404 | Three Mile Per Hour Fatherhood, Emotional Regulation, and Breaking Generational Patterns (Tyler Graham)
Episode Description
What happens when the pace of your life is stealing your ability to be present with your kids? In this episode, Tyler Graham shares the moment his son flinched when he sat down beside him—and how that changed everything. You'll hear why emotional regulation might be the most important skill any dad can develop, how living at three miles per hour creates space for real connection, and why being the chief repenter in your home is more powerful than being Superman.
-
Tyler Graham is a dad of six, founder of Three Mile Per Hour Fatherhood, and a passionate advocate for helping fathers slow down and live at the pace of presence. Through coaching cohorts and resources, Tyler encourages dads to develop emotional regulation, break generational patterns, and build a compelling vision for their family's future. He lives with his wife and six kids on their homestead, where they're building a legacy rooted in connection, intentionality, and grace.
-
Dads need to be the thermostat, not the thermometer—setting the tone rather than reacting to it.
When a dad blows up, the kids catch the shrapnel, and those moments leave lasting impressions.
Emotional regulation is one of the most critical skills for fatherhood—learning to respond from the green zone instead of the red or blue.
Vision is essential: imagine your child's eulogy or your 80th birthday party and reverse engineer the habits you need today.
Your role as a dad isn't to be Superman—it's to be the chief repenter, modeling humility and grace for your kids.
-
Learn about the next DadAwesome Accelerator Cohort
Subscribe to DadAwesome Messages: Text the word "Dad" to (651) 370-8618
-
Welcome back to Dad Awesome! This is episode 404. My dad's talking with Tyler Green. He's got six kids, and he needs three mile per hour fatherhood. Enjoy the conversation.
I'd love to hear your heart on three mile per hour dads and why pace, why a slower, a steadier is a gift to our kids.
Tyler Graham: Yeah, absolutely. So I named it the project that I run on the side, Three Mile Per Hour Fatherhood, Three Mile Per Hour Dads. It was inspired by a book called The Ruthless Elimination of Hurry, which I know you're fan of, by a guy named John Mark Comer, who is just a teacher, pastor, author out on the West Coast that has been very, his teachings and books have been very influential in my life. And in this book, he's talking about living at three miles per hour and he talks about how Jesus specifically walked at three miles per hour. It's kind of the average speed of somebody walking right there. They're moving forward. They're going somewhere, but they're not in a hurry. They're not speedwalking, not trying to pass the person in front of them on the sidewalk. They're not checking their watch constantly trying to figure out if they're on time or not. It's just a slow pace of life. I call it the pace of presence.
And the reason that I have really latched on to that language, both in my life and in the work that I do trying to encourage dads to slow down is exactly what you said. I think culturally we're moving at this consistently faster pace where, like you said, more is better. To slow down or to stop or to pause or to rest feels wasteful or it feels like we're missing out on something. Slow and less is bad, fast and more is good. And you see it in what I would call like the average family calendar lifestyle where you talk to these different people and they're constantly on the go from could be practice to an extracurricular to birthday parties. You try to make plans with them and they're like, well, how's December look for you? They're planning their life two, three months out because it's just that full.
If you're constantly hurrying from one thing to the next, it makes it almost impossible in my opinion, to be present, like to pay attention to the things that really matter. And I know at least for me, I won't speak for every dad, there are some super dads out there that maybe have this figured out. I'm not one of them. But I cannot be the type of dad I want to be when I'm in a hurry. Those are mutually exclusive things. You think about the moment where you're trying to get out the door to go somewhere and your kid can't find their shoes, which is every time you're trying to get out the door as a dad. And if you're just like trying to go, go, go, go, I'm speaking harshly, being critical, I'm frustrated, I'm angry.
The reality is my five year old just can't remember where she put her shoes. That's a totally normal thing for a five year old. And yet I'm the one that's all worked up because I'm trying to go too fast. And so that's the heart behind it is to really encourage dads to learn to love slowing down, to find the art of that pace of presence and to learn what it means to really invest their time, their energy, their attention into the things that really matter and not just live life by default based on what everybody else around you is doing.
