Speaker 1: My kids don't remember all the times I screwed up.
They have this you for it thought process that I
was perfect because they remember the good times, right, So
they stacked the winds stack and that's how they see me.
But here's the deal. The reason that exists is because
they felt loved. Bottom line, love covers up mistakes, It
covers up mishaps. I apologize to my kids when necessary.
My kids would tell you I apologize, and I still
do today. And if you're willing to be that love
will cover up a lot of the stupid that's impossible.
Speaker 2: Let me tell you what I believe.
Speaker 1: What's your weakness.
Speaker 2: It's not your technique. Don't think you of know you
the Impossible Life Podcast. I mean you're sitting on a
winning a lot.
Speaker 3: Of seconds, an idea that is fully formed, fully understood,
that sticks. This is the Possible Life Podcast because Nick
and I are attempting to live impossible lives. What we
know is that nothing is impossible. So instead of using
impossible as an excuse to not try, we'll use the
pursuit of impossible as an accelerant for greatness. If something's
never been done before, that just means it's unexplored. If
they tell you it's too hard, it's just waiting to
be simplified. Impossible as a default label used by uncourageous
people unwilling to take a risk. The real truth is
this The solution to any impossible task starts with this question,
if I had to, what would it take?
Speaker 1: What would it take?
Speaker 2: Welcome to another episode of the Impossible Life Podcast. I'm
your co host Nick Surface, and I'm looking across at
a man whose favorite knock knock joke goes, that's right,
friends the phone, Garret, uncle back, a man who wouldn't
let anyone get close enough to knock knock.
Speaker 3: Knock knock America's hereof there you go.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that one was that took on. That was my
third take because I don't normally employ that many button
presses into a way.
Speaker 3: We're definitely not putting you at the front of the
stack to throw the flashbanks.
Speaker 2: It's okay, Look, dude, I could throw a flash bang
a lot there, and I could do that intro because
there's a lot of coordinator button pressing. Now you may
hear a much warmer uncle Back laugh, maybe one that
you even like more. That's because we've got pops Scott
uncle Bock with us for today's podcast. Pop's welcome, glad
to be here, second time guest. I'm pumped to have you.
We're having you here because obviously this is going to drop.
This our final full episode before Father's Day. We're very
passionate about men, seeing men run hard after God, and
we know that there's a lot of guys who are fathers,
and there's a lot of guys that if they're not fathers,
they want to be fathers. And so we're like, man,
we got to invest in the fathers. You and I
got some fruit. Gee, but we're still in progress. Let's
go to somebody who's got undisputed did fruit? Aka your dad?
Speaker 3: A lot of people come to Pops for some father wisdom.
Speaker 2: Yeah and there and like, truthfully, the hundreds of people
come like come to your dad and well and like
obviously you were on here before with Darlene originally when
we talked about parenting. So now to be very specific,
this is how to be a great godly father. That's
really what we're covering today. So this will be relevant
for all the men listening. If you're a woman who
listens to this, which I know we actually have plenty
of women listening. Pass it on to the man that
you love as well, because.
Speaker 3: It'll be a blessed And I know we're going to talk,
We're going to talk about it from a godly perspective,
but I would say, really, what we're going to get
into today is what makes a great father, because you
can be a godly or Christian dad, and that is
a part of being a great father. But I think
there's more to it than that. Oh yeah, right, you
know you would if you're going to be the father
that God intended you to be, that's being a great father.
But I just want to I want to say that's
what we're going to dive into with Pops, because there's
other dads who I think, you know, they they're checking
the spiritual box as a father, but it doesn't mean
they're a great one.
Speaker 2: Yeah, And that's I think that that's a real kind
of warning shot right there, because you really can from
the place of having great intentions still miss it like well,
I was chasing hard after God and it's like, yeah,
that's good. But there's wisdom to what it takes to
develop great kids. I mean, you've developed a Navy seal
and a doctor, So you've done all right there.
Speaker 1: Well, yes, so there's definitely some fruit. And to just
mention what you guys are just now talking about, there's
some amazing people in the Bible that had some very
difficult times. Yeah, it didn't all work out because of
their actions. And fatherhood's the same way. So you can
beat hard after God, but you're missing two or three
of the key parts of you're walking out your journey,
and it leaves a huge gap for your children. And
so you might they might see that you're consistent in
one area, but not a consistent in all areas. And
so that's one of the things that I've tried to
focus on, and one of the things I try to
teach to the men is be you know, have a
broader focus on what it means to be a father.
And there's multiple pieces to that.
Speaker 3: Yeah, well just for example, and this isn't a shot
at them, but this is a great example of it.
There's plenty of pastors who aren't great debts, right, so
they may be godly men, but that didn't mean they
were great fathers.
Speaker 2: Well, you have Eli in the Bible, who was the
priest for Solomon, who's the wisest man that ever lived,
and what did his son do? Got on and was like,
you know what, I'm gonna do the exact opposite of
everything my dad did. Yeah, you can't tell me he
didn't miss a few tricks there as a father and
his thousand wives, because you know, you don't put a
kid like that on the throne have him to do
the exact opposite if you were doing everything like we're
gonna be talking about today. But before we dive in,
I got a thotse surprise for you possible before we
dive in. If you're watching on video, you're gonna notice
that Me, Garrett, and Pops are all looking, you know,
especially chiseled in our Jesus one T shirts. Now, I'm
really pumped about this because we become friends with Matt,
who is a great guy man. What I love about
Matt is that he like loves the Lord. Obviously we
all met him because we hung out with him. He
went with us to the Bible study last week, flew
in just to hang out with us, came to mighty men.
He's the owner of Jesus one Apparel and if you
don't follow Jesus one on Instagram, follow them because it's awesome.
There are athletes in sports all over the country starting
to rock Jesus one shirts. And what's so cool about
them is, first of all, the message is amazing Jesus won,
which is true. So it's just a great conversation starter,
which we've had a few of those. And he does
them in like the fonts of the teams. So like
Mike Trout, who's one of the best baseball players that's
ever lived, is walking around all the time in a
Jesus one shirt in the Angels font, and like they
can wear them on the field because it's the team colors.
So we got with Matt and we actually have our
very own one that's in Impossible Life colors. So it's
bright neon green, it's got our font, and it's got
our logo on the back neck. I wear this thing
to the gym. We all wore them for the first
time last week at the game and Josh Young of
the Rangers stop and was like, hey, love your shirts.
Speaker 3: Well, and we got to see Evan too, Evan Carter,
who's been a guest on the show. And I didn't
know this until Matt was kind of telling the story.
You know, the reason that we had Evan on the show,
the reason that we found the brand of Jesus Jesus
won was when, you know, because Evan's story is super cool,
gets called up to the Major's beginning of the season
and then you know, goes on they win the World
Series that year. Evan is second to Mickey Mantle. If
you're second to many Mickey Mantle in any stat, it's
a pretty impressive stat.
Speaker 1: First.
Speaker 2: Second, he was the second youngest number three hitter in
the World Series ever in baseball.
Speaker 3: And and I thought it was also the stat of
God on base in every game. Yeah, he got here
every game, and so second to Mickey Mantle on that.
So anyways, point being, you know, we saw Evan where
the Sherman like, oh, that's cool, that must be a thing.
Speaker 1: Well it wasn't really a thing.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that was the beginning.
Speaker 3: That was the beginning of Jesus one really becoming a thing.
And so we had Evan on the show. Was so
it was a great kind of serendipitous lap there at
Ranger Stadium seeing so seeing Evan being there with Matt.
Speaker 2: Yeah, because the first time I met Matt, I was
wearing my original Evan Carter Jesus one shirt and Matt's like, hey,
that thing still looks pretty good for three years old,
and I was like, dude, I wear it to every
Rangers game. I know what I'll say about these shirts.
They're great, They're comfortable, they really do fit well. But
what I love I've never had ever worn them and
not had people comment. I got free chips at Chipotle,
which was awesome. Every time I go to the Ring
asterisk not guarantee, but they're definitely a bonus. And then
Garrett's favorite interaction that we had as we were leaving
the game, there was a fan who was maybe perhaps inebriated,
that saw my shirts. I was walking first and goes,
oh Jesus won Hell yeah, and then gave me like
a high five.
Speaker 1: Hell no.
Speaker 2: But Garrett Love, you were very abused by that response
to this, But.
Speaker 1: It was cool. I mean, you got players on Cleveland
wearing them, players on the Rangers wearing them. Yeah, and
of course we had them on behind my home plate.
