Latest / Dadical / 14. A Law Enforcement Officer on What Happens When Dads Aren't There | Daven Woodard

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14. A Law Enforcement Officer on What Happens When Dads Aren't There | Daven Woodard · Dadical

• Seth Stoker: Hey everybody, welcome to the Dadical Podcast. excited to bring another episode to you. And this time we've got a really important conversation with Davin Woodard. And I I found Davin actually on TikTok. it's always fun connecting with other people who take the role of fatherhood seriously and find it to be as important as I do. And I think Davin brings a unique perspective that I'm I'm excited to explore with them and and excited to share his stories. with you to reiterate how important this role is. So Davin, you you can find Davin at Save Fatherhood. So it's at Save Fatherhood on TikTok and and and he's got some great content he's putting out pretty consistently. So go give him a follow, check him out. I I'm sure he'd love to interact with you as well. So Davin, great to have you on the Dadicle podcast today. Daven Woodard: Thank you, thank you for having me. Seth Stoker: go ahead and intro s introduce us to your family, your background and and let's dive in. Daven Woodard: I have a four year old daughter, I have a ten year old son, married. I've been married for maybe about I won't mess this up. I've been married for about six years or so. but me and my wife we started dating like around high school, fourteen, fifteen years old. It just, you know, of course went on from their high school sweetheart story or whatever. Seth Stoker: Nice. Daven Woodard: I basically played football my whole life. that just led into me just going to college for a little while. I went to junior college for a year and some change and I ended up coming back home, and then starting in law enforcement. That's the pretty much the only job I ever had since I was like eighteen, nineteen years old. And that led on to the to me basically finding out what I found out and got me on my mission, so to say. Seth Stoker: All right. So so Davin, in law enforcement, that's been a couple of different roles, right? Daven Woodard: Correct. Seth Stoker: So so talk me through your career background a little bit so we can we can catch up to speed where you are now. Daven Woodard: when I star I started at eighteen, I started at the at the Paris Prison is basically the biggest Paris jail in the state of Louisiana. and like I say, I eighteen years old, big eye, don't know what what I got myself into. I worked there from about eighteen to like twenty two or twenty three years old. I learned a lot there and I think that I think that's what kinda jump started me and propelled me to kinda a level of maturity understanding you have to almost basically control and and maintain and secure eighty year olds all the way down to eighteen year olds for various things from from the worst crime to a traffic ticket. So you gotta have you just had to grow up I had to grow up pretty fast working in there of course, based on the environment. that led to me go ahead. Seth Stoker: Davin, let me I'm gonna pause you real quick if that's all right. I I wanna know what possesses an eighteen year old kid just barely out of high school to go decide I'm Daven Woodard: huh. Yeah. Seth Stoker: gonna go work at the prison. Daven Woodard: Man, in Baton Rouge, it's it's it's only a few places, it's only a few places and a few careers that you can make money to provide for your family. And and also and in Baton Rouge is such the the culture is I won't say it's bad, but it's a very it has a very thin line of good and evil, if you will. So it's basically you're in the streets doing the wrong thing, and you and it's you know that brings its own problems, or you're doing the right thing either at the plant. Law enforcement or some type of medical field. That's kinda I hate to say it, it's kinda it's kinda just cut and dry. That's why this the poverty rate and you that's a whole nother story for another day. But it's it's you almost when you at a critical age as eighteen coming into the world, you almost my dad helped me understand that you has you have to pick a lane. You have to pick your side of what you're gonna be on, keep your head straight and stay on that side, and then my best friend that's not my stepbrother. His dad was already in law enforcement. I had a high level of respect for him. he kind of got me and him into the field and the rest is history just, you know. It kept me on track. The kind of person and personality I have, it kept me on track. So that was the best place for me. It's either it's either I was gonna be dealing with the law or trying to change being involved with the law. Which is how it is Seth Stoker: So you chose Elaine. Daven Woodard: here, unfortunately. Seth Stoker: Yeah, you chose Elaine and and and decided you were going to be a be a part of the law and and and try to make an impact that way. But you're 18 years old. And Daven Woodard: Right. All right. Eighteen years old. Seth Stoker: I imagine that is a big wake-up call for you at 18. And so is there is there like a moment or or an experience you could think of that was like, wow, welcome, welcome to this new career, young man. Daven Woodard: I hate to say it is but it's just b probably my first fight in the jail. Working in the jail, Seth Stoker: Okay. Daven Woodard: eighteen years old. You got a you got a maybe a forty five I think I think the guy might have been forty, forty five years old. I'm probably his son's age at the time and I'm telling him what to do. You know what I'm saying? But it's just just the the results of the circumstances, but in his mind This 18-year-old kid coming here telling me what to do. He really don't care that he's in jail or whatever circumstance he got. It's just this 18-year-old little kid, and I was itty bitty scrawny at that point I might be 160 pounds, but telling me what to do. So of course, you gotta have order. So and then it just na now we in a fight at 18 years old with a 45 year old in the middle of jail. And that's probably like, okay, Seth Stoker: How'd it go? Daven Woodard: that's why I decided it went well for me. Seth Stoker: Okay. Daven Woodard: but you know, but that's when I really had to decide. Is this something that I really wanted to do? And you know, as the day go on, I end up having to talk to the guy, of course, and he he was he we we ended up having a conversation. He was telling me it had nothing to do with me. It's just I was the first person he contacted after he found out that his mom passed away while he was in jail. So he just basically projected that off on me. And that's kinda when I started understanding a lot of people kinda see stuff they kinda see stuff through a a a paper towel holder if you will they don't kinda see the everything that leads up to that or they don't see a lot of what the other person is going through and you just happen to you just may happen to be dealing with the person you may just happen to bump the cart in Walmart, you know, and it's it's much bigger than what we what we see. And it just happened to, you know, just happen to be an end result. So Seth Stoker: Yeah, you don't you don't know that he just found out that his mom had passed Daven Woodard: Right. Seth Stoker: away, right? And he doesn't know that you're just this eighteen year old kid, not even not even sure if you picked the right lane yet, right? Daven Woodard: Yeah. Seth Stoker: And and and and yet you guys I I g I guess when people don't try to see each other's perspective, that's when the conflict arises and and it sounds like you learned some Daven Woodard: Clash. Seth Stoker: important lessons that way. Daven Woodard: Immediately, yes. Seth Stoker: Okay, so it but it sounds like you guys ended up talking. So so did did you guys end up respecting each other? Daven Woodard: Yeah, crazy enough what I've crazy enough what I learned in there. I got a how how can I say it? The crazy enough what I learned in there generally after everything calmed down and the smoke's clear, these guys really not bad guys. They're just of again back. I know I'm pushing forward, but it's just the emotional regulation. Okay, so say if he was able to get on the phone, sit there, process, okay, yes, my family member passed away and I'm in here, but I'm only in here based on my choices. My decisions, my friend groups and he was able to process that and deal with it himself rather than okay, I'm upset. Here's this kid telling me time to get up and get dressed. My son's this age. I shouldn't be in here. And he and he just pushed off the all emotional me and then we end up getting into a fight. So it's just again, I back to the emotional regulation. It's it's it's it's vital. Seth Stoker: Yeah, we're good, we're gonna come back to that for sure because Daven Woodard: Right. Seth Stoker: I I think it's very clear, and you were able to see firsthand that if people don't have the tools in their tool bag Daven Woodard: All right. Seth Stoker: to be able to handle difficult situations, handle the challenges that they're that they're they're dealing with in life, a lot of times that's why they end up where where this guy, it sounds like ended up. And so it's interesting, you know, I I imagine that was a scary experience for you as an 18-year-old kid being in that situation, but but man, what valuable lessons for you to learn early. Daven Woodard: Yeah. Yeah. It was yeah. The hard way, yeah. Seth