Jeff: I recently, I think we chatted about this on our call last week, the learning from Jesus, I think it was Dallas Willard, but maybe it was Eugene Peterson said that like one word describing Jesus is relaxed. One word. How would you describe Jesus? Relaxed. And specifically what you just said, the load up, the getting my four little girls out of the house, getting their shoes, getting their water bottles, getting all the—can I carry? This is not a critical mission that has like, this is just a simple dad leadership moment. Am I finding my heart snappy? Am I finding myself like energy, focus my eyes on looking at my girls? Am I disappointed with them in this moment? If I can't carry in just loading the minivan, if I can't carry a relaxed presence, then what happens when all these other things that life is gonna throw?
Tyler: Yes, exactly.
Jeff: So I wanted to just pinpoint a phrase that you share with your coaching program and with your work you do with Three Mile per Hour. It's Three Mile per Hour Fatherhood, right? So shrapnel. Shrapnel. I have not served our country in the military. I have read and have learned about the effects of a grenade and these small pieces of metal and how, well, I mean, life threatening, like it'll kill people, but also like the shrapnel can get embedded in and become like long-term issues from shrapnel. We use a grenade metaphor with freedom and the importance of a dad seeking healing, forgiveness with his heavenly father. So we don't pass on a grenade that will cause an explosion, which will cause shrapnel. So we talk about this, but I love your heart for just—let's be aware as dads when we have these blow ups, they actually are bringing pain shrapnel that hurts our kids. Could you share from your heart around the idea of a dad blowing up and shrapnel for our kids?
Tyler: Yeah, so that phrase actually came from a dad that was in one of my coaching cohorts. We were doing our introductions and he was just sharing his heart on the struggles he had had. The whole cohort was aimed around dads that were struggling to keep their cool, to be steady with their kids. And it's a struggle of mine. We'll get into that here in just a second. But he used that phrase. He's like, when dad blows up, the kids catch the shrapnel. And dude, just like stopped me in my tracks when he said it. And the reality is, I mean, he's spot on, right? Like when, as a dad, another phrase that I use a lot is that dads need to be the thermostat, not the thermometer, right? Like dads need to set the tone, set the atmosphere, not react to it.
And the reality is we're going to do that whether we're doing it intentionally or not, right? Like we are going to set the tone, set the atmosphere of our home. And so when we do that, when we get to a point where, whether you're overwhelmed, you're angry, you're just kind of numbed out from a really long day or a really hard season, when you lash out or blow up at your kids, when you lose your cool—it's like I just need everybody to be quiet, go away. Just find your shoes. It sets this tone and it, like you said, that tone even if it's not a moment of extreme importance, even if the language itself isn't intense, if you're using that tone, if that's the energy that you're bringing, it's just gonna have an impact right? Like your kids are going to feel the weight of that. They're going to be the ones hit with the shrapnel, where like, gosh, you start walking on eggshells because dad came in the room and he's getting worked up again or whatever the situation is.
And like I said, that's long been a struggle for me. While my wife would describe me as a very steady person, it's kind of the generational thing with Graham men is a short fuse. And this is one I'm trying to break. And so it's something that has been a challenge for me for years of learning how can I learn to keep my cool so that my kids aren't paying the price for my lack of self-control, that my kids aren't paying the price for my inability to regulate myself and my emotions.
Jeff: When did you make that decision? I'm curious if this is like before you had your first child, is this five years ago when you had two or three little kids on the home front? When did you decide there's a different vision, different course? I'm not gonna be this dad who passes on this blowing up on my kids, short fuse. I'm going to be a different kind of dad. I'm curious, where did you put the stake in the sand?
Tyler: So for me it was, I want to say probably four years ago, four or five years ago. At that point we'd had five of our six kids and we were going through an extremely challenging season with my oldest son who is now 10. He was probably six, maybe seven at the time, somewhere in that time range.
