July 7, 2025 • 38 mins
Brian Bogert joins Fatherhood Unscripted for a real, raw talk about anger, fatherhood, and the work it takes to break harmful patterns.He shares how he went from being an angry, reactive dad to one who creates emotional safety for his kids.This episode is for dads ready to own their role, do the work, and show up better for their families.Key topics:✅ Handling anger as a dad✅ Building trust after damage✅ Creating emotional safety for your kids✅ Breaking generational cycles✅ Advice for dads going through divorce or custody📌 Connect with Brian:👉 https://www.brianbogert.com👉 @BogertBrian on all social platforms🔔 Subscribe for more honest conversations about fatherhood, men's mental health, and building the legacy your family needs.
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Episode Transcript
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(00:05):
All right. What's going on, everybody?
Welcome back to Fatherhood Unscripted.
Obviously you have DJ and Alec here.
We have a special guest. Brian is joining us.
Welcome, Brian. I'm.
Happy to be here with you guys. Yeah, we're happy to have you.
Yeah, we always like to start out some that we started doing
probably a few episodes ago, butalways like to ask everybody,
(00:30):
what are you doing currently that makes you happy?
You know, I am very blessed at the current moment because
there's a lot of things I'm doing that make me very happy.
So I could go multiple differentdirections with that.
But the one that I'm going to gowith, given the theme of this
show and what we're here to talkabout today is the fact that in
November, I made a decision and a choice to buy myself a
(00:51):
Nintendo Switch so that I could bring myself into my son's world
because he's so hardcore into Fortnite.
And I was very against it. But it has become revolutionary
for our relationship on a variety of levels.
And I geek out with him and onlywith him.
But it's it's come full circle into like a really deepening of
(01:14):
our relationship and a better understanding and just something
that was really fun. So I'm sure we can talk about
that more later because it was something that I needed to do.
But yeah, I'm having a blast because I put myself into both
my kids worlds in something thatthey were interested in.
But but Fortnite with my son is the one that's really driving me
right now. That's kind of how it is in my
household right now too. We're just trying to find what
(01:34):
to do for the summer because I've been out for two weeks now
and for my son's birthday, he got a a gaming desk him then
he's using one of my old laptops.
So he's kind of entering the thehigher end gaming world a little
bit and so he just when. You switch to a computer over a
little device. That's when you know you're
starting to get serious about it, right?
Yeah. Yeah, they've got the the
(01:54):
switches too that they play on, but he's like, oh, I got a
computer now. He tells all of his friends, you
should see my setup. So yeah, it's cool when.
My my son's trying to get me to move him to a computer because
he he's tired of aiming on on the Nintendo Switch and he's
like computers, they get aim bought, they get all the
analysis. It's not even fair.
Dad, I'm like, OK, well, maybe you just need more practice.
(02:15):
Let's go. That's.
What it is right there? It's like you're just not that
good at the game. Well, cool.
How many kids do you have? I have two, my son's 11.
My daughter turns 10 in July. Nice.
That's right up with us. I've got a nine year old.
My son just turned 9 and my daughter is 7.
(02:35):
And then, DJ, I'll talk about your work, you know.
I got my oldest, Nate, he is 4 going on five in July.
And then we have our twins, Ryland and Elijah.
They're 2 going on three. So really, really fun time.
Never a dull moment in the Clinton and household, I'll tell
you that. July what?
(02:58):
What's the July birthday? So July 6th is the my twins and
then July 18th is Nates. So yeah.
Cool, I'm July 19th and my daughters July 24th so.
I'm July 15th. There you go.
Well, I mean, see, look at this.We got all these July birthdays
in here. There's a good big.
Party. That's what we used to in my
family back in the day because there was like everyone was
summer baby. So I was like, well, instead of
(03:19):
just, you know, having one or a party for everyone, we'll just
just one giant party, get it over with and be done.
So I think that's awesome. Yeah.
It sounds like I would have had a lot of fun at your house
growing. Up Well, you know, just let's
talk about, let's dive into dad's stuff.
You know, I kind of was I was listening to going through some
of your reels and kind of watching your story and I saw
it. I mean, obviously your your big
(03:40):
1 is what happened to you when you're younger and you got ran
over by the truck and just big story in your life.
How has that happened to you? Have you used that?
I mean, there's a learning moment and everything, right To
like build on your life. We could be a dad.
Just just moments of like, like that, you know?
Yeah, well, I, I would tell you that there's a whole lot that I
(04:03):
could unpack from that. So I'll kind of keep the the
tops of the waves. And I think I'll probably keep
it as relevant to being a dad as, as I can in in in the really
compressed version. And we can unpack in the
sections that we want to. I used to believe that the, the
moment when my arm was torn frommy body was my transformation
story, right. For those that are watching,
(04:23):
like literally it was completelysevered 10 feet away, completely
traumatic accident. And, and in the ways that I
speak, coach and teach within our frameworks today, I go much
deeper into the the lessons thatkind of were curated throughout.
However, it was not necessarily my transformation story.
It was a story that created a bunch of trash from my past that
I learned to push through and push down.
(04:44):
What do I mean by that? Trash is the emotional triggers,
behavioral patterns, and environmental conditions that
create a set of beliefs and cellular memory that our lives
only further to validate, right?Lots of positive came from all
that and some damage came from that.
Now as a father, I have two special needs kids.
And so this has given me perspective in a way that I can
really relate to them and connect with them in the ways
(05:05):
that I'm different, they're different, we're different, how
we all kind of navigate adversity, right?
There's, there's a lot of positive that can come with
that. But the trash side is something
that can also show up years later and we don't really know.
And so it's a part of my story as a father because it a lot of
it came out once I became a father because our kids are the
best mirrors and reflections that we'll ever have.
(05:26):
And it really pushed me into a different place.
And so I had shame and anger fora lot of years around a whole
variety of things. I learned to receive love,
validation and connection through performance.
I grew up in a household where there was one right way to do
everything. And I didn't know that right way
until I got it wrong. And, you know, a whole bunch of
other things that I could go into.
But but what does that mean for a father?
I would, I would get reactionaryin moments.
(05:48):
I had anger, it would come out, it would create damage in my
house, and you know, most of thetime it wasn't even accurate to
what was right in front of me. So my wife would say something
like this, Hey honey, what do you want to do with the kids
this weekend? But my shame and anger filter
would cause me to hear it this way.
Hey honey, you've not done enough to be a good husband and
father here recently. So what do you need to make up
(06:09):
for it this weekend? Well, you better damn well
believe I'm going to defend thatbecause I'm a great husband and
father and I'm not going to be challenged there, right?
So what do I do? I get defensive, I get angry and
I rattle off the 10 things I've done in the last few days to
show her I'm a good husband and father right now.
I've created damage and that's all coming from this place of
like I'm defending. But it's not even what she said.
The reason I highlight that is because all of my anger got
(06:30):
exposed as a father and it forced me to go down a path that
I am very grateful I I, I did and that I chose.
It went from being in the best place in our marriage I thought
we'd ever be to not knowing if I'd be married for another 30
days. And that began the path.
I'll keep the story short for the sake of I know we have more
to discuss, but ultimately what I say today and it took a lot of
(06:51):
work. I don't mean to brush over it at
all, we can unpack wherever we need to, but my wife and I've
been together for 19 years. We hid from each other
unconsciously for 14 and she's only felt emotionally safe with
me for about 3 years. It's also not a coincidence.
We have the best marriage, the best relationship, the deepest
communication, the most amount of intimacy.
I'm not just talking sexually, but that also means that we've
(07:11):
reversed generational patterns in the home.
My kids don't even remember having an angry dad, and so why
I speak about that so passionately, isn't it?
Am I proud of the ways that I operated?
No, absolutely not. But I don't shame myself for the
things that I wasn't aware of atthat time.
Right? But what I have been able to do
since then is to be able to showthat it is our responsibility,
(07:31):
especially as men, to be facilitating and providing the
emotional safety in the home because that's what unlocks
everything we actually all want.Yeah, no, that's great point
that you bring up. Emotional safety, like that is
like when Dad's yelling, it feels like the whole house is
just like in this state of fear,like, oh, I don't want to say
the wrong thing. I don't want to do the wrong
(07:52):
thing. Because dad may yell like he
yells at mom. And I've had my kids come to me.
Like, what's going on? Why are you yelling?
Yelling's not cool. And it doesn't let you as a dad,
you're like, holy smokes. Like you're right.
I don't know what like what's gotten over me.
And it is crazy when you have kids, it's almost like it forces
you. If you're going to be there and
(08:13):
you're going to be present in their life, it forces you to
deal with the crap that you've been pushing off this entire
time. You've been able to do it.
For me, it was, I pushed off. I always felt like something was
different with my brain. I thought it was something wrong
with my brain, but it's just I operated differently.
I had ADHD, didn't even know it so at 2728 years old.