Stoker: The hard way. Well well let's keep going. So so we'll w we'll obviously come back to specific stories, but walk Daven Woodard: Right, right. Seth Stoker: us through that progression. You were at the jail. How long were you there? Daven Woodard: maybe about four or five years 'cause I had to when you come in there so young, you gotta wait 'til you're twenty one to possess your firearm. So you gotta work in there. I worked in there 'cause I was twenty one. Then I went to the police academy, got my whole, guns, all this other stuff. then I moved up and ranking there. I was supervisor for a little while in there before I went to the road and in the jail, man, that jail taught me it's a You have a few milestones in life, I'll see it and that jail working in that jail really helped and shaped me and helped mold me to who I am today. Just based on you you learn that that no matter the economic class, the ethnicity, the educational level, all men are pretty much at the core at the core of them, they're pretty much the same. They pretty much have the same deep they pretty much have the same reasoning levels. Generally, if you respect the man for a man, and what I had to learn, that's what I had to learn at from probably about eighteen to nineteen. If you respect the man for a man, generally for the most part, you you won't have any problems with him. Because that's all that's that's a big part of how they make decisions in their mind. What I learned. Seth Stoker: Help me understand what that means though. How do you respect a man for for the man? Daven Woodard: You you if you simply communication. If I just had to pick one word, it's communication. It's say, okay, if we're trying to get a hundred and twenty men to do something, and we simply look, we need to get this done, XYZ. We not hit a it's almost like you have to be humble in what you're doing, even though you're in a position of authority. You have to just communicate what you're trying to get done and you don't have to Talk crazy. You don't have to raise your voice. You don't have to curse a man out. You don't have to you don't have to exhibit brute force to get somebody to do what you want them to do. Generally, if you respect him, talk to him as you would want somebody to say to talk to you, talk to your son, or whatever the case may be, generally they're gonna respect what you're saying and they just gonna do what you need them to do. It's almost like it's verbal judo, as they call it, man. Verbal Seth Stoker: I like that. Daven Woodard: judo. Seth Stoker: So I gotta believe though, I mean at 18 years old, you you didn't you weren't a great communicator yet, right? And so how did you learn this? Daven Woodard: No. Man, I got tired of fighting. Seth Stoker: Okay. Daven Woodard: No I don't care what nobody says, how crazy and Bruce Strong. Nobody wants to come to work and fight every day. I don't care if you work at the jail. I don't care if you ever nobody, nobody wants to come to work and fight every day. And so and a couple of older guys took me under their wing and they just I guess they took a liking to me for whatever reason. And they kind of helped me understand, but they said I had to go through that part. To even see they they wanted me to go to that part to see if I was gonna even make it. See if they time was even worse. I made about a year strong. Man, I'm getting in the fights, I'm coming home, black eyes, I'm it's it's a lot going on. And then they st one day they brought me in and told me just I had to understand that every all these guys in here has stuff going on. Just like you got stuff going on, just cause they in jail, everybody is still human, with families, with it's just like society. You come in thinking that all these guys are bad guys. And it's no different than me. I might just get have make a bad decision at Walmart and I'm in jail. Don't make don't make me a bad guy. Don't make me a a villain, a criminal. I just happen to be a victim of the circumstance or whatever decision I made. But they helped me understand that these all they just they just mean. They took me down the this is a story I vividly remember. They took me down And it's like a it's almost like a a big dorm, if you will. So you you can stand at the front of the dorm, you can see all 120 beds. It's 120 beds, 120 men, and you and another guy. So they told me to look out and they said, Well, what do you see? And I was like, Well, I forgot I forgot what I said, but I basically said inmates or something crazy like that. But they said, they said, no, these are all Just 120 human beings that happen to be in jail. And that okay, I got you now. Cause I I underst I don't know what for that reason made it click, but he just all 120 men just happen to be in jail. Then that that don't make them bad. That don't make that everybody. I had a I had a I had a complex because I was so young. I think that every time I thought that every time somebody was trying to talk to me, they were trying to play with me because I was so young. So I was taking everything almost as a Seth Stoker: You had a chip on your shoulder. Daven Woodard: As a challenge, a simple, yeah, almost like a okay, I know I'm young. They know I'm young. They can they can see that I'm new, of course, 'cause I'm just eighteen, nineteen. So now I have to approve something in every match. Or every time somebody says something, I'm looking for a chance to prove myself when it wasn't even necessary. So I had to go through that growing pain from probably eighteen to about twenty or so. That was the big Seth Stoker: Man, I see a lot of valuable lessons in there, Davin. And so I'm thinking, Daven Woodard: Yeah. Seth Stoker: these guys take you down there and and and and show you and talk to you about hey, these this is a hundred and twenty human beings. How did that change you? Daven Woodard: Man, I start giving people I I just start giving people a lot more grace. I start when I start as as my career went on and I'm and now I'm talking to these guys more because I'm not taking it as a challenge or this or and I'm just talking to them like I'm I start giving people a lot more grace. I start understanding that people can people I have a saying I say now, I can't hold myself hostage of the past. So if something happened in the past, okay, it happened. And I gotta move on. And this just happened to be maybe a penalty or a consequence that they have to do from a choice they made in the past. But given the same choice of circumstances today, they wouldn't make it. They just unfortunately had a lapse of judgment and they just happen to be here. So I just started giving people grace, understanding that if you give if I can't hold my myself to a mistake I made when I was twenty nine and I'm thirty three. It just wouldn't be fair. So I just start giving people the same grace. It's just People just making choices, making mistakes, living life. It just it just happens. Seth Stoker: So you learn to give people grace, which I think is such a huge lesson to learn just in life, not not just working in a prison. And so Daven Woodard: Right, correct. Right. Seth Stoker: how did that change your interactions with the inmates? Daven Woodard: Amen. I just I I hate to say it in such a crazy way, but I just I just start treating them just like a we almost was just in a regular place in Walmart outside. I just it really helped me human it's hard to for a young especially for somebody that knows nothing about police and nothing about law enforcement, nothing about the criminal world, it's hard for you to humanize a person that's especially if you seeing them in that environment behind bars, you're chaining them up every day, they got orange on every day. It's hard for a a person to humanize these guys if you don't make it a conscious effort to do so. So it l it helped me humanize and look at somebody it say look at if I'm talking to my dad, if I'm talking to my brother, it just helped me it really helped me humanize them, just talk to them, just I hate like normal guys. Just we just happen to be in the jail. And just like we gonna have conflict in the jail, somebody there's no different than somebody having conflicts at a red light. It's just How do you handle the conflicts? It just helped me it it helped me not it helped me just humanize the man more so. Seth Stoker: How did they respond differently to you once you started humanizing them more? Daven Woodard: I was I worked up I was well respected. I became one of the most well respected people around there at such a young age. And then by that time everything was kinda rolling together. So I was able to become supervisor. I was able to earn these Deputy of the Month awards. so it just star everything started working together in tandem when I started doing that. Seth Stoker: So I I think that's so interesting in the sense that you earned more respect when you were less concerned about being hardened and and Daven Woodard: Right. Seth Stoker: and being challenged and things like that. And so man, there there's a couple of areas I want to dig in there, but I think number one is is how do you balance that then? Because you s you can't be a pushover, especially not in the prison, right? So Daven Woodard: Right. Seth Stoker: you can't be a pushover in that setting. How do you balance not being a pushover while at the same time giving them grace? Daven Woodard: Because my what I learned is you always I always give a person a chance to crawfish. And what I mean by that is Seth Stoker: