Latest / The Family Teams Podcast / Ep. 185 | What Does it Mean to be Noble?

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Ep. 185 | What Does it Mean to be Noble? · The Family Teams Podcast

• 0:00
  Because if it's without shame and it's in freedom, then it should be calling you up too. Like it's, hey, we're all trying to grill. We're all trying to go to this standard.
• 0:12
  Hey guys, welcome to the 5-Minute Fatherhood Podcast. I'm your co-host, Jeff Beth Key, along with my friend and mentor, Jeremy Pryor. Join us Monday through Friday as we chat about quick tips, skills, and ways to help equip you on your journey as a father to build your multi-generational family team on mission. Stay tuned.
• 0:34
  What's up, guys? Here we are, Five Minute Fatherhood. So you guys know one of the things that I'm constantly looking for, Jeff, is we're digging into what are ancient places where we can get wisdom. We spend a lot of our time looking at the scriptures, but there's also other sources of looking at older cultures. And so I wanted to just share with you guys a quote, and let's just think through this quote and what maybe we can learn from this ancient piece of wisdom.
• 0:58
  So Euripides, the famous playwright who really pioneered a lot of what we think of as just the different writing around plays and screen writing, he was pioneering that whole idea of comedy and tragedy. Anyway, he has a famous quote about fatherhood, which he says, Noble fathers have noble children.
• 1:24
  And, you know, in Athens, they really spent time thinking through what are sort of these, what are we noticing as patterns? They were extremely good at finding and describing patterns and so much of how their cultures influenced the world is their ability to do this. And this is a pattern they discovered.
• 1:42
  which was like how you live and your ability to be noble really has a massive impact on your children. What does it mean to be noble? This is oftentimes a difficult word to describe, but the definition like Webster's is just having or showing fine personal qualities or high moral principles and ideals.
• 2:03
  So when your children see that you hold a high standard for them, and then you hold yourself to that high standard, that is nobility, and that's what impacts them. The opposite of this, you guys, is the dad who says, do what I say, don't do what I do. That is the opposite of what it means to be noble. Being noble is like, hey, guys—
• 2:23
  There's a very high standard out there, and I am really, really trying to reach it. And this can be not just in areas of morality, but also just dignity, right? In areas where you're trying to level up our experience as a family, you're trying yourself to really level up and meet a standard. Now, you guys, we're always going to fall short of standards. We need to gospel our kids constantly. And so one of the things you guys know we always are trying to say is that you have to really dial up both your standards and your support.
• 2:53
  The grace you have for your kids needs to be at a very high level, but your standards also need to be very high. It's very difficult to do both at once, and so we talk a lot about that. But I think that in this quote, it's really talking about sort of dialing up that standard and then saying something to you as a dad, and that is how your children perceive...
• 3:11
  how you hold yourself accountable to the standards that you hold for them is really what causes you to live nobly, and it also creates noble children. Or as it says in Proverbs 31 about that woman, she is clothed with strength and dignity. And I think that that's a good description of nobility as well. And I think that's also true for dads. We need to be clothed with strength and dignity.
• 3:37
  And there's always a visual I have. I don't know if you guys remember. A lot of you guys have probably watched that movie, Titanic. And there's a really... I don't know, Jeff, if you remember this image. It blew my mind, and it's always stuck with me, just as a visual. So as the boat was sinking...
• 3:54
  There was this sort of gorgeous place where they would eat, this estate area that all the wealthy people would gather to have their opulent meals. And while the boat was sinking, this very fine-dressed man walked into that room with his son, realizing that only a certain number of people would survive. He was hoping, of course, the women and children would...
• 4:18
  would make it out, but knew that many of the men would not. And so what he chose to do is he sat at a chair with his son next to him, who's also dressed in his finest clothes, and basically said, we're going to just wait here to die, me and my son.
• 4:34
  Wow, yeah, I remember that. And that always blew me away because you could tell that that flowed out of this multi-generational nobility. Like, we will not put ourselves above those who need to be rescued. We're going to die instead.
• 4:49
  It's like, wow. You know, there was an old world nobility that used to exist. You know, that sort of almost ultimate version of chivalry that I thought was really an interesting display of that. But yeah, Jeff, have you thought about this noble father's hat and noble children?
• 5:06
  Yeah. And I think another way that we try to say it too is like kind of, and this phrase can go sideways. So I think you have to be careful, but like we tend to like on certain things, we'll say, Hey, like, Hey, our team doesn't do that. The Beth keys don't do that. That there's kind of like a standard on the last name. Right now, usually when I said that goes sideways, it's families that are more using that for like the, and you see this in more, you know, kind of the classic caricature in movies and stuff of really wealthy people, like the shame, right? Kind of like shame version of that. And so it's,
• 5:30
  As long as you're not going there, I think it's actually a really helpful, like calling your kid up to type thing, because you're also because if it's without shame and it's in freedom, then it should be calling you up to like it. Say we're all trying to grill. We're all trying to go to this standard. And then it kind of feels actually more like kind of people roll their sleeves up and say, yeah, like we can do that. You know, we are, you know, and so I think that like kind of a last name having like a tone or a legacy or how.
• 5:51
  they live out in the world is kind of an aspiration. I think more families should have that like a last name represents. And this is true. It has, it has been true in business, right? I think businesses have done this really well of like that, that, that you almost become sons who are adults and are kind of under the legacy of their father or daughters in the, in the business. That last name already has, is already loaded, right? Either for good or for bad. Um, and so I think that's something that's kind of very similar to this of like leaning into, um, all being a team together and all helping each other kind of raise the standard.
• 6:21
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