428 | What Unlocks When You Stop Grinding, Becoming the Primary Storyteller, and Parenting from Sonship (Jay Heck interviews Jeff Zaugg)
Episode Description
Most dads are trying to figure out the right strategy. But what if the thing holding you back isn't a lack of tactics, it's a lie you've been believing about whether you're even loved? In this mic flip episode, Jay Heck of Being Sons turns the tables and interviews Jeff about the Dad Awesome book, and the conversation gets honest fast. You'll hear about the prayer counseling session that changed everything, what it means to set the scoreboard to infinity, and how a dad who's operating from fullness becomes the most compelling voice in the room.
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Jeff Zaugg is the founder of DadAwesome, host of the DadAwesome Podcast (400+ episodes, 8+ years), and author of the newly released book DADAWESOME. He and his wife have four daughters and are based in Northeast, Florida.
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Your kids need to see you pause and point to what God has done, not just celebrate the mountaintops but name the hard stuff too.
When you stop trying to earn love and start receiving it as a son, things like dancing, crying, laughing, and gentleness just start coming out of you naturally.
You are not behind. Whatever season of fatherhood you are in, God is not disappointed. He's inviting you to turn toward him, not catch up.
The three P's of intentional fatherhood are pursuing your kids, praying for your kids, and being present with your kids.
Fathers who operate from abundance naturally draw their kids, their kids' friends, and other families in. Scarcity thinking is contagious, and so is thankfulness.
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21 Day Prayer Team - surrounding the DADAWESOME book launch.
DADAWESOME Book:dadawesome.org/book
Subscribe to DadAwesome Messages: Text the word "Dad" to (651) 370-8618
7-Day Video Series: dadawesome.org/book
DadAwesome Podcast: dadawesome.org/podcast
Free Chapter + Intro Video Series: dadawesome.org/book
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Welcome back to Dad Awesome. Today, episode 428, I have a Mike Flip coming at you. So I was interviewed. did a podcast tour of about 15 different shows that interviewed me about the book with the book launching just two weeks ago. These have been being released in about a week ago. Jay Heck from Bean Sons, an incredible fatherhood ministry that does dad, daughter adventures, dad, son adventures.
other resources. He's got a podcast, the Being Sons podcast, and he interviewed me, dropped the episode, and I asked him, said, hey, could I reshare that as the Dad Awesome podcast? Can I reshare your interview of me? So today's a mic flip with that conversation, but I'm still encouraging you guys. I would love to hear your voice. So as I'm recording the audiobook of Dad Awesome, so I'm working over the next weeks here to record the audiobook, I want to hear your voice. I am sick of my own voice.
As I hear myself read the book and I'm adding a bunch of extra content, by the way, there's a podcast content of the actual guest and it's an expanded version of their quotes. And then I'm also doing bonus content that's kind of helping coach you guys to lead dad-awesome groups. So at the end of each chapter, there'll be some different kind of coaching tools, nuggets, helpful to multiply for the impact and to activate the impact. Again, we're against all things against intent.
We want to be dads of action. anyways, here's an example though, the voicemail line, dad awesome voicemail up to 90 seconds. It could be a question you ask. It could be a thought. It could be a key takeaway. It could be a book endorsement. So I'll play a few of them today for you guys. Here's one of the call in voicemails about the dad awesome book. Man, thank you for this book. I just want you to know, man, you've been instrumental in helping change how I father over this last year.
speaker-0 (03:03.726)
I am so thankful that you came into my life and your thoughts and your podcasts and the things that you did in the accelerator were so helpful for me. needed some changes and God used you in a lot of ways to help me become a better dad for my kids. I have a bigger vision and think a lot longer than I did before. I'm praying for you. The book is great. I ordered three books with my first order and I was reading through it this weekend and I was, man, I need to.
