Latest / Badass Confidence Coach | Your Personal Trainer for Your Mind / 305. Raising Daughters as a Single Dad Without Losing Your Cool | Michael Steven

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305. Raising Daughters as a Single Dad Without Losing Your Cool | Michael Steven · Badass Confidence Coach | Your Personal Trainer for Your Mind

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_00: Hey everyone, welcome to the podcast, or welcome back to the podcast if you were a longtime watcher on YouTube or a listener.
• 0:15
  SPEAKER_00: So today I have another guest, and you all know that I don't have a lot of guests on the podcast.
• 0:21
  SPEAKER_00: But when I find somebody who comes through me in social media, TikTok, Instagram, or anywhere, Facebook, and they pique my interest and my curiosity, I want to share that with all of you because I feel like if I'm interested in someone, then the rest of you would be as well.
• 0:38
  SPEAKER_00: So, and this is someone who is talking about something that I think is unique.
• 0:43
  SPEAKER_00: It's very niche down, and something I think we need to talk about more of.
• 0:47
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm so happy and appreciative that you are doing this.
• 0:50
  SPEAKER_00: So welcome to the podcast, Michael Steven.
• 0:53
  SPEAKER_01: I appreciate you having me.
• 0:54
  SPEAKER_01: Thank you so much.
• 0:55
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, so Michael is a coach for dads of single dads or married dads really of girls.
• 1:03
  SPEAKER_00: So I love that.
• 1:04
  SPEAKER_00: And I think it's just so different and awesome that you're doing this work.
• 1:10
  SPEAKER_00: So tell us a little bit more about you and how you got into this field of coaching.
• 1:16
  SPEAKER_01: At some point over the course of my mid-30s, 2020, I had a lot of time to think in that time period, as a lot of us did.
• 1:24
  SPEAKER_01: I said, What am I great at?
• 1:27
  SPEAKER_01: What do I want my legacy to be?
• 1:28
  SPEAKER_01: Where can I most where can I give value to the world?
• 1:32
  SPEAKER_01: Where can I really truly use and leverage my life to give back and really just make the most of my life and what I'm doing on this earth?
• 1:44
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 1:44
  SPEAKER_01: Not to get all grandiose, but that's that's what I was thinking about.
• 1:47
  SPEAKER_01: And I'm like, you know what?
• 1:48
  SPEAKER_01: I've been a girl dad for a long time.
• 1:51
  SPEAKER_01: At this point, at the time of this interview, my daughter's 16, and unfortunately, her mother and I did not work out.
• 1:59
  SPEAKER_01: We broke up when she was one, so I have had 50-50 custody for 15 years.
• 2:03
  SPEAKER_01: And the amount of knowledge that I have gained over that time period, I realized I'm like, there are so many men out there that can use this.
• 2:13
  SPEAKER_01: There are so many things that I wish that I, the guidance I wish I had back when my daughter was two, three, four years old, I want to give that out to men for the rest of my life.
• 2:24
  SPEAKER_00: Wow.
• 2:24
  SPEAKER_00: Well, that's why I'm interested in this, because I think that something that was happening inside of you way back when, when your daughter was a little girl, got you to where you are today.
• 2:37
  SPEAKER_00: But what is it that what is it that you learned, what is it that you gleaned about being a single dad of a little girl that made you want to put a message out into the world for other for other men?
• 2:50
  SPEAKER_01: I think firstly it was understanding that we only exist in the perspective that we see.
• 2:57
  SPEAKER_01: So what only what we experience in our lives and what we see in our lives and don't see that forms our reality.
• 3:05
  SPEAKER_01: And my reality growing up was I just had a brother.
• 3:08
  SPEAKER_01: So I didn't know anything about having having girls or raising girls.
• 3:12
  SPEAKER_01: I wasn't necessarily good with women when I was younger because I had a lot of skin issues and I struggled with confidence.
• 3:18
  SPEAKER_01: So I really didn't know much about women until I got to be an adult.
• 3:21
  SPEAKER_01: And next thing you know, I have a daughter.
• 3:24
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 3:24
  SPEAKER_01: Now I have to learn how to see the world through her perspective.
• 3:28
  SPEAKER_01: And that's such a that took so many years to say, like, oh, okay, I'm a man, I see things this way, but now I'm looking at it through her lens.
• 3:38
  SPEAKER_01: And it's one thing when you have her mother in the house with you.
• 3:43
  unknown: Right.
• 3:43
  SPEAKER_01: It's another when you are doing it by yourself.
• 3:46
  SPEAKER_01: That's a whole different dynamic that forces you to look inward and say, okay, how can I, how can I be the best man for her?
• 3:56
  SPEAKER_01: How can I give her the best chance at happiness?
• 3:59
  SPEAKER_00: Well, it's it says a lot about you, Michael, that you're even thinking like this because there are a lot of men, dads and moms who are not saying to themselves, how do I give my my son, my daughter, my little toddler preschooler the best chance at life?
• 4:15
  SPEAKER_00: And how can I work?
• 4:16
  SPEAKER_00: And so because it sounds like what you did was you worked on yourself.
• 4:19
  SPEAKER_00: And so, you know, you're to be commended for that because I think more people need to do and have the attitude that you had and that you have today.
• 4:28
  SPEAKER_00: So, you know, kudos to you.
• 4:30
  SPEAKER_00: Did you have the modeling to parent?
• 4:34
  SPEAKER_00: Did you learn that from your parents?
• 4:36
  SPEAKER_00: Where did that come from?
• 4:37
  SPEAKER_00: You you saying to yourself, okay, I gotta, I wanna make sure I do this right, I want to make sure I do this better.
• 4:43
  SPEAKER_00: Where'd you get that from?
• 4:45
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, my parents.
• 4:46
  SPEAKER_01: I actually joked about this to a friend the other day, and I was like, you know, I was the first person in my adult life that I knew well to have a child.
• 4:55
  SPEAKER_01: Meaning, I didn't have anybody else, not even a friendly acquaintance that had a kid when I did when I was 25.
• 5:02
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 5:02
  SPEAKER_01: So what did I have to do?
• 5:04
  SPEAKER_01: Well, I had to leverage the way my parents treated me.
• 5:06
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, my parents have been together for over 40 years.
• 5:10
  SPEAKER_01: They they did a great job raising me.
• 5:12
  SPEAKER_01: They both worked.
• 5:13
  SPEAKER_01: My dad sacrificed, you know, he he always said, Hey, I want to live within 20 minutes when we moved out to uh central New Jersey like we did here.
• 5:21
  SPEAKER_01: He said, I want to live within 20 minutes of where my job is.
• 5:25
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, and and they tried to better deal here, you know, better deal there.
• 5:29
  SPEAKER_01: He's like, no, 20 minutes because I want to, I don't want to, you know, rise up in the corporate ranks.
• 5:34
  SPEAKER_01: I want to make good money, but I want to be there for my son and always be at all his sports games and play stuff with him and go places with him.
• 5:41
  SPEAKER_01: And my mom did the same thing, except she would always come home and cook food for us.
• 5:45
  SPEAKER_01: Like, so I had that foundation of two working parents that put kind of put it in my head and showed me, hey, you this is how you balance life.
• 5:54
  SPEAKER_01: Like, hey, you need to make money, but you also need to be present.
• 5:58
  SPEAKER_00: Well, family was a value, obviously, of your father and your mother, and they put you first.
• 6:04
  SPEAKER_00: And I love that.
• 6:05
  SPEAKER_00: I don't want to be more than 20 minutes, and that's sort of what my husband and I have done as well.
• 6:09
  SPEAKER_00: That I don't want to spend 45 minutes to an hour in the car one way every day because that really cuts into, especially in the evenings, it cuts into time with your kid, right?
• 6:19
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah so okay, so you did receive modeling from your mom and dad.
• 6:22
  SPEAKER_00: They they were like your rudder, but here you are, 25 years old.
• 6:28
  SPEAKER_00: You're 26 years old, you have a one-year-old, you and her mom don't work out, years go by, and you're parenting a two-year-old, three-year-old, four-year-old, five-year-old, you're probably doing drop-off pickup, the times that you have her.
• 6:43
  SPEAKER_00: What are the issues that came up at that time that kind of just drove you nuts about her mom?
• 6:47
  SPEAKER_00: Because that I'm divorced, that happens, let's be real.
• 6:50
  SPEAKER_00: That happens.
• 6:52
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I'll I'll first off say that there's generalizations do exist for a reason with men and women, but back to what I said about perspective, like a lot of people form their worldview based just on their lives and their limited view of everything.
• 7:06
  SPEAKER_01: So, you know, I there's things that I definitely could have done better back then, but you know, I think there's also things that I think her mom could have done a lot better.
• 7:14
  SPEAKER_01: And one of the things that I I talk about a lot is kind of like the energy shift that happens when my daughter would go from her mother's house to my house.
• 7:23
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 7:24
  SPEAKER_01: And and I remember I talked to my dad about it, and my dad didn't, you know, my dad had two sisters growing up, fortunately.
• 7:29
  SPEAKER_01: So he understood a little bit about about having you know young girls, and he was like, listen, when she comes back from her mom's, you gotta realize she was there for for two days.
• 7:38
  SPEAKER_01: Now she's coming to you.
• 7:39
  SPEAKER_01: You gotta give her 20 minutes, you gotta give her 30 minutes, and yeah, and that sounds so simple, but that is really hard because she gets in my car and I just want to like just just talk with her and be with her.
