to be storms.
You got to figure out
how to weather the storm.
Like what are you doing?
Your kid does this or what are you doing?
Your kid does that.
Or when they misbehave,
or we lose our temper
or we lose control, or like what?
What do I do then?
Like, I don't really know.
And I'll never forget this conversation
I had
with my stepmom a week before
(07:02):
my oldest son was born.
It was just the two of us,
and my stepmom
is one of those people
that she is the easiest person
in the world to talk to.
She is the type person that you walk away
from a conversation like, man,
I can't believe I told her all that
and she's just very comfortable.
I'll talk to you and I'll never forget,
you know, a week
before my oldest son was born, she's like,
oh my gosh, you know, your week away.
You must be so excited.
And I don't know what
it was in that moment,
(07:22):
but anytime anyone came up to me
and was talking about
like how excited I would probably was or
I would,
I would just smile and fake
and be like, yeah, I'm so excited,
I can't wait.
And inside I was like, oh my gosh, like,
I can't believe it's going to happen.
I'm terrified, right?
Oh God, that's really what I was thinking.
So when she said that,
I don't know what it was,
but I just felt really comfortable
and I just told her
I was like, actually, I'm I'm terrified.
(07:44):
And she kind of laughed
and I think she thought I was joking.
I was like, no,
I'm actually really serious.
Like, I'm I'm really scared.
And she's like, what do you mean?
I was like, I don't know.
It's like, I don't know.
I was like, I don't know what I'm doing.
I have no idea.
Like what to do. Like, what am I doing?
This kid cries, what are we going to do?
And we have no sleep.
What is this going to do to my marriage?
Like, what if I screw this up?
Like,
what if I don't change a diaper, right?
(08:05):
What if I do something wrong?
Like, what if I lay him down wrong?
Like, what if I.
What if I'm just not the guy
to lead this kid?
Like I was all in my head.
I was absolutely terrified.
And it that terror did not go away
when I brought him home.
It stayed there for a very long time
because I constantly second
guessed every single move that I made
and everything that I was doing
(08:26):
and I was I was terrified beyond belief
of making mistakes.
And I think to be honest,
my first six years as a dad,
I was really clunky.
I felt really lost.
I felt like I kind of wanted to escape.
It wasn't that I wasn't a bad father
(08:47):
and it wasn't like I was abusive, but
I was totally like
just going through the motions.
Like, I mean,
you see those people
like, you probably remember going to,
like, playing a high school sport.
Maybe you're a football player
or a wrestler,
a basketball player, a baseball player,
and you knew people on that.
Maybe you were one of those guys
that like,
(09:07):
went all out all the time,
you know,
like Rudy from the movie Rudy, like, yeah,
you know,
the dude went all out every practice,
no matter what.
It was just
it was like the Super Bowl for him.
And the whole time, like
the kid was all heart, right?
And maybe you were like that
where you went all out
and you're just like,
you left nothing on the table,
and then you knew.
Or maybe you were this person
I know I was sometimes
when I wrestled in high school,
(09:29):
I would leave a lot on the table.
I'd go through the motions
because I was tired.
I wouldn't want to try hard or,
you know, I'm just like, man,
I just want this practice to be over.
And I just sort of
just go through the motions,
just get through the practice
and just kind of check the box.
And that's how I was showing up as a dad.
And I knew,
but I didn't know what
what good look like.
But I knew that
there was more on the table.
(09:49):
I just did
not know how to access more on the table.
I didn't know good look like.
And to be honest,
there was even a part of me
that thought that, well,
if I really, really try and I go all out,
is that disingenuous?
Am I faking it?
Like, is this weird?
Like I had there were so many questions.
There were so, so much uncertainty.
There was so much insecurity.
(10:11):
And I see a lot of guys like that,
and I know guys like that.
And I was like that.
And the fear was like,
I don't have enough.
I'm not equipped enough to be a dad.
That's really what it boiled down to.
And if I could have a conversation
with myself
at 30 now, you know, if I could go out,
go back in time,
sit myself down
(10:32):
30 years old, and here I am, 50.
Here's what I tell myself.
Dude, you're a human being.
You're a man,
and you're going to make mistakes.
And it's not necessarily and the mistakes
you make, but it's also how you recover.
And here's what I would tell them too.
Here's the good news, man.
You think you have to grind
and muster your way through this process
(10:53):
and learning it.
You think that because you're a man,
because you're a husband
that automatically equips
you to be a good dad.
And that's not the case.
The desire to be a good
dad is a piece of it,
but it's not all of it.
A lot of men want to be a good dad.
Are you willing to do the work
to be a better father?
