Welcome to the Present Fathers podcast.
This is the show that focuses on climbing the mountain of fatherhood
together.
We believe that dads matter.
That's why this show is for you.
So gear up, dads. Get ready.
It's time to start climbing.
Hello and welcome to the Present Fathers podcast.
We are excited for this episode with our special guest, David Waldie.
David is the fierce empathy coach and he's founder of the Ardent
Men and Fierce Empathy Solutions. David, welcome to the show, man.
How are you?
George Dustin, Brandon And just a man.
That's a mouthful.
So good to see you guys.
What's up? Fan To see you, man. Glad you're here.
So why don't you start by I know we were talking backstage
a little bit level set for us what it is, you know, art and man is
and what the first empathy coaching is and the difference between the two.
So fierce empathy solutions is the is really my primary
it's been primary driver for for business for me and working with entrepreneurs.
I've been privileged to work with entrepreneurs
from over 40 different countries
and I do a lot in the consulting world around systems
helping them develop their organizational structure,
figuring out the different verticals for their sales pipelines.
We look at marketing, really it's
I come in and I ask all the questions that nobody wants to ask and then I,
I say, okay, here's, here's
the different strategies we need to figure out what's most
aligned for you as the individual, you as the leader, to create
what I would call a healthy work life integration.
It's it's not so much about balance.
It's more about figuring out the leader, whether that is the owner
or the entrepreneur.
Most often the business has been built in a way that they kind of we're
just flying by the seat of their pants and then they get to a point.
They're like, Hey, I can't really scale and grow this thing, and I don't know why.
And so my job is to go in there and to really just look at every single
aspect and figure out how do we change this in order for that individual
to more effectively lead their team and to be able to to buy their time back,
which you sure see, the biggest problem that they have is that
their business is completely eating up all their time.
They struggle being present with their families.
There's a lot of overwhelm and things like that.
And so that's the primary function for fear, empathy, solutions.
And the reason it's called that is that one of my superpowers is
creating an environment where people feel seen, heard and understood.
There's very rapid rapport, but the fear side is where I ask
for their permission to ask them the tough questions that no one else is asking
and really, really getting down to what's going on for them as a person
when it comes to purpose, when it comes to meaning,
when it comes to that alignment
and defining who they are, what they want and who they need to become to get it.
And so it's an integration of really my background in coaching
and then the consulting world and then the ardent man.
The man is my men's community.
It is primarily focused on on really the virtues are the pillars.
Ardent is actually an acronym that stands for accountable,
responsible, disciplined, empathetic, noble and true.
And so what we do is we focus on the seven sectors of life.
We develop kind of frameworks.
Over the past several years, my background,
I was a former head trainer for four Tony Robbins season of life.
And so I got to to learn a lot of the different tools
and strategies and resources.
And really in the one on one work,
I started to realize, like, this is something that
is useful
in coaching and consulting, but it's even more useful
when you can bring a community of guys together that have aligned values
and are willing to put in the work required to become better husbands, better
fathers, better leaders, and most of them are entrepreneurial minded.
Some of them have their own businesses.
Some of them are really just wanting to build a profit starting churches, right?
It's it's
a guy
who's mission oriented, say, hey, I've got something
that's bigger than myself that I want to create.
That's where we we give him the tools to come in and actually
develop in every single area and changes habits, figure out what needs to shift
in his relationships and how he needs to show up to be present
for the people that care about him most and the people that he wants to serve.
That's great, man.
So I appreciate you kind of breaking those down.
It sounds like you got a lot of experience and a lot of helpful advice for
for men and fathers out there.
So why don't we roll into kind of your background a little bit
and let the audience get to know you and kind of what you've overcome
in your life and how it led into running different business as you're doing today.
So let's start with kind of your early life a little bit.
I know a little bio you shared with me there was a hint that maybe some
some turmoil in your family with a divorce and things like that
and kind of just walk us through maybe a little bit of your upbringing
and then also tell us about your family and how many kind of stuff, for sure.
Yeah.
So I'm a Kansas farm boy at heart, and I grew up actually with an individual
that every single one of you,
every single person listening this podcast knows this person.
And what was really interesting is, is growing up, I was always confused
why he could fly and I couldn't.
And later on I would find out that
Clark Kent was actually Superman, which was pretty cool being in Kansas.
You know, he was not too far from Metropolis.
But you also have the the Winchester brothers from Supernatural.
There you go.
So I like to hang out with superheroes,
but he has the glasses, so he can't be a superhero.
Right? Because the vision isn't perfect.
So he's serious.
But you know, the glasses.
If you guys haven't read the Alter ego
effect, it's a great book that actually talks about.
Just finished it.
It's amazing about.
Yeah, Todd's a great guy.
So my background, I grew up on Kansas farm country.
My dad was a veterinarian, mom was a teacher.
I grew up very just pretty normal middle class.
You know, we
we had
a lot of really cool things as a kid that I did like,
You know, as a kid, you don't really know what everyone else's life looks like.
And so for what it was worth, you know,
I felt like I had a really beautiful childhood.
My childhood was basically I was Opie Taylor.
During the summer, I'd wake up, I grabbed my fishing pole, my baby gun,
and I'd be gone all day, Like, that's what I would do.
It was just my my grandparents had about 100 acres.
We lived on five. My cousins lived on five, they lived on five.
And we all shared the middle.
And so
I remember the artist who sings it but is hunting,
fishing and loving every day is basically my life. Man.
And so when I turned
right before I turned 13.
Sorry. No.
Yeah, right after I turned 14, we moved to just outside of Tampa, Florida.
And at the time I didn't realize that
it was actually my parent's last ditch effort to save their marriage.
We didn't know anyone in Florida.
My mom had grown up in Key West.
My dad was from Kansas.
And so what was interesting is where we ended up was
just random.
Like literally they picked up a place on the map and said,
We need to go somewhere and just try and start over.
Unfortunately, that didn't didn't work out, didn't last well or last very long.
My parents separated, ended up getting back together.
And then by the time
that I had graduated, they they were going through through divorce.
And so my my teenage years were very, very tumultuous.
Number one, being uprooted from everything you've ever known and going from
basically Kansas farm country to where I could when I moved to Florida,
it was suburbia. I mean, I could stick my hand out
my window and touch my neighbor as culture shock.
It was just everything, especially in those formidable years and
so when my dad left the first time, it was a really,
really challenging scenario because I didn't understand, right?
I didn't know if Dad walked out.
I felt as a kid, I felt abandoned.
I felt like my dad had abandoned us.
And so the
first kind of real, I guess you'd say, real
set of difficulties started showing up in my in my teenage years.
My parents had always fought when I was a kid, but I thought,
you know, when you're a kid, you don't know what's normal, what's not normal.