Nobody's asking what was going on. It was really it
was really entertaining to see how impactful it were. Yeah.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so it's a great one. Shout out to Matt yes,
and Matt and Matt. What I'll say about Matt, Matt
loves the Lord. He's a relational, authentic dude. He's been
a chaplain in the MLB for a long time working
in the FCA. Like, what's awesome is that Matt has
a very God centered mission and we are very proud
to partner with them. And you'll be supporting the podcast
as well when you do this, Like we actually some
of that some of these shirts. The money from the
shirts will come in us and help us grow and
reach new people with the podcast and hopefully see more lives.
Speaker 3: If you want to know what we do with the money,
A lot of you are here because you heard an
advertisement yep, to come on the show. If you want
to know where the dollars go. We we spend money
on ads so more people can listen to.
Speaker 2: The show, right, because we're just trying to get more
people to just hear, follow Christ and just transform their lives.
Speaker 1: So, by the way, the Impossible Life logo is on
the back. Yeah, that's why I said, Oh I didn't
hear you. I did say Pops.
Speaker 2: Pops checks me on literally everything.
Speaker 1: So there's strike one for Nick on this episode. We'll
see how far we get.
Speaker 2: We talked about strike one that was I just put
that one out of the park. I'd already said it, man,
but yeah, Pops. Pops is quick to correct me, and
I'm very quick to listen because when he talks, I
want to listen. So, okay, we're going to dive in
now is if we haven't already what I wanted. So
I said, like I joke around that if they were
gonna stud people, you know, you would have a you
could be a snub because you've got a Navy seal
and a doctor. But I want to give you a
little something.
Speaker 1: Her wife did have something.
Speaker 2: New and your wife's the level ten vnom herself like
Darling's amazing. But this is Father's Day. We should have
had her on for Mother's Day. There we go next
next year. But so here here's why I want to
surprise you with Pops. I asked, both your kids, what
makes you such a great dad? And so I'm Brittany
was first. So I'm gonna read Brittney's live on air.
Speaker 3: I guarantee you our answers are going to be this.
Speaker 1: I think.
Speaker 2: So why I read hers and I was like, this
is exactly what she's saying. That's why I'm doing hers
first caause I don't want to sound like it's repetitive.
But but here's the thing, though, Like I want you
to fast forward. Pops is in the sixties. He's got
his kids in their mid to late thirties. Imagine you're
sitting there and your kids get you someone asked you, like, Hey,
what was your dad like? How much would you wish
and hope and pray that this is what your kids
say about you? So this is what I said. I
said to Brittany, I said, hey, what would you say
makes your dad such a great dad? Because she speaks
glowingly about you. Obviously, I'm really close to your daughter
and her husband as well, so it's not like this
is a random relationship. We're very close. And what she
came back, she said, first is his consistency. He does
what he says he will do continually. It breeds trust,
she said. Second is integrity. He's the same person everywhere
with everyone, and she reinforced it, she said, it breeds trust.
She said. Three equanimity. There are less than a handful
of times he actually raised his voice of me, not
because it wasn't warranted, but because he chose to manage himself.
And then four she said he's honored because he's honorable
even if others aren't, which also speaks to the kind
of man he is. And then in five she said,
I don't think I know anyone as steadfast as my dad.
She said it might be a superpower. And then she
I said thank you, And she just came back and said,
goat dude, if my daughters say that man like, thinking
about that actually makes me feel pretty emotional. Think about
my own daughters saying that about me. Yeah, very nice.
It's incredible. But that's not contrived. So Gioski the same question,
what makes your dad such a great dad?
Speaker 3: Like I said, I guarantee you our answers are all
the same. I will I won't echo all the points
that she said, though, though I agree with all of them,
but I will echo consistency. It really, consistency is what
adds the value to all the other qualities that you do. Right,
If you're nice to somebody like one time, it's like, oh,
you know, piece of candy, right, right, But if you
have character with someone all the time, if you maintain
your integrity all the time. If you maintain your strength
of character all the time, you can maintain your emotional
resilience all the time. It gives such a different weight
to every single thing that you do. So it's really
the foundation of a lot of my dad's character is
the consistency, Like he's the same person everywhere. He has
the same emotional resilience everywhere, and as a fought like
what you need in life as of like one of
the I know this is what pop is going to
talk about, so I don't want to spend too much
time taken.
Speaker 1: Away from it.
Speaker 3: But consistency is one of the greatest gifts that you
can give your children as a father, because when you
grow up with a lack of security, then you will
struggle with your identity, you'll struggle to make a map
of the world, all of these things. But when you
have a father who is the same person everywhere to
you and to everyone else, it gives you a foundation
to build who you are and to build your map
of the world upon. So it's been one of the
greatest qualities that my dad had. One thing I'll add
that my sister didn't say is I would call it
either selflessness or generosity.
Speaker 1: My dad has.
Speaker 3: Like I say, if you want to live a miserable life,
make your life all about you. If you want to
live a great life, make your life all about other people. Well,
my dad's the one who demonstrated that for me. Live
your life about other people and that's a great life.
Speaker 1: Yeah, well there you go. Can I throw in a
cheat code?
Speaker 2: Of course you can.
Speaker 1: It's gonna seem very simplistic, and you know, I try
to be simplistic in what I say and do, so
it's understandable. Right, Guys make things so complicated. So here's
the cheat code. If you say what you always say,
other words, you don't make things up. You don't have
to remember what you made up for starters. If you
treat everyone the same way, period, you don't have to
wonder how you're going to act when you walk in
a room, or you go into church, or you're going
to a business deal. It's the same. So you're saying
the same thing, you're doing the same thing, and you
have a code of honor that goes along with that.
It makes life very simple. I don't have to think
about what I'm going to say when I walk into
her room. Ever, I know what I'm going to say,
it's the same thing I said last week, the month before,
six months earlier, six years earlier, or twenty six years before.
It's the same. And by the way, it all follows
around the word of God. There's nothing new under the sun.
You know. John Maxwell coined that a long time ago,
and he said, look, everything comes from the Bible, and
at least he made it popular. Other people have said it. Well.
I feel that same way. And life is not super complicated.
It's a very simple set of rules. Now you can
you can find intricacies, and I love what you guys
are on there Possible Life. By the way, I listen
to every episode. I've heard them all. And as a father,
it's not just because it's my son, it's because I
get great and I get great wisdom out of it,
because you can look into a matter and you can
become an expert at it. But the core principles, the
cheat codes are simple if you'll just follow them.
Speaker 2: Yeah, well that kind of gives you a lot of pops.
Speaker 3: And it's some you know, pops is giving some foundation
or history to some of who I am and the
things we talk about here. Right, What's something I say,
peace doesn't come from knowing what will happen. Peace comes
from knowing what you'll do. Right, Pops, Life.
Speaker 1: Is way easier.
Speaker 3: Doesn't mean you always know the answers to everything, but
life's way easier when you live with consistent and consistency
and integrity.
Speaker 1: Right.
Speaker 3: Well, you know, it may not go exactly the way
that I think I want it to go, or that
I think it should go, but I already know what
I'm gonna do. I'm gonna tell the truth. I'm going
to live with character. I'm going to stand on biblical principles.
It takes all of the anxiety out of life when
you can live with some faith in character.
Speaker 2: You know, this is like such an impossible life. Things
like here's the cheat code to make it easy. It's like, wow,
these guys never give that. Yeah, just be consistent, always
keep your word, and be the same person everywhere. Look,
there we go. And like you say, it's not hard,
or it's not it's not complex, it's simple, it's just
not easy.
Speaker 1: Well, Pastor Josh Li likes to say that you know
that it's it's simple but not easy, And that's true.
But you know what, it becomes easy over time, right, It.
Disciplines are very interesting, and that's what I love. I mean,
when I go to the range with Garrett. Look, I
try not to just be totally defeated by my lack
of shooting skills, but I understand that when you've put
a million bullets down range, you're going to be a
little better than the guy that's put a few hundred
rounds or a few thousand rounds down rounds, a few
thousand rounds. Yeah, and I'm a good shot, but in comparison,
I'm not an expert. And so, but you can become
great at anything with discipline, and that's what that's what's
so beautiful about so anyway, it it's it's it's if
you take your life in that picture, right, Okay, what
are the errors that I'm not good at. Let's let's
practice them over time and you become great at them,
and then you don't have to think about it. He
does not have to think about what he's going to
do when he goes to the range.
Speaker 2: No, I've watched Garrett train other men on the range
and this was like postop. He had literally had a
surgery and he was wrapped up, and I knew how sorry.
