Unlock Your Inner Excellent Dad: A 5 Step Framework

Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Welcome to the very first episode of the U2.0 series
on 15 Minutes with Dad.
I'm so excited we're going totake a fresh 360 degree look at
fatherhood, personal growth andbuilding resilience, especially
for men navigating family lifeand the challenges of divorce.
I'm your host, lyric Williams,and today we're embarking on a

(00:24):
journey of transformation byexploring how inner excellence
and self-actualization canredefine what it means to be a
father.
In this episode, I'll introducethe core concepts that formed
the foundation of the U2.0approach.
We'll talk about the importanceof self-awareness, emotional
resilience and crafting apurposeful vision for your life

(00:47):
and family.
Whether you're thriving oradjusting after a major life
change, this series is designedto help you evolve into the best
version of yourself.
Let's face it Fatherhood isincredibly rewarding, yet it can
also be overwhelming.
With the pressures of work,relationships and daily life,

(01:10):
it's easy to lose sight of whoyou are beneath all the roles
that you play.
The U2.0 series is here to helpyou reclaim your identity and
harness the power ofself-actualization, a concept
introduced by Abraham Maslow,along with practical strategies
drawn from Jim Murphy's innerexcellence.
Today, I'm going to walk youthrough three essential pillars

(01:33):
that will kickstart your journeytoward a more balanced and
fulfilling life as a father.
These aren't abstract ideas.
They're actionable steps youcan take right now to begin
transforming your inner worldand, by extension, your family
life.
Let's dive in.
Before any meaningful changecan occur, it's important to

(01:55):
understand where you are.
You have to reflect on yourcurrent state, your strengths,
your challenges and the beliefsyou hold about yourself as a
father your challenges and thebeliefs you hold about yourself
as a father.
Maslow taught us that theself-acceptance is critical for
achieving self-actualization.
So here are a few practicaltips to enhance your
self-awareness.
You can start by one journalingspending five minutes each day

(02:22):
writing down your thoughts andfeelings.
Focus on moments when you feltproud or struggled and note any
patterns that you're noticing.
This is something that I do.
I do daily check-ins and I seta daily reminder to pause and
ask myself how am I reallyfeeling right now?
This helps me stay connectedwith my inner self.
And then I have this feedbackloop.

(02:45):
I consider asking, like atrusted friend or a family
member, for honest feedback onhow they see me as a father.
So let's talk about thisSelf-awareness and acceptance.
I know that a lot of fatherslive their life with the idea of
value that they have based onwhat they do for other people.

(03:08):
But it's extremely importantfor us to have a self-awareness
of that value.
And I'll give an example.
I was in a relationship forabout two years, some time ago,
and it started off great.
I was in a relationship with afriend.
I was assuming that everythingwas fantastic and everything was

(03:29):
going well until it wasn'tthere were times where she would
bring up that she's unhappy orsomething that she didn't like
about what I was doing or notdoing, and I would hear her and
I would try to appease thatvalue.
I was there for the kids.
I was there for when the kidsneeded me at any given thing.
I was everywhere that I thoughtthat I needed to be and doing

(03:52):
everything that I thought that Ineeded to do in order to make
everyone happy.
But there was a point in time inthat relationship where I no
longer knew the value that Iprovided that relationship.
I no longer knew the value thatI provided that relationship,
no matter what they said.
They could say, oh, weappreciate you, we love you, but

(04:14):
I didn't feel it internally andI struggled.
Toward the end of thatrelationship.
I fell into this deepdepression of trying to really
understand what is my value.
Who am I to these?
Because anytime they got mad,anytime anybody got upset with
me, anytime someone got superpissed off, it would be a
disrupter for me and I felt likeI had no value at that point.
And that was because I didn'thave self-awareness and whoever

(04:36):
I was, I couldn't possibly haveacceptance of myself because I
didn't know who was I accepting.
And so this is a conversation Ihad with my younger brother
earlier, and I mentioned to himthat tear away all the labels.
Once you tear away all thelabels, the things you've done,
the accolades that you'vegathered, the praises that

(04:59):
you've had, you tear all of thataway.
Who are you?
And ask yourself who am IWithout all of these things that
I have let my life getconvoluted with?
Who my parents think I am, whomy wife thinks I am, who my
ex-wife thinks I am, who's myex-girlfriend, the mother of my

(05:19):
children?
Who do they think that I am?
Tear that away.
That doesn't matter.
Doesn't matter who they thinkyou are, because this foundation
that we're laying does not evenbegin to actualize until you
lay the foundation ofself-awareness and once you find
out and understand who you areand you spend time in solitude

(05:43):
and find out who you are.
Then you can accept that personas the person you're going to
give to the world.
And in the book Inner Excellence, jim Murphy references the
timeless wisdom of Carl Jung.
Say that again who looksoutside dreams, who looks inside

(06:03):
awakes.
This powerful reminderencourages us to look inward and
embrace our true selves andunderstand that growth that
truly begins from within.

