Latest / Relatively Functional Dads / Episode 004 – Running on Empty: Creating Margin as a Dad

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Episode 004 – Running on Empty: Creating Margin as a Dad · Relatively Functional Dads

• The Boys And Audio: welcome to the Relatively Functional Dads podcast for fathers doing their best and learning every day. We're just three relatives walking through faith, fatherhood, and real life together. That was me. ⁓ experts here, just honest conversations about the wins, the struggles, and the moments that shape us as men and dads. Some days we've got it together, other days we're just trying to get to bedtime, but we keep showing up. And if you're dad... ⁓ In the middle of it too, you're in the right place. Let's journey through this together. Audio: Hey dads, welcome back to another episode. This podcast is for dads in the trenches dads that are learning dads that are figuring this out as they go I am here joined with my co-host Reese. I'm here with producer Noah behind the camera. My name is buddy I got soon to be three kids four weeks from now We are due with number three at the time of this recording Reese has got one young in under one producer Noah's got two under three ⁓ So we do have everything figured out. We are learning from each other We're hopefully learning from our mistakes. We are learning from quote unquote experts that have written books and have other podcasts where they're a lot more informed than us. We're learning from our father-in-law who is just much more qualified in every area of life than us that is drastically screwed us over because the expectation for his daughters is through the roof. But we are three brother-in-laws that are having a blast in the process. So ⁓ whether you got the AirPods in, maybe finishing up mowing the grass, listening to the podcast, doing some spring cleaning. Maybe driving home from a long day at the office, trying to suit up for a second shift, finishing up a few push-ups or pull-ups in the gym. However you join us, man. Amen. Come on, it's Murph season. I know we're training for Murph. I got wifey. She's working on my weighted vest in the other room. Shout out to her, because I got a few rips in it. But that sounds like a douchebag thing to say. Reese, what you got for us, Rescue this intro. Yeah. One way that you can help the podcast. OK, yeah. Like, follow, subscribe, comment. We need as much feedback as humanly possible. The good, the bad, and the ugly from everybody. We'll take it all. Just like the feedback you're going to get on this. Yeah, I'm going to get some much needed maybe in the jar. This certainly is not our second take at the intro. This is our first. You should have heard the first take. So here's what. I need a transition out of this because we're trying not to belabor the intros. Like Reece said, engage with us. This is a community. Spotify, YouTube, drop a comment. We have an email. Producer Noah says we have an email. It is... ⁓ but it's also in the description. Perfect. Noah chose a strong password. Yeah. That I have to go find in our messages every time that I need to log in because I'm an idiot and don't just copy it down. So good luck hacking that. Send us an email if you're not on the YouTube. Maybe you're just an Apple podcaster. But we want to hear also like segment ideas, episode ideas in addition to the feedback and just engagement. Want some encouragement given to us, but we want to give it back as well. Reese today we are talking about being exhausted being a part of the tired dad club sure I'm not quite ready to move on I'm more of like a password with O's okay I got zeros instead of O's type of person maybe an exclamation point I used to be a big Lakers fan so most of my passwords have something to do with that well if anyone knows my K through 12 lunch code it's in all of my passwords so the person who has that privileged information there's probably good live listeners who might actually so anyways Yeah, so we got some fun things to talk about today. We're tired. We're recording this after a long day. We have shown up. This is a podcast for dads who show up. That's just what we ask, but a part of showing up in all areas of life, meaning you're tired. So we're going to talk about exhaustion. We're going to talk about not just being physically tired, which is dominating when you have young kids, but the emotional, the mental fatigue that comes. There's a difference between those and there's a difference between meaningful fatigue. And then just like, you're just tired for no good reason. And I think a lot of us don't understand the difference between those two. So we're going to look at the difference between those two, evaluate why we're tired so we can see if there needs to be changes made. ⁓ But the thing that we're really gonna land on, I'm excited about is the secret word of the day is margin. Is it butter? Is it not? Margerin. Margin. Very similar, very different. ⁓ Yeah, we're going to talk about margin in our life and how to not spread ourselves too Anyways, take it away, segment number one. Breaking into segment number one, this one's going to be a new one called the holy highlight. Basically just going to be highlight of the week. ⁓ Buddy, you got anything for us? Yeah, so if you know anything about deer hunting, which you may or may not, but the bucks, they lose their antlers this time of year. We call them sheds. So you can pick those up. if you get after it within a few weeks before the animals or other hunters get to them. I also needed to pick up some trail cameras. So two birds, one stone. I said, Naomi, my four and a half year old daughter, for those who don't know, let's go to the hunting property. And there's a couple hundred acres out there of a very generous family that lets us hunt there and just enjoy it throughout the year. So what we did is we walked for about an hour and half looking for these sheds. So you're just walking around, looking around on the ground for antlers and. You know, the bummer is she at one point tripped over a tree root or something and Naomi skinned up her elbow. Naomi's a lot of things. She's pretty tough in lot of ways, like willing to go out. She was tromping through creeks. Again, she walked for over an hour. But if she sees blood, she's done, dude. And I would assume that's pretty common for pretty much all four and a half year old girls. Even if it's fake. Even if it's fake blood. ⁓ Yeah, Halloween. Yeah, there's a lamb cake story baked into that story. For another day. For another day. ⁓ But yeah, she was pretty upset. But the thing that was really cool is I said, hey, Naomi, we can either go back, because she was crying for mama, we can either leave. And it was like a 20 minute hike back to the car. Or we can be tough. I gave her like a joisy, like, hey, we're going to be tough. So she looked at me and she said, hey, daddy, I want to be tough. So that's kind of been our thing this week is that she's, I'm trying to help her with some resilience. Obviously you want to affirm your kid if they're hurt, know, comfort them, soothe them. But hey, like you can either keep playing, keep doing your thing and be tough or we can tap out and it's up to you. So the highlight was she was tough and ⁓ we kept going and the hilarious thing is I looked down and was like, ⁓ my gosh, I actually see one. I thought it was like a massive shed. It ended up being just a bunch of deer bones. So I uncovered the leaves and it was just like rib bones and cervixes and... No, that's not the right word, is that right? Not the cervix. What is your neck bone? Is it your cervix? Cerebro... I don't know. Anyways, that's not the right word. We'll fact check that Spinal cord. Spinal something. Cerebellum. got labor on the mind. anyways, it was a bunch of bones from this deer and we found a doe skull. So no antlers, you can't eat the horns anyways, ⁓ as a good hunter knows. But yeah, we found cervical. That was cervical bones and cervix close. Pretty different parts of the body. So anyways, that was awesome because she was equally excited about ⁓ finding these dead doe bones that have no value and bringing them home to mama. ⁓ So yeah, we walked around for another half hour, did not find any sheds. It was a great teaching moment about we have to learn to enjoy being out there. We have to learn a joy in being alone with God, being alone with nature, limiting distractions. It's not all about killing the animal or finding the sheds. And I'm just, that's what I learned about fishing at a young age. Cause we didn't catch a lot of fish growing up. Did a lot of fishing, not a lot of catching. So starting them young, man, starting them young. So you did some fishing, but didn't catch a lot of fish? Growing up, yeah. I had the opposite experience. Yeah. Where my grandpa, bless his heart, thought he was doing me a favor by having me fish in a pond full of bluegill. Yep. You don't even need bait. They're stuck. the hook out there. Starving to death. You got like three of them on the hook. Yeah. I went out to do some real fishing one time and was like, it's been at least 45 seconds and nothing has hopped on the line. So, and how often do you fish now? It's been a few years. So my, I'm just going to anchor her real low. And ⁓ if she can learn to enjoy the disappointment, it's only up from there. That's right. But we had a special moment, man. So that's a holy highlight. Like had a lot of good conversations about life, about just we had fun, man. And my daughter, she's tough. She's getting tough. I now know the difference between cervical and a cervix. Yes, man. And about to have another baby. So it only took three times. Don't say you never learned nothing from this podcast. That's exactly right. ⁓ Holy highlight for me. You know me. There's not going to be one. There's going to be two. But Roman, my now pretty close to being nine month old son, is starting to pull himself up. feel like the last couple of weeks it's been Roman ⁓ milestones. it's been a lot of fun. He's been him. Yeah, he's just ripping him. He's got teeth coming in like crazy, rolling around, crawling around, and ⁓ he's finally pulling himself up, which is awesome and terrifying. So he pulls himself up, and then he just leans back. with just no regard for his own safety. I've joked around that if you don't have a firm grip on him, he would throw himself out of your arms and onto the ground. would. Yeah, he has no concept of consequence or anything like that. How much carpets in the new