How Men Can Prepare For Fatherhood

Do I think you're ever going to be 100% prepared? Probably not. Mentally, emotionally, and physically. Right. Because it's demanding. It's also dynamic. It's forever changing. Right. Anybody who says, I'll wait till I'm ready, it's like, you probably are not going to be ever 100% ready. However, I like to compare it like this. You know, I think if. If we could shift anything in the. In the minds and hearts of men, it's this. It's really okay to not know what you're doing. It's really okay. And it's probably not your fault if you have no clue what to do. Right. Because that's. We're pretty much going off the blueprint that we were raised with. But here's where my tough love comes in. It's your fault if you don't do anything about it. Because now we have, like, literally all the resources at our fingertips that we could possibly ask for to help us with that journey. We just have to say yes to it. Right. I like to compare it to something like this as well. Are you a gambler by chance? Do you gamble?

No.

Okay.

I gambled once when I was 18. Lost 500 bucks, which was pretty much everything that I had, and then said, fuck this. I'm never doing that again.

So you and I literally have the same gambling experience. I make a joke at the blackjack table. I'm like, yeah, if I want to lose 100 bucks in two minutes, I'll just go play blackjack. So I. But the thing is, is I don't know the strategy of blackjack. I don't know the strategy of poker. I. I don't play. I have nothing against it. I just don't play it. Cause I've lost money doing it in the very two, three or four times I've done it. But here's what I can tell you. I would massively stack the odds in my favor that I would do better if I learned how to do it or if I read a book on. On strategy, on. On poker or whatever else. Right. But if I just go in, like, winging it, I'll figure it out. I'm probably going to lose more than I gain, and it's probably not going to be the most fulfilling experience of my life. Right. So I think that what you can do is. I don't. To answer your question, I don't know if you'll ever. If anybody's ever ready, but you can stack the odds in your favor for a more fulfilling experience with it. And knowing what's coming and just being more of a student of it, more of a study of it.

Yeah, it's interesting because I have men reach out to me all the time, and they're like, what book would you recommend on being a dad? And I've always taken. I've never been the academic guy. I've always been the apprenticeship guy. And so I took the path of reaching out to as many men who were fathers that I respected as possible and saying, what did you do? How did you feel? What was it like after you had your kid? You know, what was the. What were the hardest parts of it? What do you wish people had told you? Like, just sort of asking questions from the men who had gone through it, who I respect and. And am connected to. And I think that that really helped me. And then sharing. Sharing my fears. You know, I had a big fear of losing my freedom.

Oh, yeah.

I had really built a life where I could go where I wanted, when I wanted, with whoever I wanted. And I was like, man, is having a kid gonna infringe on that? And, you know, it's. So I think getting to share some of those fears with the men and being honest, you know, that were. In my life, that was a huge piece that, that I. I wish for every, you know, father that's. That's. To be, you know, a man that's going to become a father. Tell me a little bit about what you see a lot of fathers struggling with in our modern culture, because this is a very interesting time to be a man, to be a dad, to be a boy. So where. Where do you see men struggling as fathers?

So I. It's funny you mentioned this, because I literally, I. I host a free live training every single Thursday at noon Central. And today was. Was how to create more patience, which is basically emotional resiliency. Right? And they, you know, I. I think we had 40 guys that showed up on today's training, and all of them had basically the same theme, which is the same themes you and I are talking about. They're like, oh, my gosh. Like, nothing triggers me more than this, right? Than my kid doing this or this, doing that or. But it's much deeper than that, I think, for men, because we. We actually have. In our community, we have one of the guys who's one of our coaches. He's a PhD. His name's Dr. Nick Satello. And he said this quote on a call one time, and, like, literally there was like a hush because it was like, oh, you know how you hear Something you're like, oh, my gosh, that is so insanely true. And it said so simple, and it's so powerful. And everyone was like, holy crap, that is absolutely true. And it's this. When we've run out of patience, what's actually happened is we've run out of the skill of what to do next. And there's two things usually going on. We've lost patience with whatever is external, externally challenging us. Maybe it's our kid or a meltdown or whatever, but we've also lost patience in here and here, which is very defeating to us as men. So there's external factors that are challenging us for our patients. There's internal factors, the words that we say to ourselves that nobody else can hear but us. That's what I think is hard for men and patience, like today. So, like, for instance, I shared with the men, what if I told you patience wasn't a feeling and it's not a measure of how much of a man you are, how good of a dad you are? What if I told you patience was a skill and you could refine it and learn it and sharpen it as much as you possibly can? Where patience really isn't patience at all, what it actually is is resiliency. What does that feel like? And the guys are like, holy crap, that is so true. So I think there's this big misconception for men that if I'm not patient, I'm flawed, I'm weak, I'm not even a man. I'm not even worthy of this dad thing, when in actuality, we're just a human being. We just haven't learned that skill yet of how to be more resilient of outside external factors and internal factors on top of it. You know, I think the majority of us can agree. So that's number one. Number two is I think a lot of us can agree that we want to do better than the generation before us. And there's not to say that some. Some guys have had great experiences and some haven't, and some in between. But I always tell my boys all the time that I'm very, very lucky. My. My boys tell me they're like, you are the best dad, and I'm not the best dad, because I give them everything. I sure. I sure. I actually make their life somewhat hard. I. But I try to strike this balance of love, affection, support. But also, you ain't going to have it easy either. And I always joke with my kids. I'm like, that's really kind of You. But don't give me that much credit, because you're going to grow up, you're going to have your own kids, and you're going to remember the crap I did, and that's when this baggage is going to show up for you, and you're going to be like, holy crap, dad used to do this. I would never do that. Like, what was he thinking, right? I'm like, you grow up with that. Trust me, you will. I was like, and you kind of should, because you should be better than me. You should look at this generation and be like, what could I be better than that? Right? But I. So men are really faced with this blueprint that isn't quite optimal. And the last thing I'll say is this. I think our dads. So you and I, our dads, right? They were raised by, like, the toughest, badass dudes on the planet. Like our grandparents, man, they survived world wars, the Depression, you know, all these things that happened that were catastrophic.

And.

And they just grunted and bared it, and they just muscled their way through it, and they were tough, tough men, right? And then they raised the men who raised us, which is, you know, man up, don't talk about your feelings, don't cry, you know, be a man. And that was the advice. And then that was kind of trickled into us, and now we're. Now we're very well aware that there's sometimes there's a time and a place for that, but that's. That's globalizing a lot of things. When you can actually localize your kids and teach them strategies of how to navigate life and not just grin bear, put your head down and just keep going, right? I think there's a lot going.