394 | Moving From Dictator Dad to Friend Dad & Creating Multi-Generational Impact (Lance Welch)
Episode Description
What if the words you speak as a dad today become your child's inner voice for decades to come? In this episode, Lance Welch—dad of three adult entrepreneurs and grandfather of two—shares how he moved from being a "dictator dad" to a "friend dad" while building intentional multi-generational impact. You'll discover the four stages of fatherhood, why creating performance identities in our kids backfires, and how to transition from survival-mode parenting to legacy-building leadership in your family.
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Lance Welch is a legacy navigator, leadership coach, and author of "Legacy Navigator: Creating Intentional Multi-Generational Impact." Along with his wife, he hosts the "Beyond the Nest" podcast, helping couples thrive during the empty nest transition. After spending decades in corporate leadership at a Fortune 100 company, Lance now coaches business leaders and families on creating intentional impact. He and his wife have been married for 37 years, have three adult sons who are all entrepreneurs, and are proud grandparents of two. They live in the Nashville area of Tennessee.
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There are four distinct stages of fatherhood: dictator dad (young kids), consultant dad (asking "what would you do?"), advocate dad (letting them make mistakes), and friend dad (adult relationships)
Consistency compounds—whether in finances or fatherhood, small intentional actions over time create massive impact
Avoid creating performance identities in your children by celebrating the "gain" (progress made) rather than focusing on the "gap" (falling short of perfection)
Choose your inconvenience: invest time teaching skills on the front end rather than being constantly inconvenienced doing everything yourself
The four legs of legacy are vision, values, knowledge, and wealth—with wealth being only one-fourth of what you pass down
Empty nest doesn't have to mean relationship decline—40% of couples divorce during this transition, but it can be your greatest season yet
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Learn about the next DadAwesome Accelerator Cohort
Subscribe to DadAwesome Messages: Text the word "Dad" to (651) 370-8618
First Friday Discussion Guide (Free download from Lance's website)
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You're gonna be inconvenienced. You get to choose your inconvenience. I either get to be inconvenienced to teach them how to do it on the front end and take maybe two hours. But if I refuse to do that, then every time I came in off the road, I was gonna be inconvenienced because I had to do the lawn myself. With training your children, whether it's mowing the lawn, preparing meals, doing laundry, changing a tire, whatever it was, it's inconvenient on the front end, but it's far more inconvenient on the back end if I refuse it on the front.
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Welcome back to Dad Awesome. Guys, today, episode 394, I have Lance Welch joining me from Nashville, Tennessee. And hey, quick shout out, Adam Leroux. Thanks for making the connection, the introduction. Today's conversation with Lance actually is surrounded by lightning and thunder. It's not distracting, but the entire conversation. I'm in Northeast Florida. We're doing the conversation remotely and there's a massive thunderstorm happening. So kind of fun.
distracting for me, but I think it's not going to be distracting for you guys. You're going to love this conversation. Lance is an author, a business leadership coach. He coaches parents, him and his wife host, the Beyond the Nest podcast focused on that transition to launching your kids. And he has so much wisdom and has written on this topic, has thought deeply, has interviewed guests on this topic. So I'm really grateful and excited for today's conversation. Want to quick remind you, we have a voicemail
I love hearing from our community. So you can reach out with man, little feedback, little encouragement, a recommendation of a podcast guest like Adam did with Lance. You can reach out with specific questions on, man, I'm curious about this question about fatherhood or a question about our dad, awesome accelerator. We have two cohorts this fall. If you have questions, you can use our voicemail line for any of those things. And it's simply in the show notes everywhere you're listening.
Speaker 2 (02:37.742)
Leave Dad Awesome a voice message up to 90 seconds. I would love to hear from you guys. So reach out. Looking forward to that. Let's jump in. Today's conversation, this is episode 394 with Lance Welch.
Speaker 2 (03:01.614)
on Dad Awesome, have Lance Welch joining me from, you're in the Nashville area of Tennessee, is that correct, Lance? And you are a boy dad, so you've got three sons in the adult phase, you're a grandpa times two, you got two grandkids. As we talked about before I hit record, you're chatting with a girl dad in a different chapter of fatherhood. And how, I would just love to know, give us a little flyover on...