(08:36):
I didn't know I was nowhere diverse or dyslexic until I had
kids. I didn't mean to interrupt you,
but I'm like, yeah, dude. Like, I'm there with you.
Everything. Yeah, that actually.
Got to the point when they when he was mate was born it I
couldn't deal with the crying, Icouldn't deal like everything
felt like it was all over the place.
And my wife was like. My wife was like, Hey, you need
(08:57):
to go get tested or go figure this out or I don't think this
is going to work. And it was that moment I was
like, Dang, I need to go do something.
So I got my diagnosis and never looked back.
And I think our oldest has ADHD.And so it's kind of cool to be
able to talk to him and say, Hey, buddy, like our brains just
work differently. Like nothing's wrong with us.
(09:18):
We've got to work at you got to do different things to to get
around and do. When we were kids, we didn't
know that, did we? No.
Right, we were just different orit was behavioral instead of
neurological, right? And it's like all these things
affect the way that we believe and operate and act in the
world. And so I'm so by the way, I just
(09:38):
want to say, dude, I'm really proud of you because there's a
lot of situations that I hear every day where people are given
a moment and they don't lean in.And you did instantly.
And given that you're oldest is what you said for you've been
doing the work and you've got you caught it earlier than I
did, right? My kids were about your I think
my daughter was maybe 5 by the time I really faced my anger or
started understanding, maybe even older 6, right?
(10:00):
You got ahead of it. Like congratulations dude.
Thank you. Yeah, it's, it's important when
you come to those kind of realizations to kind of figure
out how do I, how do I deal withthis stuff.
And yeah, so I kind of just wanted to say I like what you're
talking about because it's so true.
We create the safety. If there is no safety, then
(10:21):
that's when you see kids do things without talking to mom
and dad. They face the consequences
alone. And because they don't feel like
they can come to you, they don'tfeel like they could be safe
around you and so. I do want to highlight though
that that just for distinction and then I want we can go
exactly where you're going. You at the end said safety.
And I think it's really important to distinguish between
(10:41):
physical safety, financial safety, mental safety, spiritual
safety, emotional safety. Why?
Because I was financially providing and they were safe,
they were physically safe. They never got hit.
They never like they were never going to get anywhere of harm.
And why I think it's important is there's a lot of men that
hear safety and they're like, oh, I'm keeping my family safe.
But then they're having moments of reaction and don't realize
(11:04):
the damage that they're actuallycreating.
And I, I highlight that because the idea that I would have done
anything other than keep my family safe and protected,
especially from me, is what was soul crushing when I had to face
it. And so I just thank you for
letting me deepen that for just a second.
But I think that nuance is critically important given I
know the work of what I've had to do and and so many of the men
that I work with that struggle to distinguish between the
(11:25):
varying types of safety. So good.
Yeah, no, I actually, that was where I was going to go anyways.
Just ask you how you've created that safety anyway.
So yeah, it's, it was the next question I was going to ask.
So it's perfect that we went into that.
Yeah. How have you, like, what have
you done to like once you realized, OK, I'm not like I'm
providing. Yes, I'm keeping them physically
(11:45):
safe, yes, but emotionally, man,I could do better.
Like how did you start to createthat inside of your?
Home. Yeah, it's a great question and
I'll try to keep it as condensedas as I can.
I have to give a little bit of backdrop to it because it it I
was fortunate to have had a little bit of a opening before I
(12:06):
had to face this directly in thesense that I about three years
beforehand, I had a moment with my daughter where we were
playing and laughing and she wraps her arm around my neck and
kissed me on the cheek and says,I love you, Dada.
And I just broke down in tears. And why I highlight that is
because I still don't use tears often to express just because I
learned and conditioned not to cry.
(12:27):
And I've actually been trying toreaccess tears because men
crying, I think is a sign of strength.
But it to me, I was crying in joy.
And the reason I highlight this is because it allowed me to
realize that everything else I'dever felt in that moment was
pale in comparison. And I started to unpack and
realized that when I shut off physical pain because it
exceeded my ability to cope, I shut off mental pain, right?
Emotional pain and spiritual pain for 25 years.
(12:49):
Which also meant that I wasn't feeling and I was actively but
unconsciously suppressing all ofmy emotion, which also meant
there would have been no way forme to understand the emotional
safety component unless I had the chance to start to have
empathy versus just sympathy. And the reason I highlight this,
there's a lot of men who use mental performance or not mental
armor, right? It's an intellectual only piece.
(13:11):
There's instant shut off to actually have connection to what
we do. And it is critically important
that like, we understand that. The reason I I I give that
context though, is because by the time my wife and I sat on
the back patio and she had the conversation with me, she said
things that I'd done, ways that I'd show up, some of which were
still existing today, had created a pattern that caused
her to lose who she was. And I had just 10 months earlier
(13:34):
leaned into a challenge. She gave me to chase my passion,
my purpose, my reason for existence, which at the time I
defined as helping people get tothe core of who they are.
Person closest to me is telling me I did the opposite.
Now, for whatever reason, in theway that she did that, like she,
it really was like a dagger to the heart, But I had a choice in
that moment. And the reason I start here is
because your whole thing is, is like, where did I go?
(13:56):
What did I do? How did I start to create that
in my home? It started with a choice in that
moment. Why?
Because I could have reacted like I always would have done
and not allowed emotional safetyfor her.
Or I could pause and respond andactually listen to what she's
saying. Because to me, I was looking
down the end of a, the barrel ofthe gun and I didn't know what
was going to happen. So fortunately, that moment, I
saw it. Now, I made a promise to my wife
(14:17):
that day that I was going to do everything in my power to ensure
the negative effects of anger would not affect our house as a
result to me again. So I handed literally all my
stuff to her, my phone, everything.
And I asked her to get with my team and clear my calendar for
the next 10 days. Now I want to be really clear.
The 10 days did not solve the problem.
The 10 days allowed me to start to find some of the components I
needed. And within that 10 days, I did
(14:37):
connect some dots that were critically important.
The work was just beginning. OK, and so here's the truth
though. Because to start to create
emotional safety, there isn't even a chance to create
emotional safety until trust is re established.
It took six months before that was going to happen in my world.
Meaning I literally had to bite my tongue in moments when I
(15:01):
hadn't reacted, I hadn't done something.
But the look on my face made my wife believe I was going to
repeat the same pattern I had the 10 years before.
Because I was feeling it. And even if my actions didn't
come out, she had expected it because it had happened so many
times. And so I had to be near perfect
for six months now. I made mistakes, I'm human, I
screwed up. But we set up a lot of
communication tools with each other to allow myself to catch
(15:24):
myself in a moment, give myself permission to literally just
walk out if I need to or her to catch me.
And, and the reason I give all that is because until trust is
there, you cannot begin to expand and grow emotional
safety. And it took six months for me to
get there. And the reason I highlight that
is because there are a lot of men that I work with who try to
go and repair down this path. And a month then they're like,
(15:46):
God, how much more do I have to put up with?
It's like, well, you just gave them 14 years of that shit.
What do you want them to shut itoff in 2 minutes because you
decided you're not going to be angry anymore?
Like that was literally where I was at day-to-day.
I had to decide that every day tattooed 3 words on my arm to
remind me and ground me every day in the moment of trigger
because I'm dense enough that I needed a visual remind.
(16:06):
Once that happened, six months passed.
My wife looked at me and she said, man, we're really doing
this. She goes, I think it's time that
I do some work. And then it became a a
tangential process, meaning I was still primarily on me.
But how did I start to facilitate emotional safety?
It was in the moments that they could tell my wife and my kids
could tell that I was regulating, not reacting, that I
(16:29):
was choosing to bite my lip, to give some clarifying statements,
to own my truth in the moment ifI needed to, to if I made a
mistake, just like I had always done.
This part wasn't new. I created repair and made
apologies. It started to come.
Every choice and every action that would count compound after
that. Until, like I said, we're in a
(16:49):
place now where it, it took probably 2 to 2 1/2 years before
we don't really get triggered even by the facial expressions
or micro expressions anymore. I mean, it took that amount of
time for us to reprogram our interactions.
And so I, I highlight it becauseit, it's not a simple answer.
(17:12):
It's not a one thing. But it really did come down to
allowing them to witness and seethat my words, actions and
behaviors were becoming congruent with what I, my stated
intent was. And that was probably the
biggest lesson that I got grounded that her father pointed
out to me in that first week when I talked to them and told
them what I was doing. And all the way through till
today, which is that the world will never judge you based on
(17:35):
your intent. The world will only ever judge
you based on what your words, actions and behaviors
communicate to them. And so for me, I had to hold
myself accountable beyond this. Oh, well, my wife doesn't ever
understand me. She never knows where I'm coming
from. She always doesn't understand my
intent. Well, instead of pointing blame
back to her, it started to pointback to me and immediately was
(17:57):
catching myself. And it's like, oh, what are my
words, action, behaviors doing? And then I would have filter
questions literally, which were this, are my words, actions and
behaviors creating a safe environment for my wife and my
kids? Because if I could answer yes to
that, I would continue. And if I had to answer no, the
actions and behaviors would change.