He was because I'm around him, not because he was
win Syen or anything, which is because I'm like, dude,
this guy's still got bloody bandages on and he's training
these guys and he's doing like like sideways shots with
his ar just tink tink tink tink training and I'm like,
I was like, Okay, that's impressive. It was just like
because I know you're hurting and you're still nailed it.
But anyways, okay, so I want to we're going to
go into you as a man for each for I
don't want im saying you I'm talking about the listener
because we're going to talk about what makes a great father,
and then we're gonna give you three things, three specific things.
But I think it's funny how, you know, Pastor Keith
always says that like, God didn't give you the parents
that he gave you to to love you perfectly, right.
He gave you to the parents you had for a
reason to learn what to do, what not to do,
and what to do right. I think it's so interesting
that you got given the son you did knowing your temperament,
because you know, we all like to be like, yeah,
stay consistent, be calm. Yeah, no problem, I got you
just got my kids are gonna do some stupid stuff,
and like I'll tell them to clean their room. But
what about whenever your kid's like a daredevil and decides
that he wants to test the boundaries of physics all
the time. Aka, uh, we got to go to the
emergency room again.
Speaker 1: That's how you say, I'm going to say something that
most mothers aren't going to like and some dads aren't
going to like. I encourage Garrett to be aggressive. Now.
He took the limits farther than I might have suggested
at times. But like, for instance, when he was a child,
he would climb up in his window. It freaked Darlene
out and she's like, she come home and Garrett's standing,
you know in the pane of the window in the room,
don't you. I'm going it's a couple of feet. What
I mean, He's not going to fall out the window.
There's a there's there's glass there. Or I'd come outside
and we had I had, of course a very nice
jungle gym. As a contractor. We had a nice jungle
a swing. Garrett would be on top of it. Yeah,
you know, not in the swing and and of course,
and Darlene, She's like, he's going to hurt himself, like
maybe you know if he does okay, you know, if
he breaks the arm or breaks the leg. I mean,
I think that's part of growing up. So most people
don't have that ex but I was for him becoming
all boy and I am that way. You see me
with boys. I'm very hard on them physically, not like
hard on them mad Adam. Hard on them. I push,
I wrestle with them. I put them at headlocks, you know.
I push them because they need to be boys. Yeah,
And there's such a passive attitude in our society today
that just drives me crazy.
Speaker 3: When you think about some of the danger related to play,
and I think about the stuff that I did.
Speaker 1: As a young person.
Speaker 3: An interesting way to conceptualize it, Like as a father
and as parents, your job is to protect your children
from the danger that's pursuing them. And you can put
a lot of things in that category. But for a
young like for you know, a seven year old, for
a ten year old, as they start to seek some danger,
help them.
Speaker 1: Do it in the right way.
Speaker 3: You got to protect there's all kinds of danger that's
coming after them that they should never know about that
they need you as a parent to protect them from.
But also you've got to prepare your children for living
in a dangerous world. And as they start to seek
forms of danger, help them do it in the right way.
Don't just say oh, well that's dangerous, don't do it.
Speaker 1: Yeah, well, spiritual there's a lot of dangers that are
way more important than physical dangers. So I'll give you
an example with Garrett. So he got into called parkour.
Is that the right word? They said, jumping off of
stuff You shouldn't be jumping off of, jumping through before
you know. You see a lot of cool stuff now
in the movies, and uh, one of the James Bond
movies it was dude, it was just six man anyway.
So I watched Garrett do that kind of stuff right
and climb, you know, rock climb and do all the things.
And I remember one time he was telling me he
was going to do something, and it was they were
jumping off the second story of some parking garage. And
here's what I said to him. I remember saying it
to him. I said, look, I know you've been practicing,
you've you've gotten you know, how to fall and roll
and do all those things. I said, but your body
has a limit, I said, I need you to at
least understand that. Don't be jumping off things that your
legs are going to break when you hit the ground.
That's a sactly what I said to him. I didn't
say what. I knew he was going to do it, right,
I mean he was. He had trained for it. You start,
you jump off of a five foot wall and then
you work your way up. Now he's jumping off twenty
feet and so, and he could do it well. And
I'd see the video, you know. But so when he
was jumping off doing a backflip off the top of
a semi for youth into the sand pit, it didn't
freak me out because that's not even high compared to
what I've seen him jump off of, right, right, So
you know it's all relative. But I mean I did care,
but I knew what his abilities were. You know. So
when when I what helped me here, my dad, It
isn't to throw my mom under a bus.
Speaker 3: What helped me here my dad is when my mom
would speak about it or other people would speak about it,
I could tell it's like you don't see through the
same eyes I see through. Right, you're talking when you're
talking to me about this, like you're scared to jump
off something six feet high. I don't care for what
you have to say. Right when my dad would talk
to me about it, is what I could tell that
the or wasn't because what I was pushing against was
things that scare me. And when I heard my dad
talk to me about it, the fact that he wasn't
afraid but was just trying to give like, hey, you
should at least consider this. I could hear him right,
but you know how I am, And so imagine me
at twelve people who like had fear in the voice,
was like, I don't have your dad, I have nothing
to listen to you about.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I'm glad it's been a consistent characteristic.
Speaker 1: That was a father son discussion. It wasn't a family
meeting discussion. It was just me and him talking. Yeah,
and you know, encourage him to not hurt himself.
Speaker 2: Yeah, well, okay. So one of the stated desires that
I have for this because it's been a blessing to me,
and I always kind of think about the things that
have really helped me, and I try and give that
to as many people as possible. And I have a
great dad, so I'm very fortunate there. And I will say, we.
Speaker 1: Love your dad, Yeah, we do.
Speaker 2: I love my dad, love Bubby. He's done so many
great things. But even seeing the relationship you guys have,
I feel like I've gained even more. And my dad
is so humbles He's told me, he's like, man, I'm
so glad that you get to be around them, because
I know that you get things that I just never
had myself and didn't know to give to you. But
I think it's a very humble thing to say as
a father. There's no pride, like, well what do you
do with those uncle blocks? Like my dad loves that
I get to be around you guys the way I do.
But I know for a lot of people out there,
even guys close in our circles, like they don't have
a great father role model, and it's it's so like
it's such an unfortunate thing that we don't have great
father role models, and even the ones that are on
TV in society, it's like men are portrayed as bumbling
idiots and then unfortunately for most guys, when they look
at their dad. It's like a good dad means he
didn't really screw things up too bad, Like he went
to work every day, you know, was at your games
and sort of you know, didn't beat you like.
Speaker 1: You know, we talk about this concept.
Speaker 3: We did this what maybe ten episodes ago of be
the one yes, right, and Pops, you had to do
this with your dad. You know, your dad wasn't my
you know, the grandpa that I remember was not the
dad that you had, and you had to I don't
know if you remember that episode from like ten episodes
ago where were talking about be the one like you,
to be the one who makes change in your family.
You know, no one did this for me, but I'm
going to do it for my family. What was your
thought process mindset around that of you know, you didn't
have the dad that who the grandpa I remember, you
didn't have a dad like who you are to me?
Speaker 1: What was your thought process there? Yeah, and I'll tell
a story after I answer your question. So most people
would think when you have the family that we have,
you would say, oh, he must have had a really
good dad. Yeah, well I didn't. Matter of fact, I
hated my dad and I remember at the age of fourteen,
standing in front of him, yelling at him at whatever
that meant to be yelling at your father. I wasn't
out of control, but I was very adamant and said,
I hate you. You don't care about me. You've never
even seen me play a game ever, as far as
I know, until I was a senior in high school,
my father never saw me play again any sporting event.
Real mother would show up. He never came, which what
important to him, right? But God, he got saved when
I was twelve, and by the time eighteen or nineteen,
my dad became very passionate about the Lord, and I
became passionate about the Lord when I met Pastor Keith,
and then our relationship started building from that point. And
that's the Garrett Garrett knows my father post him really
not being a good human being, right, And which is
great those memories. What decade of his life, he was
just on fire for the Word percent He truly was
an apostle and a prophet. But he dedicated his life
to the Word of God and read it continually pretty
much best I could tell, and did his business simultaneous.
Became a great man of God. But that so we
became friends. But I never had passionate emotions from my
father because we didn't have those early years. When my
father passed, I missed him and I was. He died
very early, sixty three years old from brain aneurism, and
I hated that he was gone because we had become friends.
But I wasn't. It wasn't like when my mom passed.
I didn't have those same motions because we had no
endearing childhood at all. So people think, oh, well, you
had a great father, but no, I didn't. I knew
what I didn't want, so I used my dad. I was.