Hmm. Daven Woodard: I'm going to always give you a chance. Cause I understand you just may be talking, whatever, whatever. You may just be not being able to take a second and think and regulate yourself. So I'm always give you a chance to crawfish out and be, you know, okay, man, I was tripping in my bad, blase, blase. And, you know, I can go ahead and do this or whatever I need him to do at the time. Okay, well, I'll go apologize to this person, whatever it may be. And then after that point, well, then it's it's it's it's almost like if I'm the last line of resort, necessary action must be taken. But generally, if you give a person a the a grace period to to re retract or recant, they're j generally gonna do so. But if not, and you have to go to the next level, they understood that man would have gave us a chance, he gave me a chance to do right. He came down here talking to me like a man. Okay, he had to do what he whatever he had to do. Seth Stoker: What does that look like in practice though? Can you think of an example? Daven Woodard: Man. So, hmm, there's so many, man. so you go say, take lockdown, for instance. That's where we, you know, house the trouble inmates, people that's, you know, reckless or whatever, whatever. So they we go down there, we give them their trays, we put them in the cell, we let them eat, give them a certain amount of time to eat. then a certain amount of time we get them back. They have to give us back the trays. If not, we gotta go in and get the trays by, you know, whatever means that's available. So We got this guy, big bad guy. Everybody's scared of him, don't want to talk to him. He throws feces on people, urine on people. He just, you know, he's he mad at the world, so to say, he takes it out on the jail. So here we go. It's time to get the trades back. He's trying to get the trades back. He don't want to get a trade. They call me from the other building. Here I come. Me and him we we kinda it's almost like two gorillas don't want to fight each other. He knows his status. I know my status. So I go walking down there, I tell him, Look, man, we go through this every day. This how this you gotta put the trail out. What's the issue? What you trying to get accomplished. Cause they have a weird way of they they can't but they have they behind bars, so they can't fight you physically. So they'll try to do other things to basically fight their battle. So they won't give you the trade. They won't just so you can come down there. And they could tell you, hey, look, man, I need to call my wife. Something happened at home. So I say, so man, what's going on? What's up with the trade, man? So then he gets the cursing, get the, you know, whatever. Get away from my cell, blah, blah, blah. You don't want this to go down bad. I say, all right. I say, so this is how this is go. I say, I'm gonna walk, I'm gonna walk to the front. I'm gonna get whatever I need to get to come back and get you out the cell. If the trade ain't out the cell, by the time I get back, we coming in there, we're gonna get it by force. So here I go, here I go. And he as I as I as I as I walking off, he's still, barking, barking, barking, barking. so I go back getting, you know, maize, tasers, all these other things, all these other equipment that we have. I come back, still no tray. So here I go. Yeah, I go, go down the cell, go down the tray, and then as I'm as I'm as I'm about to, you know, spray maze, whatever, whatever. He tries to, he almost is like, okay, now he's ready. But he well, how can I say it? He was almost like he just wait, he's waiting to see what I'm gonna do. So of course we go, once I'm back down there, I gotta be a man of my word. This is jail. If you're not a man of your Seth Stoker: Stop. Daven Woodard: word, you're selling wolf tickets, as we call it. So we go down there, we do whatever we gotta do, maze some, we strip him down, get the tray out, whatever, whatever. So we put him back in there, put him back in the cell. Then me, I for some reason I don't know what it is, but I like to go back and see what's the what's the issue, what caused this issue, so we can rectify it and we won't have to have it next time. So I go back down there, and it's the same it's generally the same it's the same story, the same spill. It's look, man, what it ain't got nothing to do with you. I respect what you did. I understand you had to do what you had to do. Ske and this this 30, 40 minutes later, after you know everything he may stop burning his eyes, blah, blah, blah. He said, Man, I just had a lot going on, bruh. And I just ain't feel like dealing with nobody today. It had j it had gen it had literally not it generally has nothing to do with you. It's all Seth Stoker: Mm-hmm. Daven Woodard: the person's circumstances and how they choose to what's the word? How they choose to process them or what they choose to do after that. So but generally I and then and then we we again we never had no problems again but he fights with everybody else but he understands that if you if you give a person a chance to to do right because we all gonna say messed up just it's all no different than your wife if you she say something and you just give a look man I know you ain't mean that blah blah blah she probably gonna come back and apologize but if you give people a chance to correct their actions before you have to go to the next level generally they're gonna respect it and this one of the most respected people in the jail And little old me at twenty, but it's just simply the process of how you do things and not being in such a haste to prove that that your your authority is how it helped me be who I was then, for lack of a better term. So that's a example. I know it's long, but that's just Seth Stoker: that's great. So I imagine though, he appreciated you coming back and seeking to understand after the fact. Is that fair? Daven Woodard: Right, right. General yeah, right. But he's just a man like me. Seth Stoker: Yep. So I man, I I see a lot of a lot of parallels to to fatherhood and and raising kids and things like that. But I I love the perspective in general in the sense that I mean think if everybody's if if everybody was willing to give each other just a little bit more grace before they dug their heels in and Daven Woodard: It's a little bit more gr that's it. Seth Stoker: And and and and started fighting back, I I I think we would have a lot a very different world that we live in today. Daven Woodard: Yes, but Seth Stoker: And so you mentioned, somebody at the red light, or man, I think about even Daven Woodard: Little grace. Seth Stoker: just from from a parenting perspective, your kids, your your kids frustrate you, and and if you if you pause and say, hey, what's what's really going on? Like how Daven Woodard: That's it. Seth Stoker: impactful is that with your kids too? Daven Woodard: the biggest lesson I took from that is just taking from the judge and my kids as it relates to that is i I have to pay attention. And what I mean by that is I like you saying, I can't the grace I gotta give a grace because it's gen again, it's generally never the first it's generally never the first thing. Just like when my son, the biggest is that I might just think off the top of my head, when my son, my if his graze starts slipping. I can't immediately discipline him until I have to take a second and un and see what is the root cause of the problem. And generally it's because I'm too absent. And not absent like out the house or whatever, whatever. It's I'm too absent as if as it relates to working or making extra money, things that I don't necessarily have to is necessary in a way, but I don't have to do that. So every time Jen or his grade starts slipping. My overtime or my details or extra duty is increasing. So if I just if I just get them here and discipline them for the bad grades and don't give them grades for that and and stop back and look at the bigger picture. okay, well, I'm I've been working more. So when it's time to do homework and study and this that, of course, it's a different level with me than mom. So I just gotta bring this down and then boom, grades go up. But it Seth Stoker: Yeah. Daven Woodard: takes, it takes a it takes a a a second to give him grace and understand that it's not even his fault. You know, it's it's more of a correlation to what I'm doing. So I have to step back and be self-accountable. So that's what I can, you know, immediately correlate. And I and I just recently got that. Maybe a couple years ago I kind of understood that. It took me a while to understand that. Seth Stoker: Well, I I tell you what though, what a important lesson to learn as a father to understand, hey, before I before I fly off the handle and and get frustrated with them for how they're acting, maybe just taking a pause and saying, Hey, how am I contributing to this as a father? What's what's my role in this? Because more often than not, how we're parenting is a Daven Woodard: More often than not. Seth Stoker: huge contributing factor to how they're behaving. And so I man, I'm thinking, Davin, I'm thinking about your experience. And I it's weird to say that I think it was a blessing for you to spend so much time in the jail learning these lessons, Daven Woodard: Absolutely. Seth Stoker: but you got a crash course in human behavior and influencing Daven Woodard: Correct. Seth Stoker: without abusing the power that you have as you know, someone who's working in the jail and things like that. And so I'm