And so there was a lot of a lot of unrest, a lot of fear in my home.
There's a lot of a lot of the empathy that I carry
now today, I think, is because of earlier trauma responses
and really having to be hyper focused on every single thing
that could go wrong at any moment, looking at all the different variables.
But right when right after we moved to Florida,
when my dad left, there was a father figure who stepped into my life.
He was a pastor. And,
you know,
I found so much of just
my identity and his approval
and and it was about a year or so were really
I was just taken under his wing and everything like that.
And then he sexually violated me.
You took advantage of me.
And so in the process of feeling like my dad abandoned me,
the man who stepped in that I looked at as a father figure took advantage of me.
So my paradigm and perception of fatherhood
was really was really jacked up for a long time.
And so the rest of my high school years were
just devoted to doing anything and everything to stay away from home.
So every sport that there was, every club that there was,
I was in choir, I was in drama, I was the chaplain, I played basketball,
I played football, I played tennis, I played golf.
I did everything. I was leading worship at church.
I started working part time at the church, anything and everything where seven
nights of the week, if I could not go home, is basically what I did.
And and so when I graduated,
I graduated high school with a full ride academic scholarship
and worked my butt off.
Like my parents said,
you're supposed to get good grades, get into college and go get a degree.
And I actually turned down the scholarship and I said, I'm not going to college.
This isn't the path for me.
And I ended up moving here to South Carolina,
which is where I am now to attend an internship program
called South Carolina School of South Carolina School Leadership,
where I was on the fast track to becoming a pastor.
So I was taking Bible college classes.
I was doing some some ministry focus.
It was all about leadership, development, discipleship, community
strength, development.
And fast forward a little bit through that season,
I very quickly found out that I was I was not cut out for full time ministry.
I love serving the church.
I love the church, but I did not want to become a pastor.
The irony of that is probably very similar to what you guys
heard from Cody Jefferson I think you guys had on
is that yeah, that, you know, it was just it's just a different context.
I still feel like I'm pastoring people on a daily basis and it's a beautiful part
of what I believe God has blessed me with and the heart that I have.
But I knew that I wanted to
I wanted to go into into business in some way, shape or form,
not as an entrepreneur, but I wanted to succeed in business.
And I found that through sales.
So my first real career job, my corporate
career job, I, I'd done really, really well.
I built built what I would consider to be semi-successful.
I was the top 1% producer in a $400 million a year company, and
I had a knack for sales.
I didn't understand it. I didn't feel like a sales guy.
I definitely didn't like being labeled
a sales guy because my idea of sales was was not good.
But I started to discover these things about myself
that were gifts and strengths.
And through that process, I was engaged to be married
to a woman that I thought I was gonna spend the rest of my life with.
Two weeks before the wedding, she gave the ring back.
I was absolutely destroyed, went into about a six month depression,
lost a bunch of weight and did the whole revenge body thing.
And then my wife.
My wife, Jessie, we've been married almost ten years now.
I saw her for the first time at our church,
even though she'd been there the entire time.
But and I think everyone listening would know, like
I saw her for the first time, like I realize what was in front of me.
And you noticed her for the four November.
And we were leading worship for our youth group.
And I asked her out to Waffle House and the rest is history.
Yeah,
that's how that's how every fairy tale is written.
Starts out him.
And his beautiful.
And so we our sales pitch is smooth. Waffle House.
Very nice. I like it.
I like it.
Still go with me to Waffle House then.
She's not just going to marry me for my money,
even though I was broke at the time, you know?
And it was it was a really hard season because there was
there was a bunch of good that happened.
But essentially what I call my twenties,
because I'm 33, I call my twenties were really the dark ages.
I didn't know who I was. I didn't know what I wanted.
I didn't know what was right, what was wrong.
Up and down, my faith really dwindled during that time.
And as I was trying to succeed, I ended up
achieving the proverbial corporate version of the American dream.
I ended up with the glass corner office.
I had the company car.
I had a six figure salary.
I had everything that everyone said,
You're supposed to have to win in America, right?
That American dream.
And I found myself one day standing in front of the mirror
with a Glock in my hand, ready to take my life.
And I was done.
I was about £60 heavier than I am right now.
I was having constant suicidal ideation, anxiety attacks, panic attacks,
everyone on the outside because of my childhood, like I knew how to wear
all the masks and I had everyone fooled and everyone thought like
while these winning right is married to a beautiful woman,
you've got kids come in and you know that the whole American dream
and it all came to a searing halt
where I was, I was really given a choice.
And I feel like God gave me a second chance at life.
And that was about five or six years ago now.
And since that day, everything in my life,
I don't even recognize the man that I see in pictures anymore.
I look at it
and it's it's kind of like the David Goggins stuff that you guys ever seen,
that you see who he is now and then you see like
he was, you're like, Whoa, that's the same person.
That's exactly what my transformation was like.
It was very painful and I'm sure we'll get into it.
But it was probably the hardest thing that I've ever done in my entire life.
Yeah, man.
Well, thanks for just being candid, because I know
that some of that stuff is extremely painful to share.
But I just want to thank you upfront for
having the courage to lay it out there.
And you know, so if you're listening to this,
I hope that that gives you some inspiration for your own life as well to,
you know, it's okay to not be okay.
And I think that that's
I mean, your story is so much I relate to, like
scary amounts of how similar our lives are.
And same thing, right?
We're just told our whole lives, you got to just bottle it up
and kind of keep a brave face on and just keep hard charging.
And that doesn't work at all.
It's all going to crash. So yeah, thanks.
Thanks for upfront.
Just being very candid about those struggles. So
before we kind of dive a little bit further in that.
So you're married and how many children?
So we've got three kids.
Jesse and I will celebrate ten years in April,
and we're we're trying for number four right now, which is all right.
I think, you know, practice is always fun.
So, yeah.
That's the best kind of practice.
It is.
And is beautiful.
My daughter, my daughter, Emmy, she is six.
She's in first grade. She's going to be the president one day.
She got a double dose of stubborn from her, my mom or my wife and me
and probably from my mom too.
It probably came through. Me too.
But and then my son, my middle son, his name is Bear.
Bear Daniel. He is going to turn four
in a couple of weeks and he is full blown boy, right now.
He is chaos. Tasmanian devil.
If it can break, I'm going to break it
and I'm going to push the bounds on everything.
And then my my youngest, he's Leo, Leo, David.
He will turn to in January and he is having a vocabulary explosion right now.
And so it's just it's really fun. Really.
That's awesome.
Well, I hope the practice keeps going well.
And fourth, they'll be on the way too.
So yeah, with that, the kind of fun stuff out of the way,
if it's okay with you, if we could go into a little bit more of
I guess the trauma would be the way to put it.
Let me just right up front with being, you know, violated.