There's more dads that need this book, so I went ahead and ordered a 10-pack on top of the three. So I am really looking forward to giving all those out and spreading the good stuff that you have in this book. It's excellent. I know that God has big plans for what you're doing. So they don't need to be recorded professionally. I just love hearing your voice and what your takeaway, how's it impacting you, or questions. For example, there is a chapter in the book
that does not resolve the story. I tee up a story and in the editing process of like 12 versions of editing and getting feedback and guys all over the country giving feedback and my wife giving feedback, I had the resolution of the story in the remember this section at the end of the chapter. And somehow in all the process, that story never resolves. So leave me a voicemail or just message me and tell me what story is it in the Dad Awesome book that I don't actually share.
how the story resolves, how it ends, how it comes to fruition. So I would love to know from you, did you find it as you read the book? Okay, let's get into today's conversation. This is the Being Sons podcast, Jay Heck interviewing me on this week's episode of Dad Awesome.
speaker-1 (04:53.582)
He's a husband and a father to four beautiful daughters, including Kiva, who came with Jeff to one of our first Bloom adventures here in Texas back in 2024. And he is now the author of a new book called Dad Awesome. Dad Discoveries to Activate Awesomeness. And we are excited to have you on the podcast, Jeff. Thanks for coming on.
speaker-0 (05:15.086)
Jay, thank you for having me. I've been looking forward to for weeks now. I can't wait to chat with Jay.
speaker-1 (05:21.422)
So this book is, it's a great book. I've really enjoyed it. And I had this on the coffee table a few days ago and my wife didn't know exactly who I was interviewing or what book I was gonna be reading. But she said, is that the book? And I said, yeah. And she said, I picked it up and I started looking through it the other day. She says, that's really amazing. She was just skimming through it and looking at the little.
bubbles that stand out, you know, with the quotes, and she was like, wow, this is really, really good stuff, and I have to agree with her. So my first question is, why did you write this book?
speaker-0 (05:56.11)
Yeah, I pushed back against the idea of writing a book for, I'll call it five years. Like I really felt I am still learning so much in this journey of being a dad. I have only raised daughters. So I four girls, ages four through 12. You know my oldest. And so I'm in this phase of I've never raised a teenager. I've never launched someone off to college or helped a child get their first job.
I've never raised a son. So all these I've never's, I shouldn't, I can't, those are the whispers. And I think that's telling of all of fatherhood, dad life. The whispers of it's not for me, it's for somebody else. It's not for me to lead, it's for someone else. It's not for, well, the whispers, what it took is mentor after mentor after mentor. And because I host a weekly podcast, I have picked up like yourself, Jay. I consider you one of these wise.
a step ahead of me, friends, mentors, that I can just reach out and call and ask for help. But enough men like you said, you've got to bring this into book form. The vault, the 423 podcast episodes, the vault of wisdom gathered is hard. It's not that accessible for a group of dads, a group of men, a church men's ministry, a group going on a retreat. It's like,
It's hard to access a vault of resources to know where do I even start. So I prayerfully over the last few years said, what's rising to the top? And we used our coaching cohorts. We've done 11 of these. We've graduated 11 groups of dads about 10 at a time to test out the content. We think these are the core discoveries. We think these are the primary, the six core kind of, if we do work in these areas, it's gonna trickle into all the others. And so we got to test it out.
11 laps and then that has become, well, let's share this broader. So it became a book. So the why is I care deeply for you. I mean, the dad I'm speaking to right now, I care about you. I think God has a mission for you to live more fully into. And so I wrote the book for you, the non-reader dad who's curious and that God wants to like propel past curious to like, let's step in with our whole heart. So that's why I wrote it and I wrote it.
speaker-0 (08:10.318)
prayerfully. There's always a picture of a dad and their family on the corner of my screen. wrote it prayerfully and I truly am believing that God's going to do something, but I'm really open-handed with it too.