just sitting here thinking, like, man, what a crash course for you. Like what a what a a training ground for you in preparation for fatherhood. Daven Woodard: It's it was I hundred I don't have a yeah, I hundred percent agree. I a hundred percent it's it helped me understand human beh they have I think it's close to like a thousand or eleven hundred people in there. It's a it's it's a extreme crash course on human behavior and it helped me understand that kids people have a way of separating kids in a in a human category for whatever reason, and people I try to get them to understand they're not kids. They're just little humans. So the same Seth Stoker: Yep. Daven Woodard: emotions you have, the same blood functions, the same, they are just little humans. So they have the same thought. They maybe can't understand things the same way, but as far as it relates to feelings and emotions and all these other things that you have, they have the same things. They're just little. They're just kids. But they still just little humans and they still have the same human behavior as a 40-year-old. It just of course in a kid form more so. Seth Stoker: I think that's a cool cool perspective. I'm I'm really eager though. I've been excited all week to hear about what you learned about the impact of fatherhood, both from a positive perspective and also when fathers are absent. I mean, you saw firsthand the the results of that. Daven Woodard: Yeah. over time, man, it's just and I can kinda I just bundle everything together. Over time, I'm I more so understood it as I went on. I didn't understand it at the beginning level because this I didn't have much to compare it to. But like I said, this is all my first job. This is I'm learning on the fly. As I as I settle in, as I start having more conversation with people, as I start dealing with these guys more in a in a much more detailed way manner or so to say 'cause I'm the last line of defence, I gotta talk to a lot of these guys. I gotta de escalate things, I gotta whatever. and then then when I move to the streets, I'm unfortunately I'm going in these kids' houses or these people's houses. I'm not seeing dads, I'm not seeing male role models. Then as I go on to detective, it even gets further. So now that I'm investigating, I'm deep diving in their lives and their social medias and their family structures, blah, blah, blah. I'm finding it even more prevalent. So as I then I started going back in my roller deck, back in my roller deck, and I still go work overtime in the jail now, but and I asked these guys, and I and I just start asking guys, you know, what's your family dynamic? What's your makeup? Who you stay with? Who you raised by? Did you play any sports? And What I've learned and then in the studies I've read and all these other things plus personal experience is that when they don't have a male role model or somebody that they understand force meets force, they have a severe authority complex, or it's hard for them to take directions or corrections from a man because it's almost like, okay, this has never been a part of my life, and then now This is something I have to do, but it's so foreign to me that I don't know what to do. So now I just meet it with resistance and anger. I don't know if you ever noticed that a lot of times you can get you can get guys to calm down if you have a lady talk to them because that's how they've grown up communicating. So they under they their brain can almost visualize their mom or their aunt or their grandma speaking to but if I come or say if you come, they can't it's hard for their minds to catch a roller deck to relate to that to calm down and even listen to what you're saying. So it just go ahead. Seth Stoker: So if you're not it's sorry, I've just maybe, maybe to repackage what I'm hearing, it sounds like if you grow up without a father challenging you, without a man challenging you in your life, a a mentor there to to guide you. And and and and by the way, guiding does involve challenging a lot in that fatherhood role. And so, but if you don't have that, then you get to adulthood or you get to that point to where you finally get challenged and you see it as a threat immediately. Daven Woodard: See it as a threat because it's just not it's not it's foreign to you. It's so foreign. It's almost like if you go somewhere and then you see something you're not used to, you're immediately gonna be taken back because you don't your your brain doesn't know how to respond to it. It's Seth Stoker: So I imagine in these in these experiences that you had, you're obviously you're seeing these trends. You're seeing that there's a lot of homes without a father and things like that. Daven Woodard: Right. Seth Stoker: Are you, are there a couple of examples that really stick out to you? Daven Woodard: yes, I remember we have a juvenile wing in the jail, so maybe eight to ten juvenile, but these are kinda like, unfortunately, like for lack of better words, the worst of the worst. So there's the murderers, the robbers that they can't house in the in the juvenile detention center, or they're gonna be with us for a while. So I just I'm working down there, I'm walking down there one night and they they tr they end up tricking a a guy To letting one of them out the cell, they jam the cell, and they end up all eight of them went in one guy's cell, one juvenile cell, and beat him up. So I go down, here I come, here I come. So everybody by the time I get everybody back in their cell, cool, cool. So I'm trying to figure out what happened, what went on. And as the conversation goes on, I get past that, I just start and I'm s and I'm seeing just like normal kids, I work at the high school too, on my off days. So I'm seeing them, I'm just looking at them and so I just posed the question. I said, I went down from cell to cell. I say, man, tell me about your life, your family dynamics, your your upbringing, so forth and so on. And as I got to about the sixth, the sixth kid, it's the same, it's the same reoccurring story. And it's not coincidence. It's people like to say, Well, it's just coincidence. It's not coincidence if it's happening the majority of the time. Of course you have your anomalies. When I speak, I don't I try not to speak about anomalies. So the majority of the it's only it was only one kid back there that Seth Stoker: Out of eight. Daven Woodard: out of ten Seth Stoker: Out of ten. Okay. Daven Woodard: it was only one kid back there that said that had he said he had a a father and in a real a male role model and he played sports and did all this stuff and but the different with in his response was he said man I just did something I was not supposed to do hanging out with the wrong people And I know what I did was wrong. And nobody else said that. Even though he was in there, his response was different. Cause he at least acknowledged and understood and took the accountability for him being in there. Everybody else, they've just, they, they, they said, Man, I was standing with my mama, and not saying anything wrong with the lady, because a couple of them said, Look, my mama is working and providing for us, and she's not home a lot, so we in the streets. So it ain't that she necessarily doing anything wrong. It's just that It's just that the the environment is just is it's almost like it's only one way to bake a cake, man. If these if these variables exist, it's a high probability that these kids, especially being in the city that we are in. That's where I think a lot of people geographically things are different. This is a in poverty city. It's high, it's I think it's like the top ten in murder murder rate in the country. So we can't we gotta if we gotta miss money, so to say, to and downgrade our life to make sure the kids are being being supervised, make sure we putting them in stuff, make sure we putting around other kids. That's what we gotta do because the the the result of not doing it is is is extreme. It's is is is catastrophic almost. And this is these are the I don't say the worst kids, but these are the kids in the most unfortunate situations in all of their dynamics and home environment. Are pretty much the same. So it's it's it's it's telling me that it ain't the kid. Cause the kid can't control where they live, the kid can't control who at the house watching, the kid can't control what food they got, the kids can't control how much cloth how what clothes they wear. It's it it the kid is never the problem. It's always the environment of where the kid is at and what's the kid around. So that that experience helped me understand that about it's it's not the kid. It's never the kid. Seth Stoker: So, Devin, I think you've been able to see this. I think you'll bring a unique perspective here on this statistic. But from what I understand, homes with a father in the home, like even a single father. Yeah, Daven Woodard: Or some type of male role model influence, yeah. Seth Stoker: but home homes with a single father in the home have the same incarceration rate or marginally similar enough incarceration rate as a home with a mother and a father in the home. But A home with a single mother in the home without a father in the home, incarceration rates go way up. Why do you think that is? Daven Woodard: Man. It just it it goes it goes back to the f it it just My daddy my daddy always used to tell it to me and I didn't understand till I get older is a lot of the stuff I'm doing is not for now, it's for later. And I I dads and men in