(18:18):
I love that. And it's just it kind of
highlights, you know, now in today's society, most men and
most dads, you know, they're very uncomfortable being
uncomfortable. And they don't want to take
those steps to be where they're at.
So it's like you said, they're like, well, how long do I have
to do this? Like, well, like you, you have
to take it's going to take time.Yeah, that sucks.
(18:38):
But like you said, it's just look at what how many, how, how
long you were like that. It's not just going to go away
in a second. And so we have to be
uncomfortable or we have to be comfortable with the
uncomfortability of life to fix the issue. 100% of that, it
tapped into one of the core lessons I used to teach.
And I won't go deep, deep, deep on it, but it's the basic idea
(18:59):
of embracing pain to avoid suffering, right?
Like what was very true to me inthat moment is that, and, and
it's been true since I've been ahusband and father.
And This is why for the whole time I've been a husband and
father, that's I lead with that as my identity.
I, my actions and behaviors weren't always congruent to the
husband and father I wanted to be.
But here's the reality. When my wife had that
(19:19):
conversation with me, I know without a doubt suffering for
me. Probably the only thing that
would really cause me to suffer suffer at this point in my life
is a life without my wife and mykids.
Which to me means I will embraceany pain required to get there
because I we don't want to admitthat suffering exists,
particularly when it's a direct result of our choices.
But the unavoidable precursor tochange is acceptance.
(19:40):
So until I accepted the current state of things that my wife was
reflecting back to me, there wasgoing to be no opportunity for
growth. And so that's where it had to
become. Because you're right, I had to
get very uncomfortable for a long time.
And it was painful. Like, it wasn't like discomfort.
It was, it was painful, but yet it led to the outcome that I
want, which is joy, freedom and fulfillment on the other side.
(20:02):
Well, what would you say? So there's a, we won't name
names on here just because I know I hear a lot of Flack for
it. But there's a person in my life,
he's going through the thick of life right now, you know,
divorce, not getting to spend time with this kid anymore.
And when he is with his kid, it just seems like, you know, he
just doesn't want to be there and he just kind of feels like
he's given up. Would you have any advice for
(20:23):
someone in that situation just trying to rebuild themselves I
want? To clarify that, I understand
when you say he, are you talkingabout him or the kid has given
up when they're or doesn't want to be there when they're
together so he doesn't want to be there when he's with his kid?
He's just like just a shell justto kind of just is there but not
really there. Got it.
So what I'm hearing though, and I'm, I'm, I'm asking for
(20:44):
important clarification just so wherever you can give it.
Like he wants to be there, but he's so empty and defeated that
he doesn't have the energy to bepresent there.
It seems like it. It's a forced amount of time and
he doesn't I I'm just trying to make sure I understand because.
It seems like it's more of a chore to be there and it just
kind of like he's kind of reverting back to like being a
teenager almost and just doesn'twant to deal with the life now.
(21:08):
What I will say and again I won't call out names, but I have
two clients right now who are going through similar situations
and what they struggle with is 2things and it sounds somewhat
similar. They're in a place where for the
(21:30):
first time in their life they'regiving themselves permission or
are in a position to potentiallyfully choose who they want to be
without being tied to having expectations being held
accountable because posts divorce.
They're a solo single man now, but they are fathers.
And so it's coming down to custody and presence and how do
(21:54):
we do things? And their kids are revolting and
pushing back and complaining andstruggling because they want to
be with their friends or why arethey being disrupted from their
primary home? And it's directly hitting their
self worth. It's directly hitting their
competency, belief and conviction that they are
valuable in the relationship with their kids.
And it's at the same time this, to your point, feeling as if
(22:17):
there's so many variables that they cannot control and all this
noise that's like, right, Whether they chose the divorce
or didn't choose the divorce, the point is, is they're in the
similar spot where now they onlysee their kids 50% of the time.
And the energy that's required to regulate and facilitate
through everything is they're like, well, what's the point?
Like, why don't I just let them stay with their mom?
(22:37):
And it's not because they don't want to see their kids.
It's because the back and forth,the drama, the drain is so
significant. It sounds like this might be
somewhat similar because it's like we're at the end of the
rope. And, oh, by the way, I've got to
figure out how to do all the everything again, take care of
myself, feed myself, clothe myself, depending on what the
relationship was, right. And so all these men are going
(22:59):
through this. But it sounds like, yeah, it's
like I'm at the end of the rope and I don't have the energy to
be present in this, and therefore it makes me want to
avoid it. What I would challenge and
really ask, and this is what I've done, even in the
conversations with my clients, is to really help understand if
they could remove the complexities of the separation
of the divorce, of the complications with kids.
What relationship do they want to have with their kids?
(23:21):
How important is that relationship with their kids?
Do they believe in their heart of hearts that what they want is
what's best for the kids? But at the same time, how do
they show that in their actions and behaviors both in their time
with them, but as well as how they go about the separation?
So for example, there's someone,this is just a situation they're
(23:44):
willing to give everything to their ex, the house, the money,
that it doesn't matter what it is.
They don't want to fight. They don't because they don't
want their kids lives disrupted.But then it's also now being
manipulated. That's also, even though they've
got the 5050 split on time, it'sbeing manipulated and the kids
emotions and the struggle in this transition within six
(24:05):
months of their lives is being used to say, well, really, why
don't we just have them be here more?
And there again, he's beating himself up and he's like, but it
does that mean I'm not good enough?
Do they not want to be with me? Do I right?
And so he's like willing to almost say yes.
But then I broke down the math for him.
He has 60 months left with his kids if he only gets 50% of the
(24:27):
time. That's crazy. 60 months left for
the rest of their lives that he's guaranteed with them.
And I said, if you truly care about being a father, if you
truly care to be in your kids lives, if you truly, genuinely
believe that their lives are better with you in it, then
never stop fighting for the timewith them.
But that also means that the time with them and how it's
(24:50):
spent is also going to be the quality of the time with them
and what they're going to remember.
So if you're going to fight for the time, I don't mean this with
shame. I don't mean this with blame.
This is a hard situation. However, if you're feeling
defeated, like recognize what doyou believe your role is as a
father? And is your defeating or
defeated mentality doing your kids a disservice?
(25:12):
How do you use them as energy? How do you use them as fuel?
Not because they need to, and not because it's an expectation
for them to carry that weight, but if that role as a father is
what it is, connect to that. Every time you think about them
and every time you're with them presently and every time you
have the opportunity to get moretime with them.
Because that's the only thing you can't guarantee more of is
the time that you're going to get with your kids unless you
(25:33):
fight. For it, I do think they that
they it is there, the fight is there, but it's just I think
it's everything is so fresh, youknow, and I think it's just he's
trying to figure out like you said, just who he is and he's
trying to figure out that role again well.
And, and on top of that too, though, to the point of like,
you don't just have these patterns for years and they go
(25:54):
away. Look at their lives as a
percentage of each other, right?Let's just say you said you have
a 7 year old, right? So your 7 year old's got like, I
mean, seven years. So six months and seven years is
like 10% of their life, right? I'm 4040 and six months, it's
like 1% of my life. So the other side of this is
(26:17):
that our kids are going to, as apercentage of their lives, seem
as if this is a bigger experience for them, even in
their struggles, their changes and their transitions, because
they have less overall experience to spread it across.
Whereas we as parents might seemingly carry it easier, but
we lose the perspective that if we have a 7 year old or a four
year old, like we're talking about a huge percentage of their
(26:39):
life currently. But what I also mean by that is
this time will ease all wounds there also as long as you show
up consistently right? I I like that perspective.
Yeah, go ahead. No, I was just saying, yeah,
showing up consistently is is key.
I heard it. We had somebody on our on our
podcast and she had mentioned she was like that the kids like
(27:04):
they didn't choose to be here. We chose to have them.
So like, you know, there's this whole mindset right now going
across the Internet like you oweyour parents everything and it's
into the point of being more toxic than anything else.
Like, you know, you know, if they're going to be rude around
you or talk down to you, you still got to give them your time
(27:24):
because you owe them everything.And the perspective from like
our generation is, well, no, I don't owe them anything.
And actually we're learning. We actually owe our kids
everything. Like it's because they, they
didn't choose to be here. We chose to have them.
And so having that perspective will like, I feel like it helps
(27:45):
us to lean into being consistentbecause like you said, 2, like
the little moments, like my son is 4.
So playing with him for 30 minutes is actually a very huge
thing for for hatch because like, you know, and a lot of it
too is he's waiting all day for dad to come home and dad comes
(28:07):
home and it's like, I don't wantto play with you.