And it was, I won't go into all the details on that right this second, but it was just extremely exhausting. Kind of these long drawn out battles with him daily every night. We're up till 10 o'clock just him refusing to go to bed. There was a lot of different dynamics at play. But it was to the point where I realized I was consistently responding to him in a very negative way. My tone was very harsh. My language was very harsh. I just could tell, I could feel it coming up in me as soon as the situation would get started. You hear him starting to get angry. You hear him starting to throw a tantrum. You hear him coming up out of his bed. And I would just immediately be on edge.
And I had this moment where I went to go sit next to him on the couch. And as I sat down next to him, he flinched. He like kind of braced against like preparing for me to like kind of start my lashing out at him, my yelling. And in that moment, I'll never forget it because it just struck me to the core that in that moment, in this moment where my son is feeling out of control, he's looking for somebody to grab onto for safety, for comfort, that his initial response to his dad in that moment was to flinch, was to shy away from me because I taught him that response, because I'd shown him through my actions that I was incapable of being the calm steady presence for him in that moment.
And that was the turning point for me when I saw him respond to me that way. That I knew something had to shift. And I knew that if I wanted to have the relationship with my son that I've always dreamed of having, both in his childhood, his teen years, his adult years, to when he's having kids and imagining what that will be like one day, that I had to make a change. I had to shift things because the path that we were on was going to lead to destruction, it was going to lead to broken relationship, it was going to lead to me not knowing my son, my son not trusting me, not feeling safe to come to me for things.
And so, like I said, that was probably about four years ago where that shift started and it's been a process of learning a lot of things with emotional regulation, of inviting other men into this with me to help hold me accountable, inviting my son into this with me to hold me accountable. And it's been a really amazing journey. It's not perfect still by any means, but it's to the point now where my son and I are really able to connect in the hard moments.
Jeff: Tyler, many dads have a moment where they're disappointed with themselves. I'm disappointed that this is what I did. I have intent that it would be different. But very few dads move to a vision that pulls them to learn and to grow and to seek friends to come around this. There's even like confession and being vulnerable to your wife saying, I want to grow. I'm actually taking steps. And even fewer than that, take the next step. A few years after this, maybe two, two and a half, three years, you start an initiative, three mile per hour fatherhood to help other dads. And then here we are today, four years later. What were some of the inputs that right away you said that moved you from intent into actually follow through with action to become, no, not perfect. You've even said this, but to move you to keep this journey going. I'm just curious. You mentioned the book, Ruthless Elimination of Hurry. What were some other things? Was it mentors? Was it books? Was it ministries? Or was it just you're a determined guy? You're like, I'm not going to do it.
Tyler: I'm really not, which is the interesting part of this, kind of what I alluded to earlier in talking about me and my wife. I'm very much by default I am prone to inaction. I am prone to passive—like if left to myself, I'm gonna find what's comfortable, the status quo and I'm just I'm gonna stay there. That's what feels good to me. And so that can also be a challenge when I do recognize that things need to change in my life. I can see that something needs to happen, but actually taking that first step into action can feel almost impossible sometimes because I see the mountain in front of me. I'm like, how do I even start this?
And so when I recognized in that moment that something needed to change, I think the biggest thing that motivated me towards action, you actually hit on it as you were finishing your response there, is having a vision that is clear and compelling enough that it draws you forward because the thought of missing out on that vision, the thought of sacrificing that vision for something lesser is worse than the discomfort of taking the action.
And so in those moments with my son, where I was struggling to keep my cool, in moments where in the aftermath I'm feeling the heaping piles of shame for feeling like a terrible dad that his kids are gonna hate him because he just can't get it together, to feel the tension in my marriage where my wife, who is homeschooling our kids all day, navigating these challenges, can no longer trust me to step in and help after a long day of work because I'm going to blow up and she's just going to have to step in more with the kids and then with me. Putting out the shrapnel, right? Everybody else is catching the shrapnel. Recognizing that that was going to make it impossible for me to be the type of dad that I've always dreamed of being. For me to have the type—when I imagine an exercise I do with guys that I work with is like writing out their eulogy from their kids perspective, right? And it's not unique to me. A lot of guys use that one, but I think it's so powerful to think about at the end of your days, you've lived a long fulfilling life. You're 80, 85 years old. You've passed away and your kid is standing up in front of a room full of people talking about the impact that you had on their life. Like that to me is such a concrete, tangible way to find the vision that you have for your life as a dad.