house? Not a lot. Not a lot, especially in the kitchen and living area, which is where he spends most of his time. That makes sense, yeah. But ⁓ we've got one of those big foam play mats that he'll We have a little pen for him now because he's crawling everywhere. Wants to eat all the door stoppers. ⁓ It's like a pig, Put him in a pen so he don't eat the crap he's not supposed to. Pretty much. That's crazy. But standing up a lot. then big one was we met our neighbors. For those who don't know, we just moved into our first house ⁓ in a neighborhood of almost all new builds within the last couple of years. But we moved in December 6th, so it's been three and a half. months or four, almost four months. And I was starting to be concerned that we were just never gonna really connect with our neighbors. Come to find out it's that it's freezing cold and nobody wants to be outside. ⁓ Which I explained to both sets of neighbors that I ended up meeting. So Ellie got to come out, Roman got to come out. ⁓ Next door neighbors had to go to, they just had their fourth. ⁓ They're fourth and they told me that they have ended up in the NICU for all four of their children's births. ⁓ Had to fly from, they were delivering here and had to fly to children's in Cincinnati. So crazy times. But they're home? They're home now. Home now, I believe baby is back here now as well, but still at the hospital and ⁓ yeah, doing well. Super nice people. Also, Hunt's Coyotes wanted me to let you know that because I told him that my brother-in-law hunts. So he can't come to the property. Yeah, just let's tell him to back off. Tell him to back off. We shoot our own dogs. We we have no room for you here. That's cool, man. But like what a cool moment. You've worked hard. You've saved money. You own a home and you get to start seeing the benefits of home ownership. Yeah. Of like I know apartments like you're lucky to know the person's name across the hall before you move out a year and a half later. So that's cool. ⁓ it pumped me up so much. seriously, I was starting to worry. And again, part of it is on you if you don't meet your neighbors. But ⁓ I was getting concerned it was not going to happen naturally. And we had a long conversation with them. It was great. ⁓ Seemed like it's going to be a lot of fun, lot of barbecues this summer and stuff like that. So that was my highlights for the week. Love it, dude. We have awesome neighbors here. Talked about it last episode. But yeah, today we were all of our kids. There was six or eight of us. Kids out there, a few adults. ⁓ there were a few adults in the cul-de-sac. they had the water tables out. was just like, yeah, man, we've waited all year for this. Everybody's yelling at cars. ⁓ car! Slow way down. Absolutely, man. Can't believe you're driving 25. Amazon drivers are getting wrecked before they wreck our kids. But it's different, man. It's different when you have people in proximity, because it's hard when you have kids this age to get in the car and go places. So good for you guys. That's cool. Well, we just released first episode, but everybody's favorite segment. Yeah. Should've known better. All six listeners love the Should've Known Better. This is a staple. Got one for this week or you want me to lead off? Yeah, I got a real quick one and I'll throw it to you and I'll let you throw back to me for a longer one. Okay. Handful of hours ago, Grayson, my two and a half year old, he's in pull ups, he's potty trained, he's doing great as you guys have tracked with us in the first few episodes. But your boy sometimes gets to put them down for nap time if I'm working from home and there's no 12.45, 1 p.m. I just forgot to put a pull-up on him. The boy just put him, I just put him down in his panties. Or his underwear. Panties for Naomi, sorry, I got a dog. Put him down in the boxer brief. Yeah, I didn't even realize it and my wife very graciously, she was very gracious, Madeline was like, do know, because I walked in and was like, what are you doing? And she's like changing his sheets and it's like, you do know you didn't put a pull-up on him. I was like, absolutely not, moron. So should have known better there. I've only put my kids down thousands of times. no exaggeration and I looked at him I said hey man I'll take a hundred percent of this but you got a holler at your boy because Grace first thing he said was I had no pull-up on and I pee-pee'd. How old do the kids have to be before you get to blame them? It's close two and a half. It's not 50-50. It's all a line. He clearly understood he didn't and he just let one rip so should have known better back to you. All right my should have known better this week man I love it whenever it's one that's funny in the moment, but it wasn't at all and it was so obnoxious. But this past Saturday was the first Sabbath, sorry, not first Sabbath. The first like, I'm not gonna say Sabbath, it can happen either way, but I just mean like first Saturday, Ellie and I have had at the house, just us and Roman for a long time. It's been all good stuff, but we've either been out of town or we've had people over for the weekend. And again. All good stays. If you were one of those people that stayed, don't hesitate to come again whenever we invite you. We're exhausted. But we really were looking forward to having a Saturday, just the two of us. And one thing that Ellie and I will both admit we struggle with is coming to terms with what that day is going to look like, especially if we do not plan ahead. 11 a.m. rolls around. It's been a full morning. My wife thinks that we've done nothing but rest. I think we've done nothing but work the whole morning. ⁓ And we're both sitting on the couch having a little conversation about this and someone rings the doorbell. We are dog sitting at the time with the dog at our house, little cute three-year-old wiener dog and my- The worst dog that's ever existed. Not this one specifically. No. The breed. Shout out Ginger. Sorry, mom. But it's this dog, my 70 pound doodle. Uh, Roman is asleep and this guy rings the doorbell and the dogs just start barking like crazy. Ellie and I are in a heated discussion about what rest means. And I go over to answer the door because the dogs are barking and I'm yelling at the dogs. I about like. Barry Leo into the luxury vinyl planking that we have. Again, that's his dog, not his child. Yes, correct. ⁓ That's the dog. For the listeners who don't know. I love my dog. ⁓ You can do that to a dog. Yeah, he was fine. He thought I was playing with him. Open the door. It's someone from ADT, the security company, but it's also someone, it's a rep who works with Arbor who built our home. I went out, it's kind of cold this past Saturday, have a conversation with him, ⁓ and I don't remember what I said. ⁓ he mentioned that it comes with something that we are already paying for, to which I respond, is the installation covered or do I have a monthly service that I'm going to be paying for? It's a good question. To which he says, I know it sounds too good to be true. ⁓ Honestly, I can give you a rundown in about two minutes and get out of your hair. ⁓ and I was like, sure. because I wouldn't mind having a security system. We don't have anything. But I let him inside and that was where it all went downhill. You gotta check with the wife first. I'm glad you said it because she was like the fact that you didn't even think to with me. I'm not saying that's how it should be. I'm just saying that's how it is. I bring him in. The dogs start, well they were still barking. That was half the reason I brought him in. ⁓ I was hoping that maybe him coming in and them getting to see him would make them stop barking and not wake up my son. But he comes in, he gives me a quick pitch. ⁓ Ellie is visibly irritated that he's been allowed into our home, grabs this wiener dog and goes into our bedroom because she was uncomfortable because she was in her pajamas. ⁓ And I talked to him for a few minutes and basically say, hey, I'll give you a call. Appreciate you coming in, giving me the spiel. Man I go knock on the door it was like clash of the Titans for the next hour and a half as we went at the different motives and Who? Who should have had who should have done what how things could have been done differently We eventually made up and it was a great Saturday afternoon ⁓ But if ADT only knew that they need like free therapy coupons with such a nice guy and I just like Thought to myself. I'm like, what if I call it as a hey, man, it's not your fault But I just want to you know you ruined my after you ruined my morning. I Don't care how free it is. It's not worth it. Yeah, and then also and Roman woke up and it was uh, yeah So what's the shoulda known? Let's tie it like this shoulda known better in one sentence. What'd you learn from that Reese? Well, I very spitefully told her that I would never let anyone in the house ever again. That seems mature So that's what I said. She said you could have checked with me and I said I'll do you want better? I'll never let anyone in this house ever again. How do you like that? And then that went out great. Yeah, so that went really well. I actually, I'm not a yeller. I did not yell. Yeah, you're not. But I'm being a little animated. that was about the gist of what I ended up saying. The Should Have Known Better was... Check with the wife if you don't know, but also just have an idea for situations like that. My brain goes straight to, this is fine. And even like underneath all that, it segues in eventually to what we talk about with light rest and margin, having a plan of how you're gonna have your day off. Because when you have two different plans for how you're taking your day off, whether you call it Sabbath, that's overly spiritual, you don't know what that means, just think of it your day off. No chores, no obligations. unspoken expectations are unkind and you get wrecked without even realizing how did we get here. lesson learned. Lesson learned. You said you had a... Yeah, you were here for some of it. ⁓ So my daughter, again, Naomi, so I love her. She... ⁓ she's got a lot. Grace and I love you too. ⁓ a lot of great ⁓ things about her, but one thing that's challenging is I think she has a sensory disorder and I use that very, ⁓ actually, know, carefully because I don't want to like overly label stuff, but loud noises really bother her. I first, yeah, so like I'm getting head nods. Noah's seen it, you've seen it. ⁓ And I thought it was just first, like sometimes like when I'd be watching