I just want to sit and veg out. I don't want to be here.
I don't want to show up. I'm tired.
And I've had days where like with ADHD, my brain is just
tapped out. Like I've just used all of my
mental energy to focus on work. And I don't like, I feel like
you don't have anything left in the tank, But it's about like I
give it a little bit more because I want to be there for
(28:29):
my kids and I want to show up inthose moments and so.
And by the way, it's also OK to tell your kids that you're wiped
out and you're a little slowed this evening because it was a
long week. And again, as long as that's
communicated, it creates emotional safety, it creates
trust. And guess what?
Then for the exception, it sounds like it is for you, you
give yourself a little more grace in that moment too.
(28:50):
I mean, dude, it sounds like you're human, right?
Like we, none of us are perfect.We're all going to screw this
stuff up. But what you just said, by the
way, I really want to call attention to and, and, and honor
you for even the way that you said it or wherever it came
from, Internet or your brain or whatever.
But I could not agree with you more.
Now, we owe our kids everything.I loved the way you said that.
(29:11):
But there's also a distinction here because if we owe our kids
everything, then we also owe them the ability to break the
patterns from our past up to andincluding if and how the prior
generation might impact them. So what do I mean by that?
It's not my job to protect my parents.
(29:32):
Now, it is in some ways, and I, I right, But in the comparison
of the relationship with my parents and my kids, my job, my
first job at this point is to protect my kids.
Because to your point, I chose them.
They're my responsibility, right?
My parents, yes, I feel responsible for, but they are
not my responsibility, right? Do I feel like I owe my parents
(29:55):
something? Yes, but I don't feel like I
have to owe them something. I feel like I want to honor
them, right? And so I loved the way you
called distinction to that. I'd be curious, how have you 2
seen that show up in your lives,parents, multi generations and
just how you honor exactly what you said right?
That we owe our kids everything.Yeah, for me, there was actually
(30:18):
a time so my son, like my dad and I, our relationship wasn't
the best growing up. He created a very unsafe
environment and actually was able to have a real conversation
with him recently about that andjust kind of brought it to the
forefront like, hey, look, I didn't feel safe when I was a
kid. And I've, you created a lot of
that on safety, like or whateverthe word is, I just felt unsafe
(30:41):
around you. And we're able to kind of start
to heal those wounds. And I, I choose that because my
kids, they love my love my dad, like whenever papa's coming
over, like the they light up andthey want to play with Papa,
they will. And I don't know, he has the
endurance like this guy, he'll pick up and run 20 miles without
(31:01):
running for six months and do itlike it's nothing.
Love it. And he just has the endurance
with playing with him too. So he'll play with him for hours
and still not feel like, like I don't feel like he's tired.
He just has more of, you know, so he just, they love spending
time with him is what I'm saying.
And I wanted to heal that relationship because I know it
was important for my kids. But then there was also a time
(31:21):
where my son and him were havingNate and Papa days.
And my dad, I think he has ADHD.He was never diagnosed, but it's
to be proven. Like it's genetic.
So like I'm pretty sure that's where it came from for me.
But handling certain situations like it's as almost as if he
(31:43):
doesn't have because he never came to the realization of ADHD.
Some of those things that you would normally say, OK, I got to
do this, this and this in this moment.
It just wasn't there. My son got hurt really bad and
like it almost caused where he had cauliflower ear because they
didn't get to it in time to likekind of release the pressure.
(32:05):
And they're like, at this point,you just got to let it sit and
hopefully it heals. I think it will.
But and it was all because instead of like telling us fully
everything, we kind of got bits and pieces.
And so I had to in that moment, have a hard conversation with my
dad because I know how much it meant to my son.
But my first responsibility is to protect my son.
(32:28):
And so I had to tell my dad like, Hey, no more Nate and Papa
days for the foreseeable future just because of the how this was
handled. And my dad, he handled it well.
That's. One of the hardest conversations
to have, by the way, I've I've had similar conversations in
different ways, but literally with that language, my job's not
to protect you, dads protect my kids, right?
And. Fortunately for me, yeah, he, he
(32:48):
understood. And so and Nate was kind of
upset because he loved those days.
But you got to make those hard decisions.
And that's kind of like how likefor me, that's kind of how it
plays out that my responsibilityof protecting my kids so.
I love that. I mean, my guess mine would be
my dad just wasn't there when I was a kid.
(33:09):
I really didn't have much quality time until I was about
16 with my dad. And so I kind of, I might overdo
it sometimes, but my kids will know that Dad is always there
and Dad's always going to show up and they never have to worry
about Dad not showing up. Yeah.
With everything, like we have a we have a kind of weird
household. My wife works and I do all the
(33:30):
social media stuff at home, so Ido get more time with kids than
usual. But they will know that even if
dad's doing a podcast, even if dad's doing something busy,
they, they could walk in here day and time, like, all right,
let's do this. You know, we'll talk.
So dad's always there. And so that's kind of how I've
kind of broke into my house. Like they know, they know.
They're like, well, what about your dad?
How's your dad? Dad?
It's like, I don't know. We don't, we don't talk.
(33:52):
Like I didn't hear that. He was proud of me.
So I was probably about, I thinkI was through her 30.
And then just recently I told him I was like, you know, I get,
I get it, 'cause he was 15 when he had me.
And I was like, you know, I forgive you for not being there.
That doesn't mean that's going to fix anything right now, but I
forgive you. I get it.
You were young. And so just showing that too,
like showing the kids like my dad's my Michael and my son was,
(34:13):
well, have you talked to your dad?
And I was like, yeah, you know, we kind of had a, a healing
moment. And he's like, oh, that's cool,
dad. And I was like, yeah.
And so just showing that and that too, and being very open
with my children. It's just.
That's awesome. Yeah, Yep.
I mean, just as we come to time and we're we're clothing on 40
minutes, we just want to say thank you First off for your
time. I love having speakers and
(34:36):
people that do like keynotes andstuff like that, because you
guys can talk and you guys are very just you give the good
stuff, you know, and just so just thank you for your time.
Where where can people find you if they want to kind of look you
up? Yeah, if, if again, we didn't
talk about anything that's goingon, but I would say social media
(34:57):
is probably the best place to get a feel.
It's at Bogert, Brian, on all channels, including YouTube.
And if you are on the web and you're just curious kind of what
are all the things that we do through the world, you can go to
brianbogert.com. At the end of the day, man, I, I
told you guys before we started,my, my whole reason for
existence, my purpose in life isto allow my truth, to give
others permission to live theirs.
And we're on a path to impact over a billion lives as quickly
(35:21):
as we can by reducing the level of suffering that exists on this
planet, largely, which is internal, right?
And here's the reality. It's not going to be my my name
behind that. It's going to be collective
impact with doing things with people like you who are already
creating amazing channels, already are creating impact.
And I just believe that move people move people.
So I'm trying to move as many asI can.
So that's all I say to everybodywho's listening is if if you
(35:41):
felt moved by anything in the discussion today, whether you go
to check me out or not isn't thepoint for me.
It's what do you do with that information?
And I'm just going to ask that you move it through the world,
move it to somebody else, move it into your life, move it into
a choice. Because if if you felt moved,
make sure that energy stays in momentum.
It's, it's good. I yeah.
Well, I definitely appreciate you coming on here.
(36:04):
Definitely appreciate you being open.
And we talked a little bit aboutsome things, you know, kind of
like tiny touches. But it is, it's true.
Whatever you you know, it's, it's taking the information and
doing something with it other than it's just going to be
information. And you know, if you're going to
toss, you're going to toss it. But with our hope is that you
take the information and it transforms your life.
(36:27):
And not to say kudos to you or kudos to DJ or kudos to Alec,
but it simply is like we just want to help people.
Like I just want I like that's that's Alec.
And I's goal too, is just to getout there, help dads because we
didn't have anything like this. I felt like there wasn't a lot
of information out there that wecould lean into and learn about
(36:49):
all the intricacies of what it means to be.
You're saying you weren't given a manual when you had kids?
You didn't get one of those? You didn't get the standard
issue dad manual? Nothing.
No. Nothing, man.
They, they tell me there was a manual out there.
You know, I was just sort of suffering out here, just walking
in the wilderness. Don't know where I'm going, you
know, feel like, feel like the Israelites in the Bible, like
(37:10):
I'm just, you know, where are wegoing?
But yeah, I know. Every day, bro.
I'm still with you. So yeah, I know.
I just thank you for giving little Nuggets that people can
take. And if they want to expand on
it, obviously now they know where to find you.
They know like, OK, if I search this in Google, maybe there'll
(37:31):
be other things that'll pop up that kind of give me more
information. That's another tool, right?