Are you willing to step into
being mentored and led and
(11:15):
and being taught and
and casting your ego aside
and just say,
I don't have this all figured out.
I have no idea what I'm doing.
Well, someone please help me.
Like, that's what
I would have told myself early on,
because it would have saved me six years
of agony.
Because it was when I started.
Good.
That project, which is now the that edge.
That was six years into my being a dad,
(11:36):
and unfortunately,
I made a promise to myself
as a dad
that I would never hit my children
out of anger.
And I broke that promise.
When my oldest was six and my
my four year old was four.
I'm sorry, my seven year old was four.
And so at the time, in my 19 year
old was six, and my seven year
old was four.
And I,
(11:57):
I spanked my four year
old and I stepped out of line.
I spanked him,
and right when I spanked him,
it was almost like this
heaviness, like, came over me and
the poor kid, like
when I swap
my swatted him on the rear end,
he lost his balance and he fell.
And my child, my son fell at my hand.
And that was a very surreal
moment for me that I hurt my son,
(12:21):
by my hand.
And it was me
that was out of control and not him.
And that's when I finally made
that surrender,
that it was really hard.
And what I'm talking about is like,
I don't know what I'm doing.
I have no idea what I'm doing.
This is not fine.
This is not good, and this is not right.
I've got to be better.
(12:42):
I got to figure this out.
And that's when I really started
thinking, could fatherhood?
Could parenting be just like anything else
we learn,
even though for some crazy reason
we view it as something different,
meaning like, well, you're a parent,
so you must. It's nature.
It's natural for you
to just know what to do, to figure it out.
And if you don't, you're less than.
But we don't.
We don't do that any, part of our life.
(13:04):
You might. My son, my my 17 year old son.
This same one who was just spanked,
came home just beaming the other day
because his grandpa, my father
in law, asked him to come over
so he could teach my son
how to change his oil.
And my son was beaming.
He was so happy.
He was like,
I changed my oil, learned how to do it.
(13:25):
Papa taught me.
And I thought that was so cool because
as simple as it sounds, my son
did not know how to change his oil,
you know, before he got there.
Now, granted,
he could Google it
or ChatGPT it or whatever, right?
But let's reverse the tape before
there was any resources out there.
(13:46):
And let's talk about a time
where you just had
to figure something out.
And if my son tried to change his oil
without any know how,
and he screwed something up,
like when we kind of expect that,
that he wouldn't get it right.
Like we're like,
hey, man,
you've been driving a car for a year.
You know where the oil goes.
(14:07):
You know what needs to be changed?
So, yeah, go to town.
It's it's under the car.
Don't worry.
You'll figure it out. Best time your life.
I don't know where the lug nuts at.
Don't worry.
You'll figure it out. It's about time.
Your life.
It's car fuel and driving for years.
On what kind of oil use?
Don't worry, you'll figure it out.
Yeah, it's.
It's a car.
It's Camry, so you'll figure it out.
You know what they take?
(14:28):
We don't do that in any other area.
We wouldn't expect our son to flawlessly
change his oil on his own
without knowing how to do it,
or being taught how to do it
and just figuring it out.
It probably get something wrong.
And in my case,
in our case, for us,
for dad's sake, is,
sometimes we get a lot of things wrong.
But here's the good news.
I would tell myself that it's okay.
And what I'm telling you that it's okay.
(14:50):
And if you don't know what to do.
I've said this many times
before in many podcasts,
if you don't know what to do,
chances are
it really isn't your fault
because this hasn't
really been normalized yet
that you can go out
and find the help you need.
You can actually learn these skills.
The parenting is just like anything else
that you learn.
If you're going to be successful at it,
you got to learn.
No one tells you
(15:10):
that what they always tell
you is the opposite.
Like, you'll figure it out.
Oh yeah, it sucks.
Don't worry about it or whatever. Right?
But we can learn.
So that's one thing I would say.
Here's another one.
You know, I'll never forget
this was a podcast guest
when when the when the dad age
was still the good that project
and Devin Madison never forget him.
(15:35):
He still is a speaker today.
And he's got this,
he's a motivational speaker.
He's got this awesome New York accent,
and he's always like, Larry,
the audio's got to match the video.
I'll never forget him saying that.
That was like,
that was like nine years ago, guys.
I still remember that.
That's one cool thing.
If I could segue real quick.
One cool thing about doing this
(15:55):
podcast 1400
episodes is like,
I remember certain things
from every single guest
in some way, shape or form
or they come up in my life and I'm like,
oh my gosh, there that lesson,
there's that lesson.
So if I want to raise good children,
then what I need to do is
I need to another piece of advice
I give myself is
I need to raise
my own standard of how I live.