a game, she's upset that she's not getting attention, but that's not what it is. It genuinely like scares her. ⁓ variety of different things that have happened in our life. Anything from fireworks to someone's loud outside to, as you can imagine, basketball games. ⁓ we are currently grieving the loss of our Tennessee Vols football season. ⁓ A moment of silence. Basketball season? Did we say football or we say Did I say football? Both. Both seasons are concluded. Rick Barnes, we love you. You will make it to the Final Four eventually soon enough, but until then. God is still good. Three straight Elite 8s and the run came to an end, but I will say we were down 30 to Michigan. Muck Fishigan. Yep. We're keeping it PG. And so Michigan was body bagging us in the middle of getting skull drugged. Their best player is just talking mad junk after he's hit a couple threes and Jacoby Gillespie gets a breakaway and all six one of him just absolutely and one just crams on the dude. And I'm like half tuned out of this game just to protect myself. Cause like our friend Nate said, it's like watching your dog get put down for two hours. But everyone's cheering for it. That was my favorite comment of the day. It's what it seemed like. But when I tell you, I jumped up when I saw that, because I saw the breakaway happen. I was like, I hope he crams it on this dude. And he just, all six of them, just crammed it. And I jumped up and yelled about as loud as you could. And it scared the bejesus out of my It's normally me, so I was glad it It wasn't you. Football, it happens a lot. Pick sixes or big sacks. Get on the ball if there's a fumble. But it also happened two games earlier. So the previous week in the second round and again, I know better. was, I was doing really good. Naomi was like into the game and she, she just really wasn't ready for Felix Oka para just slammed an alley oop and I just yelled in the type of way she wasn't ready. she was then just off kilter for not just a few minutes. I'm talking like for a half hour, just really upset and confused. So I should have known better. It has happened probably a dozen times where I've just ruined a half of whatever football or basketball game. I'm watching because my daughter's off kilter and as a dad who's made the mistake and it's his fault I can't say hey, can you go take her upstairs while I keep watching this this game and so anyways, that's that's mine for the week good stuff. So Yeah, man. So guys write us in if there's any other segments you want We like having a little bit of fun, but first time listeners first half of the episode We have a lot of fun again laugh at our pain learn from us celebrate things We're gonna be honest with you when we do stuff well we're gonna beat our chest and celebrate and pump fists and be excited and when we just fall on our face, we're gonna let you know. And hopefully you guys are honest with yourself to know that's your life and we're growing together. No losses, just lessons. Let's talk about being tired. Who's tired? your hand if you're tired. I'm tired. We're all tired. We're not just physically tired. We are just tired. like we- got both hands He's got both hands up. He's extra tired. ⁓ Here's the second hand. Whose kid woke him up last night? Anyone? Yep. Noah got an off night. No? He's thinking? You know what? You know what? That was a lie. He started screaming as I was reading in bed. Okay. So I wasn't actually asleep yet. That's a pass. That's a good job, Roman. Naomi's having bad dreams, so it's hard. She was genuinely afraid. Madeline did great. You her the monster spray yet? No, I need to. That's a good tip. I'm telling you. We'll get to the monster spray hack soon. She'll go through that fake bottle too quick. She does have nightmares. She has nightmares. Yeah. All the dads out there, three to four-year-olds, it's pretty common theme. It breaks your heart. It's really hard, but... Yeah, 2 and 4 a.m. Last night, but the type of fatigue we're talking about there's good fatigue and bad fatigue So let's start there because we want to go to bed tired purposeful work is important ⁓ Work is not the enemy responsibility is not the enemy and then being tired is not good or bad in of itself I know like growing up. There's like how are you doing? I'm tired man. I stayed up late like I'm busy that kind of creates some sort of importance makes yourself your false self feel like you're important, but ⁓ There is, in this season of life especially, there's something too, there's purposeful fatigue, but there's also unnecessary fatigue. So we're going to unpack that, how to know the difference, how to game plan, and how to work margin in. But meaningful, good fatigue comes from your vocation, your job. Given you're all for 40 hours a week or whatever it is, maybe you're a student, you're studying, whatever God's calling you into, doing that well with excellence and a kingdom mindset, both quantity and quality of work. Late nights, early mornings, like we just talked about, physically tired from that. Taking care of your home or your cars. We talked a few weeks ago, no, I know all it takes is a little bit of car troubles and it just, it'll spiral your week and it really will. But at the end of the day, like as men, it's our responsibility to take care of the things that God's given us within our home. Learning new things, learning how to run a podcast, learning how to speak a different language, learning in grad school, learning whatever. you're passionate about, like you're tired because you're learning skills that will benefit other people beside yourself. Carrying emotional burdens. We talk about that with our wives, but then also our community, our friends, our family, our parents, our siblings. Working out, taking care of your body. Like working hard, making sure that you are physically able to do what's needed as a man, but then also not just being healthy, but man, I wrestle with my kids a lot. ⁓ I spend a lot of time running up and down the stairs doing stuff and getting stuff they need so you're just you're just I take a lot more steps as a dad too. anyways different types of tired for different reasons, but there is a meaningful type of tired ⁓ a fulfilling type of tired. So let's start there Reese. How are you experiencing good fatigue in this season, especially like as a dad? ⁓ What's that look like for you? Especially as a dad. I wrote a few things down. but if we're talking about dads specifically, it would be. Not shifting into the like rest mindset as soon as I'm done with work. ⁓ And so like two things that I try to do, not perfectly by any means, but ⁓ Ellie takes Roman to childcare, which is a lot of really awesome people who are willing to help us out on the two days a week that we need it. ⁓ And Ellie takes him to childcare. could be... ⁓ Could be her aunt's house, her mom. A couple friends have chosen to her. Ellie's got one friend that is taking a PTO day because she wants to hang out with our son all day. That's a blessing. Yeah. So amazing people like that. ⁓ If I didn't mention you and you've watched Roman, I love you so much. Sorry for not mentioning you. Salute to you. Yes. ⁓ It's my brain, not you. So we're tired. Yes, we're tired. ⁓ I help her prep for the mornings. because her mornings can be a lot more stressful than mine. There's a lot to pack up, dear goodness, trying to pack up a car. Depends on who's watching him. So like somebody might be watching him and they might have half the stuff that we need already at their place. Others, there's a lot of things to pack, whether it's a pack and play, diaper bag. I mean, it's hilarious. It looks like when Ellie's walking out the door, like any of those, like 2000 movies when women come out of the stores. with like the bags, all the shopping bags and stuff like that, except it's boring stuff that's not fun and diapers and butt cream. also it was also really expensive and is draining. now you don't get to shop. This is your shopping. This is our new shopping. So I try to help with that kind of stuff. That's kind of like a it's exhausting. I don't want to do that stuff at the end of the day, but I know it'll help her in the morning whenever I'm not there to help with anything. Yeah. I am by no means a hero whenever I come home from work, but I intentionally don't shift my mindset into now that work's over, it's time to rest. I shift it into now that work's over, it's time to be a dad and husband, whether that's helping with dinner or taking care of Roman while Ellie cooks dinner so that he's not screaming. End of the day, he's kind of a little bit fussier towards the end of the day. The witching hour. Yeah. mean, the list goes on and on with all of the... great things that I'm doing for my household. Yeah, I want you to keep going honestly. But the mental really- It was over, that's why I said that. That was the long I got dozens of others. Yes. The mental energy, the checklist. Yes. Gosh, once you have kids, but then you don't have to watch them for a weekend away or a date night, just the ease of getting in and out of a car. You know, just like the simple things like you're saying of like going somewhere without having to go through that mental checklist or actual checklist. is a big one. Any others, even if it's not dad specific, I know you said just this season, because we got a lot of listeners in their 20s, 30s, maybe early 40s that just they can relate to just fatigue. Sure. It's a weird way. So like I was thinking about this earlier today. It's weird how it all ties together. Yeah. So for me. being a good employee makes me a better dad. It's weird, I would have never seen it that way, but I have not always been a great employee. Sorry, maybe that's the wrong way of phrasing it. I could have been a better employee. I could have had better motives, could have had, one thing that I'm really working on is just treating every job like I'm working for God and not for men. Even though I am working for men, sometimes it's just easier to think about the fact like, What the effort that I'm putting into this is, it worthy of, is it worthy of God? Or is it worth putting that amount of effort into something or just kind of shifts my perspective? So, ⁓ going into work with that kind of mindset, if I have a down moment rather than just binging out on something or vegging out on something, trying to just look for the ways I can serve somebody, whether that's a coworker, my employer, one of our members. clients, et cetera, et cetera. Or if I just like haven't