I was always confident child, and I was left to
my own, my own doing a lot. And my dad
gave me one great piece of advice growing up. He said,
you no longer have an allowance. This was eleven or twelve.
He said, there's a mower in the garage you're welcome
to use, but remember it's my mower. You better take
care of it. He didn't offer me gas, money to
put in it, or anything that sounds like you. Yeah,
And so you know what I did. I got the mower.
I didn't complain. I started knocking on doors and I
became an entrepreneur. And so he did that. That was
I credit him to that. But my point in saying
all that is is, you know, I heard so many
people just wanting and this. I don't mean to beat
people down, but not blaming your father for your issues. Yeah,
you're a man. I didn't have a good father. I
had a great grandfather from my kids. But I met
a guy that was hard after God, and that's Pastor Keith.
And he was the guy I modeled myself after. He
was a very strong guy, very athletic, and he said, Okay,
that's a guy that I can follow. And so it
turned out that we've now are lifelong friends and we
raised our children together. So we I watched what he
did and I watched what I didn't want from my father,
and that developed a very intentional strategy to raise our kids.
Speaker 2: And that and that's vision. We talk about that so much.
And I think that that, to me is what why
I wanted to bring up about how many, how so
few people have a real example of what a great
father looks like. Because you have an idea of what
you think you should be as a father, whether you
could clearly state it or not, and if you if
you don't have a real intentional vision. Chances are you're
just going to repeat what was what you saw around
you and hopefully you'll improve on. But that's not necessarily
the case.
Speaker 1: Some people do exactly the same thing. It just becomes
a continual failure in their families of bad parenting and divorce.
And because they're doing what the previous generation did.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and so you did the opposite with the opposite,
And I hope that's an encouragement for people if you
didn't have a great father, which unfortunate, I feel like
that's probably gonna be a high percentage of people like
you can do the opposite. And I want to encourage
hoping you like you're gonna get some great tips here,
but you can do the opposite.
Speaker 1: Well, fifty percent of marriages and a divorce, and unfortunately,
if you're a Christian, it's it's lower than that by
quite a bit if you have if you have faith
in the Lord. But so that being the case, you've
added the complication of a divorce, which sometimes is bitter,
and so now you don't have consistency in the kids,
you know, being with the kids and communication wise, and
so it adds so the reason so many people don't
have a good father. Part of it is just because
mom and dad couldn't get along.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and that, yeah, that hits hard.
Speaker 3: You got to, I mean, and Pops has some good
wisdom on this. But I'll say this to the fathers
that are my age, and you can speak to maybe
people who've missed it. But it's the same in every
area of life. And it was this way in business,
it was this way in the military, and this way
as a father, your credibility is so hard to build
him very.
Speaker 1: Easy to give away.
Speaker 3: And when you do things like you can't keep your
marriage together or you can't keep your integrity as a father,
you beat up a lot of the foundation you have
for trying to teach your children the truth. The reason
I had the strength that I had, the identity I
had where those of you who know my story who've
listened to a lot of the episodes where I went
into seal training, and people are saying, you're not this,
you're not that, And I was like, well, my dad
knows me better than you do, and I trust him
more than what you're saying. If I hadn't watched my
dad be who he was, if my dad didn't have
the power of his word of hey, I do what
I say. I wouldn't have been able to say put
more value on my dad's word than on their word,
because I had seen my dad build the value of
his own word. I am who I am, I do
what I say. And then when my father told me
who I am, that's where I could go to other
people who you know, maybe had credibility in that moment,
but I could say, you know, I trust my dad
more than I trust you.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Now, what an amazing gift you gave Garrett. I always
say to people, Garrett has the strongest sense of identity
of anybody I've ever met, bar none. And you, like,
it's a father's role to speak identity in kids. And
I've copied this from you, guys, because, like I said,
I get to be close to you guys, so I
steal all the best stuff. And you nicknamed your kids
like Garret's nickname was Champion, and you're speaking into the
best part of them.
Speaker 1: Well, it's funny, you know. I did some things that
I'd like to tell you that I learned all this
great wisdom from personal growth and development. A personal growth
and development was.
Speaker 3: Just getting rolling my mom Mom was the reader. You
were too busy doing stuff. I mean, you didn't correct
me if I'm wrong here, But as far as I know,
you never read a psychology book or a parenting book
or a mindset book when we were children.
Speaker 2: No.
Speaker 1: I read them after that, and we called Mom the librarian.
Before she was the health gurer that she is now,
she was she was the librarian, which is why she
became the health greer, right, but she we have thousands
of books, and I'm always been a reader, and I
do read, but at that point in my life, I
was reading like how to Conquer Business, you know that
that sort of stuff. I think.
Speaker 2: I think Darlean's what technically they call her wicked smat
up in Boston.
Speaker 1: Yeah, But what I wanted to I want to say
about that is, Look, one of the things that I
pride myself in is consistency. And now that's looking back.
When I was becoming consistent, I didn't have in my
mind I'm going to be the most consistent dude. I
had one of our close and friends gave me a
coffee cup. Yes, mister consistent on it. It cracked me out.
I appreciate that I'm not patting myself on the back.
That's how somebody else sees me, and so I respect that.
But what what I want to say is by doing
things consist since the like going to church, they've become absolute.
I'm going to read my Bible. I've been reading my
Bible now for forty three years. For the last ten
and probably ten to fifteen years, I've been very deep
in it. Before it was just I know I need
to read my Bible, right, and so I just developed
the cadence of doing it. Darling and I were talking
in this last weekend. We took a trip just to
be together. We did some things she wanted to do,
which I think is important. We do things I want
to do, and we do things she wanted to do.
But we were talking because we were on the road,
on the road quite a bit about affairs, because we've
seen some people destroy their lives, and we were talking
about a specific couple, and she said, you know, I
never I never had a thought in my mind that
you were not being faithful to me. Ever. And I said, sweetheart,
just so you know, I never put myself in a
position ever. One time. I didn't allow it to happen.
It's not that I'm this great looking guy. But I
have I had some measure of success. I've had, you know,
the fast cars and the nice homes and all those
things that might be attractive to a female. I've never
allowed myself to go to that place, not for a minute.
Not that I haven't seen a beautiful woman and said,
oh wow, that's a beautiful woman, and not that. It's
what's funny is Darlene and I at this point we
we see it together like and I'll say, you know,
that is an attractive woman. Man, that that's impressive, you know,
but but but end of story. But end of story. Yeah,
it does go on. And so now after we've been
together forty two years, that's that's impressive, right, That's a story.
That's a that's a bedrock that you can stand on.
But it didn't start that way. I mean it was
one time, you know, every time it came up, I
made sure I went the other direction. I ever put
myself on a compromising spot. And now I can look
back and I see that, and now I'm now I
have consistency in that space. But you just do it
one one at a time. Yeah, one hurdle lot of time,
one battle lot of time. Everybody's battles different, right, and
now I have I have mastery over that. I'm not
it's not gonna happen. Not worried about it, you know
what I mean, It's never gonna happen. My kids are
never gonna have to say what the heck was dad doing? Yeah,
you know I.
Speaker 2: Want to I want to go back to just before
that though, because I appreciate you saying that, because that's
like just such a great bonus nugget about fleeing, you know,
like you've said on the podcast before, it's the only
thing the Bible ward says, to flee. Like so many
times we're told to fight, but it's like flea lust
socially another way. Yeah, with with the with speaking identity
in to the kids, because like I, like I said,
I stole that from you. Yeah, Like I talk me
through that. How did you, like, how did you even
decide what to call them?
Speaker 1: Yeah, it just can't comes naturally. I wanted I wanted
Garrett to be a winner, and he was a very
good apple, but he was he ha was some three. Well,
I mean, when you are you are. You can be
an athlete or you can be an athlete and if
you're an athlete, it needs to be drawn out a little. Okay,
we were with the pro the Pross last weekend. We
got a real kick out of it. Yeah, they got
to kick out of it too. It's very funny. But anyway, I.
Speaker 3: Wasn't supposed to be an athlete, but I did have.
What I had that made me stand out when I
was younger was a lot of aggression, which as a
young person, like I was a ten out of ten
as for aggression as a young person. And that'll make
you look like a better athlete than you are when
you're young. And then you get some training and you
get more opportunities.
Speaker 1: And I didn't have.
Speaker 3: I don't have the genetic gifts of some of these
other athletes, right, Pops.