And just like there's people around you, if you know, maybe
you just haven't had that conversation with a dad right
next to you, wherever you go to work or church or whatever, you
talk to them and all of a suddenthey have a similar story to
yours and they start teaching you things you didn't know
(37:53):
because you didn't have, like you didn't ask or you didn't
have a conversation. Thank you again for being on,
very much so appreciated. Yeah.
Thank you guys for the work you're doing, Shirley.
Thank you everyone listening, check him out and we hope you
guys got some great stuff from this episode and we'll see you
guys in the next one.
All right. What's going on, everybody?
Welcome back to Fatherhood Unscripted.
Obviously you have DJ and Alec here.
We have a special guest. Brian is joining us.
Welcome, Brian. I'm.
Happy to be here with you guys. Yeah, we're happy to have you.
Yeah, we always like to start out some that we started doing
probably a few episodes ago, butalways like to ask everybody,
(00:30):
what are you doing currently that makes you happy?
You know, I am very blessed at the current moment because
there's a lot of things I'm doing that make me very happy.
So I could go multiple differentdirections with that.
But the one that I'm going to gowith, given the theme of this
show and what we're here to talkabout today is the fact that in
November, I made a decision and a choice to buy myself a
(00:51):
Nintendo Switch so that I could bring myself into my son's world
because he's so hardcore into Fortnite.
And I was very against it. But it has become revolutionary
for our relationship on a variety of levels.
And I geek out with him and onlywith him.
But it's it's come full circle into like a really deepening of
(01:14):
our relationship and a better understanding and just something
that was really fun. So I'm sure we can talk about
that more later because it was something that I needed to do.
But yeah, I'm having a blast because I put myself into both
my kids worlds in something thatthey were interested in.
But but Fortnite with my son is the one that's really driving me
right now. That's kind of how it is in my
household right now too. We're just trying to find what
(01:34):
to do for the summer because I've been out for two weeks now
and for my son's birthday, he got a a gaming desk him then
he's using one of my old laptops.
So he's kind of entering the thehigher end gaming world a little
bit and so he just when. You switch to a computer over a
little device. That's when you know you're
starting to get serious about it, right?
Yeah. Yeah, they've got the the
(01:54):
switches too that they play on, but he's like, oh, I got a
computer now. He tells all of his friends, you
should see my setup. So yeah, it's cool when.
My my son's trying to get me to move him to a computer because
he he's tired of aiming on on the Nintendo Switch and he's
like computers, they get aim bought, they get all the
analysis. It's not even fair.
Dad, I'm like, OK, well, maybe you just need more practice.
(02:15):
Let's go. That's.
What it is right there? It's like you're just not that
good at the game. Well, cool.
How many kids do you have? I have two, my son's 11.
My daughter turns 10 in July. Nice.
That's right up with us. I've got a nine year old.
My son just turned 9 and my daughter is 7.
(02:35):
And then, DJ, I'll talk about your work, you know.
I got my oldest, Nate, he is 4 going on five in July.
And then we have our twins, Ryland and Elijah.
They're 2 going on three. So really, really fun time.
Never a dull moment in the Clinton and household, I'll tell
you that. July what?
(02:58):
What's the July birthday? So July 6th is the my twins and
then July 18th is Nates. So yeah.
Cool, I'm July 19th and my daughters July 24th so.
I'm July 15th. There you go.
Well, I mean, see, look at this.We got all these July birthdays
in here. There's a good big.
Party. That's what we used to in my
family back in the day because there was like everyone was
summer baby. So I was like, well, instead of
(03:19):
just, you know, having one or a party for everyone, we'll just
just one giant party, get it over with and be done.
So I think that's awesome. Yeah.
It sounds like I would have had a lot of fun at your house
growing. Up Well, you know, just let's
talk about, let's dive into dad's stuff.
You know, I kind of was I was listening to going through some
of your reels and kind of watching your story and I saw
it. I mean, obviously your your big
(03:40):
1 is what happened to you when you're younger and you got ran
over by the truck and just big story in your life.
How has that happened to you? Have you used that?
I mean, there's a learning moment and everything, right To
like build on your life. We could be a dad.
Just just moments of like, like that, you know?
Yeah, well, I, I would tell you that there's a whole lot that I
(04:03):
could unpack from that. So I'll kind of keep the the
tops of the waves. And I think I'll probably keep
it as relevant to being a dad as, as I can in in in the really
compressed version. And we can unpack in the
sections that we want to. I used to believe that the, the
moment when my arm was torn frommy body was my transformation
story, right. For those that are watching,
(04:23):
like literally it was completelysevered 10 feet away, completely
traumatic accident. And, and in the ways that I
speak, coach and teach within our frameworks today, I go much
deeper into the the lessons thatkind of were curated throughout.
However, it was not necessarily my transformation story.
It was a story that created a bunch of trash from my past that
I learned to push through and push down.
(04:44):
What do I mean by that? Trash is the emotional triggers,
behavioral patterns, and environmental conditions that
create a set of beliefs and cellular memory that our lives
only further to validate, right?Lots of positive came from all
that and some damage came from that.
Now as a father, I have two special needs kids.
And so this has given me perspective in a way that I can
really relate to them and connect with them in the ways
(05:05):
that I'm different, they're different, we're different, how
we all kind of navigate adversity, right?
There's, there's a lot of positive that can come with
that. But the trash side is something
that can also show up years later and we don't really know.
And so it's a part of my story as a father because it a lot of
it came out once I became a father because our kids are the
best mirrors and reflections that we'll ever have.
(05:26):
And it really pushed me into a different place.
And so I had shame and anger fora lot of years around a whole
variety of things. I learned to receive love,
validation and connection through performance.
I grew up in a household where there was one right way to do
everything. And I didn't know that right way
until I got it wrong. And, you know, a whole bunch of
other things that I could go into.
But but what does that mean for a father?
I would, I would get reactionaryin moments.
(05:48):
I had anger, it would come out, it would create damage in my
house, and you know, most of thetime it wasn't even accurate to
what was right in front of me. So my wife would say something
like this, Hey honey, what do you want to do with the kids
this weekend? But my shame and anger filter
would cause me to hear it this way.
Hey honey, you've not done enough to be a good husband and
father here recently. So what do you need to make up
(06:09):
for it this weekend? Well, you better damn well
believe I'm going to defend thatbecause I'm a great husband and
father and I'm not going to be challenged there, right?
So what do I do? I get defensive, I get angry and
I rattle off the 10 things I've done in the last few days to
show her I'm a good husband and father right now.
I've created damage and that's all coming from this place of
like I'm defending. But it's not even what she said.
The reason I highlight that is because all of my anger got
(06:30):
exposed as a father and it forced me to go down a path that
I am very grateful I I, I did and that I chose.
It went from being in the best place in our marriage I thought
we'd ever be to not knowing if I'd be married for another 30
days. And that began the path.
I'll keep the story short for the sake of I know we have more
to discuss, but ultimately what I say today and it took a lot of
(06:51):
work. I don't mean to brush over it at
all, we can unpack wherever we need to, but my wife and I've
been together for 19 years. We hid from each other
unconsciously for 14 and she's only felt emotionally safe with
me for about 3 years. It's also not a coincidence.
We have the best marriage, the best relationship, the deepest
communication, the most amount of intimacy.
I'm not just talking sexually, but that also means that we've
(07:11):
reversed generational patterns in the home.
My kids don't even remember having an angry dad, and so why
I speak about that so passionately, isn't it?
Am I proud of the ways that I operated?
No, absolutely not. But I don't shame myself for the
things that I wasn't aware of atthat time.
Right? But what I have been able to do
since then is to be able to showthat it is our responsibility,
(07:31):
especially as men, to be facilitating and providing the
emotional safety in the home because that's what unlocks
everything we actually all want.Yeah, no, that's great point
that you bring up. Emotional safety, like that is
like when Dad's yelling, it feels like the whole house is
just like in this state of fear,like, oh, I don't want to say
the wrong thing. I don't want to do the wrong
(07:52):
thing. Because dad may yell like he
yells at mom. And I've had my kids come to me.
Like, what's going on? Why are you yelling?
Yelling's not cool. And it doesn't let you as a dad,
you're like, holy smokes. Like you're right.
I don't know what like what's gotten over me.
And it is crazy when you have kids, it's almost like it forces
you. If you're going to be there and
(08:13):
you're going to be present in their life, it forces you to
deal with the crap that you've been pushing off this entire
time. You've been able to do it.
For me, it was, I pushed off. I always felt like something was
different with my brain. I thought it was something wrong
with my brain, but it's just I operated differently.
I had ADHD, didn't even know it so at 2728 years old.
(08:36):
I didn't know I was nowhere diverse or dyslexic until I had
kids. I didn't mean to interrupt you,
but I'm like, yeah, dude. Like, I'm there with you.
Everything. Yeah, that actually.
Got to the point when they when he was mate was born it I
couldn't deal with the crying, Icouldn't deal like everything
felt like it was all over the place.