general hold people accountable. And they understand even if I have to and another thing my daddy say this this hurt me more than I d than it hurt you. And if I didn't love you, I wouldn't I just let you do anything. But I understand it hurts me bad when I gotta discipline my son. But I understand if I don't, the consequences are way worse. But his his w his mom, that's her little baby, that's her baby boy. You know, it's just hard. It's and I understand it because they're nurturing creatures. So they don't have, they're not operating from the same logic or the same fire that the dad. I understand. Just like I had a perfect example last week. I tell my son every Friday, take your lunch box out. Put it in the put it in the sink, do whatever, wash it, put it up. So this Friday, last Friday, he whatever he doing, he fooling off, playing the game, whatever, whatever. So here Monday comes. What the lunchbox said, lunchbox still in his book set. So his mom, she wanted, I don't want my baby to go to school without his lunch. I said, look, he made a choice. He knows what he has to do. He got responsibilities. Nobody eats out Chase lunchbox but him. So he got a responsibility to take it out and put it in the sink, wash it and put it up so you can put the food in it. So guess what he's gonna do this week? He's not going, he's going to school without lunch. If he's gonna eat the school lunch, cool. Or if he just wants to be hungry until he gets home, he ain't gonna die. But that's hard. She fought me all week. But that's hard for her to send her baby to school, not knowing the outcome. But as I'm trying to get her and him to understand, that is only a result of chase action. It's not. That is his that's his consequence to bear from his decisions. And I think fathers take that, fathers and young men that's trying to lead these kids, take that a lot more serious and and don't get so swayed by the emotions. It's almost like a football coach, okay? If you I don't care how fast or how good you are, if you can't come to practice, if you can't do this, you're not playing. It just it's it's it's it's it it's a recurring theme in the male world. It's just it's the consequences, man. You have to my dad helped me under if you get do you get bad grades, you're getting a whooping. It's it's no, it's not it's not because I'm waking up and I'm upset at you, then I'm a whoop. it's Davin did this, this is the result. Chase did this, this is the result. You have every and I have I tell it to my son, every every action has a opposite and equal reaction. You make good choices, you get good results. Most times. You make bad choices, you get bad results. And it and it just Dads take the emotion out of a lot of stuff. They love them, but they just take the emotions out of a lot of the the discipline. Cause they know understand Seth Stoker: Yeah. Daven Woodard: that it's necessary. Seth Stoker: Exactly. I I I think helping your kids understand that there's consequences to their actions, even when that means it's you know, it they're gonna be disappointed. They're gonna be sad, right? They're gonna be uncomfortable. Daven Woodard: You only want to do it. Right. Seth Stoker: But you know what? You're doing them a huge service because j I mean, coming from a guy at the jail, you know better than anybody. There's consequences to your actions. And and you Daven Woodard: Consequences. Seth Stoker: make you make one big bad decision, it can haunt you for the rest of your life. Even if, you know, that doesn't make you a bad person. That doesn't mean that. Daven Woodard: It definitely Seth Stoker: that's who you are Daven Woodard: could alter. Seth Stoker: now, but it definitely impacts the track of your life and the path of your life much more than than I I anybody realizes, especially kids who haven't had consequences imposed on them in the past. Daven Woodard: Correct. They don't understand. It's hard for them to understand the consequences. And and another thing I wanna add, it's just also dad, the when the kids have force that meet force, they underst they understand that I'm not the biggest, baddest person in the world. Just like me, and just like my son at a young age. I can tell sometimes sometimes I tell him stuff and he might you know, in his head, but he understands that my dad is a bigger, stronger creature. He's almost He like not to use my own example. My when I was maybe want to say something, do something, I understand that my dad almost is like a superhero. So all I could do is say yes, sir, and go on about my business. And in life, a lot of people just just more people just say, Okay, and go about their business. But if they never had to do it, it's almost like you can't turn on a a light switch that ain't there. It's it's Seth Stoker: Yeah, I love that. I I think I I I think one interesting thing too is I think about you going back and talking to the inmate after you had to get in a fight and Daven Woodard: Right. Seth Stoker: or or or after you had to spray him with mace and and and take Daven Woodard: Yeah. Seth Stoker: his tray. I think it's the same in fatherhood. you know what? Yeah, there's gonna be consequences, and I'm gonna be mad sometimes because of what you've done. or you're gonna suffer the consequences. That might mean you have to walk home and stay or or walk to school because you missed the bus or or or what any Daven Woodard: Right, right. Seth Stoker: of any of those situations. There's consequences, and sure, I could swoop in and save you. as a dad, I could swoop in and drive Daven Woodard: Right. Seth Stoker: you to school. I could go ahead and pack that lunch for you, or or or or whatever, but it but instead by giving you those consequences. I'm teaching you. And I remember telling my oldest son when he was younger, I can't remember how old he was, but I remember telling him, hey, it's my job to teach you how to become a man. And that's what I'm doing. You may not like it all the time, but that is what I'm doing. And so I think about I think about you going back and talking to the inmate. And I think it's very similar with our kids too. When we impose those consequences, when when they're they're upset with us because we impose those consequences. We can go back later and say, all right, help me understand what was really going on. And we can even say, hey, I'm not sorry that you had to deal with the consequences of your actions, but I want you to know that I still love you. I Daven Woodard: Right. Seth Stoker: think going back and making sure that they understand that that it comes from a place of love and not a place of anger or resentment or anything like that. I think that's really important too. Daven Woodard: They gotta understand the why. And I always go, I I do it my I understand why my dad did it because that after you discipline him, man, y'all almost feel bad. So Seth Stoker: yeah. Daven Woodard: you go sit, I I you go sit and be like, damn. So I just gotta go hear from him. I go tell him, man, son, do you understand why I had to whip you? Do you understand the consequences? Like, yeah, I understand I did this, and that's the result. And that just for whatever reason, okay, that make me feel better. Not better, but that helps me understand. that he understands why he had to deal with the cost consequence and that I can rest a little bit easier with knowing that, he under at least understands why he not confused and and and generally, like I said, not in gave him a chance. Generally, most times. So Seth Stoker: Yeah. You let him you let him crawfish? Is that what said? Give him a chance to crawfish? Daven Woodard: I'm gonna give you a chance every time. I got to. Seth Stoker: I love it. So you said something earlier that stuck out to me. You said because of the fact that you know that poverty is a big problem in Louisiana, there's There are a lot of challenges for families Daven Woodard: Yeah. Seth Stoker: and and things like that financially and and and totally understand that. But let let's say I'm a dad in Louisiana and I'm I'm fighting Daven Woodard: Mm-hmm. Seth Stoker: that fight, like I'm trying to make ends meet and it's hard. Daven Woodard: Mm-hmm. Seth Stoker: And you said sometimes that means we're gonna have to sacrifice financially in order to Daven Woodard: Yeah. Seth Stoker: really focus on this responsibility of of of raising our kids. And so how do how do you balance that as a dad in Louisiana? Daven Woodard: Man, that's that's a good guy. It's tough. That's that's probably one of them the hardest things to do as as a dad, especially here. Just you gotta balance it, man. You gotta and it's a it's a it's much it's a much bigger scheme of things. It's like And it's it's you just you gotta figure it out. You gotta eve if you have to you have to be it's ideal to be in a relationship with the mother, have a good relationship with her because then you can go and do just like me for instance, I I like to work a lot of my stuff with my extra stuff when my kids are at school, when they're sleeping, because they shouldn't have to bear the burden of taking care of them. And what I mean, they shouldn't have to lose time with their dad because I'm responsible for them. That just that's not fair to the kids. So okay, I might have to lose some sleep and get up and do it while they're sleeping at night and they mom here with them. Or I might have to just my my time, I want to golf or sit down and read. Okay, I'm gonna go work extra while they're at school. So you just gotta find time