speaker-1 (08:21.528)
You know, one of the things about this book that stands out from other books about fathering is, it really is about presence. It's really about, as a father, this is how you can become present, and by being present, you can become excellent at all these other things. I think you are a master at being present. I've seen you with your daughter. You're right there with her. You're looking her in the eye. I've seen you do that with me and with...
other men, with the other daughters. So there is practicing the presence of whoever God has put in front of you. And that allows you to make much better decisions instead of being really on the fly, reactive, which is as fathers what we tend to do because we tend to worry.
a lot about things. anyway, thank you for that. And I think that that, I just want to say to those who are thinking about getting this book, it's not specifically for dads of sons, dads of daughters. It's not about taking your son through an initiation journey or anything like that. It's really about the key gift that a father can offer is being as present as possible.
Anyway, I've said that several times now, but it's just so true. You do a great job of giving examples of how to do that, how you've done that, how you've passed, how you've failed, how you've had great victories. I guess the next question is, you wrote this book with a particular structure to it that's very kind to the reader. Can you describe how you came to decide on doing it this way?
speaker-0 (10:14.22)
Yeah, my attention span, I mean, you talk about presence, I'm growing in that area because I feel like I'm distracted often and my attention span is...
not getting longer, it's actually getting shorter with all these things combating for my presence, for my attention. So we launch into every chapter with a story, a story from my own life, from some of my friends. And we move from story to a fatherhood principle, the core discovery in the chapter. And then from there into, man, how can we live this out? And I've just learned more and more, being a dad with good intent.
doesn't honor God, like the intent or I want to be intentional, it's actually the activating change. It's doing some of the activation. So every chapter ends with a couple examples in the Dad Awesome Labs section of you can activate on this. And here's some ways to activate it. Of course, we anchor every chapter in scripture. I just take them through this little seven, eight minute journey each chapter. And we've even said that you could
be a part of a small group for six weeks. There's six core discoveries, but each have a handful of chapters underneath these discoveries. You could literally read one of the chapters and show up and have a great conversation and then read one chapter in the next section and one chapter. So you could read just six chapters instead of 30, you could read six and you could still kind of, you would get the core movements of the book or the core discoveries would come through.
speaker-1 (11:48.086)
Yeah, it's very easy to pick it up and say, I'm just going to read for 10 minutes and get a very complete thought and a deep inspiration that could immediately help you start making better decisions. In 10 minutes, it's well written. I appreciate that. I wanted to start by just, I just want to read some excerpts and get you to share on these. starting with, this is on page 37.
As dads, we get to be the primary storytellers of God's faithfulness in our families. Every answered prayer, every unexpected provision, every moment where things have gone badly but didn't, could have gone badly but didn't, these become our own stones of remembrance that we can point to when our kids face uncertainty or fear. Say more about being the primary storytellers of God's faithfulness in our families.
speaker-0 (12:44.322)
Yeah, the word, sala, pause, it's in the book of Psalms, there's these sala, and I think the meaning of the word, sala, pause, ponder, reflect, praise, and in the pace of my daily life, it's easy to move right past a hard moment, a problem solved, a challenge, a prayer answered, or just even a small unexpected blessing. I can move right past onto the next thing.
really many of us move right past into the next worry. We'll actually like be stressing worried and then provision comes and then we're right into stress worry. So as a dad, by hitting the pause button and saying, man, let's just look for a moment. Look at what God has done. Pause, look at God's faithfulness. Pause, like these pause moments is it glorifies God. I often use my, I use the...
pictures in my phone. I'll like, let's cast these up to the screen and look over the last few weeks. Look what God has done. Look what he's done. So these are, I just feel like the story gets missed. such, there's texture, there's depth, there's struggle that we just miss if we don't as dad's pause and let's talk about it. And sometimes it's actually in the valley. So I share a couple of stories of like, this is hard and I don't know how I'm gonna get through it. I'm feeling more insecure than ever.