Right in the middle of the state, yeah.
Speaker 2 (03:27.768)
How's grandpa life going? How was that chapter of a new adventure?
I love it. love it. My wife will tell people all the time. She has trained all her life for what she's getting to do right now. So we'd love being grandparents. And it's a totally different role, right? I mean, people make jokes out of it. We can now feed them the candy and send them home, which is not what we do, but that is kind of the joke that what you hear. But you know, it's a totally different role. We're in a, an equipping role and it's, we have to remind ourselves that we are grandparents. We are not parenting.
our grandkids, which is a totally different role, but we absolutely love it.
Well, I wanted to say thank you for the resource. mean, I have your book in front of me, which we'll talk about, but also the Beyond the Nest, your podcast, just the focus. mean, really so many, we do serve dads that are in that chapter of launching kids, but the focus and the deep heartfelt, like in the, even the interview you did with your son, like I, I just want to make sure our dads all know about this podcast and what caused you and your wife to jump in and say, Hey, we want to help this Beyond the Nest initiative of
podcast. I'd love to hear a little bit of the Genesis story and where that came from.
Speaker 1 (04:38.85)
Just like where the book came about because of someone else seeing something in me that I didn't see. And cause I refuted the fact that I was an author. I fought that for years and then lo and behold, who knew it? I'm an author and we've had people that said the same thing about the podcast and there was a statistic that has been on my mind for a couple of decades, Jeff, just to be honest. And it's a, it's an alarming stat.
for parents that go into empty nest, there is a 40 % spike in the divorce rate as parents move into empty nest. And so what we were doing is if we can share what it takes to not only thrive into empty nest, but how do we lead up to it? How do we help other couples figure out, okay, we're more than roommates. Those last few years before the kids leave, it is chaotic, it's hectic, it's wonderful. I loved those years.
But I can see why it would be so easy for other couples to literally begin to drift apart because they are taxi service. They're going to academic events, sports events, music events, and the husband and wife, they just lose track. They're busy and it wasn't intentional, but there is a documentable fact that at Empty Nest, there's a spike in divorce rate and it's too high as it is. So that is kind of the genesis of the Beyond the Nest is how do we thrive? How do we equip other couples to
to see what's coming because we can never address what we're not aware of. But once we're aware of it, we're now responsible to do something with it. So that's really where that came from.
think this idea of multi-generational, so your book, Legacy Navigator, creating intentional multi-generational impact. If you're thinking about game on, mission forward at the empty nest, instead of go back into neutral and coast, you're like, no, game on, this is a new chapter with new boundaries, new role definition, but game on, this is more purpose versus take less purpose. I just.
Speaker 2 (06:40.302)
I think it requires a multi-generational approach of seeing the investment continuing versus launch off you go, figure it out on your own. It kind of the reset that is part of our culture. You launch your kids and they have to reset from scratch. I know that that's not your thinking at all. That's part of the mission here and the mission of the podcast. But would you just frame up what I just said, but from your own heart, because I know I've just recapped a little bit what you said on how it's mission critical to adjust.
and enter with a different lens than you had when your boys are at home in high school.
My wife and I both have apologized to our adult sons so many different times about the, we were just hard driving parents. We were both first borns, my wife and I. So our boys, they didn't have a choice. They were ridden hard. part of it was we look back and it's like we were way too hard in a lot of areas. were OCD in some areas, but being able to watch my son who has the two kids now and be able to
Maintain the relationship, right? There's another phrase that we use. It's no, we're in there's no relationship. I have no influence. And that was born out of some tough seasons where I was really hard charging trying to quote, fix my adult sons on some things. And the harder I pressed with quoting scripture and praying for them, I was literally pushing them further and further away. And I remember God just very clearly saying no relationship, no influence. And right now, you know, you have no influence. So.
Fix it, basically. So getting to watch my oldest raise his kids and say, you know, you ought to try it. Consider trying this. I am a coach to the core. So I am beyond what I used to call the, there's four stages of fatherhood. What I called it dictator dad, which is when they're young, they just got to follow directions. It's going to save their life someday. Then consultant dad, you begin to ask them.