I can only imagine the
the difficulty that you had kind of
just in the immediacy of that being a teenager when it happened.
Yeah.
And then also, you know, again, same thing is like guys, like,
how do you even tell anyone about that?
And, um,
did you immediately start struggling with like depression and things like that
then, or did you kind of know it was up for a while?
It was a series of things because especially like in that vulnerable state,
it, it was something that was happening that and I used to be ashamed to say this.
Now I recognize this just we all have
when life happens, sometimes you don't have the mental capacity
or even the maturity to know how to handle it.
And so you just survive, right?
And so for me, especially with him being a pastor
and a father figure in my life, I had become convinced that
what was happening was supposed to happen and was okay.
And so there was effectively a grooming process that had taken place
and that I didn't I didn't know.
When you're when you're 14 years old, you know what?
Grooming is 15 years old.
You don't you don't understand what that is and what that that means. And
the reason that it kind of happened that way is because with my dad
out of the picture, my mom working constantly and me doing everything,
my mom knowing that I needed to have a father
figure in my life, kind of just entrusted me to him, like
had no problem with me staying over at his house,
doing everything all the time, taking me on short trips, going to the beach,
and just a lot of things that when you look back, you're like,
What?
What? Like, how could this have happened?
And, you know, it was there was a lot of
you mentioned depression that was really
that's really where yes, it entered into my life.
It was that there was just this darkness.
It didn't it didn't matter.
When I say that's where I really, really learned
how to start wearing masks is that I knew how to play the part.
I knew how to show up and be the nice guy and the goody two shoes.
And and I was the kid that,
you know, followed all the rules and got the good grades.
And I didn't do the bad things.
I didn't drink, I didn't smoke.
It was all this like just trying to attain to this
unrealistic standard and not really having permission to be a kid.
And I think the hardest part for me
was that my my parents did end up getting back together temporarily.
And I had made a commitment
because of a series of events.
Most of my friends, when I was in high school,
most of my friends were about four
or five years older than me, so most of them were graduate ing
or when I was getting into like 10th, 11, 12th grade, they were through college
or getting ready to graduate,
and the consensus from all of them was, Do not go to college
unless you know exactly why you're going and exactly what you want to study.
Take a gap year, do something.
Don't just go to school to get to get a degree,
because every single one of them was graduating from college with some B.S.
degree, getting a job just to start paying their student
loans back and and so for me, at the time,
I was just thinking, okay, well, I'm going to I'm going to listen
to the people that are ahead of me, but I'm also going to take their life advice.
And most of them said, don't date in high school.
It's the stupidest thing on the planet.
Do not you're not going to talk to 99.9% of these people, Maybe one.
Right.
And and so I made a decision not to date in high school.
And there was a day that my parents, they
they pulled me in to into their bedroom.
And now, mind you, I'm leading worship at church.
I'm actively engaged.
I was going to a Christian school at that time like I was
I was doing all the right things.
I was trying to be the good kid.
My parents pulled me into their room and they said,
Dave, I, you know, we we want to talk to you about something.
We're very concerned.
You don't seem to be normal like
most of the guys your age, like you don't want to date and stuff like that.
And they said
they straight up asked me if I was gay
and it was
coming from a Judeo Christian background,
evangelical Christian background, especially at that time.
Like this is this is early 2000, mid 2000, right.
You're just
it's a very different landscape today is what I will say.
And so for me to have that question, there are two things that happened.
Number one, it was the
first time that the thought of suicide entered into my world.
I was depressed, but it was the first time that
and this was actually a little bit so this would've been about 2006, actually.
So I was the only freshman in high school with a car, which was kind of cool.
I was the oldest freshman and so I worked and so I it was it was pretty cool.
I was an old freshman, 16 years old, and I remember distinctly that conversation.
Something in me broke, like something literally in me broke from my parents
question named me because of a decision I had made that I thought was stupid
and pointless.
I didn't want to waste time chasing girls and doing what everything else. And
and that what was interesting
and the reason that that came about that I didn't put two and two together
until later is that the kid that would always hang out with us
when I was with that pastor, he was a gay kid
and my job was to minister to this kid
and to show him the love of Jesus while this other stuff was going on.
And so that was part of the conditioning.
Is that why I needed to be with this pastor
was because it was my job to minister this kid and bring him to the Lord.
And I didn't realize that because of that association,
my parents started drawing some some conclusions about things.
And so that confrontation I remember I was 16.
I remember pulling out of the driveway in my car
and I was driving to what's called the Sunshine Skyway.
It's this giant bridge that goes over into St Petersburg,
south of Tampa, and it's called the Skyway Bridge.
Now, I think they might have changed the name, and I had every intention
of driving off that bridge and ending my life, because
to have your
parents ask you that question, number one, it stirred up things
inside of me, my own questions being like, Well, what if I am?
Maybe I am different, maybe I am like this or whatever.
But there was also just this this rage and this anger and this just frustration.
Like, how could my parents
like how could they ask me something like that?
And I know that they were probably well-intentioned, right?
Just like most of us parents are when we do stupid things.
But that really set in motion this a long, long winded way of saying
that, set in motion
just complete identity crisis.
Just no idea what way to go, what to do. And
and it was it was something that now when I look back on it,
it's a weird
place to come to where you can hold gratitude for what came out of it,
but still wish that it had never happened
and still wish, say that you wouldn't wish it on your worst enemy.
But I know now that the man that I am today and how I lead
and how I see people and how I care and how I create these environments
and how I you know, I've got a lot of weird, weird gifts
and I've never been tested for the ADHD or even like the autism stuff.
But everything that I've ever read and learned
like there are some things that happened to me back then.
It happened to all of us back then.
I for anyone listening, like there's stuff that happened to us as kids that
the most freeing thing that I have ever found in my life
is coming to terms with what happened and being able to release it
and say, Yeah, this should have never happened.
But I am simultaneously grateful because it made me into who I am today.
And that is a tremendous gift and it allows me to connect and relate
to people in ways that I might not otherwise be able to.
That makes a lot of sense, David.
I mean, why?
What a powerful story. I, I wonder.
3% of kids in their twenties, Gen Z now identify as trans queer or something like
that compared to about a half a percent, you know, ten, 20 years ago.
And I wonder if a lot of that has to do with parents very well-meaning
with their 1012, 15 year old kids, instead of just kind of staying the course.
And they say, let's talk about this.
Do you think you're gay? Do you think you're the opposite gender?
Do you think something like that?
And I wonder if some of that well-meaning ness has created some depression
and some confusion that wasn't there otherwise?
I mean, you're a heterosexual male.
You don't identify as anything but that.
And I wonder if by opening that up and asking that question,
I don't know.
I don't know what the answer is there.
But it seems like in your situation
that did more harm than good, I don't if you want to speak on that.