And by inviting my family to pray into that with me and pray for a miracle with me, that actually, they now get to carry forward the strength of seeing God move versus dad's warring and battling and going forward without me. And we've even done this when I've traveled for work before where I've said, hey girls, you're sending me on mission. You're sending me on a mission. So I'll report in with mission updates and we'll use like,
voice texting or Marco Polo of like dad's reporting. mean, sometimes I can call him live too and FaceTime, but like the mission updates because dad is, it just helps him be a part of, again, a bigger story and a better story versus just skipping from mountain top to mountain top and only celebrating the highs. Let's talk about the lows. Let's talk about the hard stuff.
speaker-1 (14:56.224)
It seems that as dads, there is a way to transmit data. But if we just take a little bit of time, dads are really creative beings. I mean, we played in middle school and in high school and as early adults. And to be able to turn a story into something that's fun for the whole family, that's a great gift that we can begin to offer and we can begin practicing in a day, like a mission update. That's fantastic. Yeah.
I love the perspective, a different way of telling that.
speaker-0 (15:28.622)
They'll ask for daddy stories because really we have, all it takes is a couple core details to get our brains triggering in old memory shores that we haven't pulled out in a while. And it's wild to give your kids access to like say, hey, let's pick a timeframe. You want a high school, you want junior high, you want college. And then give me some examples of like what types of stories. And all of sudden our brains start and then stories will come flowing back and
Many times we haven't told some of our stories to our kids of they could either be real epic moments and just as fun to share or usually the hard stuff is the best stories. This is something I went through and it was so hard and they love or some the time I failed. They love failure stories, dad fails stories. So yeah, the storytelling, it's a part of our role.
speaker-1 (16:14.476)
Another thing before we move on from being the primary storytellers of God's faithfulness in our families, to...
to help our kids, well, we're gonna move on to being sons of God. We're gonna talk about that here in just a second. But helping our children recognize that they've got two fathers, they've got us imperfect, but to be telling the stories constantly of the way that their heavenly father is coming through on your behalf. Like, let me tell you my story as a son and let me tell you
the story of our family and the way that God's coming through in faithfulness. What I have heard said to me and what I've begun to envision for my own family is that I really want to work myself out of a job. Not because I don't love it, but because I want my children, I I've got two kids in college now. And my prayer,
is that they are turning to Him as a father and that the stories that they heard in our home and the things that they saw Him do is motivating enough to them to have them go to their Heavenly Father and say, Papa, I need you. And looking back, I wish I had told more stories. I tried to tell stories as best I could. Sadly, at my age and stage now, I would be better at it now than I was back then.
But that's where God's grace enters, that's where His goodness enters, and that's where He can come and begin speaking to them and inviting them into totally new levels of intimacy with Him. And I see it, like, they're making decisions, they're doing it with God. And what a joy that is to see the fruit of living a life and every day, every night, saying, wow, I saw God do this today, and sharing that with
speaker-0 (18:15.416)
Yeah, even the phrase, yay God, like, like, yes, like God did this, yes. And because you celebrate and then, and then the God, need you. Dad is not the savior. Dad is not the one who's gonna bring the rescue. God is bringing the rescue here. And the more, yeah, the more we can kind of point to those two sides, it's huge.
speaker-1 (18:36.492)
Yeah, so huge. Okay, I'm going to move on here to... There's so much stuff, man. I just highlighted so much stuff in this book. Okay, similar to what we were just talking about. This is on page 40. You're training your kids to look for his hand in the difficult, the disappointing, the chaotic. You're showing them that God is writing a bigger story than they can see in the moment.
This is the sacred privilege of fatherhood, not protecting your kids from every mystery, but teaching them to see God's presence in the middle of it. The stories you tell about how God showed up will shape how your kids look for Him when their own mysteries arrive." Are you seeing that in your kids yet? They're not very old, but the key is your oldest at this point, right?
speaker-0 (19:26.498)
We've had some moments with some neighbors we've been praying for that have led to the celebrating on the beach, huddle up, and the mom is praying to follow Jesus. And my girls were right in the middle of that prayer huddle, seeing someone who we've prayed for. mean, three of the four people in that family are now following Jesus. And we prayed upstream. We're just praying. We're praying in the girl's sea, and then we're baptizing them in the ocean. like these are, they initiated many of those prayers. wasn't...