• 7:50
  SPEAKER_01: And then I'm like, Well, where'd that attitude come from?
• 7:53
  SPEAKER_01: Why are you talking like that?
• 7:55
  SPEAKER_01: Why did you say that?
• 7:56
  SPEAKER_01: And I was like, wait, that's not something that you would say.
• 7:59
  SPEAKER_01: You're three years old.
• 8:00
  SPEAKER_01: It doesn't sound like you would say that, or that it's an organic thought from you.
• 8:04
  SPEAKER_01: So it became like a real, like, I had no choice but to become like very philosophical and and stoic as a man to deal with that.
• 8:15
  SPEAKER_00: Well, how did you do that?
• 8:16
  SPEAKER_00: Because that's really, really hard.
• 8:21
  SPEAKER_01: Uh personally, what I what I would do is I'd lift weights and play sports.
• 8:26
  SPEAKER_01: And yeah, and I say I you need an outlet.
• 8:29
  SPEAKER_01: You need an outlet, and and a lot of men turn to to women for that.
• 8:34
  SPEAKER_01: Like, oh, I want to go get that need met.
• 8:36
  SPEAKER_01: And I I that it does have a an effect, yes, may it may help you a little bit, but I I truly think like that that's could create its own problems if you do that the wrong way.
• 8:46
  SPEAKER_01: So personally, I said, I'm gonna get back to the things that I love doing as a boy.
• 8:50
  SPEAKER_01: I love playing baseball, so I'm gonna play slow pitch softball with my friends in the community.
• 8:55
  SPEAKER_01: I'm gonna play pickup basketball, I'm gonna go lift some weights.
• 8:58
  SPEAKER_01: And then when I did that, it did two things.
• 9:00
  SPEAKER_01: It act actually it regulated my energy and it brought me like joy and a place to let off steam.
• 9:07
  SPEAKER_01: And then I met fathers that I didn't know before.
• 9:11
  SPEAKER_01: So now I had other guys to like, you know, you could do a workout together and you could just rant about these things and you get ideas.
• 9:16
  SPEAKER_01: Yes.
• 9:17
  SPEAKER_01: Like, like I think that's really important for men to do that in a healthy way.
• 9:21
  SPEAKER_01: Not not gossiping, not bad mouthing your kid's mom so much as just trying to figure out okay, how do I deal with the situation?
• 9:28
  SPEAKER_00: Wow.
• 9:29
  SPEAKER_00: Well, you just said a lot there.
• 9:30
  SPEAKER_00: So you talked about the importance of community, the importance of having same-sex male guy friends, the importance of knowing other men who are dads.
• 9:41
  SPEAKER_00: I love what you just said about regulation.
• 9:43
  SPEAKER_00: I don't even realize, no, if you realize you're talking about the import importance of nervous system regulation that you you probably were getting dysregulated in the car when she gets in, and you're like, tell me about the weekend.
• 9:56
  SPEAKER_00: And then she's like saying something.
• 9:58
  SPEAKER_00: What you said really hit me of I remember when the kids would get in the car.
• 10:03
  SPEAKER_00: I was remarried, and my husband's kids were little, and they would get in the car and they would say things, and I'm like, that did not come from them.
• 10:12
  SPEAKER_00: They are four years old, they are six years old.
• 10:15
  SPEAKER_00: And it's hard because you knew it came from the other parent.
• 10:19
  SPEAKER_00: What they had heard over the weekend, whether it be it was said directly to my stepkids, or they were in the room and it was being spoken about with other adults and they were listening and the parents weren't paying attention to.
• 10:30
  SPEAKER_00: Like I say to my clients all the time who are going through divorces, whether it be my therapy clients or my coaching clients, remember the kids have big ears.
• 10:39
  SPEAKER_00: You think they're not listening, you think they're over there playing with their Legos, or they're over there like in the in the room and they can't hear you.
• 10:45
  SPEAKER_00: Uh-uh.
• 10:46
  SPEAKER_00: They listen, they have big ears.
• 10:48
  SPEAKER_00: They're listening to what the big people are saying.
• 10:50
  SPEAKER_00: You don't think for a second.
• 10:51
  SPEAKER_00: They're smart.
• 10:52
  SPEAKER_00: They know.
• 10:53
  SPEAKER_00: They pick up on the energy, they pick up on, you know, what's going on in the room.
• 10:57
  SPEAKER_00: And so I would, I would hear, you know, my stepsons make comments, and I'm like, that's not from them.
• 11:03
  SPEAKER_00: They wouldn't even, where'd they even get that word?
• 11:06
  SPEAKER_00: So it can be very agitating or uh activating as a parent or a stepparent when that's going on.
• 11:13
  SPEAKER_00: And I would tell my husband at the time, and I would tell it to myself, take the high road, you know, take the take the high road, take the high road.
• 11:22
  SPEAKER_00: Because it's it's not that we don't get upset, it's what we do with it.
• 11:27
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 11:28
  SPEAKER_00: But do you do you did does that resonate at all for you?
• 11:31
  SPEAKER_01: Now I know why my daughters love Lego.
• 11:33
  SPEAKER_01: I miss said that one.
• 11:34
  SPEAKER_01: Now I know why my daughter loves Legos so much.
• 11:37
  SPEAKER_01: Because she could just sit there and no, no, she she did.
• 11:40
  SPEAKER_01: I got I got Legos all around the house.
• 11:41
  SPEAKER_01: You can't see them.
• 11:42
  SPEAKER_01: This this thing behind me that I use for my podcast, it was supposed to be for her whole Legos, but there's like six other of them over there.
• 11:48
  SPEAKER_02: Oh, that's so funny.
• 11:49
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I that's that's a great dad-daughter activity, by the way.
• 11:52
  SPEAKER_01: I just sort all the Legos by colors and stuff, and then she does them.
• 11:56
  SPEAKER_01: She creates, and then we just talk.
• 11:58
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, that's wonderful.
• 11:59
  SPEAKER_01: We still do it.
• 12:00
  SPEAKER_01: The hardest part is to not take it out on your kid.
• 12:05
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 12:05
  SPEAKER_01: Or or or start ripping the other side.
• 12:09
  SPEAKER_01: Like, and I'm not saying that I I don't think I handled it perfectly in my late 20s.
• 12:13
  SPEAKER_01: I'm I'm sure I said, like, well, what do you mean?
• 12:15
  SPEAKER_01: Well, why would you say that?
• 12:16
  SPEAKER_01: Like, I'm sure I had a more of a uh an emotional reaction versus a stoic response.
• 12:22
  SPEAKER_00: It's very human.
• 12:23
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, human.
• 12:24
  SPEAKER_01: And and I learned that, and I and I learned how to regulate myself.
• 12:28
  SPEAKER_01: And I was like, okay, then I learned how to start asking questions.
• 12:30
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, so so why do you feel that way?
• 12:33
  SPEAKER_01: You know, you know, tell me more.
• 12:34
  SPEAKER_01: Like, well, so what do you what are you saying there?
• 12:37
  SPEAKER_01: And just so kind of just like digging deeper into why she feels that way.
• 12:40
  SPEAKER_01: And then she starts realizing, like, oh, dad is not getting mad, dad cares about what I'm saying.
• 12:47
  SPEAKER_01: And then I think over time, and this is just my personal situation and guys that I've talked to, I think over time the daughter will realize, like, oh, like maybe dad's right.
• 12:58
  SPEAKER_01: Dad's not getting bothered by this, he's not getting all defensive.
• 13:01
  SPEAKER_01: And I think it's human nature to know that if someone gets defensive, they usually got something to hide, right?
• 13:05
  SPEAKER_01: Something they don't want people to know.
• 13:07
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 13:07
  SPEAKER_01: People stay calm.
• 13:08
  SPEAKER_01: And when you we didn't do anything wrong here, you're much better off just kind of and especially when your kid is young.
• 13:15
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 13:16
  SPEAKER_01: You know, but even when they're even when they're teenagers, it's the same, it's just it's just a little different because they're, you know, now they're like many adults.
• 13:22
  SPEAKER_00: But you know, when I was going through my divorce many years ago, I'll never forget the woman that I would consult with as a therapist.
• 13:30
  SPEAKER_00: I'd consult with her on my cases, and I, you know, I would go to her and we would talk about my cases.
• 13:37
  SPEAKER_00: So it was very much about work.
• 13:39
  SPEAKER_00: But I remember mentioning to her in a meeting, like I was down or having a hard day, and and trying to like make sure that what I was going through my personal life was not coming into the therapy space, wasn't affecting the work I was doing with my clients.
• 13:53
  SPEAKER_00: And I mentioned it to her, and she said to me, Anna, no matter what you do, as best you can, do not talk about their father to in front of them and don't talk about their father to them.
• 14:04
  SPEAKER_00: Like, don't talk about the divorce, don't talk about the breakup, anything going on with it to them or around them.
• 14:10
  SPEAKER_00: Like I just said, I tell people not to do that.
• 14:12
  SPEAKER_00: And this is one of the reasons why, because she was this wise master's level therapist I had the utmost of respect for.
• 14:20
  SPEAKER_00: And I listened to her, she was also divorced.
• 14:23
  SPEAKER_00: And so she and she shared with me, listen, I got divorced and my kids were very little.
• 14:28
  SPEAKER_00: And I I knew not to speak about them, speak disparagingly about their father in front of them or with it, you know, to them or with an earshot.