Speaker 1 (08:41.655)
You know, what would you do? Advocate dad, you do it alongside with them. then friend dad. And I am now in friend mode. And I think about how would I talk to some of my friends? I wouldn't be dictatorial at all. I wouldn't be directive at all. So I treat my oldest son as a dad. It's like, what about this? And some of the things that we did when the boys were young, they're able to take those to a whole new level and really get to watch
So the role that we get to play, definitely we're on friend mode and we have such amazing relationships and not that we've done everything right. mean, if they were on the show, they would be able to tell you, yeah, he did this, he did this, but we do now have great relationships with our sons and that helps.
heard about these coffee conversations. I think it was at Starbucks with one of your sons of like, hey, you had this list that you actually wanted to impart. And I have the list in front of me actually, because it's in the appendix of your book a little bit. I things I want my kids to know.
But was that the shift that you started doing these one-on-ones of like, I wanna train. I gather that you are on the intentionality scale, Lance, that you're like as extreme as they go with being an intentional dad. I gather this. But I'd love to hear about the transition from dictator into consultant's dad.
Yeah, that was, it's easier to talk about than to do because my nature is a fixer. It's a just get in, let's roll our sleeves up and let's get to work. But I do know that if that is the route that I continually chose to do with my boys, I was not going to create what we would consider strategic or critical thinkers. So it comes now back to
Speaker 1 (10:31.168)
What can I do to engage them in a conversation that forces their minds to begin to think through scenarios and how to get things done? So my job and any of the young dads that have got kids at home, your job is to create well equipped young adults to leave well. They're going to leave the house, right? They're not going to stay in your basement forever. So we do want them to leave, but well prepared. And that takes a lot of intentionality.
It can't happen if we're constantly doing things for them and bailing them out of every little challenge that they find themselves in.
So just to go into some of these examples, and we'll only hit a few of them here, but you wanted your boys, here's a real broad level, be an encourager. Here's another one, be able to mow a lawn, to be able to make meals, to manage a budget. There's actually a concrete list, and you encourage all dads, why would we not if we have a direction we're hoping for?
Why would we not make our own list? Can you encourage and challenge us a little further with maybe some more examples of why making a list and then following it through is so important.
Yeah, well, and the logic behind it, I mean, when you think through it, when I talk about it, you're going to say, well, that makes sense. But if we go back to the lawn, for example, I traveled a ton when the boys were younger. And it was a whole lot easier for me to mow my lawn on my own than to teach them to do it. I could get that lawn done in about 65 to 75 minutes. But when I had them doing it, it would take almost two hours.
Speaker 1 (12:12.298)
I always, the phrase I use is you're going to be inconvenienced. You get to choose your inconvenience. I either get to be inconvenienced to teach them how to do it on the front end and take maybe two hours. But if I refuse to do that, then every time I came in off the road, I was going to be inconvenienced because I had to do the lawn myself. So with training your children, whether it's mowing the lawn, preparing meals, doing laundry, changing a tire, whatever it was, it's inconvenient on the front end.
but it's far more inconvenient on the back end if I refuse it on the front. So that was kind of the logic behind that is I'm willing to be inconvenienced now to equip them to be able to do certain things later.
Were you in like community in a small group in friendship with other dads making lists like this when your boys were young teenagers or is this where you kind of on your own on this pursuit of this intentionality?
On the front end, was on my own. There's not a story in the book, but there was a guy that when we were young couples, we talk about the importance of having a 2 a.m. friend, and I know you know what that means. And there was a guy that was not invited to be a 2 a.m. friend for me. I had my walls up and I was very guarded, and he cared enough about me to crawl over the wall.
told me if I ever needed a 2 a.m. friend and I assured him I would never need one, lo and behold, two weeks later, I did need one because my wife and I got into just a horrendous fight and found ourselves at a crossroads where I needed another dad. And so it was born out of almost necessity of relationship, one that I didn't think I needed. I was this guarded.