Speaker 1: Is referring to I got to tell one funny story. Yeah,
so we were so we were We were in pee
wee football, this boys club, and I think Garrett might
have been nine or ten. He wasn't a big kid
at that time. He grew, he got strong and grew,
you know, in his in his high school years. There
was a there was a kid on the other team
and he had to be two hundred plus.
Speaker 2: What no kids at nine years old.
Speaker 1: Yes, he was a giant kids. We all we want
to see the birth certificate. Is this kid legit? When
we got close Tram, you know, he had a little
baby face. This was this was sixth grade. Sixth grade,
I remember, and I remember. I mean, Garrett was a
human missile in football. He would hurt you. I mean
he gave everything he had. And I remember one time
this they put this kid in it.
Speaker 3: He had taught me in baseball sacrifice like we played,
he was my baseball coach growing up, and like to
catch the ball. They would say, sacrifice your body, right,
like dive out for the black. Do what you gotta do,
like you just get your get your body in front
of the ball, like, sacrifice your body catch the ball.
Well I took I thought, I was like that's a
great mentality. I just took that to football.
Speaker 1: That's so. I think they passed the rule after this
kid that you couldn't run the ball if you were
a certain weight, because it was crazy. But they put
this kid in it running. Yeah, pretty much, I stop down.
He was so slow, but he was you know, just
it's like trying to stop in eighteen week. But I
wish we had video cameras like we have now. You know,
by then you had to have the big camera if
you want to do it. But Garrett Tack goes to
tackle this guy and was holding on to him, and
this kid is dragging him. I would hit him and
wrap him up, but I just couldn't bring him down. Yeah,
he's just dragging him down the sidelines. It was so hilarious.
But he would not let go. He I would like it.
I mean, yeah, oh, finally, you know, six or seven
guys would get there and take it. Take three of
us have to take him down anyway. So back to
the story, I had to throw that. It was it
just popped in my head. I can still have the
visual on my head anyway. So I wanted Gearrett to
be a winner, right so, and he was. It was
a good athlete. But I wanted him to think champion.
So I just called us to your champion. I never
called I don't think my children correct me if I'm wrong,
but I don't and I called I never called them
stupid or idiot or I didn't allow my emotions to
when I was very frustrated with them, right uh to
get in the way. So I said champion and it
becomes a default, right, so then he's the champion. With
With Brittany, she was Sunshine and she's always been sunshine,
and she's still sunshine. And now she's you know, she's
the smartest uncle back. I would probably say Garrett's uh,
super smart in certain areas. And and and Brittany is
a is a learned she went and became a doctor,
learned doctor, learning doctor. I mean she's pretty well yeah,
well the same for me. So, but my point is is,
so I've I found names to call them that were
encouraging to them. Again, I didn't have that. Nobody had
that wasn't taught. It was just something I didn't want
to be the meaning to them, right, And so that
was the But but Pastor Keith and their family that
he had names, he had Pastor Keys have names for everybody.
And so I probably by osmosis because we're rare her
kids exact same age together, that I got some of
that from him. As far as what's a positive way
to speak into your kids, Yeah, you know, instead of
a negative adjective whatever it is that they're doing well.
Speaker 2: It's such a simple thing because so many people give
their kids names that the kid either doesn't know the meaning.
All my kids know the meaning of their names because
they were very intentional. So I remind them what their
name means to speak identity to them. But I've given
them nicknames based off of just the best parts, like
the strengths I see in them. And Garrett had like
a championship mentality in his mind from a young age.
And Britt is very warm and loving, like extremely if
you think about identity development in young children the same
way like where I talk about what I went through
and still training, where I was looking back at what
my father had said. You go through that many times
over right, and what you're really preparing your children for.
It's meant to be like your earthly father's voice before
your children grow and have them the spiritual maturity to
hear their real father's voice. I remember, you know, in
athletics between like seven and twelve, when people would like,
you know, I do like an outright foot. I'm thinking
of like people I'm with elementary school. I remember getting
beat in a race and me thinking like I'm I'm
still the best. You're just better than me at that right,
And the way that I talk about in teach winning
philosophy today. Before I could ever put words to it,
I believed I.
Speaker 3: Was a champion. And so if someone can beat me
in one hundred meter race, but I'm a champion, that
means I must just have other things that I'm great at, right,
And so that's where if you're preparing your children with
the things that you speak into them, what they believe
about themselves based upon the words that you've spoken over them,
that sets them up to actually develop greatness. If you
don't believe you're great unless you're some genetic phenom where
you've just been better than everybody at everything your entire life,
unless someone tells you and helps you understand that you're great,
when you lose, you won't know how to respond.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Those are guys in seal teams. You talk about that
all the time. They don't have any resilience.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Yeah, all right, Pops, I want to I asked you
this because I think it's it's come up. Pastor Keith's
obviously been a huge blessing to your family the amount
of times on this podcast, Garrett said, Pastor Keith said this,
and I just at a young age I remembered that.
So I think one of things I say all the
time is that I think most men really suck at friendship.
They really do. And one things Pastor Keith always says
is you learn intimacy with a friend like a brother.
Nothing weird, but like you learned intimacy with a friend,
how much did you like your close friendship with him?
Prepare you to then be a better husband for Darlene
and eventually you know, be able to love your kids
that way.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, he he teaches on that so well. Right,
So in my own life, I was his first, he
would say, I was his first mentor. We became best friends.
And when he left Sherman, which is where I met
him as a youth pastor. I met him before then
a at a youth camp and I saw him for
the first time, and he had an indelible image to me.
He had a big, bright yellow Jesus is my Strength
shirt on and always was like a real life whole
code he was. It was crazy, you know, big mullet,
big guy. And but when he when he became the
youth pastor, so he was there a couple of years
and then he left to go do some to go
do with Power Team Ministry. Before he left, we stood
out on his loan. He goes, you know, I really
think we're supposed to be together in life and do
ministry together. Let's make sure we figure out how that's
supposed to happen. He was very intentional to me about it,
and up to that point, you know, it was a
mentor mentee type relationship.
Speaker 2: You're in your twenties.
Speaker 1: At twentieseah, from twenty to twenty two.
Speaker 3: Oh right, okay, and at that case four years older.
Speaker 1: Yeah, at that point he'd already married. You know, he
was in my wedding. We'd gotten darling, and I had
gotten married. I met her in the youth group. And
so now he's leaving, and he says, look, let's be intentional.
So here's what's crazy, and most guys just wouldn't do it.
I was busy building a business, being, you know, trying
to conquer the world. He's traveling the globe, and almost
every time he would come into town, he would reach
out to me, and at least once a month, at
least once a month, he would come off the road,
get in his car or his motorcycle and come. He
lived in Dallas in that area and would come see me.
In Sherman. He'd say, he just calls I'm coming up,
So then you know, here I am the young guy
with or newly married, you know, newly married. And then
a couple years later, maybe you know, Britney shows up
and he's like, I'm coming right, and you know, it
didn't matter if he's convenient or inconvenient. He was very
intentional about us staying connected. And so that taught me.
It's not that I didn't have friends in school, and
I still have some lifelong friends, but he taught me
how to be intimate with a male and that was
a skill that is stuck with me. I think it's
very it's relevant with my children on how to be
intimate with hear it, how to be a father figure
but also yet have intimacy. I think you would feel
that for me, You feel my warmth and my love
for you. If you're in my circle, you feel that
you're loved by me, and that only comes from positive
male interaction. And I think that our whole men's group
in a lot of cases exudes that we're very close
with a lot of guys and they have close friends,
and they would all tell you none of them ever
had that growing up.
Speaker 3: And I want to put words to it for someone
who's asking like, well, how do you do that? As
you know, obviously getting to watch it, growing up, being
an observer of Pastor Keith as well, and really taking
these things into my life. Well, Pastor Keith is great at.
If you know, we were talking, we talked about things
that Pop's is great at. We're going to talk about
the things that Pastor Keith is great at. It's intentionality
and it's his expressiveness right right, and so you can
do intentionality is like, hey, that he's the one like
the takeaway, don't miss a moment, right, So he's the limit.
He would squeeze the lemon. I'm going to come spend
time with Scott. I'm gonna you know, when I'm with Scott,
we're gonna We're not just going to hang out like
this is going to be intentional time and to make
sure we do something meaningful, that memories come away from this,
have the right conversations and not wasted words. But then
the expressiveness either you know, hey, I want to really
tell you what you mean to me, or that you know,
Pops is very expressive in writing letters and things like that.
So if you want to cat like, how do you
do that? How do you have like an intimate relationship?
It's intentionality and forms of expression.