• 14:38
  SPEAKER_00: And she said, somebody told me many years ago they will figure it out on their own.
• 14:44
  SPEAKER_00: The things that maybe you're upset about or their character flaws, they will see that on their own when they get older.
• 14:48
  SPEAKER_00: So try your best to bite your tongue, even though it's gonna be hard for you and you're not gonna feel like it, bite your tongue.
• 14:55
  SPEAKER_00: And I remembered that and I tried my best.
• 14:57
  SPEAKER_00: I'm like, like you, I wasn't perfect.
• 14:59
  SPEAKER_00: I'm sure I made comments, maybe I had sarcastic comments, tried not to, and I'm sure I did.
• 15:03
  SPEAKER_00: I'm sure if I asked the kids who are adults now, they'd be like, no, you did say things.
• 15:08
  SPEAKER_00: Tried not to, though.
• 15:09
  SPEAKER_00: And I think that there's so much truth to that because she said at that time her daughter was in her late 20s and getting married.
• 15:16
  SPEAKER_00: And she said, I tried not to speak about them, and it's all coming out now.
• 15:20
  SPEAKER_00: It's all coming to fruition because here's the wedding planning, and he's doing to her what he did to me 25 years ago.
• 15:27
  SPEAKER_00: He's doing it to her.
• 15:29
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, okay.
• 15:29
  SPEAKER_00: As far as like really getting just, I don't know, crotchety or about money, and there was a lot of money in this family.
• 15:36
  SPEAKER_00: Just issues that she's like, see?
• 15:38
  SPEAKER_00: And now my daughter's calling me, mom, dad's this and dad's that.
• 15:42
  SPEAKER_00: And she's like, Yeah, you gotta, you know, she you gotta go talk to your therapist about it, and you gotta figure out a way to talk to your dad.
• 15:49
  SPEAKER_00: I'm not a part of this anymore.
• 15:50
  SPEAKER_00: Your dad's paying for this wedding and you got stuff with him, you gotta work it out.
• 15:54
  SPEAKER_00: She said, It's happening, but she and I never forgot that.
• 15:58
  SPEAKER_00: And it's kind of what you're doing, but you didn't have anybody to tell you really to do that.
• 16:04
  SPEAKER_00: So that's why, and maybe the guys at the softball field like it.
• 16:07
  SPEAKER_00: That's that's pretty cool, Michael.
• 16:10
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, it's how it worked out.
• 16:11
  SPEAKER_01: Like I ended up leveraging the things that I love, and I still play on these teams and play with these guys.
• 16:16
  SPEAKER_01: I've known some guys 15, 20 years, and then some people you you know, you meet new friends.
• 16:21
  SPEAKER_01: Like I've met a whole new friends recently, but the old guys are still there if I have any questions.
• 16:26
  SPEAKER_01: But I think it's more of just who I am as a person.
• 16:29
  SPEAKER_01: I've discovered I'm just a very introspective person.
• 16:33
  SPEAKER_01: I'm always looking for deeper meanings.
• 16:35
  SPEAKER_01: Like when you just brought up that point about money, like I'll I'll be able to tell, like, when I'm getting upset about something and want to lash out because hey, I paid a lot of money for something and now you're giving me attitude.
• 16:46
  SPEAKER_01: And I try to explain that to my daughter.
• 16:48
  SPEAKER_01: And I'm like, yo, when if if I'm getting stressed about money or your mom's getting stressed about money, or or money's just an important factor, obviously, but it could be anything.
• 16:56
  SPEAKER_01: When there's underlying things that are affecting your, like you said, nervous system, it will come out and manifest itself.
• 17:03
  SPEAKER_01: If you don't get enough sleep, if you're stressed at work, it's that type of like way that I've been and now I've I've learned like, okay, a lot of these people that I talked about helped me, but now I want to look for more people that can challenge me to go even deeper into even people like yourself.
• 17:19
  SPEAKER_01: Like, I'm looking for people in my life to like really say, okay, you're at this level of like philosophy and introspection.
• 17:26
  SPEAKER_01: Let's get let's get even higher.
• 17:28
  SPEAKER_00: Well, that so that and that's a statement about you.
• 17:31
  SPEAKER_00: So you are uh you you have wisdom and you're obviously interested and evolving and and bettering yourself.
• 17:39
  SPEAKER_00: So, you know, really that that's about you.
• 17:41
  SPEAKER_00: You know, and I want to ask you, you said in a in a post, I think I saw it on TikTok a few months ago, this is one of the reasons why I reached out to you, and I because I loved it.
• 17:51
  SPEAKER_00: You said to to the men that you're speaking to, your audience, work on your stuff, work on your shit, basically.
• 17:59
  SPEAKER_00: Don't put that on your kid.
• 18:00
  SPEAKER_00: You know, you were talking about work on the stuff with your mom, work on your own stuff in your life, maybe your unresolved issues, maybe from your whatever childhood, whatever.
• 18:08
  SPEAKER_00: Work on your stuff before you don't don't take it out on somebody else.
• 18:12
  SPEAKER_00: And that and the gist is what you were saying.
• 18:15
  SPEAKER_00: Let can you speak about that a little bit and and how it maybe has shown up in your life?
• 18:20
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, personally, the first thing is accountability.
• 18:23
  SPEAKER_01: I have to take accountability for the person that I created a child with.
• 18:28
  SPEAKER_01: And that sounds easy on the surface, but it's not.
• 18:32
  SPEAKER_01: And I was even speaking to a dad that I'm working with currently, and I'm like, it's a different energy if you are you're married, let's say you're together for five years, you get married, you have a kid, and then you break up in 10 years.
• 18:45
  SPEAKER_01: That's different.
• 18:47
  SPEAKER_01: It hurts, obviously, in a different way than my situation hurts, which is I was with somebody for less than a year, then she got pregnant, then we had a kid, and then we broke up in a year.
• 18:59
  SPEAKER_01: That's a whole different, like, it's a different energy.
• 19:01
  SPEAKER_01: It's both you love your kid the same, obviously, but it's just a different dynamic.
• 19:06
  SPEAKER_02: Right.
• 19:06
  SPEAKER_01: And you have to be accountable for the fact that, hey, maybe this wasn't my person.
• 19:10
  SPEAKER_01: And I and it's that dichotomy of me and this person were not meant to work out, but we created the most important part of our lives, which is our daughter.
• 19:20
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 19:20
  SPEAKER_01: And it's it's that coming to that understanding.
• 19:23
  SPEAKER_01: That's number one, taking accountability and understanding that, hey, I didn't work out with that person, so I'm gonna get what I call negative dividends.
• 19:30
  SPEAKER_01: Like sometimes my daughter starts acting a certain way, and it's like, well, yeah, you know, I used to be a certain way, her mom is a certain way, you know.
• 19:38
  SPEAKER_01: And then I made the mistake of telling my daughter.
• 19:40
  SPEAKER_01: I had some comedy here.
• 19:41
  SPEAKER_01: I made the mistake of telling my daughter that one time, and she's like, Well, you know, you told me, Dad, that you know, I'm I'm a product of you and mom, so that's why.
• 19:48
  SPEAKER_01: It's your fault.
• 19:49
  SPEAKER_01: She kind of put it back on you.
• 19:51
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, she's she's really smart.
• 19:53
  SPEAKER_01: She she needs to get into sales, she's hilarious.
• 19:55
  SPEAKER_01: She's she's real, she's quicker than me on her feet.
• 19:59
  SPEAKER_01: So that's part one, just being accountable.
• 20:01
  SPEAKER_01: But number two is okay, so you cannot control what the other person does, especially you can't control what what they do with your kid over there, and you cannot control how they speak to you.
• 20:12
  SPEAKER_01: But if you control your reactions over time, it's human nature, they will not be able to control you as much, right?
• 20:24
  SPEAKER_01: Because you are not, you're more of a pillar.
• 20:26
  SPEAKER_01: You're you're an emotional, like you're oh you're you're not emotional.
• 20:30
  SPEAKER_01: You you know how to deal with that.
• 20:32
  SPEAKER_01: So if you control your reactions, you know, over the months, years, eventually it will affect the way they communicate with you.
• 20:42
  SPEAKER_01: And I think that's the biggest piece.
• 20:43
  SPEAKER_01: That's what I have learned.
• 20:45
  SPEAKER_01: I've I've like my me and my daughter's mother very rarely argue anymore.
• 20:49
  SPEAKER_01: I don't see eye to eye with her and everything.
• 20:51
  SPEAKER_01: We agree on the big things.
• 20:52
  SPEAKER_01: There could be some future disagreements that we have now that we're heading up on the college years, right?
• 20:57
  SPEAKER_01: And then, you know, she's in high school and all that, but we communicate better, and I attribute a lot of that to the fact that I don't react as much as I used to.
• 21:06
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, you you are so you're responding, you're not reacting, and that's very different.
• 21:11
  SPEAKER_00: Reaction is like knee-jerk, like, uh, it's like in your head, out of your mouth.
• 21:16
  SPEAKER_00: Responding is in your head, let me take a breath, let me give this five minutes, and then and what you say is quite different than reacting, right?
• 21:25
  SPEAKER_00: So it's like when we just take that like two-minute break or minute break, like, okay, I'm gonna.
• 21:29
  SPEAKER_00: I always tell my clients, give yourself an adult timeout.
• 21:32
  SPEAKER_00: You know, seriously, give yourself an adult timeout.
• 21:35
  SPEAKER_00: Go with the case.