And to think about what eulogy my son would give if I didn't make a change, it broke my heart. And so that was like the motivator for me to change. Very thankful to have had a very gracious wife that was able to help me see that and talk through that without bitterness and being resentful. Having other men in my life that I could share this with to say, I'm really struggling with this. I need y'all to be in this with me, to check in with me, to make sure that this is a priority for me.
And then there were some resources too that I read and listened to on the concept of emotional regulation, which to me is now, I'd advocate for it as one of the most important skills any dad can have is emotional regulation, being able to regulate your emotions in the midst of the chaos that fatherhood brings sometimes. And so those are the things that really helped me to move from that moment on the couch where my son is flinching to now where nine times out of 10, I feel like I'm able to handle those situations in a healthy way, in a way that prioritizes connection over just trying to get things back to normal.
Jeff: Tyler, I wanna talk more about vision, but let's just take as an example in the short form, but let's fast forward 50 years and your son, the old trajectory that you were headed towards in that moment on the couch, if you hadn't changed. What are a few of the things he may have shared 50 years from now at your funeral? I mean, obviously at funeral, kids adapt and they say the best little slivers, even though it's not, but what are some things that were possible for him to say or think about dad 50 years from now, if you would say that?
Tyler: Man, yeah, it's interesting. I had a guy, another guy in one of my cohorts who were talking about the eulogy exercise and he'd actually talked to—he talked about a funeral that he'd recently been to of one of his good friends, their dad had passed away. And his friend got up there and said, I'm going to share all of the good things about my dad with all of you. And he stood there in silence for 30 seconds, a minute, and then just got down and walked off.
And to think about it, and my hope is that, you know, 50, even if I'd stayed on that path, it wouldn't have been maybe that drastic. But I also don't know. Like, I don't know if it would have gotten to a breaking point where I would have lost my relationship with him.
I don't talk about this often or don't post about it on LinkedIn where I write most of my content, just out of respect for my dad. I've got a great relationship with my dad. He lives 10 minutes down the road. He's heavily invested in my life and my kids and a big source of encouragement for me and the work that I'm doing. I love my dad, but we've not always had the best relationship. We actually went through a season when my first kid, my oldest, she was like 10 months old. We had a bit of a falling out. And again, it was a lot of tension that had been building, a lot of kind of the short fuse, kind of frustration towards one another. It blew up. And my dad and I didn't talk to each other, see each other for two and a half years.
And by the grace of God and a lot of other things, we were able to reconcile and like I said, our relationship is better now than it's ever been. But there was a time where I thought to myself in that two and a half years that the next time that I'll see my dad will be when I'm giving his eulogy and I know what I'll say. I think had I not changed and shifted, I think there's a possibility that could have happened with my son, that we eventually could have gotten to a point because my son's got that element to him as well. He's—I see it. I see that like the generational piece. It was Pete Scazzero, Emotionally Healthy Spirituality, said you got Jesus in your heart, but grandpa in your bones. The generational stuff. Like I see it in him where he's just prone to that short fuse as well.
Man, if we were both just doing that through his teen years, through his early adult years, like, man, this could have blown up to the point where I don't know or see my son and his eulogy is nothing or he doesn't even come to the funeral kind of thing. And the thought of that being my reality makes me sick to my stomach. I just could not imagine what that would be like.
Jeff: Let's flip the question because that hits all of us. Now, what are you dreaming into your vision? What do you pray would be some of the things your children would say about dad 50 years from now in that energy? What are some of those things?
Tyler: Yeah. So a phrase that has been, I've come back to this phrase hundreds of times in the past, maybe three years since I read, you talked about Eugene Peterson earlier, his biography Burning in My Bones. And I can't, I've never been able to go back and find it, but he talks about, it's almost like a throwaway line in the book somewhere, but he's talking about shepherding his flock, pastoring his church. And he talks about pastoring and walking with people through the full range of the human experience. That's the phrase that he uses, the full range of the human experience.