Speaker 1 (14:03.278)
sports guy that had always accomplished what I set out to accomplish. And so to answer your question, a lot of this was on the front end. I was just winging it. I was devouring books left and right on fatherhood, on marriage, on leadership, because I came a young leader at a corporate Fortune 100 company. And it really started on the corporate side, if I can be honest, because I wanted to be a great leader. I just didn't know how.
as I devoured leadership books, I began to see there was a direct correlation on how do I lead my teams well at a corporate level and why aren't I taking that much effort in leading my family well? And so that all kind of meshed together, but it came out of a lot of it just doing it on my own initially.
Would you agree that in the corporate setting, in the work sphere or other leadership, external leadership spheres, you put these inputs in, you put into practice these things you learned in this book, and you start to see maybe results faster on that front than you do when you put in building blocks of culture in your own home? Do you agree? It's a little bit of a hypothesis on my side. How does that go as far as feedback loops on the home front when you're building on that that sphere?
Yeah, I think it is. I think the reason is at a corporate level, I had a business card, which is called positional power. I had a position, I had a title. And when you lead at home, it's got to be more on the personal power. And I've always heard, if you really want to test your leadership stamina, are you a good leader? Lead at a volunteer organization where you don't have the positional power.
So I think a lot of that ties back into, yeah, I could make people do things at a corporate level, or they would be written up or possibly fired. You don't fire your son. So that made it a different challenge.
Speaker 2 (16:01.838)
That's good. Now I give a few examples from your list on like things you would teach. For example, like my eight year old, I'm already teaching her to drive a car at eight. Now she's in my lap and we're in these new developing neighborhoods where there's no cars, there's nothing she can hit, but I'm like teaching her to fill up the gas in the car, turn the car. And you actually have the list of skills, but then you have another list that I discovered, which is like, these are character skills.
that are more like, is the kind of person I am. And so I'm gonna give a few examples of these. You have one that's like, listen twice as much as you talk. I love that. Never take credit for work you didn't actually do. I'll give you two more examples of don't eat the last piece of something you didn't buy. Okay, like you may never teach a kid that. And then the last one, don't shake hands while sitting down. Instead, stand up, make eye contact, speak clearly. Like just like coaching on how to be in this room, in this new introduction.
And making that list of this is the kind of how versus the what as far as skills, would you expound a little bit on why that is important too to think strategically?
Well, again, that came out of the corporate side. I used to interview a lot of folks for positions, and I was astounded at how many people did not have just what you and I would call basic, common sense etiquette skills. They wouldn't make eye contact or their handshake was not nice and firm. I didn't want anyone to just break my hand. And then when you go to order foods at restaurants, when the boys were probably in their
low to mid teens, I actually created a young man's leadership workshop and they invited all their friends in and had about 15 young men in and taught them these types of skills. How do you shake hands? How do you make eye contact? Just the etiquette side of things that I was not seen in the workforce with 25 to 35 year olds. And now today, now that I'm almost 60, I'm seeing it in 50 year olds that they do not have this common level of
Speaker 1 (18:12.0)
etiquette and social skills. So it's just vitally important because what it boils down to, if I had two candidates that were the same GPA, same work experience, same quality in every way, but one of them had social skills, they're the ones that got the role. And so being able to communicate was very, important. And that was the genesis for that idea.
Yeah, I'd love to do some dad parallels from financial world, the financial of compounded interest, of have a plan, have a plan for tax, have a plan for asset growth, three, four decades in that sphere. I'd love to hear some takeaways into the dad life that you can directly pull from learnings from the financial space.
Well, and this comes from one of my earlier mentors was a guy named John Maxwell. I think a lot of people know that guy. He's been somewhat successful writing a few books here and there, right? But he has a phrase called consistency compounds. And anytime we do a consistent behavior, it will compound. Now that could be a bad behavior too. But if you're going to be talking about doing things on an intentional basis,
When I do things on an intentional basis that's for my good or for the good of someone else, consistency will compound that. So if we talk about setting aside money to create an emergency fund, why do you even need an emergency fund? A budget is not a curse word. I know a lot of folks that they do not like a budget. A budget is no more than what I would say is boundaries for your kids. It is a healthy thing to operate within the boundaries.