gotten back to my text messages, for those who don't know, I have a laundry list of messages from people that I have not answered. Yeah, but you, I mean, they're like love letter replies, dude. You're a good texter. Well, I appreciate that. And I think the reason why there are so many people that I have not responded to is because I'm only willing to send something meaningful. My wife struggles with the same thing. I don't. I be voice texting people. Dude, and I need to get more into that. I've gotten a little bit into that, but. Yes, I struggle to send texts that don't look like I care. Yeah, but they are. They're solid. I now know why you wooed Ellie long distance. And you know what? Well, that is also Snapchat. mean, looking at this every day. I it's hard. That's not good. It's not Snapchat. I don't want to hear about Snapchat. Anyways, ⁓ waking up earlier to spend time with God. gives me good fatigue. I have to get up earlier. I don't get as much sleep. That's a good example. It helps me leave my family better. It puts me more at peace. I get to spend time with my creator, my friend. Yeah, it's like spending time with someone who has all the answers in the morning or at least someone who's gonna walk through everything with you during the day and just giving them that kind of first part. I always have thought about when people say their first fruits, giving your best and I'm like, well, first thing in the morning is the worst that I could possibly give God. I'm dead tired. If I choose to read my Bible, I don't remember half the stuff that I read because I'm so exhausted. Yeah, it'll be a mixture. Sometimes I'll just sit, talk to him. Sometimes I'll read my Bible a little bit. But I would say those are the things that I'm experiencing good fatigue from. You could also put working out and stuff like that. things that give me a positive. self-image in a way that isn't arrogant or cocky or self-obsessed, I find helps me to put my best foot forward ⁓ at home. So, yeah. Those are great examples. They're very practical. ⁓ In this season, so for pregnant, not pregnant dads, dads with pregnant, baby mommas, wives, significant others, ⁓ I just need to be more physically involved because there's just things as a 36 week pregnant woman she can't do. Um, that's not true. Study show. How dare you? Well, here's the thing. She can, she worked in the garden for two hours, uh, Saturday, but I came out there as like, baby, you need to come in because she doesn't know her limits in the next day. She's like, I feel like I got hit by a truck. So she's amazing, but it's like things like two and a half year old Grayson's like kicking and screaming. I need to take him upstairs to discipline. And like, I have to be the one that physically carries him upstairs. Sure. You know, I need to be the one that's just physically more involved with, uh, things like discipline of, you know, let me. We're all big on like picking up a kid and separating them out of a situation. And so I just a lot more physically involved. So there's good fatigue in that Tuesdays I go into the office. It's almost an hour drive and ⁓ I'm just I hold space for people because I work from home four days a week. So there's just a lot of meetings, a lot of checking in the people I work with. I want to let them know I care deeply about them. There's a lot of problem solving on Tuesday. So I come home and I'm kind of just cooked. ⁓ As an introvert like I've poured it all out like I've just seen the purpose of that My to-do list has gone through the roof, but the relational equity is like my tank is full their tank is full We've solved some problems that needed to be hashed out in person and so snow those days I'm just I'm tired. I'm really tired ⁓ and and that's good. That's a good type of tire I couldn't do that every day, but it's a good type of fatigue on Tuesdays Hence why I told you guys I can't do this podcast on Tuesday nights because I just wouldn't have no the mental energy for it ⁓ Being mentally present with my kids during active play. So here's what I mean by that. There's a difference between like playing or like watching your kids playing in the cul-de-sac or, you know, just being around ⁓ while they're reading. And they need to have some time where they have self play or they play with one another and then they're not dependent on me. But there needs to be active play every day too. Naomi likes to play any type of princess game, which just means I'm the bad guy and she wants me to chase her. I, Beauty and the Beast. or I'm a troll for whatever reason. Half these movies I haven't seen yet, like Princess and the Frog. I don't think she's seen that one. So don't really know how to be the frog or whoever she wants, but it all comes back to- Squads. Yeah. I don't, I don't, you just be goofy. You be present. ⁓ You, kind of know how she wants the game to go, but man, when you're just mentally tired, ⁓ there's just a lot of like, can we just play hide and seek? Cause I know how hide and seek goes. Like I don't have to guess how to play fricking frozen or whatever plan. ⁓ But yeah, just being a lot more mentally invested with active play. It's okay. You can't do that all day long, but a half hour a day after work on the weekends when we're at the park, giving some time like, yeah, I'll chase you around. I'll do that. So that's just something I've realized God wants me to be more, more present in. And man, I've connected with both our kids really well through that. That's awesome. Yeah, boy. So yeah, dads think through that. I mean, there's a good type of fatigue, lean into that, do that well. ⁓ This next. this next list you're about to go through. Yeah. Hit. I'm about to rip it. Cause there's an unnecessary exhaustion that also creeps in. There's things that we're tired about, like we're tired for, for no good reason. Overcommitment, not prioritizing what's important. We're just, we're just half, you know what, in two things. And because of that, we're just spread way too thin. Kid friendly pod. We got to keep it PG if you're listening with the kiddos in the back. We did say cervix earlier. We, uh, that's, I still have her. covered from that, my ego. ⁓ So yeah, over commitment, not prioritizing. Start from the top. Constant digital stimulation. Never heard of her. Stop it. I wrote that down. Constant digital stimulation. I just knew you were ready for that. You know what I mean by that. There is a type of stimulation that comes from ⁓ listening to too many podcasts, from Facebook, doom scrolling on Instagram and TikTok, checking the ESPN app for no good reason, watching way too many games. ⁓ just stimulation from consumption of any type of media, trying to prove ourselves. So we're just exhausted because we always have a chip on our shoulder for no good reason. Being a workaholic, like we're obsessed with just kind of going back to proving yourself, but you just don't feel secure enough, whether it's financially or within your own skin, to have a stop, have a stopping time at the end of the day or the week. Worrying unforgiveness. You're exhausted because you haven't forgiven someone. You're pissed off. You're bitter. You're angry or you're worried. You're anxious about a variety of different things. And then really just saying yes to everything and... by saying yes to everything, ⁓ you say no to the things that matter most. So ⁓ I know you're really excited to talk about the constant digital stimulation. ⁓ So why don't you start there? ⁓ No, is there anything really in your life that just, yeah, this is like unnecessary exhaustion is draining me. And because of that, I'm living in a constant like state of tiredness. Yeah, I mean. I'm not gonna say it's the story of my life, but I definitely have experienced many of the unnecessary exhaustion. type patterns. So like one thing I put down is I have a tendency to hyperfixate on something so or obsess over something that's new and stimulating. I've mentioned it once or twice. I have ADHD. There's two types hyperactive and inattentive. I have inattentive ADHD, which basically means one of the symptoms is that my brain doesn't access dopamine, which is a pleasure chemical very well. But when it does, It wants whatever that thing is in spades. It does not want a little bit of it. Are you going to tell them your philosophy on video games when you get a new one? Because I told someone this the other day. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. This is great. I still believe this. it's something, but it's not great. If it's what I think you're talking about, I'm just going to go into it. Rather than sparsing it out week by week, and the reason why I don't want to, if I find a new video game, which by the way, this is not very often, maybe to your defense, it's not, maybe once a year, once every other year, cause I don't have many games that I'm just dying for them to come out. But rather than sparsing it out, like, I'll play 30 minutes here, 30 minutes there. I just take three days. kind of forget to sleep, pee, bodily functions, eat, just go hard on this video game for about three days and then I never play it again. That would be so much simpler because whenever I sparse it out, then it becomes my end of the day beer. I'm like, man, can't wait to be done with all the things that I have going on today so that I can play this game. But if I just take three days, what did they, this is, I'm just going to show my biblical ignorance. Is this what they did before Passover? What is the season where they would give something up? ⁓ Lent? No, not just Lent. Maybe that is it. I don't know. Sorry, everybody. We're not Catholic enough for this, dude. I understand Lent, but there was a time where the Jewish people in the Bible would just overindulge because they knew where they were about to... Is it just... I don't know. Fat Tuesday, they Somebody fact check us. Yeah, they do that Mardi Gras. There's the thing. Just like a season or just like a few days of just complete overindulgence before they gave stuff up. that's what Mardi Gras roots are for sure. Yeah, so have you done it since you've had Roman? The video game thing? Have you been? Because you can't just not feed him for three days just in case you didn't know. Yeah, I mean I didn't do it to the extent that I just mentioned when Roman was born, but yes Ghost of Yote came out. ⁓ I'm just embarrassed that you even said that. I don't even know what it means. Listen, I'm sorry. If they come out with a video game with unbelievable graphics, great