And the reason I bring it up here is because I want my kids to know and to see that I'm a human. I want them to know and see that I'm not going to be perfect. And so it's—we talk about that all the time in our house, that it is okay to make mistakes. It is okay to not be perfect. That mommy and daddy are humans and we're not going to be perfect. And when I think about what I would want my son to stand in front of a room of people and to say, to be able to acknowledge my humanity, to acknowledge I wasn't perfect, that I still had moments where I lost my cool, where I spoke too harshly and had to apologize, but that I always apologized, that I always came back, that I always fought to restore the relationship when I fell short, that I set that example.
There's a guy named Cord Sachs. He's a founder and CEO of a couple companies down in Birmingham, Alabama. He's a dad of six and I got to talk to him one time about fatherhood and this guy's just an absolute stud and I asked him similar question of like, what would be your biggest piece of advice to dads? And he said that a dad's role is not to be Superman. A dad's role is to be the chief repenter in the house. That a dad's role is to show his kids that he needs Jesus just as much as they do.
And to be able to think about my son standing in front of a room of people and saying that I did that. Saying that even when I fell short, that I came back, like I said, that I apologized, that I continued to turn away from that sin, that I fought for my kids, that I was that steady presence, that even when I fell short, I just kept coming back and fighting for them, modeling that for them. Man, like I just, I don't know, I can't think of many better things to have been said about me by my kids. That I was present in those moments with them and yeah, just kept coming back.
Jeff: And Tyler, what I'm noticing is there's no list of accomplishments you hope your children will say about you. It's not the doing, the achieving. I mean, the core one is the chief repenter. I've learned that when I go humbly to my girls and say, dad, I missed it. I'm so sorry. I'm so sorry that this—I apologize for what happened. One, I get closer to Jesus because of bringing that to light. So I get to be closer to my Heavenly Father. Two, I'm closer to my girls. Like there's a closeness that increases. I've modeled and deposited something in them of seeking Jesus, repentance, attaining. And my wife loves me more when she sees her hopeful dad who goes, I get like win, win, win, win, by humbly saying I missed it.
[Brief interlude about submitting questions for a future podcast episode]
Jeff: I want to zoom out around vision. There's this exercise, which is so powerful that you're walking us through around a eulogy and imaginative prayer, so powerful, imagining for the journal and writing some of the things. What are some other aspects of a dad getting crystallizing just to further degree their vision for their family, for their life, for their fatherhood? What are some other things you would coach us on?
Tyler: Yeah, so one of the other exercises that I have used before that's a similar concept, but I think from a different perspective, a different angle is to imagine your 80th birthday party. So this, I really like this one. You talk about getting really imaginative. This is the one where I'm like, man, if you can just close your eyes and actually picture this in your mind, it can be a really, really powerful thing. And so it's to think about your 80th birthday party and what do you want it to look like? Right? Think about who is there, think about where the party is being held at, think about what food is there, the decorations, think about the vibe, the atmosphere. How are people interacting with you? You can think about maybe your own grandparents' birthday parties or anniversaries that you've been to, maybe they feel very just cold and distant, everybody's there begrudgingly versus I imagine mine, I'm like, everybody's excited. Everybody's partying. There's music going. People are dancing. My grandkids, great grandkids are just like flocking to me. They want to be with me. I think about it being out here on our land. We have an old kind of decrepit barn on our property that was here when we bought it. I imagine that being completely renovated.
We've got six kids. I hope they have a ton of kids. And it's just like we packed the place out. And the reason I like that one so much and why I think it brings a different perspective is it can touch on a lot of different aspects of your life and of your vision and give you really concrete habits and rhythms that you can start establishing today that will bring that vision into reality. Right?
So for example, I want to have my 80th birthday party in this barn out back. Right now, it's not safe to have a party in. I know for even my financial stewardship, I need to be stewarding my finances in a way that are going to allow me to one day spend some money to renovate this barn into a place that can host a lot of people, right? And like, that's part of my vision now. That's part of what I want to bring into reality. And so I think about that when I steward my finances, when I decide what to spend, what to save, what to give, that factors in, that influences my habits and my rhythms today because that's part of my vision, right? That's not necessarily something that would come up in the eulogy exercise, but for my birthday party, it does.