Boundaries actually gives you freedom. It gives you the privilege of knowing where can you go and how can you go. So there's so many tie-ins from the financial world, risk management, because from the insurance side, because even though I was primarily on the financial services side, it was tied to a P &C company. And they did a tremendous amount of work on risk mitigation. It wasn't that we avoid risk at all cost. It's how do we manage risk? And you tie that into
Speaker 1 (20:29.934)
being an entrepreneur. I was corporate for so many years. I didn't leave corporate until 2018. And my sons were really the big motivator for me to leave corporate because all of those seeds that we had planted in them for decades, they were using it in the entrepreneurial field. All three of them went to college, but all three bailed at about the two to two and a half year mark because they said they were being forced to learn things they didn't want to learn. It was...
going to take way too long to make the amount of money that they wanted to make. Cause I always told them, if you want to make a really good living, you either need to be in sales or you need to own your own company. And they took it legitimate. And I think a big part of the reason they quit school and hired coaches and consultants is they saw me doing that. You know, way back when, before coaching was a real common thing, I hired coaches to become a better leader and they saw that. And so when they quit school, they hired coaches and consultants.
started their own companies and I'm watching them like, if they can do it, surely I can do it. And so that's when I found the left corporate.
I love that it was a flip. You put all these investments in all these conversations, all this time thinking multi-jet and then they went and lived using the tools you gave and then you followed their lead to take the courageous leap into a sink or swim. I'm going to create something and start coaching. And that's, that's amazing. What if from your boys perspective, so from your three sons, if they're like, yeah, dad, if he could go back to the phase,
that I'm at right now with my oldest being 11. Go back when us boys were kind of 11, eight, six, like in that younger rate, this is what dad should have done differently. What are maybe top couple of things your boys would say, yep, dad should have done this differently.
Speaker 1 (22:21.71)
Not been so hard headed. think they would probably the first thing that they would say is, was, well, let me do it this way. Have you ever read the book, The Gap and the Gain by Benjamin Hardy and Dan Sullivan?
not.
Okay. I would put this on your short list. It is a business book, but I've recommended it to more dads than business leaders. The short version of that is I, I forced my boys to live in what I call or what the book calls the gap. The gap is what measures how short you fell from hitting your target. And so
I can think of a particular race the youngest boy was in. ran cross country and he had an amazing time. was a sophomore, came in third in his race. He was a static, should have been living in what's called the gain from all the progress that he made. But what did dad do? I harped on, you didn't hit the hill hard enough. I put him in the gap. Instead of being able to measure the gain and progress he made,
I looked at you fell short of first place because you didn't do this well. We do that with grades. If you didn't get all A's, we jump on why not? If you didn't get perfect attendance at church, why not? And so many, many dads, I was that way. I was always challenged. Basketball was my thing. I was always challenged to find a way to do better and...
Speaker 1 (24:06.7)
This was back way before internet, but my dad would get as many newspapers as he could to find somebody in a three state area that would either have more points, more rebounds, or better shooting percentages than me. I had a good high school career, got to play some college, but I was constantly in the gap. I was always falling short of the measurement, so I created a performance identity.
And because I was raised that way, I thought that was normal how you motivate people. I know I did that to all three of my boys. I created a performance identity thinking I was helping them grow and measure and level up. But I think that if they were sitting down now, I think they would use this verbiage is I wish we could have lived more in the game than in the gap.
that hits home for me in a deep way. I've chatted, know, the Dad Awesome community has heard a lot of my story with how deep that hits home. And you even wrote it as one of your main takeaways, create a healthy identity separate from their performance as something you want to instill. I'd love to ask now from your wife's perspective, and of course we're making this up because you don't know exactly what she'd say, you don't know exactly what your boys would say, but from her perspective, an added
daily, weekly, or monthly, whatever, just an added investment, a rhythm that would have strengthened your connection with your sons and made you more dad-awesome. Is there, from her perspective, can you see any things she would say, if you would added this over the compounded those years, it would have made a big difference.
Yeah, well, since she's not here, I am really sure she would say I was near perfection. That's what we're going to leave.
Speaker 2 (25:53.014)
Yes. Yes.
No, we were both so very, very intentional in our parenting, but we were both first borns. We're both type A personalities. with that, sparks can fly. mean, we didn't have a, we've been married 37 and a half years.