to where it's not if you gotta sell stuff online to be there with them, whatever you got. We we we can do anything that we wanna do that we can make time for. So we can't burden the child with, okay, I need to make money for the child, but they're also gonna take time away from the child. It's just I don't I don't agree with that. I just think that we have to spine time to when the child is when it's more feasible for the child. Seth Stoker: Yeah, I think I think ideally it's let's you know sacrifice, make some sacrifices professionally even in order to focus on in order to focus on raising the kids. And I I've I've heard the quote plenty of times that says, No suc let's see, no no professional success can compensate for failure in the home. And I Daven Woodard: Hello. Seth Stoker: think that's that's extremely important. At the same time, I do recognize that sometimes reality is something you got to deal with too. And we got to make ends meet. Daven Woodard: For sure. Seth Stoker: And that might meet. Like there, there's probably dads out there right now who have two, three jobs trying to make it an ends meet. And here's here's what I would say to them is if you can't give quantity, you better give quality. And so when Daven Woodard: Extreme quality. Seth Stoker: you are home, you can't. You can't be on the phone scrolling. You can't be, you you can't be off on yourself. I I think we tell ourselves a story a lot of times, like, hey, I gotta recharge my batteries, you know, and and I I firmly believe there's no better way to recharge your batteries than than being with your kids and and taking care of them and giving them giving them your time, giving them your focus, giving them your energy. And and so I think Maybe, maybe just to add on to what you're saying, I th I I I think the other message I would I would give to fathers who are in this situation Daven Woodard: Extreme. Seth Stoker: where you're making sacrifices on your time and things like that, when you're there, be there. be all Daven Woodard: Be there. Seth Stoker: in there. Give them a hundred percent of your focus. Daven Woodard: That's what that's my dad. That's my dad, man. He did a really good job. And I was raised by a single dad, so backstory, but he he worked a lot. He worked at a plant, so the shift work is overnight, it's here, there. But every other weekend he made sure that, you know, we were movies, get our haircut, just learn and still learn in the the essence of being a man while we ride and he's talking to us about life and I say he's making sure I don't care what he got going on as far as it relates to his life, his social life, female life, whatever. The the weekend that he's off, me and my brother will be with him getting our haircuts, going to the movies, going out to eat, spending quality time, and we we could bank on that. And I think the kid gets a different level. I think the kid can understand the time if They know, okay, XYZ, me and my dad are gonna do be together doing whatever, doing something. And I think they'll they can get through the times where they may make a bad decision or they may miss you because they know for a fact, okay, my dad's off, I'm gonna be with my dad, and we're gonna be having a good time. Seth Stoker: And they feel they feel like a priority, right? You make them feel Daven Woodard: Correct. Seth Stoker: like they're important to you. And I think that's half the battle. So tell me more about your dad. What'd you learn from your dad? Daven Woodard: man, he's I always tell people they laugh and they always take him back, man. It's my dad is probab is ain't no problem. My dad is the next closest thing to God to me. So it's God and then my dad. He's almost like a fictional creature to me. He's Seth Stoker: Why? Daven Woodard: man, cause man, he just the older I get, the more his my admiration level for him grows. Cause it's just man, it's it's hard. It's hard, especially then me knowing me and then my personality type and my characteristics. It was hard for him to and I see of course as I get older he devolved more of what was going on in my childhood to me. But man, that was man, it's that's almost like a fate that most men can't accomplish. He just never complained. He just super strong guy, super tough. Always could count on him, always present. Like you say, he was working shift work pretty much my whole life, still to this day, and he was at Pretty much all my football games, pretty much all my football. I don't know how, but if he he had to my dad, me understand what I understand about PTO and vacation. Now, of course, I understand that nine ten years old, he was scheduling his vacation time for the year out ahead of time around my football game. You know what I'm saying? As a kid, as a sports kid for sure, looking up in those stands and seeing your parents there is next to none. And I don't think kids that people that didn't play sports would can't understand is impossible. But that feeling, and I look to a certain section every day, every Friday night or every Saturday, whatever, and I can guarantee you my dad's gonna be sitting right there. Whatever he gotta go through to get his butt in that chair, in that seat, he's gonna do it, and he's gonna be there. So it's man, he's Seth Stoker: Why did that matter? Daven Woodard: man, I just think, like you said, it's just priority, man. It man, look, man, I'm I don't care what I got going on, my dad's gonna be there for me. I don't care if I mess up, I don't care if I miss ten tackles, if I get twenty interceptions, he gonna be there. It just I don't know, for a kid, man, for a kid that meant everything to me. Just n knowing that he was gonna be there, knowing that he was just present, man. It just it's it's hard to explain. It's just I It's just man, he and then he encouraged you, he builds you up, he lets you know when you he let you know, you know what you could've did better, where you went wrong, but he ain't gonna beat you down. It's just man, he good man, that man, and man, he'd write a book, man. He's but he not a he not a man of many words either. so it's just he just it's I don't know, he's just I don't know. He's a fictional creature, man. He's a good man. Seth Stoker: Sounds like obviously he had a a huge role and impact in your life. Daven Woodard: man. Seth Stoker: And when you think about the fact that i if if I understand correctly, he didn't have a partner with him as he raised you, he was on Daven Woodard: No, man. Seth Stoker: his own. Daven Woodard: He was on some my grand of course my grandma, my grandfather, Seth Stoker: Sure. Daven Woodard: and my two aunts. But of course they were just, like I stay we'd stay at grandma's house at night when we have to like my dad had to work at night, we stay at my grandma's house to go to school in the morning. Just so the main the main parenting came from my my dad and then of course my aunts and my grandma and my papa, they filled the gaps along the waist. So But it's yeah, man, it was man, I don't know, man, to this day, that man And I and I still don't know everything he had to endure. And I only I can I know what I have to endure now to just be there. I know how much I know how much take everything else out. I know how much you have to sacrifice and endure just to be there. Let alone from the vacations, the taking you out to eat, the getting your hair cut every two weeks, the all the other stuff. Just simply to be there, you have to endure and sacrifice so much. So being there, I think was just the biggest part. Especially me being my age now. Seth Stoker: I so I was watching one of your videos on TikTok and and I remember you saying, the thing about fatherhood is and and I'm gonna I'm gonna paraphrase 'cause I don't remember exactly what you said, but it Daven Woodard: All right. Seth Stoker: was something along the lines of like you're playing the long game. you don't get the thank Daven Woodard: Yeah. Seth Stoker: yous now. The thank yous come later. But it's pretty cool to Daven Woodard: Later. Seth Stoker: hear right now. I think about if I'm your dad right now and I'm hearing this, is there is there any greater compliment Daven Woodard: Lidera Seth Stoker: than hearing hearing the thank yous come now? And that's only what what we can hope as fathers is I I Thank you, Daven Woodard: That's it. Seth Stoker: i isn't really something that I care that much about, but feeling like having my kids feel like I was somebody who loved them, Daven Woodard: Man is Seth Stoker: who who modeled things for them and and somebody that they respect, I I I think is is something that any dad would hope for. Daven Woodard: Yeah, man. He's the next I could say he's the next closest thing to God to me, man. It's God in him. And my word my Seth Stoker: So cool. Daven Woodard: eyes. Seth Stoker: Now, on that note, though, Davin, I think, I think you also, I'm thinking about you looking up in the stands and and and seeing your dad. And you start to feel like because I I had I had similar experiences. I wrestled in high school and I was able always able Daven Woodard: Okay. Seth Stoker: to see my parents in the stands. And yeah, it's such a huge blessing to be able to look up. Daven Woodard: Hey that's Seth Stoker: But you start to realize, all right, now let me put myself in the shoes of somebody who didn't have that. somebody who's out on the Daven Woodard: Right. Seth Stoker: stands and all their friends are looking up and seeing their parents and maybe they're not or they you know Daven