Michelle, my wife and I initiating and then for them to see a moment of, yeah, lives turned. So that's an example of one that like they're very, they didn't miss it. They didn't miss it. There's times that I feel like it requires my voice, my guidance, my leadership to keep bringing back to, yeah, there's life rhythms can all of sudden just, we can forget that, we can forget.
that we're living in a bigger story because the life rhythm is just moving day to day to day. And we try to use anchoring. When we lived in the RV, we used the anchoring of every time we move the RV, let's make a gratitude list. Like that was gratefulness and fear can't live simultaneously, right? When we're grateful, we actually are moving to more vision for the future, more hopefulness for the future. those lists, making those lists always recalibrates us.
speaker-1 (20:51.645)
Okay. I want to come back to how do you begin? Let's just say that some fathers out there have, they're looking at your story, they're reading some of these stories and it's clear that there's a lot of interactivity between
the members of your family talking about God, telling stories, showing gratefulness. You took an RV trip. That's just a tremendous amount of intentionality. Talk to the father out there who has not been intentional. And so because of that, their children haven't been drawn into this story. Like, how do you get started? What would be some quick ways to begin inviting your kids into it without looking?
without being very over the top and scaring your kids. know I'm saying? Like subtly beginning to bring them into a larger story.
speaker-0 (21:54.35)
The encouragement that jumped into my heart right now is you're not behind. Like you're the context of God's bigger story. If there's a chapter of 10 years of fatherhood, 15 years of fatherhood, or maybe it's just 15 months of fatherhood, it could be anywhere that you feel like you missed it. I just believe that God in heaven...
isn't disappointed and he's not feeling angry or frustrated with you, he's actually loving this moment in time that you're turning, you're sort of like, there's light bulb, I wanna press in. And he's inviting you to become versus look for hacks right now, like the become more curious, become.
someone who's changing your schedule to spend more time in presence. We talked about presence, presence with your heavenly father. Become fascinated by God and his love and his goodness. Like become, and then from that place, the overflow. it's really, if we jump to fatherhood, U-turns or hacks, or like, can I just add as far as components? Man, spend time with your heavenly father.
experience His love, get soaking wet with His love. We just talked about this, like, there is a hike to go on. There's a hike. And that hike is to the waterfall of God's love. And your kids, regardless of how old they are, they're in college, they're in middle school, wherever, like, they're gonna notice a dad who is changing your focus. Really, it's the heart turn to the Father's love. And then from there, God will, of course, there's so many potential next steps.
Spend time with Jay and all of the amazing events that Being Sons offers. And you could spend time with Dad Awesome and all these podcasts in the book. there's ideas, there's infinite amounts of ideas, but God in heaven says he's got good gifts. It's a father, he gives good gifts and his voice is the biggest gift you need. And then prayerfully not trying to do too much, not trying to do a 10 point strategy.
speaker-0 (24:04.094)
what's a few and it's gonna, it will revolve around pursuing your kids, praying for your kids. It's gonna revolve around presence. Like, so there's the three P's. Now, I truly, there's more to this. This is a big question, but receive first before you try to give.
speaker-1 (24:22.382)
And I have sometimes when I haven't known what to say, just being curious out loud. Like, I know God's doing something in me, but I don't know what it is. I just feel Him drawing me in. I feel myself being pulled by God in a particular direction. And just for your kids to hear that God's doing something in you and that you're being curious about it, you're being childlike about it, I think is that maybe that's a great way
you know, place to start instead of going for the tips and tricks and the hacks. Yeah,
speaker-0 (24:55.758)
It's to me, as I learned more about my identity as a loved son of God, I danced more, cried more, laughed more, more wrestling, more told more jokes. Like all of this stuff just is unlocked when we stop feeling like we have to strive and kind of grind our way into the right fatherhood strategies. It was a flip for me and my softness.
which is the biggest thing I pray for is a soft, gentle, I'm a pretty tall guy, God help me be a gentle giant, not abrasive, not harsh, my tone, my tone just goes deep into the hearts of all five of my girls, my wife and four daughters tone. And when I try to grind it and push for like my strategies, I struggle.