And the first year was great. The second and third were really tumultuous. We had to learn how to get along and how to be in the boat and go in the same direction. I think she would be the same thing. I was just, to use a blunt word, sorry for this, you can bleep it out, but I was just too much of a hard ass. I was just a driven, goal-oriented, competitive person. And if...
anyone in my life wasn't as goal-oriented or as competitive as I was, I was not real pleasant. If you're familiar with the disc profile, I am a very high D, and I have learned with my age how to temper that down. That used to, it was kill them all, let God sort them out, not my problem. So I've had to learn from those early days.
want go back to the framework of there's the younger years where, and then there was a consultant and then before Dad Friend as with adult kids, what was the third step to that framework? Yes. Keep going. Tell us a little more about that phase and how we could do that better.
Speaker 1 (27:30.37)
Yeah, the advocate for me is, the consultant is you're literally in there working with them, elbow to elbow, maybe locking arms. You're really, really leading them. But the advocate side is you're beginning to really pull back, pull your hands off of the scenario. unless it's a catastrophic decision, you let them make a bad decision. You let them make a decision that you yourself wouldn't make.
You know, and I say this now, but it's like, believe that's the way God works with me. I think he lets me make some of these bad decisions, especially when I fail to ask him direction on what should I do. There are times when I think if I'm looking at this correctly, he's like, all right, Lance, I'll let you do that. It's not gonna kill you. You're gonna learn tremendous amount of things out of it.
And that's really, think, where the advocate side of parenting comes. And it's that last phase that I think prepares our children, our young adults, to launch well. Because that is really where they begin to find themselves. They figure out how do you solve problems. And you know what? Especially boys, but I'm guessing girls, because I've got granddaughters and my daughter-in-laws. They're entrepreneurs. They're amazing.
But being able to transition from advocate to friend was an easier role than consultant to advocate or even dictator to consultant.
That's helpful. It's really helpful. I'm thinking about the framework around these four legs that your book is written about. the legacy navigator has its vision, values, knowledge, wealth. Did I get those correct?
Speaker 1 (29:28.536)
Yes.
Great, great. you actually, there's some of the exercises that you, it's almost as much workbook as it is book, because it's not just inspiration. You actually want us to do the work to figure out our values, to do the work, to figure out even the obituary, or you can use the framework, I think, of a toast, an 80 year old toast of like, what do you want to be true out here? Would you just give us a fly over the elevator of the legacy navigator, and then specifically how it applies to DATS?
Yeah, that 80 year old toast, got the privilege of, and I'm jumping ahead on that. I'll come back to it. But a year, little over a year ago, my youngest son invited me to officiate his wedding. And that was an experience. And one of the things I challenged them on is thinking long-term. The early years were amazing. They are, but this is a one-time shot for you guys. I want you to look at it from that perspective and
let's say that you've now been married 80 years. They'd put them close to 110. But let's make it to 80 year anniversary and just say, this was the best decision I ever made. So when we go back to the four legs of the legacy table, that came out of years and years of getting to work in the high net worth space where the majority of the folks that I worked with, one of their most common phrases was, I hope my wealth doesn't screw up my kids.
But there was never any conversation going on about, well, what are the family's values or your vision for your family or what are you intentionally passing down to the next generation? Everything was revolving around the wealth transfer. And I think that's the reason I really wanted to focus on the other three legs is when people think about leaving a legacy, the one thing I don't want them to think is, oh, well, I don't have that much wealth. Wealth has nothing
Speaker 1 (31:27.382)
shouldn't say that, it's only one fourth of the whole scenario. And so from a vision perspective, without a vision, know, scripturally, people cast off restraint. What does that mean? Well, they lose their way, they get distracted, they go... When you have a vision of what you'll say yes to, it makes it much easier to say no to anything that does not align with your vision. So that's why vision is the very first leg that we talk about on the book. And you're right, at the end of each chapter,
I, again, I was, this is a first time book, never been an author. I did not want to write a book that was just purely entertaining. Did I want it be entertaining enough to make you want to turn the next page? Absolutely. I wanted to create a book that was going to create impact so that you, when you read the chapter, it gives you the, what I think are the highlights of it, and then some practical things to implement so that your life.
and your leadership of your family can be changed because of reading this book. That is the mission behind that book. Entertaining, I hope so. But it's really to create impact and give people a blueprint to do it because what I've learned, especially with dads, if we feel stupid or we're overwhelmed and don't know what to do, our first choice is to do nothing. This book should eliminate that feeling. It is a blueprint.
to help you with just the next step. And that's all it's designed to do.