Woodard: Right. Seth Stoker: they don't have a dad who's there supporting them and you can start to see how impactful that would be on the other end. Daven Woodard: Yeah. Yeah. I can I can say I can say those those kind of kids, they they cling not cling, but they would hang around or cling to me and the and my dad almost. My dad and that's another good thing about fatherhood, you you you're almost teaching and raising all kinds of kids because just like my friends with me and my dad, of course we doing stuff a certain way, but naturally if you with us, you're gonna have to do this way. And naturally Seth Stoker: Yep. Daven Woodard: if he talking to me, giving me life of lessons while I'm a kid, naturally you're gonna hear So they just I think they cling to to the kids that that does have the structure that that they f feel like they they have something that they probably don't have. So That's why the res the responsibility of the fatherhood and the manhood just goes so far, but so we just it's it's it's so important, man. It just it Seth Stoker: Yeah. Daven Woodard: has so many different facets to it. Seth Stoker: Yeah. One of my favorite things is we'll have so my my family, we we kneel down and say prayer every every evening before we go to bed. Daven Woodard: Mm-hmm. Seth Stoker: And if one of the friends are over, then we have them come join us as part like hey, if you're here, like this is what we do. So you're coming and doing with us. Daven Woodard: Hey, that's us what's going on. Seth Stoker: And and and I always I always enjoy that. But maybe just thinking about your experience. I mean, you've had all this experience, A, from your dad. What a great example that you were able to learn from from your dad. And then you're able to build on that experience with your experience in the prison. So talk to me about how you approach parenthood now. What's important to you? What do you want to make sure your kids learn from you, that sort of thing. Daven Woodard: Man, what's important to me what's important to me, man, is just being there. So, I said, that as I got older I understood how much it took to be there and that made me even put more importance on it, man. The importance of is just being there. And whatever I have to do to be there, whether I have to budget my money better and work less, whether I have to endure whatever I have to do endure with work or just I have to be there. Have to be there by any means necessary because the the consequences of not being there is catastrophic. It just is the the the the the risk of not being there is catastrophic. And that goes and I don't want to go off on a tangent by relationships, but we endure stuff so much in our lives, whether it be at work, whether it be personal, whether it be whatever. So we have to learn to endure and communicate and solve problems with The spouses, because we can't we we have it's it's it's a bigger responsibility than just me and you dating, marriage, whatever. We have a bigger responsibility. So we have to endure, we have to communicate, we have to come up with solutions because it's it's of the utmost importance, if possible, that we are here so I can do what I need to do, or so you can do what you need to do, so we can be here, so we can be present. So if I need to work less, if I need to do whatever, I need to work at night while they sleep, I'll call their mom at home. It's cool, I can go do whatever I need to do. It's just I have to do whatever I have to do to be there. So my kids always say, Man, my dad was there. And and and the biggest thing is how are you going how are you going to make the corrections and raise the child if you're not there? Cause when this life situation presents itself and this is the perfect teaching moment, this is the this is the perfect time. They have made their in a situation. This is the time to teach, but boom, I'm not even there to teach. I gotta come. On the back end, when the situation over with and it's the it's not as heightened, well what happened? Or okay, you should have well this the the opportunity is not there anymore. If I'm present in the opportunity, I can make the correction, I can do the teaching, I can do the fathering. But if I'm not there, how this impossible 'cause I'm not I'm not in a situation where the teaching moment is available. So I say just presence. And you're gonna mess up. Get you just gotta Long you got a will to try to get it right, you'll get it right during the process, man. You'll long as you press it, you'll get it right somewhere down the line. Seth Stoker: Yeah, I I imagine your dad screwed up plenty. But those aren't the those aren't the things that you remember, right? now that you look Daven Woodard: man, I can imagine. Correct, Seth Stoker: back, yeah, I I'm not hearing that at all. Daven Woodard: Correct. Hey, I I didn't even think about it, but you're right. You right. You're right. Seth Stoker: Thank goodness, by the way, because because I hopefully our kids our kids remember us the same way. But you know, I yeah. Daven Woodard: Long as the kids know that you love I think they'll deal as long as the love they can feel the love and they know that you love they will accept the discipline. That's how I always like to say it. You can't just discipline, discipline with no love, no quality time. Well that's gone that's a bad recipe. Seth Stoker: That's great point. I you've shared one of my favorite insights that I think I've heard on on any of my episodes so far. And it's the fact that the reason presence is so important is because you never know when that teaching opportunity is going to come up. And if you Daven Woodard: Hey man, you gotta beat up. Seth Stoker: may have all these things you want to teach your kids, but if you're not prioritizing being with them, you miss those opportunities. I I love that. I Daven Woodard: Missed the opportunity to deploy. Seth Stoker: yeah. I thought that was a a a great insight. And so I'm curious, j just because I said that weird. I I I'm curious, just because Daven Woodard: Mm. Seth Stoker: you because of your unique background, is there anything that you're deliberate about in teaching your kids that you probably wouldn't be if you hadn't spent time in in the prison and or in working in the prison and in the police force? Daven Woodard: Who you choose to be around. That's easily Seth Stoker: Tell me more. Daven Woodard: popped out to my mind. Man, a lot of guys, a lot of people that were quote unquote, for lack of better term, raised right, blah, blah, blah. A lot of good guys link up with the wrong people. And a lot of them, a lot of the situations they're in is not because of the decision. Well, it's a decision they made, but it's not because of direct result of the decision they made. It's not because They weren't parented right. It's not because they didn't have the resources. It's because they were hanging around the wrong kid. So it's our responsibility to put as as much as possible, because of course they got to go to school. They got to go to all these other things. But putting your being around the right group of kids. And I expressed that to my son. He was he hanging, he was hanging out with a kid at school. Yeah, the kid's fun, funny, blah, blah, blah. But every time you're around this kid, son, you in trouble. Every time you're around this kid, you got recess detention. So look. Let's go and change the circular kid that we with. Let's go, let's go change the kid or the friends that we got. Now you in the beta club. Now you're he ran for the beta club president this year. He lost, but the kid the kids are different. So now once you go around this kid this group of kids, now you're different. Cause you thinking different, your conversations are different. so it's it's it's vitally important who you choose to be around. That's another thing my dad helped me. Understand. He only he he only got a couple partners, only two probably two or three partners that I know of his whole life to this day. So I think it's just important to let kids understand, man. For one, everybody's not your friend. And two, you have to be careful who you hang around because the choice that somebody else made. And I got a a partner I was raised, grew up with right now, in jail right now, because he chose to take some clowns. To the store with him. He was the only one driving. So you the only one got a car. Man, just going home. But he hanging around. He let the kids. He let some other kids entice him. man, y'all, man, you mind running us to the store? Go to the store. They end up trying to steal out the store. Getting to the owner, a kid shot. Shot a sh a kid shot one of the people at the store. But guess who took him there? Seth Stoker: So now he's an accomplice. Daven Woodard: so and just that fast. But that's just cause and I might and that's another thing my daddy taught me when we talked driving, man. You don't ride everybody. If they ain't your partners that you know how they think and they trying to do what you want to do, they don't need to get in your car. But that's just a small lesson, but a big consequence. So Seth Stoker: Gow, what a Daven Woodard: that the people you hang around is the is the is that that j that that that hell and plus with the guys in the jail telling me the same thing. That is not something even my dad I came up with. They told me, man, Wood, if I wasn't hanging out with these dudes, I probably wouldn't be in here talking to you right now. Because they don't even I don't even roll