Speaker 1: Yeah, well, just to just to tie that together to
what we're talking about being a father today. So I
didn't have a good father role to be intentional until
till way after I was an adult. Did my dad
have any type of what I would call those feelings
of intimacy.
Speaker 2: Or love availability?
Speaker 1: Yeah? Yeah, So I got that from a lot of
that from Pastor Keith, but I wasn't a knucklehead about it.
I let that roll into my family. Yeah right, because
I could be My natural default is to be very
stoic to not I'm not a motive at all. I'm
not easily the greatness of being that it is if
your spouse is highly emotional that you can regulate that.
And negative is that you're not as near as emotional
and loving as you should be. So that's a trained skill, right,
And so Pastor Keith helped me. I already had the
low side learning to get out of that and and
be emotional and be tender and to be loving and
to encourage your children. Those are great skills of being
a father, and I had no one to mirror that
after so it was just learning as I went right.
And so but I can tell you, my kid, I
tell people all the time, and the way I say
this is look, as a father, you're gonna have plenty
of times you screwed up. My kids don't remember all
the times I screwed up. They have this you for
it thought process that I was perfect because they remember
the good times, right, So they stacked the winds stack
and that's how they see me. But here's the deal.
The reason that exists is because they felt loved. Bottom line,
love covers up mistakes. It covers up mishaps. I apologize
to my kids when't necessary. My kids would tell you
I apologize, and I still do today. And if you're
willing to be that love will cover up a lot
of the stupid right that men can do. And then again,
it falls back to consistency. Keep doing it. Over time,
it becomes easy, it becomes a way of life, and
then you stop doing I stopped being shut down, stop
being kurt, stop being I start being emotionally regulated. The
word equanimity, I never heard that word until Garrett started
talking about it. But equanimity is a superpower. Yeah for
a dad.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's so good, Pops. That that love covers the
stupid man.
Speaker 1: I love that.
Speaker 2: And just the way Pastor Keith always talks about intimacy,
because for some people that can that's only used in
like a sexual way, and obviously we don't mean anything
like that. No, he says, it's into me c which
really speaks about a depth of connection. And that's what
you learn from being intentional. And like Garrett touched on,
you write letters. I've had a letter from you. It's amazing,
Like on people's birthdays. You've started this tradition. Now, if
you're in the Uncle Bock circle, you write a letter
that person, Yeah, and like you.
Speaker 1: Want him to have it so they can refer to
it if they're ever questioning who they are, right, they
can look back at that encouragement. I'll tell you what
intimate is creates. And this is a funny story. You've
never heard me tell You've never heard this, and Garrett
probably won't like that, I'm gonna tell it. Yes, I
like to see it, so we would. So Garrett and
I have always been close, so I'm not afraid to
touch him. I'm not afraid to kiss him. I'm not
afraid to hugginghim, and he's a big strong man. When
when he was going through buds, I would fly out
to California occasionally, just me by myself, I said. I
told Arlan, I said, Lessen, Garrett needs some dad time.
I need to go out there and be with him.
We go out there and play golf for a day
or two, just hang out, have food, whatever, just encourage him.
Right when we're walking down the street, he would be
leaning on me, you know, have his arm on me.
So here he is a Navy seal or want to
be Navy seal and being what some people would say
intimate or unusually friendly with his father, right and so,
but that was normal for us, and I expected it,
and he didn't think anything about it and could care
less what anybody else said. Well, fast forward that to
seal graduation. So I'm always watching, right, So we're in there.
It's a very limited invite. You can invite a couple
extra families that come. You can't post about it. Already
had been.
Speaker 3: How they don't even let families come.
Speaker 2: That's disappointing, Yeah it is.
Speaker 1: But my point was is I watched these men with
their sons. How awkward it was handshakes? Wow, at most
not there's like the hug at the end of step brothers. Yeah. Yeah,
And I thought, I thought to myself, of course I
had already experienced some of these guys, and I knew
some of their journeys, and some of them were hardcore,
and they were just trying to prove something. If their
dad was even there, you know, if their dad was there.
Some of them was just making my class.
Speaker 3: From this is anecdotal and from my memory, but of
my graduating class, it was less than five guys that
their dad was there, and it's like, give my dad
a hug. For everyone else it was if their dad
was even there, it was a handshake. People graduated my
graduate it was forty four.
Speaker 1: Or forty something like that. All right, Okay, so here's
my point. The point is is not to pat myself
on the back or get on the back. My point
is is that did it lessen his masculine masculinity. I
would tell you it increased it because he gave him confidence,
he was loved, he had somebody with him. I'm a
strong guy. I am a hardcore guy. There's a monster
inside me that I am fully aware is there that
I don't want to have come out. But if you're
trying to harm my family, you're going to meet that guy, right.
Speaker 3: Well, it's the love and the character on the inside
that develops the the final sharpness, the final greatness of
a warrior, which being sacrificial, only comes out of love.
And so like, you can be very tough, you can
be very capable and be hard on the outside, but
the greatest, you know, the final form of what a
warrior can be, only comes from having love and character
on the inside.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I'm seeing the trend here because I remember you
took a twenty three and meter and came back one
hundred percent hard dog. So I knew. I knew that
that was Just in case anyone's wondering about the affection.
Speaker 1: Well, my point in saying that is is I'm a
man's man. I'm a hunter, I'm an athlete, I'm an
outdoors When you could drop me in the jungle, I'm
going to survive. I know what to do. I'm not
afraid to be there. We dragged him up Pike's Peak.
Speaker 4: Oh my gosh, that's a whole other story. No, Mercy's
trying to kill me. Hey, look, it was a man's climb.
This is not this is not a boy and just
so you know, left me behind.
Speaker 2: Yeah, you know, it's.
Speaker 1: The only one person I love more than my dad,
and it's my wife.
Speaker 5: Had to get most insulting thing about that hike was
the people that took the train up that we're wearing
Louis Vuitton, and we showed up like just covered and
sweat and like just they're getting an.
Speaker 2: Ice cream, like oh the other they should starting to
affect me.
Speaker 1: And I'm like, man, you guys, but anyway to bring
it back, My point is is that you can be
a man's man and still be extremely loving with your
children and your spouse and exude that type of deep
intimacy and it's a positive. It's not a negative. Man like,
I got to be stronger, I gotta be tough, I
got to be a certain why And it really is
just a bunch of ball, Yeah it is. I mean,
you can be loving and intimate with your kids and
you should be. They should feel safe with you.
Speaker 3: Yeah, there's a lot of meat that we're hitting today,
but there's one that and this is not like a
super deep spiritual point, but I think It's an important
point that I want to make sure we hit while
we got Pops here, because there's a question people ask,
especially for people who you know the same way that
you know, my dad had to develop how to love children,
how to you know, be a great dad because he
didn't have that. For a lot of you out there
that you know, your parents weren't successful, didn't have any money,
and now you have money, you wonder how to deal.
Speaker 1: With that with your kids, right?
Speaker 3: And I grew up with a dat you know, I
grew up with when I, you know, building skateboard ramps
in front of my dad's ferrari and a lot of
people they think like, oh, the the only way to
build greatness and resilience in kids, you know that they
see most people's story of that comes from like having nothing,
and there is a right way to raise kids. You
know what's cool in my story too, is I went
through a season of my life where my parents had everything,
and I went through a season of my life where
my parents had nothing, and I watched them be the
same people in both instances. But while we got Pops here,
I just wanted to tee you up to talk about
that one for people because I think it's something that
people struggle.
Speaker 1: With, and you know that people struggle with that, like, you.
Speaker 3: Know, if I have money, if or I have stuff,
what's the right way to deal with that with my kids.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's a great question, and I've seen a lot
of disasters in regards to that. The challenge with people
my age is, which is the end of the baby boomers.
They swung the pendulum from what was a very hard
upbringing to what would be the first of some of
the most wonderful times in America of prosperity and growth
in the stock market and whatever. And they didn't want
their kids to go through hard times they went through.
So it creates entitlement on a level that as you know,
some people my age, your age generation have went through
a very very difficult time of owning anything. And I
don't mean owning things like a car. I mean owning it.
It's everyone else's problem and not theirs because they were
treated a certain way. I took Garrett on. I was
a member of the country club, and I could do
whatever I had season in my life. I could go
anywhere and do anything, fly anywhere first class, and do whatever.
I was a millionaire very early in my life. But
I had Garrett with me as a child five six
years old. We started being together a lot, and I
just took him with me. By the way, it's extremely
inconvenient when you bring your sun and mighty man. It's
extremely inconvenient because he does his best. But he's a child.