I'm towards action versus intent. And you're right on if I feel like, man, I have this general intent, but I might get it wrong or I might get it right. And if getting wrong puts me at a negative from where I'm at today, I'm gonna do nothing, right? I wanna take action and be a net positive for my family. So you're absolutely right. And you make it bite-sized, short chapters, clear action steps, clear experiments or activities. The one piece that I think could be really helpful is
Speaker 2 (33:26.862)
whether it's weekly, monthly, or yearly, it's like, what does it look like to have a family meeting or a family pull together around even like a vision retreat? You elaborate on the broader, but think my phase right now with these young four little girls, my wife and I saying, it's a reminder of where we're pointing, our vision. Can you coach me for a moment on how to have these reset moments of realignment for vision?
This came out of all of the content that corporate was handing down for me to create vision meetings with my reps, my agents. We would review how the previous year went, and I would talk to them about what do you want to accomplish in the new year? And it was just one of those aha moments. It's like, OK, if corporate is investing millions of dollars to help these business owners reflect on the previous year, how can I do the next year better?
doesn't it make sense that I just tweak those words, put personal verbiage into it, and now I'm gonna take that to my family? And that's exactly what I did, and that's why we called it a year-end family vision cast. it was between the Christmas and New Year's, as usually when we did it, the very first one was very simple. It was a one-pager, because it morphed into something a lot larger. So Jeff, I would say for you, with the age of your kids, they are...
right now at the beginning phase of being able to understand it and get excited for it. So at your young age of your kids, I'd say at this point, we're going to keep it fun. We're going to go to a fun place. Now we do need to get outside of the house because we know a change of place gives a change of pace, which gives you a change of perspective. So it's a three P's. But when you're able to get out of your normal environment, the kids are going to be more engaged.
and at age 11 and down, we just want to make it fun. know, honey, what was the highlight of this last year? What stands out as a great memory for you? Most likely it's going to be either a family vacation, a birthday, a trip that you went somewhere, and it's fine. It's going to be very surface level at age 11. But with your training, when you started this young, they're going to be, in this next year, they're going to be looking forward to it. They're going to be
Speaker 1 (35:46.89)
more prepared with more memories and it might be setting some goals for certain grades or learning an instrument or doing something in sports. Now we're going to start helping them. What does it mean to set a goal and go after it? Most Americans, most Americans will set a new year's resolution. 90 plus percent of America does, but 97 % have dropped it within three weeks.
My mission for my boys was that wasn't going to be an option for you. would say, Jeff, let's not let your girls do that. It is not about performance. That's the thing I would definitely do differently than what I did. We know that when we reward children as young as five on effort versus their performance, their performance actually explodes in a good way because we also make it fun. So for you,
Let's look at it from how do we make it fun? What did we do this last year that was memorable? What do you want to do this next year that will also be memorable? Because we let our boys pick the vacations. who knew it was always exciting to hear what they were going to come up with. But we let them do that. And then we would start planning in January, February, March, how are we going to take this particular family vacation. Then it morphed into.
business goals or college goals and entrepreneurial goals. And when they got older, we let them bring girls on the event because we turned it into like a three day cabin retreat type thing. And my wife created a hers only session and I had him his only session. And so you can make it as simple or as labored as you like. But the main thing that you've already used the word multiple times is intentional. The intention. Yes.
Lance, I'm inspired. I'm already thinking ahead to, cause I pray for these boys that are gonna marry my girls someday. But the idea that even on the front end, before they're married or engaged, say, no, you come with on this and have some sessions separate of like, hey, we can, this is part of who we are. This is our family. And yeah, I love it. So much helpful.
Speaker 2 (37:55.31)
I'm realizing we're about at time. So what I wanted to ask you is when you think about dad awesome, these, you know, mostly younger dads and more my phase, was there anything else you're like, man, I would want to pass this along to these dads by form of encouragement, challenge, ideas, resources, anything, just a couple of minutes. I'd love to hear if you have anything else you wanted to share.