• 21:35
  SPEAKER_00: What's the problem?
• 21:36
  SPEAKER_01: Here's the problem, though.
• 21:37
  SPEAKER_01: I love caffeine, I love espresso.
• 21:40
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, it gets my brain firing, but then I can't shut my mouth.
• 21:44
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 21:44
  SPEAKER_01: Like I cut my and I catch myself and I'm like, oh, this everything you just said is like right on.
• 21:49
  SPEAKER_01: And then I like having the espresso, and then I just I can't stop talking.
• 21:53
  SPEAKER_00: I do too.
• 21:53
  SPEAKER_00: And I have tend to deficit, which is lovely, and I love my coffee.
• 21:57
  SPEAKER_00: So and I'm Italian, so I love to talk and use my.
• 22:00
  SPEAKER_00: And all that.
• 22:01
  SPEAKER_00: I got it all.
• 22:02
  SPEAKER_00: But you know, and it's and it's really practice.
• 22:06
  SPEAKER_00: That's a practice.
• 22:07
  SPEAKER_00: I think that, you know, I was seeing a client yesterday who's dealing with some different distractions in her life.
• 22:13
  SPEAKER_00: And she goes, and I've been seeing her for a while.
• 22:15
  SPEAKER_00: And I said, you know what's going to help with this.
• 22:17
  SPEAKER_00: She goes, I know, I know, Anna.
• 22:18
  SPEAKER_00: I know what you're going to say.
• 22:19
  SPEAKER_00: Meditation.
• 22:20
  SPEAKER_00: I'm like, yes, meditation.
• 22:22
  SPEAKER_00: And meditation has really worked for me with all of this because I'm like you.
• 22:26
  SPEAKER_00: I'm drinking my coffee and I I like to yap.
• 22:29
  SPEAKER_00: And meditation takes me out of it.
• 22:32
  SPEAKER_00: For it started out five minutes and now I'll go 20, 25, takes you out of it.
• 22:36
  SPEAKER_00: It really is game-changing what it does to our physiology and how it calms us down.
• 22:40
  SPEAKER_00: And so that it might be something just to think about because it's hard to do in the beginning.
• 22:44
  SPEAKER_00: It is hard for people who are like, get going and we like to talk and we and we love our caffeine.
• 22:50
  SPEAKER_00: And it's helpful.
• 22:50
  SPEAKER_00: And it's helpful before, like, you know, situations at work, meetings with colleagues, coworkers, your daughter, you know, maybe you have something coming up with her mom or whoever might be in your life.
• 23:00
  SPEAKER_00: You know, you got to have a conversation with someone.
• 23:02
  SPEAKER_00: Meditation's helpful.
• 23:04
  SPEAKER_00: So I just got to throw that out because I'm a huge advocate of it.
• 23:06
  SPEAKER_00: And it's really, really helped me so that I don't have to take meds for the attention deficit.
• 23:12
  SPEAKER_00: Do I drink tons of coffee in the morning now?
• 23:15
  SPEAKER_00: No, because I will start talking too fast.
• 23:19
  SPEAKER_00: I'll start talking fast to talk really fast.
• 23:21
  SPEAKER_00: And people in the podcast are like, what?
• 23:23
  SPEAKER_00: Can you say that again?
• 23:24
  SPEAKER_00: You said that really quickly.
• 23:25
  SPEAKER_00: Like, okay.
• 23:26
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 23:27
  SPEAKER_01: The self, that's self-awareness you got there.
• 23:29
  SPEAKER_01: And I like I was gonna have coffee before this, and I'm like, you know what?
• 23:32
  SPEAKER_01: Nope, I'm good.
• 23:33
  SPEAKER_01: I had espresso this morning.
• 23:35
  SPEAKER_01: I actually got up this morning to play with my daughter.
• 23:38
  SPEAKER_01: She's on a the varsity tennis team, and she wanted to warm up with me before she played a match today.
• 23:43
  SPEAKER_01: And I just think that's like the most beautiful thing.
• 23:45
  SPEAKER_01: That's wonderful.
• 23:46
  SPEAKER_00: And what a great outlet too for your energy, though.
• 23:48
  SPEAKER_00: Like that's actually a really nice substitute for the caffeine, is just do some warm-up drills with her for tennis.
• 23:54
  SPEAKER_00: That's awesome.
• 23:55
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 23:55
  SPEAKER_01: But here's the problem the courts were too wet, and I didn't want anyone to get hurt.
• 23:58
  SPEAKER_01: So then I had it.
• 23:59
  SPEAKER_01: Then I went and got espresso.
• 24:00
  SPEAKER_01: So, you know, whatever.
• 24:01
  SPEAKER_01: There you go.
• 24:02
  SPEAKER_01: It was just thought that accounts, and I'm just, you know, and and I never say, and I and I tell the story sometimes because I don't I never mean to brag.
• 24:08
  SPEAKER_01: It's more of just like, I want other dads to to understand the the the value of being present.
• 24:13
  SPEAKER_01: I don't see many dads even dropping their kid off, let alone no, no dad's gonna go out there and warm up with their kid at 6 30, 7 a.m.
• 24:19
  SPEAKER_01: in the morning.
• 24:20
  SPEAKER_00: Well, that's a thing, Michael.
• 24:21
  SPEAKER_00: That's a thing.
• 24:22
  SPEAKER_00: I was gonna say before, and you just said it, and then I was I was thinking the same thing.
• 24:25
  SPEAKER_00: It's like you're spending time with her.
• 24:27
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, what a gift you have given her.
• 24:30
  SPEAKER_00: This is a gift of of you as a father.
• 24:34
  SPEAKER_00: So many kids and daughters especially, they need their fathers and fathers, you know, the life we live today, it's 2026.
• 24:43
  SPEAKER_00: This is going on though, I think since the the 2000s.
• 24:46
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, we've said, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, you know, gotta work, gotta make the money, gotta do this, gotta do that.
• 24:52
  SPEAKER_00: And we're not quieting ourselves.
• 24:54
  SPEAKER_00: We're all on our phones, and I'm guilty of it.
• 24:56
  SPEAKER_00: We're all on, you know, staring at at these little computer screens that we're carrying around our pockets and in our purses.
• 25:02
  SPEAKER_00: And we're not spending time with our kids, whether that be 10 minutes in the car driving her or picking up from school from tennis practice, just like, hey, keep the radio down off your phone.
• 25:13
  SPEAKER_00: What's going on?
• 25:13
  SPEAKER_00: Let's talk.
• 25:14
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, sometimes they don't want to talk to you, and I get that.
• 25:17
  SPEAKER_00: But sometimes it's learning to sit together and and just be quiet and just being in silence.
• 25:22
  SPEAKER_00: Or, hey, I'll oh, sure, I'll go to the tennis courts with you, you know, and days when it's not raining and I'll hit balls with you, get you ready.
• 25:29
  SPEAKER_00: That's wonderful that you're doing that.
• 25:31
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, thank you.
• 25:32
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I just I look at it like it's a it's accomplishing many things at once.
• 25:36
  SPEAKER_01: I'm getting time with her, she's getting better, I'm staying in shape.
• 25:40
  SPEAKER_01: And, you know, I I actually went out, I just did a post about this.
• 25:44
  SPEAKER_01: I said when I showed my daughter, I I liked playing basketball as a kid and baseball and a little bit of football.
• 25:49
  SPEAKER_01: And I actually played tennis in high school because I wasn't confident enough to go out for the baseball team.
• 25:54
  SPEAKER_01: I didn't want to sit on a bench.
• 25:56
  SPEAKER_01: Oh and it worked, so it went full circle.
• 25:59
  SPEAKER_01: Where I was kind of just like, I was I was okay, but at least when I had a daughter, I'm like, I'm showing her every sport and giving her the opportunity to pick her favorite.
• 26:07
  SPEAKER_01: She picked soccer because she liked that the most, and that was her mom's favorite sport.
• 26:11
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 26:12
  SPEAKER_01: There could be a connection there.
• 26:13
  SPEAKER_01: Basketball was second, tennis was third, and then someday she was like five years ago, she's like, I really want to take tennis seriously.
• 26:19
  SPEAKER_01: I'm like, okay, now I'm gonna take tennis seriously.
• 26:22
  SPEAKER_01: So I'm gonna go play against players and get my butt kicked so that I can get really good and help you get Oh, that's great.
• 26:29
  SPEAKER_00: That's great.
• 26:30
  SPEAKER_01: And it's and it's so it sounds so simple, but it's like, well, why not?
• 26:34
  SPEAKER_01: And it's a fun game.
• 26:34
  SPEAKER_01: I don't, I'm like, I'm not playing golf.
• 26:36
  SPEAKER_01: Like, no, I'd rather if you get there's a good way to take your anger out.
• 26:40
  SPEAKER_01: Play tennis.
• 26:41
  SPEAKER_01: Because once she got really good, she's like, hit it.
• 26:43
  SPEAKER_01: It's like, Dad, stop taking it easy on me.
• 26:44
  SPEAKER_01: Hit it hard.
• 26:45
  SPEAKER_01: So then I'm like hitting the ball really, really hard, and she gets it back.
• 26:48
  SPEAKER_01: She does better when I do that.
• 26:50
  SPEAKER_01: And I'm like, well, if I do this in golf, I'm just gonna like shank all the balls all over the place.
• 26:53
  SPEAKER_01: Plus, it's a better workout, right?