Yeah, I think it's a very challenging thing for for anyone to navigate.
And I don't want to sit here and pretend like I've got all the right answers.
I definitely don't.
I do stupid things as a parent too.
I'm sure everyone of us here could be like, I've learned some things
not to do and I think it's a challenging
it's the challenge of the day and age that we live in.
But I will tell you this.
The one thing that I think more than anything
and why I honor the work that you guys are doing here with this podcast
is that I have a core belief that
if you can help fathers
become the men that they said that they would be
the overwhelming majority
of the problems in society will disappear.
They'll just be gone.
And I think that the core of that,
Dustin, to your question,
the reason that it is so dismantling
for relationships and for people is there's there's two parts.
Number one, I think that most people, they don't have any idea who they are.
And I don't see that as a you know, in a condemnatory way.
I say that because I get it.
Like when you don't know who you are,
when you don't know what you believe, and you don't know what you want,
and the only thing you have in life is a long list
of everything that you hate and everything you don't want.
You are in a very, very, very dangerous position
because almost every single thing that you're going to be doing
is projecting insecurity and pain all over everyone else.
And so I think that there's
a lot of scenarios here that when people are having these conversations,
it is parents projecting insecurity because of their
the flaws that they have not come to terms with.
They've not allowed themselves the permission to do the deep work
and to come to terms with their humanity, but to have self empathy
and forgive themselves and to really define an aim in life
and say, this is the mom that I want to be, this is the dad that I'm going to be.
Period. End of story, Full stop.
These are my standards, my non-negotiables, my core values.
These are the things that I believe and adhering to those.
I think that is part of this.
The systemic problem we have today is people don't know who they are
and they don't know what they want and they don't know what they believe.
And so all of that pain
and that it's really just projection
gets vomited all over the kids and all over our coworkers
and all over everyone around us.
And we just see it exacerbated by social media.
Yeah.
And I tell I tell people all the time,
the fights that we're not willing to pick up
are the fights that our children have to battle later on.
And so we have to it's a it's our mission and our job as fathers to fix ourselves
before we do anything else and fixing our families.
Right? Yeah.
So in discussing that, what are the steps that you take to heal yourself?
So the steps to healing I've found are,
are pretty universal, but they're also freaking terrifying.
I think that a lot of people have this
this assumption that healing is a
it feels nice and it feels good.
And I see that that's a lot of what has taken over culture
and society today, especially on the more woo woo movement side.
The on the woke side is that people that are constantly just looking to heal
by feeling good and only finding things that make them feel good,
only finding people that make them feel good, only putting themselves in scenario
where they feel safe and they feel like they there's nothing.
There's no friction, zero friction
the way that I have not only found healing for myself,
I will say first and foremost, and regardless of any belief systems
here, and I'll kind of I'll set this aside respectfully,
because I know everyone believes different things.
For me, the core of that is my faith in Jesus like that.
That's the core of it for me is that if I'm not rooted and grounded in
who he says that I am, and I know that and believe it, not just accept it.
And that's a, you know,
kind of a sidebar, like people are really, really good at accepting things.
Like I can compliment each of you and you might accept it.
It doesn't mean you believe it.
There's a difference between accepting what someone has said about us
and really believing that.
And so for me, part of that healing came.
It came full stop to recognizing how much my father loves me
and how much he has he has done for me.
And in order for me to be
I love I think Nick said this on on a show that you guys had recently.
He talked about how
how he can't be the husband, the father,
the leader that he needs to be, that his family deserves
unless he is fully aligned with who Christ says that he is.
And so for me, that was the foundation from a practical perspective,
the shift for me actually happened when I was standing in front of the mirror.
Brandon So to your question,
I have a picture of it and I took the picture of it
right after it happened because there was, there was a thought that I had is
I don't know how I don't know why, I don't know when.
I don't know where.
But in some way, shape or form, this picture is going to help people heal.
Now, mind you, I was in the worst depression of my life.
I literally
I had
my hand on the trigger, my finger on the trigger.
It's a Glock 43. It's now my wife's gun.
We still have it.
I thought about getting rid of it, but
I moved up to a sig P3 20.
By the way, just for the gun enthusiasts out there.
I found that for me,
this process of healing
came directly through a confrontation that I heard God's voice.
And when I say I heard God's voice and know people might balk at that,
I felt him in my bones.
And he said some things very, very clearly to me in that moment.
He said, David, I love you,
but I can't fix this for you.
You get to decide,
you get to commit, you get to become.
There's a reason
that I've given you a head and a heart.
Use them.
And so there was this moment where I just came
smashing into the mirror
where everything that I saw, I hated.
I hated the man that I saw in the mirror every single day.
I hated how he looked.
I hated how he talked, I hated how he smelled.
I hated being with this thing right.
And what I realized
was that healing was only going to come
if I was willing to plunge myself back into the fire.
And the only way that I was going to be reforged
or remade into the version of me that I wanted to be
was with the help of other men who knew what it meant to be men.
And that
process meant that I had to invite into my life radical accountability.
I had to start actively having people who would hold me to a standard
because I didn't feel like it in any way, shape or form.
I didn't want to be disciplined.
I didn't feel like taking responsibility.
I did What most most people tend to do is look for who to blame, right?
Look for the excuse, look for the justification, Take the easy path.
Right.
And that's the danger.
I think. You know, again, this is a little sidebar.
It's the danger of the society that we've created today where people think that
that life gets better if if you just make things easier.
And what's ironic is that
in virtually every arena of life,
the only way that you get better
is by committing to some very simple steps
and repeating those things over and over and over and over and over again.
And that's why it's freaking hard.
It's not complicated.
It's not something that it takes.
You know, there's not 77 steps to breakthrough.
It's to me, it comes down to two things.
The first one is the word integrity.
Most of us have an understanding of the word integrity to mean
that if I give my word to each of you like George, Justin, Brandon, just
if I give you guys my word, right,
my integrity is now on the line.
If I break my word to you, there's going to be
some form of fracturing of trust.
There's going to be a fracturing of the respect that we had established.
And if I do that over and over and over and over again,
eventually you're going to not want anything to do with me.
In fact, you might intentionally oppose doing anything with me.
There will be such a gap in our relationship
that it can fracture things forever, right?
So my people,
they had these massive blow up and they never speak to each other again.
Well, what happens when it comes to integrity
that most people miss is that integrity is a two sided coin.
On one side is our our our word to other people.
The other side is our word to ourselves.
And this is the
this is the piece that so many of us miss and that I missed for most of my life
to realize that that we have
the ability to talk to ourselves like some of us.
Some of us have a really nice voice inside and some of us have a very not so nice
voice inside.
And so who's that other?
Who are we having that conversation with?
And when I started to realize with there is this duality component of us, right?