how they roll, but yet they just happen to be in the neighborhood, chilling at the park with them, just environmental stuff. So they just happen to go to the store and they happen to break in the car. They happen to break in the house, just the people they around. Seth Stoker: Yeah. And the opposite's true too. you choose to spend time with with kids who are trying to do the right thing. You end up being Daven Woodard: Correct Namuno. Seth Stoker: an accomplice to to good things that take place, good actions, right? I Daven Woodard: All right. All right. Seth Stoker: I I think about, you know, I hear you hear this a lot from like a business perspective or or like, you know, when they talk about entrepreneurship and things like that, it's You're the average of the five people you surround yourself with the most or or that you spend the most time with. And boy, if that principle's true in business, it's true times ten as a kid. Daven Woodard: Yeah. Seth Stoker: okay, great insights there. So so we're intentional intentional about teaching them who to spend time with. what else? Daven Woodard: again the consequences, intense intentional about teaching them consequences cause that's a big part of life. You know, if you're making the wrong choices, you doing the wrong things. If you're not doing what you're supposed to do, generally bad. I tell my son, if you do if you do good if you make good choices, generally good stuff happens. You make bad choices, generally bad stuff happens. So big on consequences, Seth Stoker: Imagine that. Daven Woodard: big on consequences, big on your friend group. big on respect. 'Cause generally respect. just like I say from Just learning from jail to the street to generally I hate to say it like this, but generally you can almost get out of trouble by simply being respectful. By saying yes, sir, no, sir. Just like on the street, you get some kids or whatever, they respectable, man, you'll give a kid a pass because you understand they kids. But a kid that's disrespectful, it's it's much harder for you to evade trouble if you're disrespectful. you get much more out of life and much more out of people if you're respectful. But I had to learn that when I was eighteen, nineteen, so I tried to help them understand that, you know. So those three things are probably the cornerstones I'd say just who you hang around with, decisions and consequences, and respect. It's of course other things too, but if I just had to take three pillars, those would probably be the main three for sure. That I've learned and understand the consequences and do work and experience and all these other things. Seth Stoker: So th so this is great stuff and and all of these experiences that you've had have driven you to now start creating content a little bit more about fatherhood and and things like that. What are you hoping to accomplish? Daven Woodard: Man, I'm hoping to accomplish just a kid that isn't hearing these things, or the young man that isn't hearing these things, that maybe they'll come across my content and just get one nugget or one gem that they can take with them and that can change the traject trajectory of how they think and how they operate and how they make decisions. Because I use this analogy all the time. I can't if I ask my daughter to draw a picture of a cat and she's never seen one. I can't draw I can't discipline her when she draws a picture of a dog. And what I mean by that is I can't hold you can't hold people accountable to something they never seen, never heard. They generally people I think people people live such in a vacuum that they think and this is a human thing too, but we think everybody should think and understands like us. And that is impossible. They may have never heard something that you have to say. They may have never heard something that I have to say, but Once it once they hear it and then ingest it, man, that makes sense. That that I never heard that before. I know or I've never heard it explained like that before. They may have k they may have people coming from a two-parent household that explain it different. They may have people coming from the north that explain it different than people from the south. They may have people that were raised by their grandparents in California that explained it. So maybe just how I deliver it, they ear might catch it and digest it a little better. So Just I hope just to help through simply hearing or getting a message out of being able to help people receive it better, along with getting, you know, holding real life events like I'm planning the event just with like dad, daughter building a bracelet. 'cause I understand how little small trinkets from a man's daughter in support. I wear my bracelet every day for my daughter. So I understand How important little trinkets are to males from their daughters. and just some a lot of times with men, we need a reason. Not saying we don't want to spend time with our kids, but we need a reason to take off work. We need an event. We need, you know, so just creating opportunities. They don't have a they don't have a ton of opportunities here for just kids and fathers to do stuff. just getting a message out, getting the word out from a guy that they can understand and looks like them maybe or talks like them, or who knows. and just getting the just getting the word to people that have never heard it before, or possibly never heard it before, or the male or the young man that's trying to learn it, or the young man, the young father that didn't have an example like I had. That's the best thing I could say about my dad. At least I had a somewhat of an example, somewhat of a blueprint. It's it's much different taking off on a trip with a roadmap, opposed from taking off on a trip without a roadmap. Man, you might it might take you twenty years to get here, but I got somewhat of a map. Even if I do get lost, my dad has provided some kind of blueprint for me to follow. So I won't be so far gone. That's what I think a lot of a lot is missing from this the kids' fathers ex etc. Just they they don't have a blueprint. They don't have an example. So they figuring it out. They're trying to figure it out the best way they know how. So that's what I'm trying. In a nutshell, I talk, you know, I go on the rant sometimes. In a nutshell. Seth Stoker: Great. We we like the rants. I I think I think what's cool Daven Woodard: Ha ha ha. Seth Stoker: in my mind is I think there's a lot of people who can look at what's going on in the world and say, there's a problem. hey, there's a problem. Very few people take the opportunity and say, I'm actually gonna do something about it. I'm gonna try to find Daven Woodard: Just something anything. Seth Stoker: a way. I'm gonna try to find a way to use the lessons that I've learned to influence the world for good. And I think that it sounds like that's exactly what you're trying to accomplish. And that alone I think is quite commendable. Daven Woodard: Trying. Do my best. And it's something my Seth Stoker: All right, Devin, so Daven Woodard: dad to be proud of. That's all, man. My ultimate goal, man. My I understood, man, what my dad had to go through to even get me here, just to just keep get me out, keep me out of trouble, keep me grounded, keep me on the straight and narrow that I just it's people say I'm crazy for, but I just ultimately in my life, I just want to make my dad proud and repay him. That's how much admiration and respect that I have for him. Seth Stoker: How old are you, Dev? Daven Woodard: Thirty three. Seth Stoker: Thirty three. I I think what's you you want to talk about what's cool when you when you think about fatherhood. It's the fact that you you can have an impact on someone to the point that at thirty-three years old they're still thinking, Man, I just wanna make my dad proud. Like what a Daven Woodard: Hey man, that's it. Seth Stoker: huge compliment to your dad. Daven Woodard: That's it, man. And that's how I raise my kids. That's how I live my j even, of course I got my own mess ups and mistakes and gotta fix Seth Stoker: Sure. Daven Woodard: it, gotta learn it, gotta self-develop, gotta grow. But in all that, man, I just I d don't wanna disappoint a man because he had to put so much time and effort and sacrifice in to get me to where I am, man. So that'd be that'll be a fate worse than death if I was to do that. Seth Stoker: Well let's say let's say we go years down the road, your kids are all grown, and let let's say Davin's long gone at that point. What do you hope your legacy is as a father when we ask them what Davin's legacy was? Daven Woodard: I would say, man, he gave us all the tools that we need in our toolbox. So and what I mean by that is I can only hope to give them all the tools that they would need for life. But through my teachings and in my teachings and my presence, I hope they would know which tool to use. But that'll be up to them. But I can only as long as I have provided them with all the tools that they would need in life. But they will have again, they will have to know which tools to use when. But I can only hope to have them prepared. Seth Stoker: Love it. Well well, Davin, this has been great. Thanks for the opportunity to be able to learn from you and Daven Woodard: Yes, sir. Seth Stoker: and your your experience and love what you're doing to help other dads. you know, make the most out of this huge responsibility. Appreciate talking to other people who take it as seriously as as I hope I do. So thank you.