Yeah, there's one form that we created 20 plus years ago and it's on the website. It's free. Just download it. But it's the what we call the First Friday Discussion Guide. That is a form that if you download it and look at some of the questions that are on there, it's not designed to be combative, but it is designed to help you and your wife get on the same page. Most of us not.
And like I said, I traveled a lot in those early days. And what we ended up doing is we created a discussion guide that on the first Friday of every month, which is his key, get it on the calendar, write it down. I don't care if it's first Saturday, first Sunday afternoon. I don't care. But be consistent with it. And then what we would do is we would go through and we would compare the calendars. You know, where am I going to be in the next upcoming month?
Do the boys have any special events that's going to be going on? What's going on with our budget? But some of them that we get more feedback on than anything else, there's a couple of questions on there. They're icebreakers, it's the corner of them is who are some couples that we want to spend more time with? And then you talk through that and then you get to do why do we want to spend time with them? Then there's another, are there some couples we should spend less time with? And that one's vitally important as well because
Everybody is worth being invested in, but sometimes other people can be energy suckers from you and you have to guard your marriage, your family. I would, if I could give one recommendation for a married couple, I would be consistent with making sure we're intentional at least one time a month that we dig below the surface, even more than a date night. I'm a proponent of a weekly date night.
Speaker 1 (40:08.12)
But this is like a business meeting, because we would kick out at about 2, 2.30 on a Friday afternoon. We'd spend two or three hours going through that list, talking about the budget, whatever we needed to discuss. And then we would have a really nice dinner. But that one form is still one of the more popular forms that I use with our coaching clients.
I will make sure that it's linked directly in our show notes over that form and over your website, to your book, to your podcast. Lance, thank you for taking time to sew in, invest in to us at Dad Awesome today. Could you pray just a short prayer over all the dads listening?
Father God, we thank you for who you are. We thank you for how much we actually mean to you, that you are Abba, Father. And Father, just thank you for the wisdom that you are imparting to us, that Jeff and I are still learning as dads and as grandparents. Father, we have not yet arrived, but we submit ourselves to you. We ask for wisdom. We ask for direction. We ask for your favor in our lives. And God, I pray that each one of these dads feel encouraged today.
I pray that they will feel inspired, that they would recognize that they are not in this opportunity alone. That Father, you have an amazing future for them, and just pray that you would equip them to see the amazing future that their boys and their daughters have as well. We give you the praise, glory, and honor. Amen.
Speaker 2 (41:39.906)
Thank you so much for joining us for episode 394 of Dad Awesome. Thanks to Lance Welch for joining today's conversation. His book, The Legacy Navigator, creating intentional multi-generational impact. That book will be linked, so will the podcast Beyond the Nest and these guides. So he has, I'll link specifically three or four of these downloadable guides to help you, whether it's that Marriage Once a Month guide, whether it's the Vision Once a Year Planning guide, the Core Values guide.
He's got these guides that are free downloads. So I'll link all those in the show notes. Just go to dadawesome.org slash podcast and look for the top episode, episode 394. Again, want to remind you guys we have two cohorts of the Dad Awesome accelerator, the six week sprint bringing about 10 dads at a time into a deep dive of everything we've learned in nearly eight years of Dad Awesome. So those are kicking off one in September, one in early November this fall, but those spots are limited. So check out dadawesome.org slash
coaching for that. Guys, let's be dads who have a bias towards action. can simply, you can jump and look at the show notes to remind yourself, hey, what's my one action step this week? What's my action step? What am I going to do that means change versus intent? Your kids are counting on you being the dad who takes a step versus thinks differently. Take a step, take action, be dad awesome. Have a great week, guys.
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"You're going to be inconvenienced. You get to choose your inconvenience. I either get to be inconvenienced to teach them how to do it on the front end."
"When there's no relationship, I have no influence. And right now, you have no influence. So fix it, basically."
"Your job is to create well equipped young adults to leave well. They're going to leave the house, but well prepared."
"I forced my boys to live in what I call the gap. Instead of being able to measure the gain and progress he made."
"We can never address what we're not aware of. But once we're aware of it, we're now responsible to do something with it."
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