You think about the angel, the demon one side, the other good in the bad, right?
You know, the force and the dark side, Right?
There's all these juxtapositions all through
and you've got like the Dow, you've got balance, you've got the yin yang.
There are so many different symbols that that encapsulate this,
this thing that's going on inside of us.
But what I realized was that for integrity,
the importance of it for me is that I had consistently
for a period of years and years and years,
given my word to myself
and broken it over
and over and over and over again.
And you look at our society
and you see people that don't
they don't trust anyone.
They definitely don't trust themselves. They don't respect anyone.
They definitely don't respect themselves.
And I think that the core of that is because they are missing
one side of integrity, which is keeping your word to yourself.
And so when I started keeping my word to myself,
and I'm not perfect at it, this is why accountability is so incredibly important.
It's why this is what we teach inside man, is that I can't do this on my own.
I can't write. I am my own worst enemy.
And if I'm left to my own devices, I will screw it up.
I need someone that stands alongside me that I have given permission
to, to say, Brother, I.
I'm telling you now, you see anything out of alignment from these standards?
You have my permission to call me up to that standard, not just call out.
That's another thing in society is like call everybody out.
No, it's calling up to a higher standard.
And so for me, I had to do two things.
One is I had to get over my feelings, even on a very emotional dude.
And feelings are my entire world and it's all of what I work in
and emotional intelligence like that's what everything's about.
Feelings right?
But I had to come to this place where I realized that if I was going
to use the head and the heart that God had given me,
I needed to learn how to control them.
And in order to control, I needed to understand them.
And in order to understand them, I needed to go
and find out where they originated and what they came from and why.
I was feeling a certain way. And I had to.
I had to become the master where I was the one determining and saying
what I was and was not going to do, rather than being led
by my emotions.
Yeah, I think you hit it on the head right there, man.
When you were talking about, you know, having a present parent
and most specifically a present father is what our society needs.
And if we don't stop to think about it, we don't.
What's better than one, Father, It's two.
We have not only father our God, we have our fathers.
If we're lucky enough,
and if they're passing those traits and those values down to you,
you know, stoicism, grit and all the other things that you spoke about,
it equips you to handle challenges
and obstacles in a much better way, in a healthy way.
And you may not know your identity.
Most of us don't.
In our teenage years, in our early twenties
and even into the late twenties and early thirties, you know,
But to be found, having somebody who is truly present in your life
to ground you so that you can have a place to keep your feet
on the ground and understand who you are as a core person
so that you can figure out what you want next, you know, is so key and critical.
So yeah,
I appreciate what you said about that and it made me think of a phrase
tomorrow is the only thing a parent is supposed to live for.
And that's one of those things, you know, if if you're living for your children
and for tomorrow, for their future and you're you're holding them
accountable, you're teaching the values that that not only
you should know as a good man, if you are a good man,
but the ones that are taught in principle and the Bible,
I mean, if we follow God's Word,
we're in a good place.
And it's it's it's a good compass, so to speak.
It's happened to instead of one.
So I don't know just my thoughts on that, but I appreciate what you said, man.
That's that's awesome story that you had to share.
So thank you. Thank you. Just.
David, I was wondering if you could define fierce empathy
for us as it relates to regular empathy.
Absolutely.
So it's actually the name of the book
that I've been working on for the better part of five years.
I've thrown three manuscripts and it pisses me off because it's really,
really hard to come up with a distillation of what this, this idea is.
And so I'll give a definition and I want everyone to understand
this.
This is something that it completely depends on the context, but as an overarching
concept, if
you will, it is creating an environment
where another person feels seen or heard,
understood and known
they feel safe.
They know that you are there,
that you love them.
But similar tenuously,
you have the courage
to speak the hard truth and love
regardless of whatever outcome may follow
and this is part of why fierce empathy solutions exists is that
part of my gifts are creating these environments
where people do feel like I understand them
because trying more than anything not to give them advice,
not to give them counsel, like I don't consider myself in many regards a teacher.
My job is I am a professional question asker,
like that's literally what I do.
And my job is to help people extract answers from within themselves.
And that's one
the most beautiful things that I've seen over the years of doing this work is that
the answers are within you.
You know what you like.
The hard part is digging down and finding those things, right?
And so most of us don't have people who ask those type of questions.
And so a fierce empathy in and of itself is saying,
I want to create an environment everywhere that I go, where people feel seen,
they feel heard, they feel loved, they feel understood, they feel known,
like they feel like right now with each each of you right here that you guys feel,
that would be my goal.
It's harder on virtual and it's harder in groups, but ultimately.
Right.
Can we create that environment where people feel like,
okay, this person is safe, they're authentic.
They're also kind of especially as men.
Like, my thing is, I always want people to feel safe, but I also want them to feel
the opposite of that.
I want them to know that I am I am not a man to be trifled with like I'm dangerous,
but I'm safe.
And I think Aslan is a great example of that from the Chronicles of Narnia.
He's not a tame lion, right?
You see him cuddled up next to the girls.
He's very gentle, but he also freak and rip your face off.
I think, you know, it's one of those things that for me,
stepping into that environment, I have to have the courage.
And this is the hardest thing I think, for especially for us men,
is having the courage
to ask for permission
to speak the hard truth and love.
Say, Brother,
can I hit you with some real talk?
Right?
Can I can I tell you something that you probably don't want to hear
but you desperately need to hear?
Can I have that permission from you in the moment?
You have that permission.
You take the freaking gloves off
because the people that we respect
the most in our lives, like for many people, it's their grandparents.
And what's interesting is about grandma and grandpa, they would tell you like is
no matter how you feel, they will tell you straight up.
Right.
And I think there's something to that is that the people that we respect,
that we might not like, that
that we might not like them even at times we might get really pissed off at them.
We might be so frustrated at them.
I've had that happen to me where someone has told me
everything that I needed to hear, that
I did not want to hear and I wanted to punch him in the face.
Then I walked away and cool off me like I came back later and I thank them
and I apologize for being a jerk. Right?
Is that the people that we respect the most are the ones that are willing
to tell us what we desperately need to hear that we don't want to hear.
And the hard part is, is making sure you have permission to do that.
And this is like context is important online and comments
with strangers, not the place that's not useful.
The accountability has to be
in the context of relationship and intimacy and trust.
Right.
And the favorite question that I like to ask when people
are talking to me and sharing things is I'm and I use this to my wife a lot.
So husbands right this one down, your wife brings you all her problems
and everything that's going on and talking about everything.
The first thing that you need to do is stop. I need to ask this question.
Are you looking for support right now
or are you looking for solutions?
One of my favorite questions
not just for our wives, but just ask people in general.
Because if someone's asking me for solutions,
they're probably not going to like what they have to hear.
Like what I have to say if someone is looking for support and George,
you mentioned this on a podcast not too long ago and I love it.