(06:26):
We can't even begin to talkabout being your best self if we
don't start with a foundationof who you are.
So let's talk about pillar two,which is emotional resilience
and inner mastery.
Fatherhood is full of ups anddowns, and building emotional

(06:46):
resilience is key to navigatingthese challenges.
Jim Murphy's inner excellenceemphasizes mastering our inner
game, managing our emotions,reactions and thoughts to better
respond to life rather thansimply reacting.
And I can tell you this issomething that I personally

(07:08):
struggled with, even up untilprobably maybe a couple months
ago.
There was times where myemotional state can be disrupted
because I either wascodependent on a partner in my
life or I was dependent upon howthey viewed me, my image, my

(07:31):
ego, and when anything that theytold me or said that I did or
said that I made them feel likeI would immediately go back to
my ego and defend it, and I wasnegating their feelings.
I wasn't even connected to thembecause I wasn't actually
taking in their feelings.

(07:52):
I was trying to justify why Idid what I did and how I am this
ego that I created in my headyears ago.
But I can give you some helpfultips that I've learned from
boosting your emotionalresilience.
So I spend a lot of time in myday.
I start with just five minutesof mindfulness exercise.

(08:13):
I just sit quietly, I focus onmy breath and I let my thoughts
pass without judgment to set acalm tone for my day.
And sometimes I have to do thismultiple times a day.
But just and I have this on myvision board literally I spend
time in absolute silence andjust breathing and thinking and

(08:37):
processing those thoughts andjust letting them go, without
caring about what it, how itmakes me feel.
That's a, that's a journey,that's something that I think
we'll have to work on.
But again, remember, this isthe foundational part of
everything you're going to learnon mastering your inner
excellence and becoming yourbest self, your best father.

(09:00):
The second thing I would say isthere are times when I feel
overwhelmed or I feel triggered,and I have to control those
moments by taking a deep breath,counting the 10.
I teach this to my toddler.
Even right now.
I've been teaching, workingwith him on emotional regulation
, and I it really didn't helphim, it did like it.

(09:23):
His journey through toddlerhoodwas a long one until I started
focusing on teaching him how toregulate his emotions and use
words, and so what I do is Itake a deep breath and I count
to 10 before responding, and ifyou get that text message that
sets you off, that pisses youoff, take 10 seconds, take a

(09:45):
deep breath, 10 seconds beforeresponding.
Take a deep breath, 10 secondsbefore responding.

(10:11):
This pause can help you preventreactive civilization.
We don't, we're not taught tonavigate emotions as a kid, and
if you spend your adulthoodreacting to emotions and
thinking that that is emotionalmastery, because you're just
reacting to emotions and you'resaying I'm pissed off at you,
let's fight, or whatever thatmay be, you're not really

(10:32):
mastering the resilience, you'renot really being resilient
emotionally.
And so I would urge you topause and reflect, spend some
time, take, you know, in quietand in solitude, and then also
incorporate short bursts ofactivity, like a brisk walk,
some stretching to clear yourmind and release tension, like I

(10:54):
have to do this at my job.
My job is very, very intense.
Not intense because of what Ido for work, but more so it's
intense because of the level ofhigh performance that I've set
myself at.
Since you know where I'm in my,in my career, and I have, I put
a lot of pressure on myself anda lot of tension on myself, and

(11:15):
so I have to go and take a walk.
Sometimes I take a mile walkbefore coming back in to get my
thoughts right.
But it helps me put my thoughtsin the right places, put my
emotions in the right places,and so I can come back and
respond to something, or even ifI don't have to respond to
something, but at least checkingin with myself in a way.
That is the way that I want toportray that, and so I want to.