And my wife was like. My wife was like, Hey, you need
(08:57):
to go get tested or go figure this out or I don't think this
is going to work. And it was that moment I was
like, Dang, I need to go do something.
So I got my diagnosis and never looked back.
And I think our oldest has ADHD.And so it's kind of cool to be
able to talk to him and say, Hey, buddy, like our brains just
work differently. Like nothing's wrong with us.
(09:18):
We've got to work at you got to do different things to to get
around and do. When we were kids, we didn't
know that, did we? No.
Right, we were just different orit was behavioral instead of
neurological, right? And it's like all these things
affect the way that we believe and operate and act in the
world. And so I'm so by the way, I just
(09:38):
want to say, dude, I'm really proud of you because there's a
lot of situations that I hear every day where people are given
a moment and they don't lean in.And you did instantly.
And given that you're oldest is what you said for you've been
doing the work and you've got you caught it earlier than I
did, right? My kids were about your I think
my daughter was maybe 5 by the time I really faced my anger or
started understanding, maybe even older 6, right?
(10:00):
You got ahead of it. Like congratulations dude.
Thank you. Yeah, it's, it's important when
you come to those kind of realizations to kind of figure
out how do I, how do I deal withthis stuff.
And yeah, so I kind of just wanted to say I like what you're
talking about because it's so true.
We create the safety. If there is no safety, then
(10:21):
that's when you see kids do things without talking to mom
and dad. They face the consequences
alone. And because they don't feel like
they can come to you, they don'tfeel like they could be safe
around you and so. I do want to highlight though
that that just for distinction and then I want we can go
exactly where you're going. You at the end said safety.
And I think it's really important to distinguish between
(10:41):
physical safety, financial safety, mental safety, spiritual
safety, emotional safety. Why?
Because I was financially providing and they were safe,
they were physically safe. They never got hit.
They never like they were never going to get anywhere of harm.
And why I think it's important is there's a lot of men that
hear safety and they're like, oh, I'm keeping my family safe.
But then they're having moments of reaction and don't realize
(11:04):
the damage that they're actuallycreating.
And I, I highlight that because the idea that I would have done
anything other than keep my family safe and protected,
especially from me, is what was soul crushing when I had to face
it. And so I just thank you for
letting me deepen that for just a second.
But I think that nuance is critically important given I
know the work of what I've had to do and and so many of the men
that I work with that struggle to distinguish between the
(11:25):
varying types of safety. So good.
Yeah, no, I actually, that was where I was going to go anyways.
Just ask you how you've created that safety anyway.
So yeah, it's, it was the next question I was going to ask.
So it's perfect that we went into that.
Yeah. How have you, like, what have
you done to like once you realized, OK, I'm not like I'm
providing. Yes, I'm keeping them physically
(11:45):
safe, yes, but emotionally, man,I could do better.
Like how did you start to createthat inside of your?
Home. Yeah, it's a great question and
I'll try to keep it as condensedas as I can.
I have to give a little bit of backdrop to it because it it I
was fortunate to have had a little bit of a opening before I
(12:06):
had to face this directly in thesense that I about three years
beforehand, I had a moment with my daughter where we were
playing and laughing and she wraps her arm around my neck and
kissed me on the cheek and says,I love you, Dada.
And I just broke down in tears. And why I highlight that is
because I still don't use tears often to express just because I
learned and conditioned not to cry.
(12:27):
And I've actually been trying toreaccess tears because men
crying, I think is a sign of strength.
But it to me, I was crying in joy.
And the reason I highlight this is because it allowed me to
realize that everything else I'dever felt in that moment was
pale in comparison. And I started to unpack and
realized that when I shut off physical pain because it
exceeded my ability to cope, I shut off mental pain, right?
Emotional pain and spiritual pain for 25 years.
(12:49):
Which also meant that I wasn't feeling and I was actively but
unconsciously suppressing all ofmy emotion, which also meant
there would have been no way forme to understand the emotional
safety component unless I had the chance to start to have
empathy versus just sympathy. And the reason I highlight this,
there's a lot of men who use mental performance or not mental
armor, right? It's an intellectual only piece.
(13:11):
There's instant shut off to actually have connection to what
we do. And it is critically important
that like, we understand that. The reason I I I give that
context though, is because by the time my wife and I sat on
the back patio and she had the conversation with me, she said
things that I'd done, ways that I'd show up, some of which were
still existing today, had created a pattern that caused
her to lose who she was. And I had just 10 months earlier
(13:34):
leaned into a challenge. She gave me to chase my passion,
my purpose, my reason for existence, which at the time I
defined as helping people get tothe core of who they are.
Person closest to me is telling me I did the opposite.
Now, for whatever reason, in theway that she did that, like she,
it really was like a dagger to the heart, But I had a choice in
that moment. And the reason I start here is
because your whole thing is, is like, where did I go?
(13:56):
What did I do? How did I start to create that
in my home? It started with a choice in that
moment. Why?
Because I could have reacted like I always would have done
and not allowed emotional safetyfor her.
Or I could pause and respond andactually listen to what she's
saying. Because to me, I was looking
down the end of a, the barrel ofthe gun and I didn't know what
was going to happen. So fortunately, that moment, I
saw it. Now, I made a promise to my wife
(14:17):
that day that I was going to do everything in my power to ensure
the negative effects of anger would not affect our house as a
result to me again. So I handed literally all my
stuff to her, my phone, everything.
And I asked her to get with my team and clear my calendar for
the next 10 days. Now I want to be really clear.
The 10 days did not solve the problem.
The 10 days allowed me to start to find some of the components I
needed. And within that 10 days, I did
(14:37):
connect some dots that were critically important.
The work was just beginning. OK, and so here's the truth
though. Because to start to create
emotional safety, there isn't even a chance to create
emotional safety until trust is re established.
It took six months before that was going to happen in my world.
Meaning I literally had to bite my tongue in moments when I
(15:01):
hadn't reacted, I hadn't done something.
But the look on my face made my wife believe I was going to
repeat the same pattern I had the 10 years before.
Because I was feeling it. And even if my actions didn't
come out, she had expected it because it had happened so many
times. And so I had to be near perfect
for six months now. I made mistakes, I'm human, I
screwed up. But we set up a lot of
communication tools with each other to allow myself to catch
(15:24):
myself in a moment, give myself permission to literally just
walk out if I need to or her to catch me.
And, and the reason I give all that is because until trust is
there, you cannot begin to expand and grow emotional
safety. And it took six months for me to
get there. And the reason I highlight that
is because there are a lot of men that I work with who try to
go and repair down this path. And a month then they're like,
(15:46):
God, how much more do I have to put up with?
It's like, well, you just gave them 14 years of that shit.
What do you want them to shut itoff in 2 minutes because you
decided you're not going to be angry anymore?
Like that was literally where I was at day-to-day.
I had to decide that every day tattooed 3 words on my arm to
remind me and ground me every day in the moment of trigger
because I'm dense enough that I needed a visual remind.
(16:06):
Once that happened, six months passed.
My wife looked at me and she said, man, we're really doing
this. She goes, I think it's time that
I do some work. And then it became a a
tangential process, meaning I was still primarily on me.
But how did I start to facilitate emotional safety?
It was in the moments that they could tell my wife and my kids
could tell that I was regulating, not reacting, that I
(16:29):
was choosing to bite my lip, to give some clarifying statements,
to own my truth in the moment ifI needed to, to if I made a
mistake, just like I had always done.
This part wasn't new. I created repair and made
apologies. It started to come.
Every choice and every action that would count compound after
that. Until, like I said, we're in a
(16:49):
place now where it, it took probably 2 to 2 1/2 years before
we don't really get triggered even by the facial expressions
or micro expressions anymore. I mean, it took that amount of
time for us to reprogram our interactions.
And so I, I highlight it becauseit, it's not a simple answer.
(17:12):
It's not a one thing. But it really did come down to
allowing them to witness and seethat my words, actions and
behaviors were becoming congruent with what I, my stated
intent was. And that was probably the
biggest lesson that I got grounded that her father pointed
out to me in that first week when I talked to them and told
them what I was doing. And all the way through till
today, which is that the world will never judge you based on
(17:35):
your intent. The world will only ever judge
you based on what your words, actions and behaviors
communicate to them. And so for me, I had to hold
myself accountable beyond this. Oh, well, my wife doesn't ever
understand me. She never knows where I'm coming
from. She always doesn't understand my
intent. Well, instead of pointing blame
back to her, it started to pointback to me and immediately was
(17:57):
catching myself. And it's like, oh, what are my
words, action, behaviors doing? And then I would have filter
questions literally, which were this, are my words, actions and
behaviors creating a safe environment for my wife and my
kids? Because if I could answer yes to
that, I would continue. And if I had to answer no, the
actions and behaviors would change.