I use the exact same example is that sometimes you need to get down in the pit
and hold space for somebody and sit there with them, you to stay there,
but you get down in that pit.
So I'm with you.
Let's talk a hold space.
I'll listen
because sometimes that's all that people need.
And I think we
make the mistake of always assuming, especially us men, my job to fix it.
I got to fix it, right?
Come up with a solution and I'll fix it.
All right.
So are you looking for support or are you looking for solutions?
Is a powerful question to ask those situations where
or you see someone hurting themselves or thinking,
you know, limiting beliefs or self-sabotaging or whatever it is?
Any scenario where you feel like
you want to help someone or they come to you with their problems,
ask that question and then if you have permission,
that's why it's fierce empathy.
You are fiercely committed to doing everything within your power
to create this environment and and having the courage to speak
the hard truths and love.
Yeah, just
the last little thing for like, you know, especially husbands to kind of,
you know, word of caution is, you know, everyone takes it differently, too.
You have to adapt your style to everyone that you're going to. So
even even two men that could be your two best friends,
they're going to have wildly different ways that they receive
your delivery, say the same exact words, but your delivery matters so much to too.
So yeah, like that's something to be very cognizant of with everyone
you interact with, but especially with your wife.
And that's, you know, I'm far from perfect at it,
but that's something that I work very hard at because, you know,
it's it's the way in which I deliver.
You know, when my wife does say she's receptive to having solutions.
And then you got to watch how you say.
George, if I can if I can share something that I think everyone will find useful.
This is part of my studies, behavioral psychology and communication,
how humans react from, you know, not just not just the brain.
Right.
But how how we are
physiology, how we receive and how we give energetically.
Right.
And so when it comes to communication, to your point,
I want everyone to write this down is that
words are only 7% of communication.
This is why you never argue over text messages or on social media.
There is no context, there is no body language and there is no tone of voice.
38% of communication is tone of voice
and 55% is body language.
So you literally have 93% of communication
being communicated before you even open your mouth 93%.
It means that if your body language
and your tone of voice is off, it doesn't matter what you said, you lost
your be sleeping on the couch
or whatever the scenario is.
And so understanding it is about our presence
and the energy that we are exuding from our body language and our tone of voice.
And those those numbers are really fascinating because it it's it's so true.
And I love Maya Angelou has a quote that I think a lot of people love to share.
And it's powerful.
It's like people will forget what you said.
They will forget what you did.
They will never forget how you made them feel.
And when you understand how powerful your presence is
and the energy that you're exuding, you will you'll slow down a little bit
and you'll actually start to realize how important it is to control
your emotions, control your body language, control your tone of voice,
and communicate intentionally rather than reactionary.
Yeah,
that's why it's so important to be emotionally intelligent, right,
Like we were talking about.
And that's such a good point, George.
You have to be so tactful and how you're giving truth and love,
because the Bible tells us sharp as a serpent, but gentle as a dove.
And a lot of like, I struggled with this.
I was the kind of person that was willing
to fall on the sword and be the guy that would tell hard truths.
But I did not know how to deliver them.
And it's I suffered in relationships for a long time On her statement
because I did not know how to deliver it properly.
But, you know, through God's wisdom, enough hardship
and falling on my face, you know, I figured it out.
And great. From your twin.
Yeah. Yeah.
The twin tuition. That's.
Wait, am I just learning you two are twins?
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Oh, this is epic.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
No, that was last.
That they're both so ugly.
It's really hard to tell.
George, I got to.
All right.
I got to like your head best buddy.
Get to work.
So, on a serious note, I do want to throw this out there
because it's stuff that I wanted to say
when when George said that, that profound statement of, you know,
being in that space, fathers, if you guys are out there
and you're feeling that kind of way and you don't have an outlet,
I'm sure David or any of us would be more than happy
to speak with you and fill that space.
So I challenge you guys, if you have something
you're holding onto or something you're feeling
and you need somebody to listen, Please, please, please grab us by the air.
I promise you will. We'll listen to you.
And then I take it a step further to in your local area.
You got to make a friend.
Yeah, you get. You got to develop one relationship.
At least that can be that just for you.
Because, like David said, the face to face matters so much more.
And, you know, we'll listen to you and try and help virtually.
But yeah, we're just a guy on the Internet to you.
You know, you got to somebody can develop a close friendship with in person
that's going to sustain you way more than anything we could say would be.
Yeah.
And speaking speaking to that, that's a big part of why I started
The man is we have a vision to mark the lives of 400,000 men by the year 2033.
And the core of that has got to be in person.
It has to be kneecap to kneecap.
It has to be getting around the fire.
It has to be getting outdoors together.
It has to be actually like real brotherhood.
Virtual is powerful and it's useful.
But one of the things that is our priority is saying
how can we as rapidly as possible create
these pockets all over the United States where men on a weekly or biweekly
basis can actually come together and just be able to share values?
Right.
There's a difference in men getting to like, the reason matters.
You can get together with your buddies and have a drink.
This is fine.
You can get together and do some sinister things, but very few environments have.
I found where it's not just therapy or 12 step program,
but it's guys coming together say we share these values.
We are here to improve as husbands, as fathers, as leaders,
and we want to mark the lives of every single person that we impact.
And so I love that you guys said that is that virtual is powerful and it's amazing.
But if you can find somebody locally, do that.
And that's that's what we're working towards that The Art of Man.
David, so many kids now are seeing more depression.
We're seeing rates of it skyrocket.
If you were to have a child
who masked their feelings well, like you did that wore that mask there,
how is a parent would they see those signs of depression?
How would you seek that out to make sure that that's not happening?
What do you wish your parents had said to you
instead of what they did say to maybe help with some of that?
It's probably above my pay grade.
There's all.
Your fire. Get out of here.
You know, I think
it's a really good question.
And I think that
the challenge that we live in today is that
depression in and of itself is is a massive umbrella term
for a lot of things that may or may not be clinical depression.
Maybe it's you know, there could be some some other things going on.
And I think as a parent,
the way that you are going to have the highest probability of knowing
what is going on, particularly as fathers, is how present we are.
Like, that's it
is like when I first started building my businesses is like it was number one.
I had no fricking idea what I was doing, but I knew that part of what I wanted to
create was an opportunity where I could
I could build an office at home, which is this office here, by the way.
This was pre-COVID.
So I wanted to come work from home, which was
and I wanted to have breakfast, lunch and dinner with my family.
And I've been living that for for almost four years now
is that I have breakfast, lunch and dinner with my kids, with my wife.
And that is a non-negotiable to me, unless I'm traveling or speaking to it,
something like that, it's
it is something that I want to be as present as I possibly can.
It doesn't mean that I'm not out
working my butt off and, like, making dreams and doing all this stuff.