• 26:55
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, I love I love the medium of sport to connect.
• 27:00
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, that's for me.
• 27:01
  SPEAKER_01: That's that's my kind of that's your thing.
• 27:03
  SPEAKER_01: That's my style.
• 27:04
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah, I love that too.
• 27:05
  SPEAKER_00: You know, the medium of using any type of sport to to spend more time with someone because, you know, as a I was a competitive triathlete for 20 years.
• 27:16
  SPEAKER_00: Sport's a huge part of my life as well.
• 27:19
  SPEAKER_00: And I don't, I'm not doing trathlon now, but running and lifting, but running, getting on a trail and running with people, it's unbelievable how intimate you get to know people and the connections with those.
• 27:32
  SPEAKER_00: Those are those are friends.
• 27:33
  SPEAKER_00: Those are some of my now, these are lifelong friends because we have spent mile after mile sweating and and doing hard things.
• 27:41
  SPEAKER_00: And then next thing you know, it's like you're talking about beyond the surface.
• 27:45
  SPEAKER_00: You're talking about what's really important to you in your life.
• 27:47
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe you're talking about your kids, you're talking about how your marriage isn't so great, you're talking about the stresses of taking care of your aging parents, you're talking about, you know, some horrible thing that happened in your neighbor's life, and you're just talking.
• 28:00
  SPEAKER_00: And that's the wonderful medium of physical activity and sport.
• 28:06
  SPEAKER_00: So, to your point about tennis with your daughter, wonderful.
• 28:09
  SPEAKER_00: You will you will always remember those, you will always remember this, and so will she.
• 28:14
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I'm I'm hoping she will.
• 28:15
  SPEAKER_01: No, I want to give a quick, quick, a quick plug.
• 28:18
  SPEAKER_01: This is a unique idea.
• 28:19
  SPEAKER_01: So I used to be scared of roller coasters when I was a kid because of the deep, I didn't like the drops.
• 28:25
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 28:25
  SPEAKER_01: Then as I my daughter started loving it, so we went to Hershey Park for the first time when she was eight, which is two hours away from us, and she wanted to sit in the front row, and I'm like, well, I guess I'm gonna love them now.
• 28:35
  SPEAKER_01: And now I do love them.
• 28:36
  SPEAKER_01: I just we just don't like like those free fall towers.
• 28:39
  SPEAKER_01: Yes, but other than that, that's our thing.
• 28:41
  SPEAKER_01: We go, we go to, you know, we drove out seven hours to go to Cedar Point one time for seven hours.
• 28:47
  SPEAKER_01: Did you really drove out there?
• 28:48
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, and we stayed for a couple of days and we loved it.
• 28:51
  SPEAKER_01: But the point is, is and I realize this, it's a great way to talk, especially now that they have metal detectors on some of these serious roller coasters.
• 28:58
  SPEAKER_01: So you got to put your phone away.
• 28:59
  SPEAKER_01: So she puts her phone away in the locker for like most of the day.
• 29:04
  SPEAKER_01: So now it's just me and her.
• 29:06
  SPEAKER_01: And she starts yelling at me when I'm on my phone, which is like a chip.
• 29:10
  SPEAKER_00: Dad, get off your phone.
• 29:11
  SPEAKER_00: That's awesome.
• 29:12
  SPEAKER_00: Actually, that's great suggestion, great plug.
• 29:17
  SPEAKER_01: I just thought of that.
• 29:17
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, they make you they and they have lockers now.
• 29:20
  SPEAKER_01: So you spend it's like a free locker for two hours, but then if you keep it too long, you gotta pay five dollars.
• 29:24
  SPEAKER_01: She's gonna move your stuff around for most of the day.
• 29:27
  SPEAKER_01: But you know, rather than have her phone, I can have like a cargo short and have my phone in it, and it's fine.
• 29:31
  SPEAKER_01: But like she can't, right?
• 29:33
  SPEAKER_01: So it's just a really good way.
• 29:35
  SPEAKER_01: And I remember we were at that that Cedar Point place in Ohio, she she started asking me about like introspective questions about me and mom, me and her mom.
• 29:42
  SPEAKER_01: And I was like, whoa, whoa, I don't want to go all down that that road, okay?
• 29:45
  SPEAKER_01: Like, I know you want to talk.
• 29:47
  SPEAKER_00: Right, right.
• 29:48
  SPEAKER_00: Well, the thing about the amusement parks, which I've never thought of before, but I went to them and love them growing up as well.
• 29:56
  SPEAKER_00: And I would go with my friends all the time.
• 29:58
  SPEAKER_00: You know, we would try to avoid the busy days, but there are times that you just couldn't.
• 30:02
  SPEAKER_00: And those long lines, we didn't have phones back then.
• 30:05
  SPEAKER_00: You just sat in those lines and and the turnstiles, you know, that went up and back.
• 30:09
  SPEAKER_00: You just sat in those lines and you kind of shoot the breeze with each other, screw around, laughing, small talk, and sometimes you're talking to people on the right or left of you, but that's what you did.
• 30:19
  SPEAKER_00: You just stood there and you talked.
• 30:21
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, and it's a good way to talk about the value of money too, because like we'll get the fast pass most of the time.
• 30:27
  SPEAKER_01: Sometimes we don't, but sometimes we do.
• 30:28
  SPEAKER_01: And it's like, well, this costs a lot of money, yeah.
• 30:31
  SPEAKER_01: But look, but hey, we can go on 50 rides versus 10.
• 30:34
  SPEAKER_01: I need you to number one appreciate this.
• 30:37
  SPEAKER_01: So I have no attitude.
• 30:38
  SPEAKER_01: And number two, this is it's kind of like a microcosm, because I'm, you know, me, I'm philosophical.
• 30:43
  SPEAKER_01: I'm like, look, it's a microcosm of life here.
• 30:44
  SPEAKER_01: Like you're going in first class past all these people, but that's that's the value of money.
• 30:48
  SPEAKER_01: Like, imagine you could do that in life.
• 30:50
  SPEAKER_01: That's a kind of like a motivational thing.
• 30:51
  SPEAKER_00: To really, yeah, it's a good point.
• 30:53
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, so I have some I have some questions that I wrote down.
• 30:56
  SPEAKER_01: Let's get to the good stuff.
• 30:57
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 30:58
  SPEAKER_00: No, this is all good stuff.
• 30:59
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, so my first question for you is what has raising a a daughter or raising a little girl and now a teenage girl taught you about fatherhood that you didn't understand before you became a dad.
• 31:12
  SPEAKER_01: I only knew about women from trying to date them.
• 31:16
  SPEAKER_01: So now I realized I am responsible for raising a daughter that you know I'd want for an ideal man to be with.
• 31:26
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 31:27
  SPEAKER_01: It's now my job to be a role model for the type of guy she should be with.
• 31:31
  SPEAKER_01: And I want to raise a woman that, you know, I would want to date, like raise a really good woman.
• 31:36
  SPEAKER_01: And that was a that's just that's hit you.
• 31:39
  SPEAKER_01: Because you're you're always balancing, like, hey, I want to spend time with her and give her what she wants and and and do all these things.
• 31:45
  SPEAKER_01: But then also I and I make a lot of content about this.
• 31:48
  SPEAKER_01: I'm like, hey, you I'm not gonna reward bad behavior.
• 31:52
  SPEAKER_01: If I just let you walk all over me as your father, what's gonna happen years down the road?
• 31:56
  SPEAKER_01: You're gonna become spoiled, you're gonna become entitled, and then you're not gonna listen to anybody if you don't listen to me.
• 32:01
  SPEAKER_01: So kind of balancing the love and the discipline is what kind of you know, that answer the question?
• 32:09
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, and I think a lot of people need to hear that.
• 32:10
  SPEAKER_00: I'm just kind of taking in what your answer because I think well, a lot of people need to hear that.
• 32:16
  SPEAKER_00: Because I think a lot of kids are being raised with their faces are stuck in their phones, and you know, and maybe more upper middle class, affluent areas, but there is a sense of entitlement and like we're not spending the time with our kids and like go, go, go, just go.
• 32:30
  SPEAKER_00: And maybe it's not just socioeconomically higher income levels.
• 32:35
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe, maybe I'll take that back and say it can be actually all all levels socioeconomically where we're not spending enough time with our kids.
• 32:43
  SPEAKER_00: And you're you're doing you, Michael, are doing the you're doing your duty, your due diligence with your daughter, so that you're interested in raising a good human.
• 32:52
  SPEAKER_00: And that's what I hear.
• 32:54
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 32:54
  SPEAKER_01: One of the ways I've reframed my situation to help other single girl dads, but all but actually uses all single dads.
• 33:02
  SPEAKER_01: It's it's to say that, well, you only get a certain percentage of time with her, so make that time count.
• 33:08
  SPEAKER_00: Yes.
• 33:08
  SPEAKER_01: And always I call myself a positive realist.
• 33:11
  SPEAKER_01: I don't sugarcoat things.
• 33:12
  SPEAKER_01: I I say the nitty-gritty stuff that needs to be said sometimes, but I try to be positive.
• 33:17
  SPEAKER_01: So like I remember I was walking with her one time and she was nine, and she was a little upset that like, you know, I I live in a in a in a nice town home here, but I don't live in like a I don't have like an extravagant house.
• 33:29
  SPEAKER_01: And she kind of was like, Well, my friends have all this, and they have a dog, and they have all this.