Hey guys, just dropping into this week's conversation with an interruption to invite you guys to receive seven emails. So we have a daily email that gives you a flyover of the Dad Awesome book. And this email is short, takes you two minutes to read, and it includes a link to the seven day video series. We created this video series to give a flyover, two to three minute long videos of the broad core discoveries.
from the Dad Awesome book. So I would love to invite you guys, simply jump in the show notes and click join the seven day video series. You also can send a text message and text book to the number 651-370-8618. Simply text book is the keyword, book to 651-370-8618 to get that seven day video series and those short emails to give you a flyover of all things Dad Awesome.
speaker-1 (26:43.49)
So you talked about sonship, and your book really launches the first major section of it is on identity because everything else is built on top of it. So what I'd like to do is I'd like to read some of the passages from your book here and then riff on that. As a curator of a ministry that God has created called Being Sons, I do believe that it's the foundation for every good thing that God wants to give.
Okay, so I'm going to read from a few pages here, three different pages. Okay, from page 60. You can't experience the full, refreshing reality of being God's beloved son while keeping one foot planted firmly on the sidewalk of self-reliance. And then from page 66.
Once you realize you're God's beloved son, your whole fatherhood game shifts. You're not running on empty anymore. We begin parenting from security rather than insecurity, from fullness rather than emptiness, from abundance rather than scarcity. So once you realize that you are God's beloved son, dot, dot, dot, everything can change. Everything changes. At what point, Jeff, did you start operating out of this realization that you are in truth?
one of God's beloved sons.
speaker-0 (28:13.194)
I had a friend invite me to take this journey. It was a two week journey of prayer counseling. This was, were pregnant with our first, so this is 13 years ago. And it's a 10 day journey, it was expensive. And I said, no, but I let the seed just, I hung onto the seed, but I said no. And the next morning I was reading about,
the time period between the ascension of Jesus and Pentecost. And it was 10 days. And so this idea that between the Holy Spirit, power, fire, miracles being released, the really deploying the early church, there was 10 days from Jesus, know, ascending to heaven. And I just, in my heart, I said, okay, I'll do it. And I went and prayed through my...
really was my entire life. We mapped out my whole life with these two prayer counselors, all these elements and one core discovery from these two weeks of prayer counseling, which was so uncomfortable in many ways, but it was so good. It was so good was I was believing a lie that I needed to work and earn and produce and have victory to earn love, that love can be earned. I believed it.
And it came from way back, my high school gymnasium, this scoreboard, I would finish games, my dad had a clipboard and he would show me my stats after the game. So my earthly father like brought this clipboard to every game and showed me a lot of love when I did well, statistics in the basketball game, my rebounds and steals and my shooting percentage. And then, but they would be silenced in the drive home if I didn't play well, the clipboard led to silence. So my whole, I've been living for 15 years, this same way.