frame rates, and it's about ancient Japan and I get to go kill people with a... They know what they're doing. They're actively... With a katana. Listen, they've done their market research and they know the demographic and I'm it. They're deforming fathers. This is the anti-work of what we're doing. ⁓ Yeah, I think I... I think I set an alarm for the middle of the night and I went to my work and played on my work's wifi at the gym, because it's Anytime Fitness. So we're open 24-7, 5,600 locations. Stop, they're not paying for this. If they want to us, they can get the shout out. Sign up for PT, or personal training, sorry, not physical therapy. Who needs that? But yeah, I went to work in the middle of the night and played for about... I don't know, eight hours or something like that at work before work started until about 8 a.m. This is not even physically possible for me to do that. I wouldn't function. Yeah. So that would be another unnecessary exhaustion is I was exhausted the following day and probably the days after. I've also come to realize that your body can do this incredible thing where if you just only give it four and half to five and a half hours of sleep regularly, it'll kind of adjust and let you think you can handle it. But once you go back to doing seven, eight hours a night and then you try it, which by the way, have rarely, I have been more intentional since Roman let me start sleeping again of getting that kind of sleep. Then the nights whenever I get four and a half or five, I'm like, I'm totally wrecked. I totally agree with that. This is a nightmare. But in high school, I really do think I got four and a half hours of sleep regularly and I would get up and workout, go to school. We'd have a double block weight training because they let me pick my own schedule. Workout there. And then I would go have lacrosse practice afterwards, maybe disc golf after that. Go home, watch the office and do homework and eat ravioli and cookie dough and do it all over again the next day. Chef Boyardee. It's always cold in my mind. Not cold. was not cold. Straight out the can. I didn't get to have the stuff on this. Why don't you take it over and then if you want to kick it back to me, you can. Yeah, those are honestly great examples. And I totally agree. We're about to do our third tour of, you know, the whole four to five hours a night of sleep for at least a few weeks if not months. it's crazy like what your body can do. Now your cognitive functions like pathetic. I'm going to send some creatine because apparently that helps. If you sent me something one time, I didn't even know that. get up to like 15 to 20 grams. I hope my gut doesn't hurt. So we'll figure that That's more myth. But ⁓ we'll figure it out. We'll slowly load. But ⁓ we digress. He needs kidneys. Yeah. We'll figure it. We'll drink a lot of water. For me, ⁓ so yeah, anyways, going back to that, that is a thing, but we are, for the record, pro seven plus hours of sleep on this podcast, if you can get it. If you can get it. Really important, if you're sacrificing it for the sake of loving others, ⁓ do it. That's the point. ⁓ And sometimes it's time to have a sit down with the nine month old and be like, hey, I can't father you as well if you don't sleep through the night. So this is kind of on you. Yeah. Like I said, they're never too young to accept some blame. That's Two and a half might be too ownership. Shout out to, is it Jocko? Jocko. So, ⁓ man, we gotta keep this under an hour. I would say too late watching sports. My wife loves college basketball, we got into a lot of trouble just staying up too late and being tired. Real quick, I've been talking so much. God forbid my wife enables me to do any of these things and it's over. Yeah, absolutely. You know it's bad whenever I say, hey, baby, we need to get to bed. She you're not going to watch the second half of whatever game that matters to no one. We've never even watched these games play. that's been awesome. So that's hit close to home recently. Really, sometimes I push myself in a workout in a type of way that I could do six, eight years ago. But mentally, I think I can. And I get it done. And it feels good to just grind. But the rest of the day and the next day, Like I just can't be the dad that I should be. I'm just really, really tired. ⁓ I will say, ⁓ not on the sheet, but I'm just thinking about it. Drinking caffeine at a certain time of day, I don't drink a lot of alcohol, but if I have a drink or two, an hour or two before bed, which is what I normally drink, if like I'm watching a game with a friend, ⁓ that'll just jack up my sleep. So then you just have unnecessary bad sleep. It's not because your daughter had a nightmare, you know? I've been telling people for a while, the healthiest way to drink is in the morning. Nobody wants to listen to me. Don't get your bruise. Not on the weekdays. Not on weekdays. I do not endorse that. But don't get your bruise mixed up. Your coffee's in the morning. just telling you, your recovery and everything goes back to normal if you drink in the morning. If you drink late at night, you're hosed. You're hosed. You're hosed. So yeah, my watch has been telling me that. I don't drink in the morning. He doesn't. We joke because we don't. But to the dads who do, we're thankful you're here. How about that time that you thought I was drinking the shower when I lived Yeah, that's another story for another day. I walked in and I thought there was just a handle of liquor in our... You had some weird shampoo in it. Shout out 1821 body wash that looks like a bottle of bourbon. I about had to say, let's take a walk. Anytime I look at you and if I say, let's take a walk, there's something you've done really wrong, but I don't want to confront you in front of your wife. anyways, yeah, so just really what I eat or drink. too late in the day, overeating, unnecessary, you just feel, you you shouldn't have eaten those second, or those fifth and sixth pancakes, you know what I'm saying? Those two extra pancakes are too many. ⁓ yeah, Dads, we understand there's an unnecessary type of exhaustion. That is what we're talking about of cutting out of our lives. ⁓ The three types of tired, ⁓ I think you can be spiritually tired, but I'm not gonna put that into this. That's probably a different conversation. I do wanna frame this section up with, ⁓ You don't differentiate these. We are not just a mind and a body and emotions like we like all these overlap and are interconnected, but it is helpful to have categories. So for the sake of that, we're going to make categories. So physical fatigue, lack of sleep, ⁓ constant activity. Again, some of these just come with the territory of being a dad. Some of it you choose, some of it you don't. You're just being obedient. Lack of sleep, constant activity, ⁓ physical demands, overeating, poor eating. eating or drinking at the wrong time. So there's physical fatigue, mental, problem solving and decision making. We've already talked about that. My wife, going back to being 36 weeks pregnant, she looked at me today and said, hey, I, cause I needed her to make a decision. we were, the bullets were flying. The kids were crazy. We're trying to figure out what we're going to do for dinner. And she said, I just need you to make decisions. I'm 36 weeks pregnant. I've been making decisions all day. And I said, baby, I've been making decisions all day too, working. And she said, no, you're not hearing me. Like I don't, I got the pregnancy brain going on. And then I understood. The trump card? Exactly, dude. She hid it. She hid it. She laid it down. But she's right. Just because you make a lot of problem-solving decisions at work does not mean you don't get to as a dad, right? Work stress is another mental one. Always thinking about what needs to be done or could go wrong. So that mental checklist of how to get out the house or is my son going to fall off the freaking teeter-totter again? Or is that knife far enough away from the counter before my kid grabs it? All of these things mentally. Emotionally, fear of failure, failing your wife, your kids, your job, your health, whatever it is. Pressure to provide, provide financially, to provide spiritual guidance, fill in the blank. Worry about those you love that are struggling. Could be your wife or kids, could be your best friend, could be a coworker, could be your mom, could be your brother. So these are all the different types of physical, mental, emotional fatigue. And this season... Which one's weighing on you the heaviest? Because I think when we can identify some of these, again, we can attack ways to find some relief. And we're going to get to it. We're going to land the plan with margin that can play into this as well. So yeah, which kind of fatigue hits you hardest in this season? Top of page three for those who are following that one. That's right. Yeah, I think it's probably going to be. I don't know, I torn between emotional and mental fatigue, but like if we're going into specifics, I probably fit the stereotype too much with ⁓ happy wife, happy life, which I've been told that's not really how it works. But when Ellie is not stressed, I'm pretty good, or actually not even just not stressed. When Ellie's just pumped about life, I'm good to go. And it's not even about her being stressed in this season. We just have a lot going on and. probably a mixture of like the fear that there's always going to be too much going on. Which it's kind of one of reasons we wanted to talk about this is just to a certain extent, you have some control of all the stuff that goes on, not everything, but you can, like we said, create margin. So I think that sometimes I get worried that we just won't have, we won't have margin or we won't create margin, stuff like that. So I would say that's kind of the biggest one. The other one you could make an argument for is the natural like mental fatigue for me of ADHD. just, ⁓ I really, really try not to step into a victim mindset with this because it's super easy to. But you gotta identify ⁓ areas that might be harder for you than others. I had someone ask me this recently when I was explaining ADHD to them. It was a family member. After I was done explaining it to them and kind of how I go through the day and work through the day and try to, how to find success, they looked at me real puzzled and said, So is every day just really hard for you?" And I laughed really hard. And I was like, I mean, kind of. Yeah. From an energy standpoint, yes. ⁓ Because