• 33:34
  SPEAKER_01: And I'm like, Well, listen, they have multiple, you know, brothers and sisters that go, well, we have one-on-one time.
• 33:39
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, we have a pool right in our community right here.
• 33:42
  SPEAKER_01: We have a basketball court that nobody uses, we have a tennis court that nobody uses, we have we have all of this stuff, and I don't have to pay to maintain it.
• 33:50
  SPEAKER_01: It's all it's all like right here within walking distance, and nobody's using it, which is a whole other comment on society.
• 33:55
  SPEAKER_01: Why are these basketball courts empty all the time?
• 33:58
  SPEAKER_00: Empty.
• 33:58
  SPEAKER_00: Well, it's a great, it's it is a comment on society.
• 34:01
  SPEAKER_00: They're empty, no one's air, no one's using the tennis courts.
• 34:04
  SPEAKER_00: You're right.
• 34:04
  SPEAKER_00: You're absolutely right.
• 34:06
  SPEAKER_01: So, yeah.
• 34:06
  SPEAKER_01: God, next one.
• 34:08
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 34:08
  SPEAKER_00: So, you know, you talk frequently about fathers who need to work out their own stuff.
• 34:12
  SPEAKER_00: And I think we've talked about this a little bit, but I'd like to get into it a little bit more.
• 34:16
  SPEAKER_00: And this is what attracted me to you.
• 34:17
  SPEAKER_00: You know, dads, you need to work out your own stuff, you know, rather than putting it on the child or the mother.
• 34:23
  SPEAKER_00: What unresolved issues do you see in your experience?
• 34:26
  SPEAKER_00: What unresolved issues have you seen fathers carrying, like anger, rejection, shame, jealousy, control, or the need to be right, I think is a big one.
• 34:35
  SPEAKER_00: But what do you what do you what have you seen in your experience?
• 34:38
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, well, me and and the a lot of the dads that I've worked with officially and unofficially over the years, they're they're still bitter about the past.
• 34:47
  SPEAKER_01: They are upset that their marriage ended, that their relationship ended, and and how it did.
• 34:52
  SPEAKER_01: Every man is different, every woman is different, but a lot of men really truly want that that woman there with them to support them, that can elevate them, and to have that family structure to and to see your kid every day.
• 35:04
  SPEAKER_02: Right.
• 35:05
  SPEAKER_01: That do value that wanting to see their kid every day.
• 35:08
  SPEAKER_01: It breaks their heart to not see their kid every day.
• 35:10
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 35:11
  SPEAKER_01: Some dads don't care.
• 35:13
  SPEAKER_01: Some dads just they don't value their time with their kid as much.
• 35:16
  SPEAKER_01: It doesn't make sense to me.
• 35:17
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, those men do exist.
• 35:18
  SPEAKER_01: I know some of them, and that's that's I know some of them too.
• 35:21
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah, you're right.
• 35:23
  SPEAKER_01: I can't relate.
• 35:24
  SPEAKER_01: I can't relate to certain people, and that and that's okay.
• 35:26
  SPEAKER_01: That's fine.
• 35:26
  SPEAKER_01: There's there's billions of us out here.
• 35:28
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 35:29
  SPEAKER_01: But you know, there's so there's that aspect of it.
• 35:32
  SPEAKER_01: There's a little bit of the uh control aspect as well.
• 35:36
  SPEAKER_01: Some men just they they want things to be their way, and then there's some men that I think the majority of men that I've talked to are are just good dudes, but they're they're too nice, they're too, they're too passive.
• 35:50
  SPEAKER_01: There's there's a line you have to strike between being overly assertive and a pushover.
• 35:56
  SPEAKER_01: There's a middle ground there.
• 35:58
  SPEAKER_01: You have to let some stuff go.
• 35:59
  SPEAKER_01: That's why when I say things sometimes about how how you have to let stuff go, you know, be like James Bond, like keep your mouth shut, you know, not like James Bond, all the stuff he does, but keep your mouth shut and no, you know, move move it that way.
• 36:11
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, well, you can't just let the mom do whatever she wants.
• 36:13
  SPEAKER_01: That's not what I said.
• 36:14
  SPEAKER_02: Right.
• 36:15
  SPEAKER_01: It's so important to find that middle ground.
• 36:18
  SPEAKER_01: And there most of the guys I deal with are nice guys that are not assertive enough, and they're getting run over by their daughter's mother.
• 36:27
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 36:28
  SPEAKER_01: And they're using that girl-girl dynamic against the dad.
• 36:32
  SPEAKER_01: And I am somebody who has faced this, and the way that I would face it is I just kept showing up, and I were my daughter's mother down.
• 36:42
  SPEAKER_01: And much respect to her, but we have our issues, and one of those issues was that she thought she could be like, Oh, well, I got the mom-daughter advantage here.
• 36:51
  SPEAKER_01: And I'm like, so they would be, you know how moms and daughters can get.
• 36:55
  SPEAKER_01: I don't know about your particular situation, but you know, a lot of moms and daughters kind of have that they they bicker 24 cents, they bicker for a minute and then they're good.
• 37:02
  SPEAKER_01: They bicker for another two minutes and they're good.
• 37:04
  SPEAKER_01: Like, so they'll be bickering, they'll call me to play a referee.
• 37:08
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I did a rant on that called part-time referee.
• 37:10
  SPEAKER_01: And then I will say one sentence and then all of a sudden they band together against me.
• 37:15
  SPEAKER_01: I go, what did I do here?
• 37:17
  SPEAKER_01: Right, right.
• 37:18
  SPEAKER_01: So then I I over the years I learned, I'm like, okay, if that starts, I just hang up or I disengage because like I'll I'll get back to them later.
• 37:27
  SPEAKER_01: And I think that's a lot a lot of men need to to hear that and and to think about how that applies to their lives.
• 37:32
  SPEAKER_01: But but really that to to to fully answer your question, it's it's a lot of a lot of men that I see that just haven't, they're they're bitter about the fact that they they don't know how to control those interactions and they feel like they're getting run over by their kids' mom.
• 37:46
  SPEAKER_00: They need coached up on how to maintain that middle ground, sort of to your point.
• 37:53
  SPEAKER_00: And I love it.
• 37:54
  SPEAKER_00: You said you just keep showing up.
• 37:56
  SPEAKER_00: You just keep showing up because, yeah, mother-daughter dynamics, there can be fighting one day, but there is a bond there.
• 38:03
  SPEAKER_00: And it's a dad, especially if you broke up or you're divorced, you can feel like, let's say you split up and you had two daughters together, you know, one, two, three kids together, they're girls, or or like so there's a boy there, but yeah, talking specifically today about daughters, yeah, they've got their special dynamic.
• 38:21
  SPEAKER_00: And I can see how dads would be like, you know what?
• 38:23
  SPEAKER_00: I'm out, I'm not gonna make an effort because all she really cares about is her mom.
• 38:27
  SPEAKER_00: And I would say, absolutely do not do that.
• 38:29
  SPEAKER_00: You have no idea how important your role is, you have no idea how she needs you there.
• 38:35
  SPEAKER_00: She may not be telling you, and a nine-year-old and 11-year-old may not be able to verbalize that, or a 16-year-old.
• 38:42
  SPEAKER_00: And she needs you.
• 38:44
  SPEAKER_00: Do not back up.
• 38:46
  SPEAKER_00: You are there.
• 38:47
  SPEAKER_00: You go to those games, you are there, you you pick her up, you drive, you do the weekends or the nights that are yours.
• 38:54
  SPEAKER_00: You you stay steady, stay steady.
• 38:57
  SPEAKER_00: It down the road, she will remember that he was always there.
• 39:03
  SPEAKER_00: He always was present with me, showed up.
• 39:06
  SPEAKER_00: And I would say, yeah, to your, I agree with you.
• 39:08
  SPEAKER_00: You know, try to get out of that.
• 39:09
  SPEAKER_00: Don't be in a triangle, don't be in a triad with the mom.
• 39:13
  SPEAKER_00: Like, get yourself out of those because those are no-in situations.
• 39:16
  SPEAKER_00: But it sounds like you did.
• 39:17
  SPEAKER_00: You're like, I'm out, I'm out, I'm not gonna be a part of this.
• 39:19
  SPEAKER_00: You guys do you, you got your stuff, and then I will be in my relationship with my daughter, but I'm not doing the three of us.
• 39:25
  SPEAKER_01: Well, here's what's funny, and this is might be a little controversial, but uh, my daughter and I beef over this.
• 39:30
  SPEAKER_01: If she's if she's nasty to her mother in front of my face or on the phone, I call her out on it.
• 39:37
  SPEAKER_01: That's great.
• 39:37
  SPEAKER_01: That's great.
• 39:38
  SPEAKER_01: And she says, Well, you know, and then behind closed doors, she's like, Well, why do you, you know, you you still I'm your daughter.
• 39:44
  SPEAKER_01: Why don't you take my side?
• 39:45
  SPEAKER_01: I go, I always I always have your back.
• 39:47
  SPEAKER_01: But I said, Whatever you do with mom behind closed doors is is on you guys.
• 39:52
  SPEAKER_01: You have your own relationship, right?
• 39:53
  SPEAKER_01: And I respect that.
• 39:54
  SPEAKER_01: I stay out of it.
• 39:55
  SPEAKER_01: But if you do something in front of my face, I will give my opinion on it.
• 39:59
  SPEAKER_01: That is my job as the masculine figure in both of your lives.