And the truth statement from these prayer counselors was, your heavenly father has set the scoreboard to infinity. And I can see the infinity sign on that scoreboard, so you can't add to it, you can't subtract from it. So this was the moment that sonship was released into me as a soon to be father. It was right in this moment that I started laughing and crying and dancing and
speaker-0 (30:29.326)
singing more because I would enter a room differently after this because I was sure of the Father's love. I was sure of it. I knew he loved me. I knew he was proud of me. I knew inheritance, like the future is good because of who my dad is. And my earthly father, my dad, he would make jokes about being out of my inheritance because I made decisions, certain decisions, you're gonna lose the inheritance.
speaker-1 (30:46.945)
Yeah.
speaker-0 (30:56.878)
I believe that was true about God in so many ways. I lived that way. And so this, your heavenly father has set the scoreboard to infinity was a massive gift that I've now been, it keeps giving. That gift keeps giving over the last 13 years.
speaker-1 (31:13.504)
As I'm reading your book, you talk about experiencing God as the Father, okay? So there are men out there, and I know it, but part of what really rattles me is the fact that there are so many men warehoused in churches, and they don't even know that the Father-Son relationship is, it is the central theme of all of scripture. God revealed Himself as a Father and Son working
in partnership with one another to do the impossible, to make the impossible possible. That's what his hope was for Adam. That's what his hope is for in restoring us. But so many men out there, many of you maybe who are listening, have never had that moment where you saw the scoreboard reset to infinity. And I also had a breakthrough moment where God used a lot of pain.
And I was also out of town and I was exploring some issues that I had, like why am I so angry? Why am I struggling with depression and other things? And God allowed all of that, let's just say fatherlessness, the fruit of it, the bad, bad fruit of it to come to the surface for me to feel it. And I wanted with all my heart to avoid it, run away, give up, quit.
But in moment of courage that I know God supplied to me, I asked Him, you know, what are you saying through all of this for me? And in that moment, I had a revelation of the Father. So here's my question for you, Jeff. What do you say to those men who've not had a revelation of the Father? How would you encourage them? What would you encourage them to pray? What would you encourage them to do? And of course,
with great kindness to all of you out there. I just want to say this is God's heart even more than it's your heart for this discovery. But Jeff, respond to that.
speaker-0 (33:16.47)
It feels so good when my girls want to spend time with me. It feels like I love it. We had just a short moments, my oldest daughter and I, I was like, do you want to play chess? And she's like, yes. And she, even though that one I initiated, right? But she's just like, I could tell she really wanted, we only got half the game, half the game in. So God in heaven feels the same way.
infinitely more than my delight when my daughters want to spend time with me. So there's a closeness dial. John chapter 15 talks about this, the vine, the branches, Adam walking with God, God wanted to walk, walk with Adam. He wants to spend time. As in, keep coming back to this, like this is the desire to spend time and the guarding and protecting from distractions to spend time with your father.
It is, and with no, often it's like, just spend time because God loves it when we spend time with him. Like, take all those expectations away. Take a hike, take a, blow up a paddle board and go out for a paddle board. Go sit on a park bench, go to a library. I've gone to a Catholic church. Just go to a place that's not gonna have distraction and spend and be gentle on yourself as far as expectations.
I now do this monthly for about a day. I take about a seven, eight hour day to spend time with God, look back 30 days, look forward 30 days, but it doesn't, it could be 30 minutes. And we encourage our, with our coaching groups to prayerfully fight a two hour time chunk, guard against it and just say, I'm gonna spend time with God. That could be some reading of his word. That could be some journaling. That could be just a walk, listening to some worship. But just time and just,
Time is such, it honors God when we guard and we give Him time. So that's what I say is turn up the closeness dial. And that I think is the entry point, those steps, the time spent for a revelation to be received from God on how much He loves it when you spend time with Him. So it might sound really simple. I'll give you one that's a little more practical, which is a journaling exercise, two color pens.
speaker-0 (35:38.936)
black pen, whatever, two different colors of just like writing really basic questions. And then grab up the other pen and whatever you think God might be saying. It's not, you're not like listening with this like forceful, I have to get his words right. It's just like, what might he say about that? Like this journal exercise of black pen, blue pen, black pen, blue pen is a gentle way, stream of consciousness. God speaks through, the Holy Spirit has things to say.