He's got to be instructed, loved and encouraged and directed.
Often everything is longer, everything is harder. But if you
will spend time with your children and you're doing the
right things. Obviously, if you're running off to a brothel,
you're not taking your children, and that's why you can't
take your kids with you, right But if you have
your kids with you, you're generally going to be doing the
things you're supposed to be doing, which is a safeguard also.
But I spent time with him. I also did not
cut him any slack. So if he was with me,
he had responsibilities. He said, what do you mean while
at five, if we're putting together a table, he's responsible
for the screws. Don't lose him.
Speaker 3: You think about it in the same way that Pops
has been with you. Sometimes when I'm with seven, in
both a correction little bit and a loving way.
Speaker 1: But it's like, what are you thinking? Right?
Speaker 3: You pay attention, quit losing stuff right right? Be like
you know the lessons that you got at forty years old?
Like why'd you cut yourself with a knife? Yeah, he
was the same way to me back then. I'm sorry
I wasn't sensitive about that.
Speaker 2: I think it's hilarious. You know, it's apologize. I'll never
regretted it.
Speaker 1: Well, that's exactly what I needed. But let me let
me take it to where I'm going with that. So
you've got your kids do not need everything. Kids that
are given us sports car as their first car have
no sense of value about what it takes to earn
that sports car. I did not baby my children. My
wife and I found balance. She was not treated the
same way I was as a child, and so we
had to find balance for what works for us. But
I'm always, I always believe that your kids are way
more capable than you think they are. And I was
determined to put Garrett in those environments and brittany where
they had to grow up and perform and be responsible.
And I think it was one of the key things
that I did now that is also scriptural. So It's
not just something that dad was a hard dog, as
you were kidding. I like to think that I'm strong,
but that that you give your kids a chance to
perform and that you give them a chance to fail.
We did not do participation trophies back then. My kids
do not have any participation trophy because they were given
to them. You know what we did with them in
the track. Yeah, and we talked about it because we
don't do participation trophies. There's winners and losers in life.
We want to be the champion. We want to win.
We want to do the best we can do. We'll
always try to win. If we're second, well second's better
than fifth, but we're trying to win. You know. It's
the Ricky Bibby statement. Yeah, it's not true, right, there
is daddy. So, but you understand what I'm saying. So,
raising kids and being soft on them doesn't help anybody.
It just doesn't. The Word of God clearly says to
discipline your children, to raise your children properly, to raise
them with honor, and to give them, give them something
to honor, but raise them being respectful. Uh. In our home,
if you wanted to get in trouble. It was lying
or a bad attitude right pretty much. Yet if you
didn't get the grades you we were supposed to get both.
Speaker 2: Of those equal to belt, that is stuck because your
kids are both very good at both of those things.
Speaker 1: Yes, but you know if you didn't, if you didn't
make an A, which I expected my kids to make
a's because I knew they were capable, then we would
talk about it. That wasn't a disciplinary action. It was
a discussion and why why did you not make an
A when you're you know, if your kids are capable
of not Some kids are challenging at math and they're
not going to make a's, But a C is a
good a good score. So as long as they make
a C, you know they're doing what matters. Because math
doesn't work for everybody, it works for me, it works forget.
We were both math guys. But Brittany was on the
other end of the scale. She was always more on
the literary side, right, so she would lean that way.
And so where English might have been hard for Garrett
was easy for Brittany.
Speaker 3: A lots of arguments with my English teacher.
Speaker 1: Never argued with my math teachers.
Speaker 2: They were speaking your native time.
Speaker 1: But she understand what I'm saying. So it's really a
matter of and it all comes back you guys training
on all this stuff. Core values. Our family had core values.
When we started having core values, we didn't know they
were core values. They became core values of things that
we what you're about, son, yeah, and pousitive, and so
we had integrity. We don't lie. I mean, you know
where your kids are lying. I mean it's not like
hard to figure it out, but we dealt with it.
I mean on the spot. If you had a bad attitude,
you were going to get in trouble.
Speaker 3: Brittany tested my parents' discernment.
Speaker 1: Man, man, Thank goodness that Darlene is as somewhat of
a prophet and always has been very sensitive to the
Holy Spirit. And Brittany couldn't fool her. But Brittany could
fool me wow and for a little bit, yeah, on
certain things. And she couldn't fool she couldn't fool mom.
Mom knew and Mom knew about this one too. She
always had that sense. But but my point in saying
all that is because it's a lead up to what
Garrett said about about raising your children and the current
mantra that's out there that your kids shouldn't have it hard.
It's not about making it hard for your kids. It's
about making them strong. Let them make decisions, let them fail,
give them some challenges, give reward them positively for those
for those wins. Garrett had a nice beat up truck
that he drove, thank goodness, because he was hard on it.
If it had been anew one, it would have been
a beat up.
Speaker 3: Trust It was far from the nicest car in the
school parking lot, but I thought it was great.
Speaker 1: It was that one fifty.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's alt true.
Speaker 1: Brittany, on the other hand, steadily went downhill with her
card because she was not responsible. Oh really started off
for a nice car. We stepped it down, then we
stepped it down again, then we stepped it down again,
and that's why she finished college in right. So anyway,
my point.
Speaker 2: Is finished in a Ford focus. Yeah, sounds like my
law career did not go well.
Speaker 1: My point is is be intentional about your kids. Let
them the word of God shares what happened in the
Jewish community, and at age thirteen you were considered a male.
Now I realize they didn't live as long as we
do now, and so they had to get on with
their business. But at thirteen years old, a young boy
would be given his endowment basically, take a wife and
get on with his life. Now you think about that,
we don't even we have our kids playing video games
and not being responsible for anything. We'll shame on you,
right Garrett, By the time he was a young man,
we would get We went hunting a lot, we had
a deer lease that we had those ours, and we
would take guests out there for our company. I could
trust Garrett to go out with grown men and I
would say, Garrett's.
Speaker 3: About Nick, you know, going hunting for the first time
at twelve years old. I could have said, Okay, here's
what we're going to do, all right.
Speaker 1: And he didn't. They go you want me to do?
I said, do not shoot an animal unless he tells
you to. Huh period, Wow. They okay, and then that
they'd come back go, oh, he really doesn't know what
he's doing. I go, yes, he's been trained, that's awesome. Yeah. So,
but I mean it takes time, a lot of what
do you want? What do you want out of your children?
As I always tell people, I mean, if you're not
getting the results that you want.
Speaker 2: Who Yeah, who's fault of that?
Speaker 1: Who's fault?
Speaker 3: I would say, it's just like anything else in life.
You know, I want a business that's good enough to
you know, just pay for my stuff and have a
decent family. We can have the same approach to your kids,
or you can say, you know, I want to build
a I want to build a great business. I want
to do something special. What if you had that approach
to your kids. You know, I want to I want
to do something that's not not necessarily easy to do,
but I know it's going to be worth it. My
parents knew for them that the greatest joy was not
just to you know, make sure the kids made it
out of the house alive and go on and do
your own thing. When my parents wanted to raise great
children that they would want to be with for the
rest of their life, and that the children would want
to be with them.
Speaker 1: And that's just a different level of effort. Yeah. Well,
we wanted them to know the Lord too. You know
that you've heard Donna and I tell that story. But
if your kids don't know the Lord, then, in my opinion,
is a catastrophic failure. Right, And so your kids are
not going to serve the Lord if they don't see
in you what it means to serve the Lord and
don't see the benefits of it. Right, So it's not
do what I say, it's do what I do. It's
always do what I do. Yes, And so what my
kids saw absolutes in us absolutes Where we were going
to be in church on Sunday. We went to a
church that had a huge church split. We left that
church started driving to Dallas. It's the only place we
could find what we thought was a full gospel church.
So we would leave our house on Sunday morning, hours
ahead of whom we normally would have had to leave
to be in church. My kids never even questioned, it
is normal. This is what we do. So come back
a few years. Garrett liked to do extreme things. So
what's the most extreme thing you can probably do is
probably motocross, right, And we went.
Speaker 3: To a couple of motocross events like Supercross, and I
was drooling, and I rode motorcycles.
Speaker 1: Right, I've always I've rode them since I was young.
Speaker 3: And I used to learn our neighbors growing up, they
had they had dirt bikes.
Speaker 1: So Garrett wanted to do motocross. Of course that petrified mother,
knowing that Garrett's extreme nature, but that's not what bothered me.
What bothered me was that the races were on Sundays,
and Garrett and.