• 40:02
  SPEAKER_01: Now, if she starts yelling at you first, I'm gonna say, hey, like, listen, yeah, you're going a little too far, mom, but you don't speak to your mom that way.
• 40:11
  SPEAKER_01: It's respect.
• 40:12
  SPEAKER_00: Both can be wrong, you're teaching her respect.
• 40:14
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah.
• 40:15
  SPEAKER_00: You're teaching her respect, yeah.
• 40:17
  SPEAKER_01: And and we still, and and and it's it's a health, but it's a healthy argument that we have because it's it's hasn't happened recently, actually.
• 40:23
  SPEAKER_01: Maybe it's actually working, but yeah, it it's uh that would be a good thing.
• 40:27
  SPEAKER_01: But that's the nuance that I I like to talk about because it's stuff a lot of dads are facing.
• 40:32
  SPEAKER_00: So if a father realizes he's put his daughter, okay, here we go.
• 40:35
  SPEAKER_00: We're just right back to what we're talking about.
• 40:37
  SPEAKER_00: If a father, if a dad realizes, okay, I'm putting my daughter in the middle, or or you, Michael, you've seen with maybe some of your friends or people you've worked with, the dads have spoken negatively about the mom, or you know, or maybe you've allowed, you've seen other dads allowing their relations, their emotions to affect their relationship.
• 40:57
  SPEAKER_00: What does a meaningful repair look and sound like when you're like, oh shit, maya culpa, I gotta, I gotta fix this.
• 41:03
  SPEAKER_00: I screwed up.
• 41:04
  SPEAKER_00: Like, what does it look like to make we call it making a repair in family or couples therapy when you're like, I gotta, I gotta make this right?
• 41:11
  SPEAKER_00: Because maybe you did say something about the mom in front of your daughter, or you you hear dads and you're like, dude, you can't do you ever say, like, you can't say that?
• 41:21
  SPEAKER_00: And what does that look like in your eyes?
• 41:23
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah, a couple ways.
• 41:25
  SPEAKER_01: And I've done this myself, and then I've I've helped other dads have these conversations with their daughters.
• 41:30
  SPEAKER_01: Like, oh, listen, you have to just be honest.
• 41:33
  SPEAKER_01: You have to just be but truly and utterly like I don't like the word vulnerable because it comes off as weak, but I like tender and just open.
• 41:44
  SPEAKER_01: And you just say, Listen, like, I can't take back some of the things that I said.
• 41:48
  SPEAKER_01: I said it out of a place of love and a place of anger, and maybe you know, there's some things that I I definitely could have done better, some things your mom could have done better, but I again I can't control what she said, but I can control what I said in it.
• 42:01
  SPEAKER_01: And if I said something to you, if I said something you know, you know, about her to you and it really bothered you, I apologize.
• 42:08
  SPEAKER_01: Something like that.
• 42:09
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, just just just raw.
• 42:11
  SPEAKER_01: Yep, simple, raw, but now let's go forward.
• 42:14
  SPEAKER_01: And don't raise your voice, talk normal, don't, don't talk down to her, don't talk condescending, but just talk calm.
• 42:22
  SPEAKER_01: And I think so many, so many men and women, both genders, need to lower their freaking volume.
• 42:28
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, you're absolutely right.
• 42:31
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, and I do like what you're saying about being tender and open, and and I think that is vulnerability.
• 42:37
  SPEAKER_00: And I hopefully we're coming a little bit further in the world today with being talking about or men talking about being vulnerable because it's so needed.
• 42:45
  SPEAKER_00: And yeah, to your point, once again, the kids are listening, the kids are watching, and yeah, I think that's great.
• 42:52
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 42:52
  SPEAKER_00: So, what does a daughter learn about men?
• 42:55
  SPEAKER_00: What has your daughter, do you think, learned about men in general, or boys, not from the advice that maybe you or another friend of yours dad has given his daughter, but from watching how they handle their emotions?
• 43:11
  SPEAKER_00: How they what do you think they learn by watching you and and how you handle anger?
• 43:15
  SPEAKER_00: You said accountability, disappointment when when like they watch you get disappointed.
• 43:21
  SPEAKER_00: What do you think they're learning and the relationship with the mom?
• 43:24
  SPEAKER_00: What do you because these little girls are watching all of you?
• 43:28
  SPEAKER_00: What do you think they're learning?
• 43:30
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, that's a loaded question right there.
• 43:32
  SPEAKER_01: Wow.
• 43:33
  SPEAKER_01: All right.
• 43:34
  SPEAKER_00: Well, you said accountability already.
• 43:36
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 43:36
  SPEAKER_00: You are that was like a big answer already.
• 43:38
  SPEAKER_00: So I think that that's a big piece of it.
• 43:40
  SPEAKER_00: You know, I mean, like I said earlier, like they they're they're watching you, and we need male role models.
• 43:48
  SPEAKER_00: We need people like you.
• 43:50
  SPEAKER_00: We need, we got these Andrew Tates out there, and that's not good for the for the men, the young men today.
• 43:56
  SPEAKER_00: We've got a lot of like broy stuff that we're all.
• 44:00
  SPEAKER_00: Seeing it, but it looks it looks surface-y.
• 44:03
  SPEAKER_00: It looks like I'm a I'm a bad I'm a bad like hey, I love being a badass, but I I'm a badass, but I'm untouchable, you know, you know, and and we hear so much today about like men are getting a bad rap, which is not good because men's mental health in a negative way is through the roof right now.
• 44:20
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, it the suicide rates are high.
• 44:22
  SPEAKER_00: It's not good.
• 44:24
  SPEAKER_00: And so but you're showing another side of a guy, a man who is, yeah, you are you're like a masculine guy, but you also have a really sweet, soft, tender, loving side to you.
• 44:39
  SPEAKER_00: I can see it.
• 44:40
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, just everything you talk about with your daughter.
• 44:43
  SPEAKER_00: What is it that you think your daughter is?
• 44:46
  SPEAKER_00: I wonder if she was sitting here with us, what she would say about you.
• 44:49
  SPEAKER_00: If I said to her, tell me about your dad.
• 44:51
  SPEAKER_00: What have you learned from your dad, from this man raising you?
• 44:54
  SPEAKER_00: What do you think she'd say?
• 44:55
  SPEAKER_01: I remember one of the best compliments she ever gave me was last week.
• 44:58
  SPEAKER_01: And I was like, How come this girl's dad that doesn't do this or something?
• 45:02
  SPEAKER_01: Just about some random person.
• 45:04
  SPEAKER_01: And she's like, Dad, not everyone's you.
• 45:06
  SPEAKER_01: There's like no, there's like no you's out there.
• 45:08
  SPEAKER_01: And I was like, Whoa, that's an all-timer great compliment.
• 45:12
  SPEAKER_01: I was like, but there should be more.
• 45:14
  SPEAKER_01: Like, I'm not doing, I mean, I'm I don't feel like I'm special in regards to like I'm just showing up and doing what I love with my daughter.
• 45:20
  SPEAKER_01: Like to answer what you said, first off, it's how I treat people, it's how I handle situations.
• 45:27
  SPEAKER_01: It just in everyday life, like just how you how you treat people at the restaurant, how you treat people who do something wrong to you, and how you handle that adversity.
• 45:38
  SPEAKER_01: And you she might want to like, you know, even at the amusement parks, like, why is that girl give me an attitude about what line I want to be on?
• 45:45
  SPEAKER_01: And I'm like, watch, I'll handle it.
• 45:47
  SPEAKER_01: Let me show you.
• 45:48
  SPEAKER_01: Just again, little things throughout the course, but that comes with spending time with them.
• 45:52
  SPEAKER_01: Again, that because this is me, I'll I'll go to this story where we were at SeaWorld back when my daughter was nine, and she thought, and she was right, that how come we can't sit in the front row?
• 46:03
  SPEAKER_01: We paid for this fast pass.
• 46:04
  SPEAKER_01: Well, they can't sit in the front row, they only get the second row.
• 46:06
  SPEAKER_01: And she started giving this young girl, this like 22-year-old girl, attitude.
• 46:11
  SPEAKER_01: And she, my daughter was nine.
• 46:12
  SPEAKER_01: And and the girl was like, I was like, I was like, miss, I know you're just doing your job, but can you please like understand?
• 46:18
  SPEAKER_01: Like, we we paid money for this, and like we were there before those people.
• 46:22
  SPEAKER_01: Why should they get to sit in the front row?
• 46:24
  SPEAKER_01: And that was a huge line when we're on this side, like we were here first.
• 46:27
  SPEAKER_01: Is it okay if we do it?
• 46:28
  SPEAKER_01: I'm here with my daughter from New Jersey, and and she's like, Oh, okay, sir, sure.
• 46:33
  SPEAKER_01: Like, I think that's a perfect example of how, like, hey, you know, there's a adults can give like calm assertiveness versus you as a kid give an attitude to adults doesn't work.
• 46:45
  SPEAKER_01: It's just kind of like that's the kind of masculinity that that works.
• 46:49
  SPEAKER_00: And the healthy masculinity that works, and especially with the climate today, with politics, how it is in the world, how people are so how we speak to each other.
• 46:59
  SPEAKER_00: I think we've lost the art of civil conversation and discourse and how to disagree and how to, you know, your your daughter didn't like something.
• 47:08
  SPEAKER_00: It's like you you model for her.
• 47:10
  SPEAKER_00: This is how you talk to someone when you're kind of in a way, you're trying to get your way.