(18:18):
I love that. And it's just it kind of
highlights, you know, now in today's society, most men and
most dads, you know, they're very uncomfortable being
uncomfortable. And they don't want to take
those steps to be where they're at.
So it's like you said, they're like, well, how long do I have
to do this? Like, well, like you, you have
to take it's going to take time.Yeah, that sucks.
(18:38):
But like you said, it's just look at what how many, how, how
long you were like that. It's not just going to go away
in a second. And so we have to be
uncomfortable or we have to be comfortable with the
uncomfortability of life to fix the issue. 100% of that, it
tapped into one of the core lessons I used to teach.
And I won't go deep, deep, deep on it, but it's the basic idea
(18:59):
of embracing pain to avoid suffering, right?
Like what was very true to me inthat moment is that, and, and
it's been true since I've been ahusband and father.
And This is why for the whole time I've been a husband and
father, that's I lead with that as my identity.
I, my actions and behaviors weren't always congruent to the
husband and father I wanted to be.
But here's the reality. When my wife had that
(19:19):
conversation with me, I know without a doubt suffering for
me. Probably the only thing that
would really cause me to suffer suffer at this point in my life
is a life without my wife and mykids.
Which to me means I will embraceany pain required to get there
because I we don't want to admitthat suffering exists,
particularly when it's a direct result of our choices.
But the unavoidable precursor tochange is acceptance.
(19:40):
So until I accepted the current state of things that my wife was
reflecting back to me, there wasgoing to be no opportunity for
growth. And so that's where it had to
become. Because you're right, I had to
get very uncomfortable for a long time.
And it was painful. Like, it wasn't like discomfort.
It was, it was painful, but yet it led to the outcome that I
want, which is joy, freedom and fulfillment on the other side.
(20:02):
Well, what would you say? So there's a, we won't name
names on here just because I know I hear a lot of Flack for
it. But there's a person in my life,
he's going through the thick of life right now, you know,
divorce, not getting to spend time with this kid anymore.
And when he is with his kid, it just seems like, you know, he
just doesn't want to be there and he just kind of feels like
he's given up. Would you have any advice for
(20:23):
someone in that situation just trying to rebuild themselves I
want? To clarify that, I understand
when you say he, are you talkingabout him or the kid has given
up when they're or doesn't want to be there when they're
together so he doesn't want to be there when he's with his kid?
He's just like just a shell justto kind of just is there but not
really there. Got it.
So what I'm hearing though, and I'm, I'm, I'm asking for
(20:44):
important clarification just so wherever you can give it.
Like he wants to be there, but he's so empty and defeated that
he doesn't have the energy to bepresent there.
It seems like it. It's a forced amount of time and
he doesn't I I'm just trying to make sure I understand because.
It seems like it's more of a chore to be there and it just
kind of like he's kind of reverting back to like being a
teenager almost and just doesn'twant to deal with the life now.
(21:08):
What I will say and again I won't call out names, but I have
two clients right now who are going through similar situations
and what they struggle with is 2things and it sounds somewhat
similar. They're in a place where for the
(21:30):
first time in their life they'regiving themselves permission or
are in a position to potentiallyfully choose who they want to be
without being tied to having expectations being held
accountable because posts divorce.
They're a solo single man now, but they are fathers.
And so it's coming down to custody and presence and how do
(21:54):
we do things? And their kids are revolting and
pushing back and complaining andstruggling because they want to
be with their friends or why arethey being disrupted from their
primary home? And it's directly hitting their
self worth. It's directly hitting their
competency, belief and conviction that they are
valuable in the relationship with their kids.
And it's at the same time this, to your point, feeling as if
(22:17):
there's so many variables that they cannot control and all this
noise that's like, right, Whether they chose the divorce
or didn't choose the divorce, the point is, is they're in the
similar spot where now they onlysee their kids 50% of the time.
And the energy that's required to regulate and facilitate
through everything is they're like, well, what's the point?
Like, why don't I just let them stay with their mom?
(22:37):
And it's not because they don't want to see their kids.
It's because the back and forth,the drama, the drain is so
significant. It sounds like this might be
somewhat similar because it's like we're at the end of the
rope. And, oh, by the way, I've got to
figure out how to do all the everything again, take care of
myself, feed myself, clothe myself, depending on what the
relationship was, right. And so all these men are going
(22:59):
through this. But it sounds like, yeah, it's
like I'm at the end of the rope and I don't have the energy to
be present in this, and therefore it makes me want to
avoid it. What I would challenge and
really ask, and this is what I've done, even in the
conversations with my clients, is to really help understand if
they could remove the complexities of the separation
of the divorce, of the complications with kids.
What relationship do they want to have with their kids?
(23:21):
How important is that relationship with their kids?
Do they believe in their heart of hearts that what they want is
what's best for the kids? But at the same time, how do
they show that in their actions and behaviors both in their time
with them, but as well as how they go about the separation?
So for example, there's someone,this is just a situation they're
(23:44):
willing to give everything to their ex, the house, the money,
that it doesn't matter what it is.
They don't want to fight. They don't because they don't
want their kids lives disrupted.But then it's also now being
manipulated. That's also, even though they've
got the 5050 split on time, it'sbeing manipulated and the kids
emotions and the struggle in this transition within six
(24:05):
months of their lives is being used to say, well, really, why
don't we just have them be here more?
And there again, he's beating himself up and he's like, but it
does that mean I'm not good enough?
Do they not want to be with me? Do I right?
And so he's like willing to almost say yes.
But then I broke down the math for him.
He has 60 months left with his kids if he only gets 50% of the
(24:27):
time. That's crazy. 60 months left for
the rest of their lives that he's guaranteed with them.
And I said, if you truly care about being a father, if you
truly care to be in your kids lives, if you truly, genuinely
believe that their lives are better with you in it, then
never stop fighting for the timewith them.
But that also means that the time with them and how it's
(24:50):
spent is also going to be the quality of the time with them
and what they're going to remember.
So if you're going to fight for the time, I don't mean this with
shame. I don't mean this with blame.
This is a hard situation. However, if you're feeling
defeated, like recognize what doyou believe your role is as a
father? And is your defeating or
defeated mentality doing your kids a disservice?
(25:12):
How do you use them as energy? How do you use them as fuel?
Not because they need to, and not because it's an expectation
for them to carry that weight, but if that role as a father is
what it is, connect to that. Every time you think about them
and every time you're with them presently and every time you
have the opportunity to get moretime with them.
Because that's the only thing you can't guarantee more of is
the time that you're going to get with your kids unless you
(25:33):
fight. For it, I do think they that
they it is there, the fight is there, but it's just I think
it's everything is so fresh, youknow, and I think it's just he's
trying to figure out like you said, just who he is and he's
trying to figure out that role again well.
And, and on top of that too, though, to the point of like,
you don't just have these patterns for years and they go
(25:54):
away. Look at their lives as a
percentage of each other, right?Let's just say you said you have
a 7 year old, right? So your 7 year old's got like, I
mean, seven years. So six months and seven years is
like 10% of their life, right? I'm 4040 and six months, it's
like 1% of my life. So the other side of this is
(26:17):
that our kids are going to, as apercentage of their lives, seem
as if this is a bigger experience for them, even in
their struggles, their changes and their transitions, because
they have less overall experience to spread it across.
Whereas we as parents might seemingly carry it easier, but
we lose the perspective that if we have a 7 year old or a four
year old, like we're talking about a huge percentage of their
(26:39):
life currently. But what I also mean by that is
this time will ease all wounds there also as long as you show
up consistently right? I I like that perspective.
Yeah, go ahead. No, I was just saying, yeah,
showing up consistently is is key.
I heard it. We had somebody on our on our
podcast and she had mentioned she was like that the kids like
(27:04):
they didn't choose to be here. We chose to have them.
So like, you know, there's this whole mindset right now going
across the Internet like you oweyour parents everything and it's
into the point of being more toxic than anything else.
Like, you know, you know, if they're going to be rude around
you or talk down to you, you still got to give them your time
(27:24):
because you owe them everything.And the perspective from like
our generation is, well, no, I don't owe them anything.
And actually we're learning. We actually owe our kids
everything. Like it's because they, they
didn't choose to be here. We chose to have them.
And so having that perspective will like, I feel like it helps
(27:45):
us to lean into being consistentbecause like you said, 2, like
the little moments, like my son is 4.
So playing with him for 30 minutes is actually a very huge
thing for for hatch because like, you know, and a lot of it
too is he's waiting all day for dad to come home and dad comes
(28:07):
home and it's like, I don't wantto play with you.
I just want to sit and veg out. I don't want to be here.
I don't want to show up. I'm tired.
And I've had days where like with ADHD, my brain is just
tapped out. Like I've just used all of my
mental energy to focus on work. And I don't like, I feel like
you don't have anything left in the tank, But it's about like I
give it a little bit more because I want to be there for
(28:29):
my kids and I want to show up inthose moments and so.