But when I am home and there's a good friend of mine, his name's Travis Richie.
You guys, you guys know Travis. Richie, You know him?
He's going to be your next guest.
Travis Richie has
this quote that almost every single day it goes through my head
because my commute tonight is 12 steps right into my house.
But in 12 steps, this is what I say when dad gets home.
He sets the tone
and the tone that I want to set.
And I walk in my home
is not one that daddy's exhausted because he had a long frickin day.
And as you guys know, like for some some men listening to this,
you might have a manual labor job and your body is physically taxed,
you might have a job.
It's more along the lines of what I do where it is completely emotional
and you get to the end of your day and you can't even think straight, right?
Because you've been processing and handling so many things
regardless of what your job is,
you will always have the opportunity to justify and excuse your behavior.
But if you make the conscious decision and choose, when I get home, I set the tone.
It changes everything.
So now my goal is every time I walk through that door, that is setting
the tone of laughter and joy,
hugs and kisses of wrestling on the floor.
I'm doing silly goober stuff because I'm a goober.
I truly ask my kids, ask my wife.
Total dork.
And I think that
we overcomplicate a lot of these things simply because we are so hyper
focused on problems and saying, How do I fix my finances
and how do I fix my boss and how do I get, you know,
how do I change my marriage and how do I change my health
and all these things which are tactical and practical and are useful.
All these things are very, very, very important.
But more than anything, it is being present.
And I think that the follow up to that,
the reason it's so challenging for most men to be fully
present is because they don't know how to calm the chaos and the head in the heart.
They don't know how to turn it off.
They weren't taught anything that none of us were taught
about emotional intelligence growing up, right?
None of us were taught how to regulate emotions of a novice.
We're taught like practical things like,
Hey, there's this cool thing called box breathing where literally if you do for 60
seconds, you breathe 3 seconds, 4 seconds into your nose, out
your mouth, you'll reset your central nervous system.
You'll be calm as a butterfly.
And we're taught these things, right?
And so when you learn that if you're going to be present
and to be able to identify if your kid is depressed,
if your kid is dealing with stuff,
if they're going to have the ability to feel safe,
to open up about what's going on without the fear of judgment,
without the fear of you flying off the handle with you reacting
emotionally, you're doing something that is completely unwarranted.
The only way that that happens is learning how to be present.
And the way to be present is learning how to control your thoughts.
And what thoughts do is a series, right?
Our thoughts always lead to our feelings,
and our feelings always lead to our actions.
So if you're doing stupid stuff, look at your feelings
and look at your thoughts and start questioning those and challenging that.
There's an incredible book called Loving What Is by Byron Cady.
I would recommend every single human being on this planet read,
and she has a concept called the work.
When you start to do the work, you will start to master your thoughts
and your feelings and your entire world will change.
It doesn't mean you're going to be perfect at it.
I am not perfect at it.
I have my days,
but it has created an environment where you can ask my kids
and you can ask my wife if I'm present, if I'm available,
if I'm there with them, rather than just being in the room and completely
in another place in my head.
I like a in.
Yeah, that's a it's a pretty good answer.
So I think maybe you
are more qualified than you thought you were to take that one.
Take it all like everything I say or go test for yourself.
Yeah.
The only thing I would add on to it is
you have to be comfortable with understanding that you're
not going to get everything done. It's impossible.
There will always be more to do.
And I'm lucky that in my life I had some really good leaders and mentors
who really drilled that into me earlier and, you know,
I think that's made a world of difference for me. So
take it,
you know, self-reflect those listening and watching,
you know, are you just constantly scrambling to the next task
or are your tasks driving you?
Is your schedule running you are you running your schedule?
And for some people, that's literally putting a block of time for family
on your schedule if your schedule is that busy.
So yeah.
All right.
That was amazing advice. Dave.
We're trying to be sensitive. We know you're coming up on some time.
So we have two final questions really focused on fatherhood.
I'll let Justin take away the first one for you.
So this is a question we ask.
Every dad comes on and it is what is a core memory
or your favorite story since you've become a father that you you want to share?
I will say that
the core memory for me
was I mean, there's there's plenty of them.
I love them.
And the hard part is about this too.
Just a sidebar for everyone listening.
If your memory sucks, write it down
like my memory is horrendous.
You can ask my wife. That was really words.
Worst memory on the planet.
I don't remember things right unless I write it down.
But this is one that I remember that was literally etched into my
my soul is that
when I was really two
and I'm trying to think of which one would serve people better,
I'll give you the first one.
Maybe I'll talk honestly.
The first one was was when my daughter was born.
I think becoming a father is something that you can't explain to someone.
You just can't, you know, and you guys know, you know, you
you hold that
child and all of a sudden you realize, like,
even though maybe you had a great relationship with your wife
in your life, you know, you had you learned how selfish you were.
You really find out how selfish you are when you have a kid,
and that will shift everything.
But for me, it was that moment of holding her and just bawling
my freaking eyes out, being feeling like the most
blessed human being on this planet, that this child was mine.
And and then it was kind of like a oh, crap moment.
Like, I have to I have to help her become a functioning adult, you know?
Oh, no I have a lot of responsibility now.
So that and then I think
another one for me is
actually one that just recently happened that I will remember forever.
But I laid down with the boys to take a nap.
This was probably this is like two days ago.
My wife was like, I'm not doing laps with the kids.
You take the boys, go upstairs. I got it.
So I take the boys upstairs and
there, my
my almost four year old, he leaned over and he is like, kisses Daddy.
And so he gave me a kiss on the cheek. And then Leo, he's.
He's what, 20, 20, 21 months, something like that.
He leaned over and did the exact same thing.
And then for like the next 2 minutes,
they just attacked me with kisses like they would not stop kissing me.
And I'm dying laughing.
We're supposed to be napping and I'm dying laughing.
They're laughing.
And it was it was one of those moments where
I know that
especially, I think, for for for young, young boys,
there's a transition where right where that affection is going to change.
But at this stage of life, I'm like, yeah, I take it all day.
It was freaking amazing.
It's beautiful, man.
I. Brandon Yeah, that's so good.
But, you know, I had the exact thought when I, when I held my baby boy, Benjamin
for the first time and my daughter Bella, like the first Corinthians
1311, came to mind, which was when I was a child.
I spoke as a child and I understood as a child I thought as a child.
But when I became a man, I put away childish things.
So like my selfishness, whether it was gaming and doing me time
too much, all that went away when I became a father.
And so I love that that that was the core thing
that you, you immediately thought of fixing, right?
Because that's what all dads have to fix when they become dads is your time is now
not yours.
You have to devote I mean, you're already devoting it
to your wife, don't get me wrong, if you're doing it right.
But but you have to devote to your children, too.
Yeah. So.