(16:16):
Because if you really think about it,
our example, what we do,
we are a walking, talking, 3D motion
picture of an example on our kids
are soaking it up like a sponge.
So I could tell my kids all day long
why they shouldn't drink at a party,
but they see me have a beer in my hand
when I say it.
I could tell my kids not to do drugs,
but they might see me smoking a vape.
(16:38):
I don't do that,
but like they might see me
doing that right?
I might be telling my kids
to eat
healthy as I'm
scarfing down Big Macs
and swallowing beer at the same time,
I should tell my kids
that they need to
go work out and be healthy,
but I don't get my butt off the couch
and do anything with them.
I could tell my kids to be consistent
and show up for practice day
(16:59):
after day,
to be better than they were before
the day before, to be
1% better every single day.
But if they don't see me
sharpening my own ax, my own sword,
you know,
and they don't see me getting sharper
and growing and being better
every single day
than what I'm saying out of my mouth
is meaningless to them.
In fact,
it actually has no credibility whatsoever.
In fact, they look at us like hypocrisy.
(17:19):
And I didn't know that back then.
I always thought
like, well, I'm
the dad, I should have the say
and I can do what I want to do.
I'm the adult and they're not.
So I'm going to teach lessons
through my mouth,
but I don't have to really do them.
I don't know if I was doing that
on the surface, like purposely,
but that's the way I was living.
My life is exactly through that.
My kids saw me do horrific
(17:40):
things wrong, right?
I would tell them to do something
and then I would just turn and do it.
Get off your phone and pay attention to me
as I'm scrolling through my phone.
As they're talking to me,
things like that.
So the thing
I would have reminded myself back then,
or I would have probably really,
really pounded into my head,
is that if you want your kids
to have a healthy body,
you have to show them
(18:00):
what a healthy body looks like.
If you want them to have a growth mindset,
a mindset that is always learning right,
then you've got to show them that it's
okay for you to continue to learn, right?
One promise I've always made my kids.
I'm not saying I'm perfect,
but I've had to do this
because I don't know
how to do a whole lot. I'm not kidding.
The reason
my 17 year old had to go learn
how to change the oil from his grandpa
(18:22):
is because
I've only done that a handful of times,
and I don't know how to change the oil
on these newer cars,
and I could easily learn, but he
he knew the resource to go to.
You know, it wasn't me.
But I will
tell you that
I've always made my kids one promise,
and that is,
I may not be able to teach you everything,
but if you ever come to me
(18:42):
and there's something
that you don't know
that you want to learn,
I promise I'll do it with you.
I promise I'll do it with you.
So, like my 17 year old
want to go hunting?
I've never hunted before.
Last year, he and I got his first year.
I'd never done it.
We took a class safety class to do it,
got it, got a license, did all the things.
And then we got his first year
and it was my first time hunting two
(19:04):
and certain things like that.
I mean, I remember taking them to Lowe's
because I didn't know
how to put up a backsplash
and I'm like, let's
go take one of those classes
and we'll all learn together, right?
Just things like that
that we all get to learn together.
I started doing jujitsu
before I got hurt with my oldest son
because I've never done jujitsu.
Neither did he.
And I was like,
I don't know how to do that stuff.
(19:25):
Let's go learn together.
So what's really cool about being a dad
is that we don't have
to have it all figured out.
And this is what I would tell myself,
you don't have to have it all figured out.
But you know,
what's really cool is
if you go on the journey
of learning with them, right?
Go on the journey of learning with them.
So that's a piece of advice
I'd give myself as well.
The other thing too,
I have learned
(19:46):
and there's so many lessons,
but I'm going to wrap this up
with just one more,
because I think this one's really,
really important.
I think it's one that
we really, really miss
is that without connection,
I have no influence with my kids.
Without connection, I have no influence.
So, like,
for instance,
if I don't take the time to connect
with them,
to talk with them, to be curious
about their world in their life,
(20:06):
to have conversations every single day
about their life
and what's going on and not
how is your day?
I'm talking like questions like,
tell me about the best part of your day.
Tell me about who you set
aside at
lunch with,
who's your best friend and why,
and tell me about that.
And and all these conversations
that we have day
after day, rep after wrap,
day after day, wrap after wrap.
Is that connection
(20:27):
connection connection, connection
connection trumps everything.
And then when I do need to have
a difficult conversation around
maybe behavior
or wrongdoing or something like that,
or I need to get a point across,
I've got that connection
so sealed up that when I do
talk, I have credibility,
I have authority,
I have influence with them,
I have encouragement,
(20:48):
inspiration,
and I have a voice inside their mind
and their heart
that when I talk
and I need their attention,
that they do listen.
But that connection has to come first.
And what I always thought is, well,
I'm the disciplinarian.