Speaker 3: That was back then, or it's respected Sundays. The only
thing you could have chosen to do in the nineties
that had events on Sundays for kids was motocross. Everything else,
you know, the sport. There was no sports on Sunday.
Speaker 1: So all right, so all the rebels, the X gamer
guys that they all came out of that generation of
never going to church riding their motorcycles, and it was
absolute no. And so because of that, I never bought
Garrett a motorcycle because I know what that would have
been a temptation. That wouldn't be fair. Right, So you're
going to go ride motocross, but you can't ever go
to any of the events. So we just didn't do it.
And Karrot's pretty tenacious. It came up over and over again,
and the reason he was told was because we do
not put things in front of God. Ever, we don't
do it, we won't do it, and we didn't. And
that was that's a hard decision for a lot of
parents to make for some reason. But I told our
teams even back then, they started practicing on Wednesday nights
and stuff. And when I was the coach that I said,
we're not practicing Wednesday night. We will not play a game.
We'll forfeit if they schedule us a game on Wednesday night,
We're going to be in church. Yeah, And that's the
way it was. And you took it. I took a
stand with with boys club and whatever. And you know
how they figured it out. They just didn't schedule games
for us on those right, they figured it out.
Speaker 2: I really want to highlight that, and I do want
to get to your your big three things. I mean,
we're basically saying like, unfortunately there's not like our three
step growth hacked to great kids. You're gonna produce what
you are. You can teach what you know, but you're
gonna produce what you are. You said you want your
kids to do what you do now with with what
you just said about sports man that like and like
you said, I didn't even think about that sports used
to respect Sundays because like my son's seven and they
have a seven. You travel like tournament team as they
call them. It's not quite full travel ball yet at seven,
but like, listen to this. So I was kind of like, okay,
better better training, better kids to play with, like if
he can, if it's just what we're doing now, but
it's better, Like great, we'll pay for it, and like
if it's a better level. But here's a problem, as
I found out because didn't know any of this Gold's tournaments,
so like we play on the things in Saturdays and Sundays.
Now here's what was so deceptive. And I don't say
DECEPTI because I know I don't know this man, and
I don't know his heart. I think in his heart
he's trying to do a good thing. But to me,
based on what I know of you, this is like
a good thing that's that's not the best thing by
any stretch. He goes. For those of you who attend church,
I'll be doing a devotional with the boys every Sunday.
And I was like, well, that's positive, because it's better
than nothing. But then I thought, man, what are you
That's exactly what are you communicating to your kids? You
can find your own way. You can just say, look,
it doesn't matter what God says, you know, don't neglect
the gathering of believers, respect the Sabbath, yeah or yeah,
just figure out your own way to do both, And
no one would say that's what they're teaching their kids.
I don't know this man, Like I said, so, I
don't want to. I'm not throwing any shade. But if
I call him and said, hey, what are you teaching
your boys right now? You're telling them that you can
find your own way to do church. You don't have
to listen to what God says, that would be a
very harsh thing. But at the same time, I think
if if he was in relationship with me, that is
what I would say.
Speaker 3: And as it pertains to sports, I remember you and
I talked about this when I went and spoke at
the event for the professional baseball players, and I asked,
Matt Holiday, Yeah, Matt, I know, Matt's great. Is he
a Hall of Fame player?
Speaker 2: He's a legend. I don't I'm a check. I don't
know if he's in.
Speaker 1: The Hall of Fame.
Speaker 3: Either way, Matt Matt is a legendary Matt Holliday legendary
baseball player who has two sons that are that are
in the MLB has it, and he is a great
man of character. Him and his wife and all their
family follow God. A guy's opinion, who you can respect.
Legendary baseball player following after God, both of his children
following after God.
Speaker 1: And there in the MLB.
Speaker 2: He's in the Cardinals Hall of Fame, but not in
the MLB Hall.
Speaker 3: Okay, well, anyways, still player, I ask Matt, I go, Matt,
what do you think about Like, you know, you grew
up because I'm talking Matt's just a few years older
than me. I'm like, Matt, you grew up in the
age that I did. Sports was different for kids then
than it is now. Like what do you think of all?
Like how is it with your kids? What do you
think of the way sports is today for like seven
year olds and ten years old? And he said, look,
there's a lot of different ways to do things as
it pertains to baseball. And I thought this was a
great take. So as it pertains to baseball, there is
a certain number of baseball that you need to play
before you make it to the big show, and you're
going to play the majority, and you should play the
majority of that number of games in high school, college
and in the minor leagues. The number of games that
you play as a young person really does not have
any benefit to you becoming a great professional baseball player.
Speaker 2: And speaking from experience, because he's produced not only himself
but now his sons as like first round draft picks,
both Ethan and Jackson.
Speaker 1: So, well, you've heard me. You guys have mentioned me
talking about the word beside and I've put together a
series of messages and I'm in the process of writing
a book right now about it. And it's just come over,
you know, a decade of talking about it.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: But in one of my first Decide messages, one of
the guys at our church, his kids are very good athletes.
He was a good athlete, college athlete, His kids were
good athletes. And I spoke about percentages of kids that
become pro athletes, and it's it's not as small as
becoming a Navy seal, but it's similar, right, So you
take hundreds of thousands of athletes and then you boil
that down to just a very few people that ever
make it. Now, this financial reward that have in college
now is pretty crazy. So there is at least a
step before the pros where you could make some money
or get your college paid for and that sort of thing.
But it's still like in a one percent to two
percent homes, very very low. And I said, what you're
showing your kids when you do these special leagues, these
these special groups whatever you want to call them, elite teams,
that that's more important than serving God. And it is not.
So you not only in my opinion, wasting thousands of dollars,
you're creating a presence in your child's life that sports
are more important. And it's not guys, in the grand
scheme of life. It's not even on them. Honestly, it's
not even on the scale. And there's I've always said.
I was talking to the guys last week. It's very funny.
I asked him. I said, well, you guys great athletes
at school, and they said we were great. Yeah, And
it's because great athletes are great athletes. I went to
school with some guys that were pros. They were great
at basketball, they were great at baseball, they were great
at football. They were the fastest guys in track. If
they wanted to play volleyball, they would dominate. If we
were playing dodgeball. They were the best guys on the field.
They were just incredibly gifted people. Yeah, didn't have to
do elite sports, didn't have to do. Your kids are
completely burned out on it by the time you get
out of high school.
Speaker 3: The way you say it is, if your kid's a
pro athlete, you'll know, they'll know. Everybody else Know's likely
what you say.
Speaker 2: Yeah, no one's got to tell you. Yeah, everybody will know.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: It's funny because Austin Hedges the catcher and sometimes pitcher
for the Clevelands. He was saying, it's like, dude, he's like,
I was the best athlete when I was twelve. He said,
that was very peaked. All right, so we, like I said,
you're gonna teach what you know, but you're gonna produce
a yard. Let's get to your three things, Pops. I
think this will probably be more like tools and tactics style,
to just get into the three things that you that
you say and we've we've touched on them, but I
want you to go deeper. Number one thing you said,
and it's amazing, it's not much of a shock. You
have a cup.
Speaker 3: Before we're going to three, I want to just summarize
everything well covered to give the three. I hope what
you would take away from Pops talking about how what
type of father he was to me, is that you
can get an idea. It's not it's not how do
you be Pops the same way that you've said to
you say about me, like, don't try to be Garrett. Yeah, right,
But I hope you can take lessons away from my
life and and how do you relate them to you.
Look at who Pops was to me, to my sister,
the type of man that he is, and help that
give you an on ramp, give you some ideas to
create a picture of what my dad did have As
he knew what he wanted, he knew who he wanted
to be, he saw who my grandpa was. He says,
I don't want to be that type of father. I
want to be this type of father. And then he
got lessons along the way Pastor Keith spoken to him.
Speaker 1: He saw things.
Speaker 3: He says, Okay, I'm going to add that in and
I'm just going to be faithful and I'm going to
pursue the dream and the vision I have for my family.
That's how you do it. So don't try to be Pops.
If there's stuff in your life where it's like, well
he did that and I've already messed that up. Don't
worry about all that, right, Let pops his life and
Pops his story create a picture for you of here's
what I want with my kids, and then I'm going
to stay faithful after this.
Speaker 1: Thank you very much for listening.
Speaker 2: Guys, remember to share, like subscribe. If you think that
this would be something that someone would enjoy, please send
it to him. We appreciate it all. If you want
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can also email at Impossible Life Podcasts at gmail dot
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get in touch and find out about Garrett's personal or
business coaching, that's the way to do it. Thank you
again for listening. Go out there and think better and
live the impossible. You see again sooner