the problem with it is that it sounds like you're the most entitled and selfish person ever whenever I tell you, it's not hard for me to be engaged with stuff that I find interesting. It's hard for me to be engaged with things I don't find interesting, to which everyone responds, that's everybody. Yeah, duh. It's just to a different degree, different degree. ⁓ So that would probably be the main two things. About to have a third kid for me. So the physical is coming and I'm talking through with people around me at my work with Madeleine of like, man, how my cognitive ability, my limitations are coming when you have four or five hours of sleep, but that's just temporary. We've done it twice. I know it's going to happen again. We're going to get through it. But the emotional fatigue of like kind of the fear of the unknown with having a third ⁓ provision, not necessarily financially, like our budgets where we need it to be and the Lord's been really good to provide financially. We do not have stacks like that, but ⁓ we're in a place where we're good financially for the time being, but just the provision of like the energy to be present for all three kids like I want the worry of like, ⁓ man, like can I really? ⁓ When you feel like you're drowning and you're treading water and you're just drowning, like can someone really toss me a baby right now and someone, either me or that kid not go under, you know? So those are the lies like emotionally that wear on you. But what I've realized is I don't have the capacity for a third kid because I haven't needed it yet. And I'm just trusting God to give me some of that capacity. And I might share about, I had an incredible couple hours on Saturday and just being reminded of that as I'm kind of praying through and journaling through and thinking through this third kid, but The emotional fatigue is just worry and doubt, to be honest, from my own abilities to, I have a standard and I want to keep that standard. And some of it's like giving myself grace. Some of it's asking for help. Some of it's just trusting God to provide in ways ⁓ where you're just not in control. There's a lot of things I'm not going to be in control of with this third kid and it's trusting God in those gaps. So. ⁓ Cool. Well, there's a lot of things to talk about when it comes to fatigue and exhaustion. I hope some of these things just help dads feel known and seen. I hope they relate to some of these honest comments we've had of, ⁓ here's where we're at. They're probably in a similar place, even if they're not in the exact same season or situation. But one area to attack this is in the area of margin and talking about creating margin in your life. ⁓ next up. Next up, I think a little bit of margin in your life can go a long way. I've experienced that when you can just have a little bit of time to breathe, a little bit of time to get your emotions regulated, to have a physical outlet, having fun, doing something that you don't have to be on as far as like worried about something or having the checklist all figured out. But I would say a majority of dads, they live with zero to no margin in their lives. There's no breathing room, their schedules, their minds, their American dads, the Western dads. ⁓ We just fill it up with things that are good and then things that are unnecessary just because we're not in control of our schedules or our lives I know this because it takes all it takes for me is a broken down car and I'm just in a tailspin Because I didn't have the margin to deal with taking the car to a shop a sick kid out of season like I expect it in December But I get sick in July. I'm like, are you stinking serious? you crazy? I'm getting a sore throat right now. I don't have time to be sick. I'm reading about Joe Yeah, just like the anger of just like cursing God when you were good a day ago. A bad night of sleep when you had been sleeping well and you're like, I don't have the capacity to be tired today. So I know I need more margin in my life when the interruptions of life really irritate me, really kind of put me in a tailspin. that's usually not a patience problem at that point. It's a margin problem. And John Mark Comer, ⁓ Ruthless Elimination of Hurry was a five or six years ago, very timely for me, for most Americans. ⁓ But he defines margin as just the space between our load and our limits. Limits has been a huge word for me over the last five years. So let's start with load. It's everything that you're carrying. It's your work obligations. It's your kids and all the things that they need to be nurtured and loved and taken care of. It's your marriage. It's your bills. It's your house and your in in your church community that you're serving in. All these different things are your obligations, the load that you carry. Your limits are the fact that you're a human, that you were made to sleep seven to nine hours a night, that you need time. I know, you want to laugh in its face. You need time alone. You said amen to that one though, right? You love some alone time. We need some alone time. We need to laugh. We need times where we're just not having to be on 24-7. You know, so when Jesus says like, come to me all you who are burdened, like my load is light, my burden is light, take my yoke upon you, learn from me, I'll give you rest. ⁓ It's not that there's not a load, it's not that there's not a burden that we carry, it's just a lot of times it's more than our limits that we physically can take. So again, margin is the space between our load and our limits. If we always have a load right up to what our limits are, we just can't live in that space. If every single moment of every single day, is always the thing that's at max capacity. So ⁓ we might get a lot done that way, Reese. The quantity of the work might be there. Our house might look good, it might be clean. We might get the promotion. Our kids might be somewhat safe. We might even be serving at our church like we should. But the quality of our love suffers. The quality of our humanity, who we are to become more like Jesus suffers. ⁓ John Ortberg, ⁓ older guy now, was discipled by Dallas Willard. And you know me, I like following ⁓ people who are dead, because they can't disappoint you anymore. Of course. There's been a couple. Well, actually. There's been a couple. won't talk about. we won't talk about Ravi. But ⁓ Dallas has been dead long enough where I trust that man, his work. ⁓ But people wanted to sit at this man's feet at the end of his life just because he had become the type of person they wanted to become. Gentle, patient, kind, selfless. John was someone who was deeply impacted. He was discipled personally by Dallas for most of his adult life. And he asked an incredible question to Dallas about 25 years ago. It's more relevant today than 25 years ago. He just asked Dallas, what do I need to do to become the me that I want to be? Which is just a great question. What do I got to do? But like the person I want to be in five years or 20 years, dads, I want you to think about who you want to become. 20 years. What are the habits you need to do, the practices you need to do now to get there? ⁓ But such a good question and even more important answer in this day and age over two decades later Dallas Willard says, hurry is the great enemy of the spiritual life in our day. Here is the paper popper quote, you must ruthlessly eliminate hurry from your life. And that's where Comer, he got this whole idea of this book from that of The great enemy of our spiritual life of becoming more like Jesus in our day is just hurry. You gotta ruthlessly eliminate it. You have to be intentional to create margin in your life. Otherwise the hurry does not passively just leave. Yeah. I remember the first time I heard that quote and I have not read The Ruthless Elimination of Hurry. Really cool looking book though. Nope. Super, has been on my shelf more than once. Judge that book by cover in looks awesome. ⁓ But I have had it said to me before by a couple of different people when I had talked about wanting to connect with God more through prayer, ⁓ talking to God, and it was mentioned in the concept of if you want to like hear back or like if you want to if you really want to like listen for God, you can't always be distracted. And if you're hurried, I promise you the thing on the forefront of your mind is whatever you're hurrying for. ⁓ It's not going to be you're not gonna have the ability to kind of, I'm not gonna say universally, God can talk to people the way he wants to talk to people, but just for the most part, in my own experience, when I'm hurried, I don't have a listening ear for the Spirit of God, I don't have a listening ear for what God has for me, I've got a listening ear for whatever the crap I'm trying to get to, whatever I'm trying to get done on time. ⁓ I took a year to drive in the slow lane for that exact reason. Yeah. What a good discipline. I did that much to my, at the time, fiance, Ellie Chagrin. But you weren't distracted. All the attention on her, And it forced me to leave earlier. Yeah. Plan ahead. But you, I mean, it's not just being ⁓ productive. It's now you're being distracted. And you're not hearing from God, you're not hearing from what your kids need, you're not hearing from your wife or your friends or your neighbor. Because you're stressed and anxious. It makes sense. And it's going to happen. There's seasons of that, or there's moments of that throughout every day for all of us, so don't beat yourself up over that. But because margin doesn't happen just by accident, and because having some margin is a way that we can live ⁓ a present life, an observant, an aware life instead of distracted, you have to fight for it. So these last, I don't know, how long we got keeping under an hour so last 10 or 15 minutes. ⁓ Let's just talk about like, how are you in this season as a dad, how are you fighting for margin? And what type of fruit do you see that producing when that margin is there? Sure. I would say not poorly, just in that I would say since we moved into the house, we've been fighting to get back to some semblance of margin. I wouldn't say we've done an amazing job. I wrote several things down, but ⁓ I think that we came to the realization after the first month or two that we need to protect more evenings after work. Ellie and I's schedules have shifted a few times since we moved into the house. We obviously moved, so like tons of stuff to be done around the house and get done around the house. We just got