And by the way, it's also OK to tell your kids that you're wiped
out and you're a little slowed this evening because it was a
long week. And again, as long as that's
communicated, it creates emotional safety, it creates
trust. And guess what?
Then for the exception, it sounds like it is for you, you
give yourself a little more grace in that moment too.
(28:50):
I mean, dude, it sounds like you're human, right?
Like we, none of us are perfect.We're all going to screw this
stuff up. But what you just said, by the
way, I really want to call attention to and, and, and honor
you for even the way that you said it or wherever it came
from, Internet or your brain or whatever.
But I could not agree with you more.
Now, we owe our kids everything.I loved the way you said that.
(29:11):
But there's also a distinction here because if we owe our kids
everything, then we also owe them the ability to break the
patterns from our past up to andincluding if and how the prior
generation might impact them. So what do I mean by that?
It's not my job to protect my parents.
(29:32):
Now, it is in some ways, and I, I right, But in the comparison
of the relationship with my parents and my kids, my job, my
first job at this point is to protect my kids.
Because to your point, I chose them.
They're my responsibility, right?
My parents, yes, I feel responsible for, but they are
not my responsibility, right? Do I feel like I owe my parents
(29:55):
something? Yes, but I don't feel like I
have to owe them something. I feel like I want to honor
them, right? And so I loved the way you
called distinction to that. I'd be curious, how have you 2
seen that show up in your lives,parents, multi generations and
just how you honor exactly what you said right?
That we owe our kids everything.Yeah, for me, there was actually
(30:18):
a time so my son, like my dad and I, our relationship wasn't
the best growing up. He created a very unsafe
environment and actually was able to have a real conversation
with him recently about that andjust kind of brought it to the
forefront like, hey, look, I didn't feel safe when I was a
kid. And I've, you created a lot of
that on safety, like or whateverthe word is, I just felt unsafe
(30:41):
around you. And we're able to kind of start
to heal those wounds. And I, I choose that because my
kids, they love my love my dad, like whenever papa's coming
over, like the they light up andthey want to play with Papa,
they will. And I don't know, he has the
endurance like this guy, he'll pick up and run 20 miles without
(31:01):
running for six months and do itlike it's nothing.
Love it. And he just has the endurance
with playing with him too. So he'll play with him for hours
and still not feel like, like I don't feel like he's tired.
He just has more of, you know, so he just, they love spending
time with him is what I'm saying.
And I wanted to heal that relationship because I know it
was important for my kids. But then there was also a time
(31:21):
where my son and him were havingNate and Papa days.
And my dad, I think he has ADHD.He was never diagnosed, but it's
to be proven. Like it's genetic.
So like I'm pretty sure that's where it came from for me.
But handling certain situations like it's as almost as if he
(31:43):
doesn't have because he never came to the realization of ADHD.
Some of those things that you would normally say, OK, I got to
do this, this and this in this moment.
It just wasn't there. My son got hurt really bad and
like it almost caused where he had cauliflower ear because they
didn't get to it in time to likekind of release the pressure.
(32:05):
And they're like, at this point,you just got to let it sit and
hopefully it heals. I think it will.
But and it was all because instead of like telling us fully
everything, we kind of got bits and pieces.
And so I had to in that moment, have a hard conversation with my
dad because I know how much it meant to my son.
But my first responsibility is to protect my son.
(32:28):
And so I had to tell my dad like, Hey, no more Nate and Papa
days for the foreseeable future just because of the how this was
handled. And my dad, he handled it well.
That's. One of the hardest conversations
to have, by the way, I've I've had similar conversations in
different ways, but literally with that language, my job's not
to protect you, dads protect my kids, right?
And. Fortunately for me, yeah, he, he
(32:48):
understood. And so and Nate was kind of
upset because he loved those days.
But you got to make those hard decisions.
And that's kind of like how likefor me, that's kind of how it
plays out that my responsibilityof protecting my kids so.
I love that. I mean, my guess mine would be
my dad just wasn't there when I was a kid.
(33:09):
I really didn't have much quality time until I was about
16 with my dad. And so I kind of, I might overdo
it sometimes, but my kids will know that Dad is always there
and Dad's always going to show up and they never have to worry
about Dad not showing up. Yeah.
With everything, like we have a we have a kind of weird
household. My wife works and I do all the
(33:30):
social media stuff at home, so Ido get more time with kids than
usual. But they will know that even if
dad's doing a podcast, even if dad's doing something busy,
they, they could walk in here day and time, like, all right,
let's do this. You know, we'll talk.
So dad's always there. And so that's kind of how I've
kind of broke into my house. Like they know, they know.
They're like, well, what about your dad?
How's your dad? Dad?
It's like, I don't know. We don't, we don't talk.
(33:52):
Like I didn't hear that. He was proud of me.
So I was probably about, I thinkI was through her 30.
And then just recently I told him I was like, you know, I get,
I get it, 'cause he was 15 when he had me.
And I was like, you know, I forgive you for not being there.
That doesn't mean that's going to fix anything right now, but I
forgive you. I get it.
You were young. And so just showing that too,
like showing the kids like my dad's my Michael and my son was,
(34:13):
well, have you talked to your dad?
And I was like, yeah, you know, we kind of had a, a healing
moment. And he's like, oh, that's cool,
dad. And I was like, yeah.
And so just showing that and that too, and being very open
with my children. It's just.
That's awesome. Yeah, Yep.
I mean, just as we come to time and we're we're clothing on 40
minutes, we just want to say thank you First off for your
time. I love having speakers and
(34:36):
people that do like keynotes andstuff like that, because you
guys can talk and you guys are very just you give the good
stuff, you know, and just so just thank you for your time.
Where where can people find you if they want to kind of look you
up? Yeah, if, if again, we didn't
talk about anything that's goingon, but I would say social media
(34:57):
is probably the best place to get a feel.
It's at Bogert, Brian, on all channels, including YouTube.
And if you are on the web and you're just curious kind of what
are all the things that we do through the world, you can go to
brianbogert.com. At the end of the day, man, I, I
told you guys before we started,my, my whole reason for
existence, my purpose in life isto allow my truth, to give
others permission to live theirs.
And we're on a path to impact over a billion lives as quickly
(35:21):
as we can by reducing the level of suffering that exists on this
planet, largely, which is internal, right?
And here's the reality. It's not going to be my my name
behind that. It's going to be collective
impact with doing things with people like you who are already
creating amazing channels, already are creating impact.
And I just believe that move people move people.
So I'm trying to move as many asI can.
So that's all I say to everybodywho's listening is if if you
(35:41):
felt moved by anything in the discussion today, whether you go
to check me out or not isn't thepoint for me.
It's what do you do with that information?
And I'm just going to ask that you move it through the world,
move it to somebody else, move it into your life, move it into
a choice. Because if if you felt moved,
make sure that energy stays in momentum.
It's, it's good. I yeah.
Well, I definitely appreciate you coming on here.
(36:04):
Definitely appreciate you being open.
And we talked a little bit aboutsome things, you know, kind of
like tiny touches. But it is, it's true.
Whatever you you know, it's, it's taking the information and
doing something with it other than it's just going to be
information. And you know, if you're going to
toss, you're going to toss it. But with our hope is that you
take the information and it transforms your life.
(36:27):
And not to say kudos to you or kudos to DJ or kudos to Alec,
but it simply is like we just want to help people.
Like I just want I like that's that's Alec.
And I's goal too, is just to getout there, help dads because we
didn't have anything like this. I felt like there wasn't a lot
of information out there that wecould lean into and learn about
(36:49):
all the intricacies of what it means to be.
You're saying you weren't given a manual when you had kids?
You didn't get one of those? You didn't get the standard
issue dad manual? Nothing.
No. Nothing, man.
They, they tell me there was a manual out there.
You know, I was just sort of suffering out here, just walking
in the wilderness. Don't know where I'm going, you
know, feel like, feel like the Israelites in the Bible, like
(37:10):
I'm just, you know, where are wegoing?
But yeah, I know. Every day, bro.
I'm still with you. So yeah, I know.
I just thank you for giving little Nuggets that people can
take. And if they want to expand on
it, obviously now they know where to find you.
They know like, OK, if I search this in Google, maybe there'll
(37:31):
be other things that'll pop up that kind of give me more
information. That's another tool, right?
And just like there's people around you, if you know, maybe
you just haven't had that conversation with a dad right
next to you, wherever you go to work or church or whatever, you
talk to them and all of a suddenthey have a similar story to
yours and they start teaching you things you didn't know
(37:53):
because you didn't have, like you didn't ask or you didn't
have a conversation. Thank you again for being on,
very much so appreciated. Yeah.
Thank you guys for the work you're doing, Shirley.
Thank you everyone listening, check him out and we hope you
guys got some great stuff from this episode and we'll see you
guys in the next one.
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