I'm the authoritarian.
Like they need to listen to me anyway.
And here's the thing they should.
They really should. Right?
But the thing is, is we don't control
(21:10):
how much they turn our voices off
when we're actually talking to them
or with them.
We don't have a whole lot
of control over that,
but we do have influence over that.
And if we have connection,
we have influence.
And if we have influence,
then we have their attention.
So I would have spent a lot more time
in their early years
with that connection piece.
I'm glad I recovered when I did,
because I really started to get
(21:30):
my act together
when my oldest son was six,
so it was kind of just in time really.
If you're listening to this podcast
and you have kids that are older, it's
not too late for you.
It's not you can
you can still have connection.
I mean, you're talking,
you know,
you're listening to a guy right now
who's 50 years old
who for the past 20 years has had
a connection
and a relationship with his dad
that he never had growing up.
And he met when he was 30.
(21:51):
So it's never too late.
My dad and I have a great relationship
now, and,
you know, 30 years
my life went by
and he wasn't a part of it.
So it's never too late.
You know, it's never too late
to have that connection.
So whether you have a teenager,
whether you have a little kid,
doesn't matter.
Connection will always trump
everything else.
So if you want their ear,
you want their attention,
you want that credibility.
You want that
(22:11):
a thought
that that authority in their life.
The deeper that connection
is with your kid,
the better off you're going to be.
So that is
that is that
is my podcast for you guys today.
As it relates to this,
I have something in here for you guys.
It's totally free.
(22:31):
And it's something that I created
actually a while ago, and it's called,
full presence training.
One of the things that we battle
with as men
is and dads is our attention to them.
I mean, we
we live in a world of
absolute distraction.
I don't have to tell you guys
all the distractions out there.
All you got to do is
go to your kid's little league game
and just look around the bleachers
and you'll see what I'm talking about.
And just by me saying that,
you know what I'm talking about,
(22:53):
and I'm right there with you,
I'm there too.
I have have that problem here
and there too.
But I created this full presence training.
Course, it's
like I said, it's totally free.
There's a video course in it,
but basically what it does
is it helps
you get
really grounded
in the presence with your kids.
And when you find your mind drifting
and you find your thoughts drifting
and your attention
(23:13):
drifting with your kids,
you can use some of these skills
I talk about in this training
to really, really, really dig in
and be there 100% present with your kids.
It's been a game changer. I've been new.
I've been
I developed that about four years ago,
and it's something that
we're bringing back,
and it's something that I think it's,
it's going to be really, really useful for
you guys
(23:33):
as far as like if you're
if your connection is, is waning,
you know,
and you don't know
exactly what to do or
you don't know
exactly how to improve it,
I'm going to have that training
in the show notes for you guys.
So for this training,
you want to go to the data edge.com/friday
216 for this show.
Again the data edge.com/friday
(23:53):
216 for this show in there.
You can subscribe to that free training.
You can watch a video
I also have a PDF in there for you.
But it's a great way
a very simple way to do this.
Also, if you are,
sick and tired of just doing life alone,
you just want to be around,
common men, learning uncommon
skills and doing uncommon things.
Then you can join our elite brotherhood.
(24:15):
If you're a career guy,
over at the Alliance.
So that's our brotherhood.
That's our leap brotherhood
we've had for nine years.
Over the alliance,
we've helped over 4000
men in that program.
I'll tell you, it's a game changer.
I like all the things
we talk about on this podcast.
All the skills around
parenting and marriage and,
health and wealth and mental health and
all of the things
that are so important to us as men,
(24:36):
that's what we do there in the Alliance.
And for all my dads out there,
all my entrepreneurs,
my business owners out there,
we got the boardroom for you.
We've been doing that for seven years.
That's for our elite.
It's our elite brotherhood for,
for our business owners.
We help you continue to grow
and scale your business
while also creating
the marriage of your dreams
and the connection with your kids
you've always wanted.
Entrepreneurs were highly driven people.
(24:57):
And the,
the high drive
and the the success that comes
with building a business,
sometimes comes with the sacrifice
of the attention that we give at home
and in the boardroom.
We teach you how to do all three,
so, you know, not leave one behind.
So I'm gonna have all those links
in the show notes for you guys,
for the free training,
for the presidents training for
for the Lions, for the boardroom.
And if there's ever
(25:18):
anything I can do for you.
I'm not. I'm not hard to find.
You can shoot me a DM on Instagram.
I answer all my own Instagram
messages, my own Facebook
messages, the whole nine yards.
So head on over to the data
edge.com for Friday 216 for the show.
Again, the data Edgecomb forward slash
Friday 216 go out
live legendary gentlemen.
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