When I think about my kids having a lot of kids, there's a guy named Jeremy Pryor. I don't know if you've come across him.
Jeff: Jeremy's the man. I love Jeremy. Him and the family teams.
Tyler: And one of the things that he talks about so often in his content, in his books and stuff, is making it possible for your kids to have kids as early as possible. Right? And so I think about what things can I do to give my kids the opportunity to have kids earlier in life. So that at my 80th birthday party, I got grandkids and great grandkids and it's just, again, that it's packed out with the legacy that my wife and I have created. And so that influences how I think about where we live, our land, how can we steward this? How can I build some tiny houses out in my backyard that my kids could live in when they get married to save money so that they can afford to have kids early. All these different things. I could go on and on about these different examples and these different things that like as I reverse engineer my 80th birthday party back to now, it's got me thinking about all kinds of things that I want to do with my life now. Right?
Like, do I want to be this overweight old man that just can't get up and dance? I'm like, no, I want to be an 80 year old that's out there like boogieing with his great grandkids. I'm like, okay, that means I need to take care of myself now in a different way. It can influence every aspect of my life to think about what I want that birthday party to look like.
Jeff: I'm—the amount my heart just is kind of like singing right now. Like I'm so full thinking about that vision and I'm going to spend some significant time actually putting that to paper, some of that vision. So that's an exercise immediately. And we always pray that we are dads of action. We have a bias towards action. That doesn't mean it's just like add, add, add, add, add. But like, what's the step in today's conversation? That action might be 20 minutes with the journal, but we just do, we take the next step.
I thought maybe we would end here because the vision for your 80th birthday, if there's a severing of relationship with a child because we can't—we don't have this emotional regulation or we've caused fear base or we've taken short term—some short term like we've gone after this pursuit or numbing or something destructive that we've gotten into as a dad. These things completely hijack our ability to head towards that 80th birthday vision. There's the lesser things that we're tugged towards because we're tired as dads. There's the lesser things. I just wanted to invite you just one more round on emotional regulation, because in that probably, if we can't—if we're like just stirred and we're not anchored, we might be prone to taking a short term, a fix or short term numbing that hijacks that long vision. So I just want to invite one more round on emotional regulation before you pray over us.
Tyler: Yeah, yeah, absolutely. I'll do my best to keep this brief because I can nerd out about this stuff for a long time. But the best way to describe it, if you think about your emotional regulation on a spectrum from one to 10, we'll call one to four on that spectrum hypo arousal. So this is where you're kind of numbed out, you're sad. I call it like the blue zone, right? You've had a long day, maybe a lot of meetings at work. You come home and you're just like, I just don't want to do anything. You want to sit on your couch. You want to kind of doom scroll on your phone, have a glass of bourbon, whatever the thing is, just to again, kind of numb out in that range.
We'll go to the other end of the spectrum. We'll call it seven to 10. Well, that's the red zone. That's hyper arousal. So that's when you are overwhelmed, stressed, you're angry. This is the moment where it's kids for the 18th time can't find their shoes or their water bottle or everybody's shouting all at once and you are just like you can feel your skin crawl. Your chest is tight. You just need everybody to be quiet. You just need all that input, all that noise, whatever, stimulation is what I'm looking for, to just stop. And so that's the hyper side.
The middle, so four to seven, call it the green zone, is where you're regulated. And that's where you're present, that's where you can respond in a calm, steady way. You can be connected to people then. And that's where we want to respond from as much as possible is from that green zone, because when your body is dysregulated, that's either in the blue or the red, either side, your greatest need is to get back to regulated. And you're gonna do that via whatever means possible.
So if you don't have strong emotional regulation skills, when you're in that blue zone, you're gonna try to regulate through unhealthy methods. Again, could be your phone, could be bingeing Netflix, could be drinking alcohol. It could be some form of workaholism, right? Where you just, it's a lot easier for me to just stay in the office a little bit longer and work through things than it is for me to go home and deal with that, quote unquote, witching hour for the kids where they're tired and hungry and dinner's not ready. And so you avoid, right?