(11:43):
Before we get on to our nextpillar.
I want to leave you.
I want to give you a quickinspirational statement that
Bruce Lee famously said.
He said do not pray for an easylife.
Pray for the strength to endurea difficult one.
Pray for the strength to endurea difficult one.
This quote reminds us that trueresilience is built by facing

(12:16):
challenges head on andstrengthening your inner core.
So let's go on to the thirdpillar Vision and purpose for
fatherhood, and I think this isa thing that probably a lot of
men pass up on.
That is a valuable thing, and,like there's things that people

(12:38):
do for their career, there'sthings that people and they do
the exact same thing for abusiness.
They create mission statementsand vision statements for their
career and their life and whatthey want to do professionally.
But having a clear vision forwhat you want to achieve as a
father acts as a roadmap foryour journey.

(13:04):
Ask yourself, what does being anexcellent father mean to you?
Is it about being fully present, fostering an environment of
trust and growth, or redefiningyour role after divorce?
Let's start by something thatthis is something that I've done
, so I've written a missionstatement and you have to

(13:25):
dedicate time to write down yourtop three priorities as a
father.
What values do you want to passon to your children?
This mission statement willguide your daily actions.
For my family, my mission is toteach integrity is to teach

(13:45):
love, to teach from love and toteach teachers.
The second thing is create avisual reminder, create a vision
board or place sticky notes inyour workplace with key phrases
that encapsulate your goals andvalues as a father.
And this may seem crazy, but wedo it for everything else, right
, you do it for everything else.
You do it to be better at yourjob, to get your mind in the

(14:07):
right place for an interview, toget your mind in the right
place for closing a deal.
We do this for all of that, butwhy not your fatherhood too?
But even as such, I'm going totake it even a step further.
Set short-term goals, bringyour larger vision into
manageable steps.

(14:27):
For example, if quality time isa priority schedule, a weekly
daddy date with your kids tostrengthen that connection, I
can tell you daddy, daddydaughter dates, daddy, son dates
is is really done a lot.
It looks different for both ofthem, but like it's done a lot
for my family in allowing us tobuild connections and get to

(14:52):
know each other for real.
For real, like on a deeperlevel.
These kids talk, they will talk, they will give you everything
that you need to know that theyare lacking or that they are
looking to be better at, thatthey are lacking or that they
are looking to be better at.
And it makes fatherhood a loteasier when you spend time,
uninterrupted time, with yourkids.
That is based out of the visionthat you have for your kids.

(15:20):
So I'm going to refer back toJim Murphy's Inner Excellence,
because it's a great book.
It reinforces the power ofclarity when he references Tony
Robbins, who said setting goalsis the first step in turning the
invisible into the visible.
Say that again Setting goals isthe first step in turning the
invisible into visible.

(15:42):
This insight underlines that aclear vision for fatherhood
transforms abstract dreams intoactionable steps guiding us
every single day.
So, before we close on today'sepisodes, let's quickly recap
the actionable tips we discussed.
For self-awareness, which is thefirst pillar, you could begin a
daily journal, set reminders tocheck in with your feelings and

(16:05):
seek honest feedback fromsomeone you trust.
The second one for emotional,emotional, for emotional
resilience, implement a morningmindfulness routine.
It could be five minutes, couldbe 10 minutes, but practice
pausing in emotionally chargedmoments and incorporate regular
physical activity moments andincorporate regular physical
activity.
Walk a mile or walk half a mile, quarter mile, whatever that

(16:28):
may be, just incorporate regularphysical activity.
The third pillar was for visionand purpose.
You can write your personalmission statement, use visual
cues to remind you of your goals, like sticky notes or a vision
board, and break your visioninto short-term, manageable
objectives.
These simple steps, yetpowerful steps, form the

(16:50):
foundation for yourtransformation journey toward
you 2.0.
That wraps up our first episodeof the U2.0 series.
Today, we laid the groundworkby exploring three essential
pillars self-awareness andacceptance, emotional resilience
and inner mastery.
And vision and purpose forfatherhood.

(17:12):
Remember, transformationdoesn't happen overnight.
It's built on small, consistentsteps toward becoming the best
version of yourself.
Next week, we'll explorepractical strategies to further
boost your emotional resilience,sharing more real life examples
and exercises you can startusing immediately.
Thank you for joining me onthis journey toward empowered

(17:34):
fatherhood.
Don't forget to subscribe to 15minutes with dad on your
favorite podcast platform andfollow us on social media at 15
minutes with dad for regularupdates and inspiration.
Until next time, remember thejourney to youtube0 starts from
within.
Stay true, stay resilient andkeep pushing forward.

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