• 47:15
  SPEAKER_00: This is how you do it, you know, by having a conversation, treating this 22-year-old like a human being.
• 47:20
  SPEAKER_00: She's just the employee.
• 47:21
  SPEAKER_01: Don't shoot the messenger.
• 47:22
  SPEAKER_01: And and yeah, we we've really we live in a society now, and I and again, this is something as a dad, daughter, it's it's an amazing dynamic that has to be addressed.
• 47:31
  SPEAKER_01: It's that on average, I think daughters are gonna, they're gonna escalate from conversation to debate to argument.
• 47:37
  SPEAKER_01: They're gonna skip over the debate part and go right into argument.
• 47:40
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 47:41
  SPEAKER_01: And I I go, I go, I just said one word.
• 47:43
  SPEAKER_01: I said one sentence, and all of a sudden you're arguing.
• 47:46
  SPEAKER_01: I go, how do we go from zero to a hundred like that?
• 47:48
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 47:49
  SPEAKER_01: But that's all the time.
• 47:50
  SPEAKER_01: So I think that's that's the most important thing for for men to, you know, for fathers to to model.
• 47:56
  SPEAKER_01: But I also think that there needs to be a model of like my daughter sees me go to the gym when I don't want to.
• 48:01
  SPEAKER_01: There's day, I mean, I like working out, I like playing ball, but like there's some days where I don't want to go.
• 48:06
  SPEAKER_01: But I just I show up.
• 48:08
  SPEAKER_01: I I just go.
• 48:09
  SPEAKER_01: And and it's like she sees that.
• 48:11
  SPEAKER_01: And I think she takes pride in the fact that I'm, you know, I I'm in better shape than than most dads of her friends' dads and stuff.
• 48:18
  SPEAKER_01: And that I and that I have like an active life and I have a lot of friends, and that, you know, we we I think and I and I talk with her about just I ask her about her day, I ask her interesting questions, I I just we talk about the world, we talk about real stuff.
• 48:33
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 48:33
  SPEAKER_01: And I think that's what dads should do with their kids.
• 48:36
  SPEAKER_01: It's not just spending, it's not just just going to their games, it's not just like driving around, it's about actually having all those conversations and like those those tough topics like politics and society and the world.
• 48:47
  SPEAKER_01: Like these are these are real conversations that you have to understand that your kid, especially as they get older and have a phone, they are going to form opinions based on social media algorithms, based on what's being pushed to them.
• 49:01
  SPEAKER_01: And they're only back to what I said in the beginning, they're only seeing part.
• 49:05
  SPEAKER_00: And yeah, I we need so much more of this.
• 49:11
  SPEAKER_00: When I when I first reached out to you a couple of months ago, and I was telling you about that book that we had back way back in the late 90s when I worked in eating disorders, and there was a book called Father Hunger, and I don't even know if it's in print anymore, but it was about the importance of, and so these the the patients that I was working with had anorexia nervosa or bulimia nervosa.
• 49:32
  SPEAKER_00: And we talked about the importance of fathers in these mostly teenagers and young women's lives who were in the unit, you know, but we would talk about that.
• 49:41
  SPEAKER_00: They would talk about it in group, they would talk about it in their individual sessions, and it would come up in family therapy sessions, the importance of the father being there, and he's and maybe he's always been there, but being there now and going there with her and these in these really uncomfortable emotional and psychological issues that she's having, or the father that was coming into like coming to a family therapy session, but he was a very disengaged and not really a father.
• 50:08
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe he lived in the same home with his daughter, parents were together, it was an intact family, but he was kind of out.
• 50:13
  SPEAKER_00: He never connected with her.
• 50:15
  SPEAKER_00: He let the mom kind of stereotypically do all the things, and it would come up about you know, a sense of disconnection from dad.
• 50:23
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, not every case, but this was it was an issue, and it was an issue that I don't think is paid attention to enough the importance of you guys, dads, and the roles of your little girls.
• 50:36
  SPEAKER_00: And so, I mean, I I commend you for the work that you're doing, and I think that we need more people like you out there.
• 50:44
  SPEAKER_01: I appreciate that, but I I've seen that far too often with the disconnection that you're talking about.
• 50:48
  SPEAKER_01: I see that a lot.
• 50:49
  SPEAKER_01: And I think the guys that I work with, they want that connection because they don't have it.
• 50:53
  SPEAKER_01: But a lot, a lot of it I see is when the fathers are in the home with the kid and they kind of take the kids for granted.
• 51:00
  SPEAKER_01: And that's sad.
• 51:02
  SPEAKER_00: Yes, it is.
• 51:03
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, so we gotta end soon, but I want to ask you one more question.
• 51:07
  SPEAKER_00: Sure.
• 51:08
  SPEAKER_00: So when your daughter looks back on her childhood years from now, in her teenage years years from now, what do you most hope that she understands about you and the way you try to father her?
• 51:20
  SPEAKER_01: I want her to look back and say, he did the best job he could raising me while still working on himself and you know, increasing, you know, doing what he wants to do with his life.
• 51:36
  SPEAKER_01: I want her to, and I think she sees that.
• 51:38
  SPEAKER_01: She sees that I'm still trying to become a better version of myself every day.
• 51:43
  SPEAKER_00: Because you're still growing up.
• 51:45
  SPEAKER_00: Having a child of 25, you're kind of still growing up.
• 51:48
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I'm on the tail end of my midlife crisis, I like to say.
• 51:51
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 51:51
  SPEAKER_01: Because I had a kid earlier, so I'm like, once, once the COVID hit around 2020, I was about 35.
• 51:57
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, about 35, yeah.
• 51:58
  SPEAKER_01: That was about the time where I kind of changed a little bit.
• 52:01
  SPEAKER_01: And I said, okay, let me start.
• 52:03
  SPEAKER_01: This is the midlife crisis, and I'm not buying a convertible.
• 52:06
  SPEAKER_01: I'm going to, you know, start a podcast.
• 52:08
  SPEAKER_01: I'm going to start coaching.
• 52:09
  SPEAKER_01: And that's eventually how I got into hey, what am I really good at where I want to, you know, where can I really add value to this crazy world that we live in?
• 52:18
  SPEAKER_01: And I think, but I also want her to know that I do everything around her schedule.
• 52:22
  SPEAKER_01: And that's what every single dad of any kid needs to understand.
• 52:25
  SPEAKER_01: Like I have my daughter Monday, Tuesdays, and every other weekend.
• 52:29
  SPEAKER_01: And I build everything around that.
• 52:31
  SPEAKER_01: It's like, okay, Wednesday, Thursdays, I got this activity.
• 52:34
  SPEAKER_01: Every other weekend I'll do this.
• 52:35
  SPEAKER_01: But like that time with her is sacred.
• 52:37
  SPEAKER_01: If you want to get on my calendar those days, it's got to be like, it's got to be quick.
• 52:42
  SPEAKER_01: Now she may not want to see me.
• 52:44
  SPEAKER_01: She may want to go up in her room and talk to me.
• 52:45
  SPEAKER_00: Right, exactly.
• 52:46
  SPEAKER_01: She might have a lot of homework.
• 52:48
  SPEAKER_01: But if the spare chance she goes, hey, Dad, you want to watch a half hour of YouTube videos or something?
• 52:53
  SPEAKER_01: I got to be ready.
• 52:54
  SPEAKER_01: That's that's my time, you know?
• 52:56
  SPEAKER_01: That's kind of how I frame it.
• 52:58
  SPEAKER_01: So that's what I want to remember.
• 53:00
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, that's awesome.
• 53:01
  SPEAKER_00: That's awesome.
• 53:01
  SPEAKER_00: Well, thank you for thank you for coming on.
• 53:04
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you for what you're doing.
• 53:06
  SPEAKER_00: We're gonna wrap it up.
• 53:07
  SPEAKER_00: How can people reach you who are watching this and who are or who are listening and they wanna they want to know you better?
• 53:15
  SPEAKER_00: Where can they find you?
• 53:16
  SPEAKER_01: Sure.
• 53:17
  SPEAKER_01: Um, Michael Stephen Mindset, my first and middle name.
• 53:20
  SPEAKER_01: Thank you, mom and dad.
• 53:21
  SPEAKER_01: Mindset flows.
• 53:22
  SPEAKER_01: We like alliteration in this country.
• 53:24
  SPEAKER_01: So Michael Stephen Mindset on Instagram, TikTok, which I just started.
• 53:28
  SPEAKER_01: Instagram I've had for a while, Facebook, YouTube as well.
• 53:32
  SPEAKER_01: And yeah, I run a coaching program for for single girl dads, but I I like to think that I my posts just are kind of add value to I can't stand that word value, by the way.
• 53:44
  SPEAKER_01: I say it too often.
• 53:45
  SPEAKER_01: It's now it's in my head as a word.
• 53:47
  SPEAKER_01: It is.
• 53:47
  SPEAKER_01: I need another word, but there's no word that really substitutes, you know.
• 53:50
  SPEAKER_01: Just I I wanna I want to bring some good energy, positive reality to a lot of the situations that that single girl dads face, but that all fathers, that all people that all that all everybody faces.
• 54:01
  SPEAKER_00: Well, thank you.
• 54:02
  SPEAKER_00: I so appreciate your time today.
• 54:04
  SPEAKER_01: God, I really appreciate you having me on.
• 54:06
  SPEAKER_01: Thank you.
• 54:06
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, thank you.