grass today for the first time. So pumped about that. You're talking about your lawn, not like dope or... Yeah, I'm talking about the lawn. Never smoked. Got some grass. Never done drugs before. Good for you, That weren't prescribed. But lots of friends though. Shout out to my boys. ⁓ But I was totally just about to name drop so many people. Not going to do that. On to the next. Protecting certain evenings. ⁓ We just realized we and I'm the king of this. I'll just have a bunch of stuff that I want to go to on a regular basis. In my mind, I'm like, we can just set up a recurring thing. Any old time. like, new group wants to meet on Mondays? Sweet. We'll do that. Then we have Tuesday night group and then I've got Friday morning group until I'm eventually just like the person who's there at all of them a quarter of the time rather than being able to show up. So we are still in the process of figuring out what that looks like. Because right now we have about three or four. But the reoccurring commitments are ones you gotta be aware of. Yes, but in the... When you first set them up, you almost think like, this is smart, it's planned out, we'll be able to look ahead. But then you realize, ⁓ if anything pops up, then suddenly, like if you have stuff on ⁓ Monday and Wednesday evening, that sounds great, because then you're like, Tuesday evening's open, so we'll always have that. Well, guess what? When something pops up on Tuesday evening, how prepared are you to have three evenings where you don't really talk to your spouse? No margin. Yeah, no margin. ⁓ We've started doing that. Planning in advance, I realize these are all super vague, but trying to plan things in advance. We try to plan if we're gonna have my family come over, try to plan a little bit farther out, try to look ahead to the next month. We got Easter coming up. Ellie works at the church. It's gonna be a busy weekend. We try and keep that in mind if we're gonna give a yes for the weekend prior or the weekend after or if we got a busy work week. I had a work event on Friday, so we tried to protect Saturday. until I let the ADT guy come in to the house. But we had a good sound. It took a second. We had to marinate for a little bit. I put this, again, all these are super general. If you can help it, don't play from behind. So with a number of different things, try to keep up with your life as best you can. And then if you can get caught up, try to figure out. how to make it more reasonable to stay on top of things. Because sometimes it's out of your control, life just comes and gets you and that's that. ⁓ But other times it's like you've said for past few minutes, it's a lot of stuff you're undoing and the hard thing is that so many of these things sound great. Like they could be good practices. ⁓ I remember getting advice whenever Ellie and I first got married, hey, you totally can, but like consider not serving at the church for the first like, year as you guys get to know each other, ⁓ living together with somebody of the opposite sex for the first time for both of us. just take it, give yourself, that wasn't as much for Marjan, more just to get to know each other a little bit. like, yeah, there's seasons where... It's okay to say no. Yeah, it's okay to say no. It's okay to say no. Thanks for bringing it home. No, it's so, that's such a practical example actually. Pete Scazzaro in Mostly Healthy Discipleship, he talks a lot about limitations, I have read that one. Living into your limbs. I think we read that, maybe together. You gave it to me or I gave it to you, I don't remember. I was living here, so we both had read it. Yeah, good, man, of like as you get older, recognizing those limits because you can't be everywhere at once. You can't know everything at once. You can't provide everything that's needed. So it's just like knowing your limitations allows God to come in and provide other people to provide. It expresses your humanity and your need for him and others. So that's what I hear there. ⁓ I kind of thought of like there's the structured and the spontaneous for me of how we fight for margin. And here's what I mean. The structured is very practically I am done at work at 445 every day. I like that. I sometimes start for a half hour, 45 minutes before I make breakfast and get the kids up. But I will be done at 445 because I have to have some margin. I don't commute home four out of five days. My commute is walking downstairs. So I have a five minute time of breathing, sometimes pray, sometimes read. I got a little book here. I'll read a couple of pages just to create some margin in my heart, my mind before I step into second shift. So that has been super helpful. Don Keener, my boss, talks about he would sit in the driveway. I know we've talked about sometimes we sit in the driveway and our wife's like, what are you freaking doing? We'll leave 10 minutes early and sit. a mile down the road for five or 10 minutes. Turn off the find my app. Yeah, don't let them know where you're at. Because I'm like, what are you doing? Are you broken down? But leave five or 10 minutes early. You can't be five or 10 minutes late, but leave work a few minutes early and have some of that time to decompress. Have that's daily margin. Sure. Weekly, we Sabbath and I've alluded to this in other episodes. We'll talk more about it in depth at another time. But Friday night to Saturday night, we prep hard on the front end and we do a lot of work on the tailwind, but we don't do housework. We very rarely do any things that has to do with serving people as bad as that sounds. We don't grieve. We don't do things that carry a lot of emotion and heavy and hard things and processing and talking about that. You're naturally going to feel something in your control. But we're going to say, hey, that's a hard thing when you talk about tomorrow. And that creates margin for delight. That creates margin for worship. It creates margin for rest. So we take naps. We enjoy date nights. We go outside with the kids, shed hunting for for deer antlers and just things that you normally wouldn't have margin for if you're using one of your two days off from your vocation to do housework ⁓ or to get caught up on this, that or the other. So we structure some of that. That's been super helpful. ⁓ Go ahead. You sure? Yeah. Okay. Something that you said made me think of this. I just had it recommended to me. Ellie and I don't always know like when to talk about certain things and One thing that a mentor, I guess you'd call him, of mine has mentioned is that him and his wife go on coffee dates every week. Now we would bring a Roman, but kind of just setting aside time to talk about, I don't do well with spontaneous problems being presented to me that can be controlled unless it's something that needs to be taken care of right then, ⁓ especially after work. part of that's on me. Sometimes I have to be able to just kind of... buckle down and be like, you know what, there is a spontaneous problem that needs to be handled and it would give my wife peace to talk about it now. ⁓ But kind of a way that we can create margin for one, me to kind of be more pleasant at the house and things like that. And for Ellie to have peace knowing that we're gonna cover all the stuff that she wants to talk about. And this actually, this all happened today. So Ellie, we haven't even talked about this yet, but we're doing coffee dates. I hope you're pumped. But either way. kind of like a weekly rhythm of, hey, I need you to know that I care about all the issues you bring to me. Because when it's brought to me in my version or my idea of the wrong moment, or like, I don't want to listen to this, right? I don't come across as I care. I come across as, how can we get this dealt with as fast as possible so I have to hear about this anymore? the main thing I hear is, ⁓ I have to know when we're going to talk about this. So we had a running thing in our house, like Wednesday nights, was like, hey, well, Again, how are gonna discipline this issue differently? Like we don't need to talk about it every night, but we need to weekly have check-ins, updates. Once a month we look at our finances, whatever these things are. So some structured time for it so you're not avoiding, you're not abdicating that responsibility, but it's not lingering, it's not taking up rent in your head ⁓ cost free. Well, and then we can enjoy time together. Because the time you won't enjoy is when you both feel like you haven't been listened to or... or you've been brushed aside, like in her case, she's been brushed aside and I'm not feeling heard in the sense of like, I've told you I don't like whenever this stuff comes up. So then we're just coexisting right next to each other, but we're both irritated and feeling that type of way. That's the type of margin we're talking about. And when I say Sabbath rest, like just think of the word delight, something that makes you really like just happy. We plan that ahead of time. And that means having those conversations or doing the housework heavy or on the backend, handling that. But when you can structure and plan some of that stuff out, man, it's really enjoyable. Spontaneous is, here's an example. I stumbled upon a free three hour Saturday morning, because Madeline said, hey, I'm taking the kids to an Easter egg hunt, you're not invited. And I was like, you're telling me you're taking the kids? How dare you? No. Gosh. And she caught my sarcasm. Love my kids. I love going shed hunting, but needed to have a morning to myself, man. So I... It was kind of a spontaneous gift. So I was like, man, I'm going capitalize on this. Took the Bible journal and a book. Went to a coffee shop. What version? Spent two hours there. the emotional load that I felt just relieved, as I just processed through the things to praise God for, ask Him for, repent of, to yield. Not everyone's going to be as good as Buddy. Stop. This doesn't happen all the time. But this is recently that something happened. I didn't realize how bad I needed it. because it had been that long. And I just realized there are these little spontaneous gifts. Another example is something gets canceled, a meeting at work. So I get my work done, dude. I'm productive. So I don't need to just find work that doesn't need to be done. I can go take an extra 20 minutes to check in with my wife, give her a phone call if I'm not in the office or walk across the house if I'm working from home. So I said that backwards, but you know what I'm saying? No, I you. If