The other side on the hyper side, the red zone, you're gonna regulate more often than not through blowing up, through losing your cool, right? Everybody's screaming, yelling, stimulus is high and you just lash out. Everybody just shut up and sit down. Be quiet. And that's that moment where you're trying to bring everything down around you so you can regulate because you don't have the healthier regulation skills to get back into that green zone. Things like being able to just take a couple of deep breaths, going for a walk, doing a workout.
There's a number of different things. And so that's the snapshot of emotional regulation and kind of the framework that I use. We talk about it a lot more. And I'm trying to work on a self paced course that dads can just have access to that goes into this in detail and kind of talks through how all this fits together. Right. Because emotional regulation in and of itself is a great skill to have. But if it's not tied into the bigger vision, if it's not tied into the pace of life and understanding what's a good yes, what's a good no in this season of your life, and it's not tied towards what are the rhythms and habits that are going to help you live out a life of regulation and a life that's gonna bring that vision to reality, to me it's like the combination of all those things that really—you live at three miles per hour. Maybe it's the best way to sum that up.
Jeff: So we're going to send in our show notes, we're going to send people your way to your website. All the content. So grateful for you. I want to invite and feel free if you had a couple more last words as well, but just to take a moment to pray.
Tyler: Yeah, absolutely. I would love to.
Jesus, thank you for such a powerful conversation with Jeff this morning. I hope that the dads that get to hear this are encouraged. You know my heart, God, in that I don't want any dad to ever feel alone in the struggles and the challenges of fatherhood. If there's any dad that's listening that has struggled with keeping their cool, struggled with feeling like they're just consistently overwhelmed by the demands of fatherhood, that they would hear this and know that there's nothing broken with them, that there's not something wrong there that makes them different than any other dad. I know it's so easy to think that every other dad has it figured out but you. And I hope that dad is encouraged by this conversation.
I pray specifically for dads right now that didn't have this example growing up. Men that grew up in homes either without a father present or a father who was physically present but very emotionally distant. Dads that were prone to vices that pulled them away from their family. Those men that are generational pioneers in trying to figure out what it means to leave a new legacy, to hand down blessing to their children instead of the grenade. Pray for them that they would feel enriched and encouraged, that they would draw near to you. That any dad that is listening to this, having recently fallen short, that's carrying any amount of shame from messing up or feeling like they just can't get it right, that there would just be an abundance of grace for them. They would find the freedom to draw near to you, Lord, to experience that grace and that freedom to continue walking this out, to continue to take that next step as a dad, to love their kids well, to know that perfection is not the goal, but to be consistently present, to be consistently steady, to just keep showing up, to repent, to turn away from any sin that's ensnaring us and to continue on in arm with you God in this incredible calling and gift that is fatherhood.
So thank you for the opportunity to get to talk about these things. Thanks for Jeff and his platform and his heart to bless dads tremendously. Thank you for being the ultimate picture of what a good father is. And we continue to just be inspired by you God to walk this out daily with our own kids. Love you. Amen.
Jeff: Thanks so much for joining us with this conversation with Tyler Graham. All the show notes will be at dadawesome.org/podcast. Hey guys, before you go, I have one more thing to say. Do you know how tall my dad is? Six seven. Six seven. Six seven. Have an awesome week.
End of transcript
-
Here are 5 top quotes under 22 words:
"I cannot be the type of dad I want to be when I'm in a hurry."
"When a dad blows up, the kids catch the shrapnel."
"A dad's role is not to be Superman. A dad's role is to be the chief repenter."
"Dads need to be the thermostat, not the thermometer—set the tone, don't react to it."
"My son flinched when I sat down. That's when I knew something had to change."
Connect with DadAwesome
Learn about our Fathers for the Fatherless events in 2023:https://f4f.bike/
Follow@dadawesome on Instagram
Make a Donation to DadAwesome (tax-deductible)
Join the DadAwesome Prayer Team
Receive weekly encouragement by texting "dad" to 651-370-8618