So that's. That's such a good thing.
what was the best advice that
was ever given to you that you applied towards fatherhood?
MM This came from
this came from a mentor of mine
that marked my life probably more than any other man.
He's he's a big part of the reason that I ended up moving to where I am today and
he is the man that before I really reconciled
and created, like my dad and I, now we have a beautiful relationship.
But before that happened, this man,
his name is Darren Hileman,
he showed me and lived out
and it fully embodied
the man that I wanted to become.
Right now, not just I'm not talking about like success.
Things are about character qualities, how he interacted, how he would walk
into a room, his energy, like how you could feel him.
He was very much that Auslan personification.
I felt completely safe around him.
But I also knew, like you stand up straight,
you're respectful, like you, you, you toe the line, right?
You do the right thing. Right?
And he told me this was
right.
This I think it was at this restaurant
called Groucho's, which we have here in South Carolina.
If you guys ever come up, I'll take you is fantastic.
But I remember
him talking with me about marriage
and about how most men, when they get married,
right, they
they lose a part of their identity
because now they're trying to become something for their wife.
And that's a whole layered conversation that we could go into.
But suffice it to say, that was just the beginning of what he was talking about.
And he said he on to explain that
what most men do after they're married and they have kind of this,
they stop being the man that they said that they would be
because they've now conquered the queen.
Right. They've taken her home.
And so he said the next step is when you have children.
He said
the biggest mistake that any father can make
is putting his children before his wife.
And at the time I had no idea what that meant.
And there are probably people listening
to this right now that the humanly disagree with that.
Now, I'm not talking about like
when you've got an 18 month old who needs a diaper.
You're not neglecting.
You're not making you look like you're
not exacting your children.
But that to raise and and to help these children
have the best opportunity for a successful, fulfilled life,
a life full of purpose, a life full of meaning,
a life full of contribution and productivity.
What is modeled
between me and my wife is more important than anything else.
And if they become the sole focus and we get disconnected,
all of our worst fears will be made manifest as they age.
Because the relationship that the husband and wife
have, and I believe this with everything in me,
it is
the representation of the heart of God.
It is the beauty of masculine and feminine
coming together, sparks flying for granted.
Yes, which is fine.
Still iron sharpening iron,
the masculine and feminine coming together on the same team, working together
on the same goals, supporting, loving, showing affection are doing well.
Right?
Demonstrating what it looks like for your kids
that when those two are strong
everything else
is reinforced, everything else is strength.
And I believe that that is that advice that he gave me was basically, you know,
it's basically don't let your kids become your sole focus when you have children.
Your wife still needs to be your priority.
And at the end, he said, because there's there's two things he said.
Number one, he said, when your kids leave, your wife will still be there.
And then the follow up to that, he said, And there will come a day
where either you or your wife die and you need to always remember
you are the only person that you are guaranteed
to spend the rest of your life with.
And so those things of having this healthy relationship with yourself,
having him striving for and fighting for this is another one liner for him.
He said. Family is not something that anyone's born into.
It's something you fight to create every single day.
And so my wife and I, we have committed to fight together
for each other, even though we argue and we argue like
she's also my best friend,
I die for that woman.
She's a beautiful mother,
but I know that my kids cannot take priority over that relationship
that she and I have to be strong in order for us to be able to raise them while.
It's beautiful, man.
And it's I think our kids are inherently ingrained
to expect that kind of relationship from their parents.
And when it's not there, they start to feel the fear and the anxiety.
They may not be able to pin it on why.
But I think in in a way that this, again,
may sound weird to people, but, you know,
like when I come home, I'll tell my daughter, Oh, no, hang on.
I'm going to hug mom first and give my wife
a hug and kiss or whatever, and then hug my daughter.
And I think, you know, some people will be like, oh, well, that's
that's really messed up.
And it's like, no, I think it makes her feel more secure
that, oh, now my parents love each other
and they, you know, she'll come hug us while we're doing it, too.
Yeah. Family hugs. Come on.
So I love that you said that, George, because that's one thing
that I've been using on my daughter lately and not not all the time.
But when she says something like talks back to her mom,
I tell her, like, you don't talk to my wife that way.
Yeah, it's not You don't talk to your mom that way.
You don't talk to my wife that way.
Yes. No one else on this planet would have permission to say that.
So I'm going to remind you, this is my wife.
That's right.
Yeah.
I think being very intentional about those words, those words
with your kids
especially helps paint that picture of what real relationship looks like and
helps them have that security.
So thank you for that.
Final thoughts there, David.
That's beautiful for. Sure. Where can people find you?
Where's the best place to get in touch with you?
Best place to get in touch is you can check out my website.
You can Google me, find me just about anywhere.
I'm on all social media.
I usually hang out on Instagram.
You if anyone DMS me on Instagram, just message the podcast
and I'll actually open up and respond to you.
Like just
I don't believe in the bots
and I don't like having other people manage my social media.
So it's actually I mean, it
might take me a while to get back to you, but I will respond to problems.
Awesome.
Well, we will put links to all of the best places to reach you,
David, in the description of this and everywhere we posted will be in there.
So thank you.
You know, I
guess final on that would be, you know,
how do people kind of go about one if they're wanting to work with you
in a professional sense?
You know how does that what does that look like?
Yeah.
So in a professional capacity, if any man is interested
in our community, our brotherhood, again, it's called the Ardent Man.
I've got links in my bio.
There's an application process.
You go through an interview process
to make sure that it's a good fit, it's aligned, and it makes sense.
If someone's in business and they're wanting to explore a conversation,
just email me, me or my team, get back with you, and we'll set up a time
to actually have a console and discover it's
call it a discovery, call whatever you want, and dive in
to see if I'm even in a position to help because I tell everybody the same thing.
Unless we have a conversation, I can't promise you that I can help you.
I have no freaking idea.
And so it always is a conversation first
and just exploring it together and seeing if that makes sense.
And so,
yeah, easy peasy.
Perfect.
Well, David, I really enjoyed this and.
I wish we had, like, five more hours to speak with you because.
You have you guys every day, partner.
So I like it so much. I want to keep.
Lots of layers.
Yeah.
Thank you again for for your transparency and having the courage
to share your story and, you know, set the precedent for others to follow.
And, you know, some men out there, if you're listening, we're
probably all struggling with something very similar or whatever it is.
It's the hardest thing you've faced so far in your life, right?
So for you, it may be the big boulders.
So don't don't just sit under it, reach out, get help.
And, you know, you heard it from David here in his story that.
It wasn't until
he really accepted it and move forward that he was able to get things
back on track and love himself, not just have the act.
David, thank you so much.
All right.
That's enough talk. Let's get climbing that mountain.
We'll see you in the next one.
Thanks for tuning into this episode of the Present Fathers podcast.
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