I'm out of the house, I give her a call. If I'm here, I'll talk with her. or if there's a short project I can do, if I can get home a few minutes early, whatever it is, there are these little things that happen where appointments get canceled or things free up. How are you using that? Are you just filling that up with something to be busy or are you gonna capitalize on that margin for something that's delightful? Key, we've already mentioned it several times. Don't figure it out in a moment. Plan what you're gonna do with those moments. Because for me, all I had to do was, because I get little moments like that throughout the day at the gym, and I've wasted a lot of time, because it's just like, well, I guess I'll just Twitter, or classic, ESPN app, news flash. There's no sports going on right now. It's baseball season. and golf. Just wait until August. There's nothing here. Zach is gonna kill you. Yeah, that's fine. Golf's fine, but there's not enough. There's not enough going on. to Stingray Rob. Yeah, racing, sorry. There's no traditional... But you don't need to be on that app, dude. No, I don't. It's just eating up your mind. I mean, because I'm a good Christian who got rid of social media, I... Good for you. Yeah, but also we do want a follow and subscribe like and comment. Watch the Reels. So don't hear me saying that. I will sit there and refresh my email. Yeah. I'm hoping something stimulating... pops up, ⁓ something, a new set of golf clubs. I don't know. That's literally not anything I've ever thought about before. I don't know why that popped into my head. ⁓ I don't know. Something stimulating, something fun, either from like, I follow some people on Substack or whatever, like an author or something like that. New update about the books he's releasing. Had to make myself sound better. Yeah, that sounded a lot cooler and little bit Way better. But we all know, like, someone hands you 10 minutes. Do you know what to do with it? Yeah. Like, yeah, ringing it back in, plan what you're gonna do in those 10 minutes beforehand. Sometimes just go for a walk. Yeah. Don't do anything. Yeah, don't do anything. And like, you're gonna be a better dad because your capacity is- Don't take your phone with you to the restroom. Yeah, dude. There ain't no Every now and again. Unless you're doing the word old, that's fine. No, that's so eight years ago. We gotta keep this under an hour. We're gonna wrap it up. So dads, know, whether it's creating a stopping time for work, limiting the activities, like your kids don't need to be in activity every night of the week. ⁓ Waking up a little early, like you talked about, have a little margin. You want time by yourself, get up 15, 20 minutes early. Date night with the wife, date day with the kids. Dude, you're not quite old enough there, but roaming here in a little bit, you guys will trade off like, hey, I'm take you for four hours. That's the intentional margin, man, where, ⁓ my gosh, man, you just dream of days like that as a dad. But plan that out, be intentional. Reese, bring us home. Give the people just a few things to... kind of chew on, ⁓ there's one more section. This is important. I'm gonna keep it real brief. We're not gonna edit that part out. ⁓ The last thing I wanna say is margin doesn't happen by accident. So ⁓ you have to ask for help because margin doesn't happen by accident and what it requires is something other than just your own power to often find that margin. So what I mean by asking for help, it's in-laws. margin doesn't happen by accident and what it requires is something other than just your own power to often find that margin. So what I mean by asking for help, it's in-laws. It's babysitters, it's your boss, it's coworkers, it's all these different people in your life that you need to go to and say, hey, I need a date night with my wife, can you cover for me? Or I am drowning in work right now and I have no capacity and margin in my life, something needs to change at my workplace. It's babysitters, it's your boss, it's coworkers, it's all these different people in your life that you need to go to and say, hey, I need a date night with my wife, can you cover for me? Or I am drowning in work right now and I have no capacity and margin in my life, something needs to change at my workplace. A neighbor, when life throws you a curve ball and you're puking your guts out and you need someone to mow your grass and you just say, hey, I'm sick in July, it makes no sense, but can you... Can you help me out? Can you help me mow my grass? Because I'm just, I have no margin in my life right now. So the key idea there is like, ⁓ margin is not selfish and asking for help for some margin in your life is not selfish. It's necessary. It's needed. And to be a more present, to be a patient dad, to be an effective dad, you need your wife, your friends, your in-laws, your boss, your coworkers, your neighbors around you to come alongside. And we, dads, we have to humble ourselves to ask for that margin. ⁓ So ⁓ the key idea there is like, ⁓ margin is not selfish ⁓ and asking for help for some margin in your life is selfish. It's necessary. It's needed. And to be a more present, be a patient dad, to be an effective dad, you need your wife, your friends, your in-laws, your boss, your coworkers, your neighbors around you to come alongside. And we, dads, we have to humble ourselves to ask for that margin. I was going go through some examples of people real quick, 30 seconds. Who are you asking for margin in your life right now? I said, who don't I? That's what I wrote down. Who don't I get asked or need help from for margin in my a tribe, dude. It does. And as someone who truly has a testimony of being raised by the village, I mean, I still feel like the village is there for me. A little bit different. I live in Indianapolis now, but like my family back home too. And most the world operates that way, by the way. Yeah. Tons of people, again, I mentioned childcare earlier. We got people taking PTO days to watch my son. It's amazing. So yeah, I'm truly blessed in that way. really, there are too many people to give specifics. This is like one of those awards speeches. yeah. don't, everybody, it truly is. All my local family members, people from far away. I mean, I got grandparents that tried to pretend that a quarter of a cow costs $100 whenever we bought it. Yeah, just to hook us up that kind of stuff my grandpa does all of our all the work on our cars or most most of the work that he can do on our cars Obviously, not all this is margin stuff. But so I mean the car stuff's great. Yeah, I mean that's super helpful ⁓ But yeah, I mean truly I could there there are a lot of people and not everyone's near the in-laws we moved to Indiana to being near our awesome in-laws because we knew we needed help to have some margin. But you can get creative. There's other ways to ask for people if your parents aren't around. I got great coworkers too. People that would step in if I needed it and vice versa. Co-workers at work, neighbors that you're getting to know some. Hopefully people if you're a part of a faith-based community that you trust that can help ⁓ in a lot of ways, not just babysitting. ⁓ anyways, I think those examples are really helpful for the people to hear. And I did want to hit that briefly of like, cannot create this margin alone. Your first conversation probably needs to be with your wife and figuring out how to work together and how you can help one another to create margin individually and then look outside your home. So Reese, bring it home. What are just a few questions people can be chewing on? These will be also in the description of the pod. If you guys want to go through this and reflect this week. Yeah. Questions to be thinking about this week based on the pod. Where am I tired from good work? ⁓ Again, those places you've invested that are beneficial, gonna be good for you and good for others. ⁓ Where am I tired? Cause I have no margin. What is one thing I can remove this week to create margin? Doesn't need to be something big. I'm a classic bite off more than I can chew. Start somewhere. ⁓ How can I ask for help to create margin in my life? If you don't know how to do it. We just gave you all the answers. But because we've nailed all of this. Yes. I'm pretty much pretty much on point with it. But ask ask somebody in your life, somebody trust someone that you think does a good job of this. Just talk to them about it. That's a great point. Someone 10 plus years older than you that you're like they're productive, but they seem non-stressed. I want people to look at me. He's a non-anxious presence that still gets stuff done. I'm not there yet, but there are some people that fit close to that mold. Ask them what they do, man. What's their life like? Yeah, I like that. for sure. Cool. And then close this out, just hit us with a quote. Don't stop being a hard-working dad, stop being an exhausted one, build in some margin. We can't eliminate all our responsibilities, I've tried, but we can learn to live with rhythm, rest, and margin so exhaustion doesn't steal the joy from our fatherhood. There's joy at stake, man. That's a joy at stake. Pray for the people. Pray over y'all. Dear sweet eight pound, six ounce baby Jesus. Bro, we're out of pocket. Jesus, ⁓ we love you. ⁓ I have a great reverence for you despite the opening of that prayer. ⁓ I just pray that you would enter in to people's lives, ours especially, Lord, just. Lord, you were one of the busiest people. Yet it says that you found time, you found spaces to just be with the Father and just spend time with Him. Lord, I pray that you would help us find that same time, because we know you're not withholding it. So Lord, I pray that you would help us implement. This wouldn't just be something that we listen to, that we hear about, or that ⁓ the three of us talk about right down and then don't implement into our own lives. I pray that. you would help us implement it and that it would be something that blesses the people around us, blesses our own lives, Lord, and... I just pray over anybody that's listening to this Lord that you wouldn't let this be something they have to white-knuckle or something that they have to do on their own but that you would give them the help that they need in order to in order to build margin in their lives. We love you. We don't deserve you. Just joyful to be in your presence. In your name we pray. Amen. Amen. Thank you, Reese. Thank you, dads. Y'all got this. Have a great week.