And some of the things you just start really gentle, easy, I'm like gratitude. And it's like, oh, I'm so grateful too. Like that might be what God said, I'm so grateful too. Like, and then say something else. And it's just like, those are closeness style. It will be turned up if you do that kind of a journaling the voice of God exercise.
speaker-1 (36:26.414)
That's really good. I would also, this is just a question I wrestle with, right? I just want to see men come to the revelation of sonship and out of that begin living the true life, know, the life to the full that they're meant for. Jesus said in Matthew 11 that the secrets to the kingdom were kept secret from the people who are the know-it-alls.
from the ones who were self-reliant. And he says, I'm going to reveal the secrets to babes and then a couple of babes to children, to those who approach him like children. And then he said, for no one knows the son except the father and no one knows the father except the son and those to whom the son chooses to reveal him. So I have found that a very powerful prayer is that I will ask Jesus, would you reveal the father to me?
by revelation, please reveal the Father to me. His heart, His goodness. And then there are seasons that I think the Father is accessible. Like, just like the prodigal son who had a very, very difficult life because things just, the further he got away from home, the further he got away from comfort and love and...
companionship and all the things that he didn't appreciate in the beginning. And it says he finally came to his senses. And so one of the questions I think that are great for us as men to be asking is, where am I experiencing fatherlessness? Like, where is the anger coming from? Like, what are the things that are making me angry? And then, like, in your exercise, the black pen, blue pen, like,
God, here's what's coming up in me. Why? What do you have to say about this? Is this the way that you meant for me to live? And then go with the blue pen and just let him begin responding to you. That exercise I have used so many times. And when my blue pen begins to write, I'm not confident that he's speaking, but by the end of it, it's like he just somehow takes over, whether it's the second sentence or the third sentence.
speaker-1 (38:47.254)
I worry about going back afterwards and I read it and I say, I don't edit it on the fly. I'll go back and look at it and go, okay, does this sound like the nature of God to me? And I'll let him walk me through the interpretation of it as well. Yeah.
Yeah, that key moment is really big and sons out there, you are sons whether you feel it or not, we want you to experience those moments. So the best thing to do is just ask God for them. And here's another thing that you quoted in your book here from Brendan Manning. is, Brendan Manning, the author, offers us this childlike perspective in his book, Ruthless Trust. While there are times it is good to go to God,
As might a ragged beggar to the King of Kings, it is vastly superior to approach God as a little child would approach his or her papa. Thoughts on that? Why'd you put that out?
speaker-0 (39:44.642)
my goodness. It's just the story that jumped into my heart right now is I, when I was in college, I think it was at the end of, I was just graduating from college, I used to take a paper bag into the pantry at my house and on the way back to my dorm room, I would fill up with stuff out of the pantry of our, of my parents' pantry and bring it back to the dorm room to save myself a trip to the grocery store. And there was a moment I went to fill, and I think I had just graduated from college and my dad said, put that back.
He said, put that back. And truly it actually is a maturing, like it makes sense that a father is gonna at certain points say, no, you can pay for your own groceries. You have a job. But the moment is, man, I don't ever have to think about that putting groceries back in the pantry when it comes to the love of the father or his favor for me. You never graduate beyond this child, the love of a father to a child.
who's you don't have to worry about being fed. Like I've got you. I'm thinking about my perspective is so much greater than yours. Approaching as a child, the children who came to Jesus in the gospels a couple of times, the disciples tried to push them away. And there's three core things that are emphasized. the parents are trying to get those kids close to Jesus for him to lay his, place his hands on them and pray for them. Three things, proximity, placing hands on, and prayer.
If we can just proximity, get close to the Father like we just talked about. Placing hands-on means I'm open to my priorities, agendas, the direction of my life, my money. I'm open to His touch on my life. Not just His voice. No, I want Him to turn me in His direction. And then the last one, prayer is just like, man, I wanna hear His voice. But we actually coach our dads on
Like we actually can bring those three things, proximity, placing hands on prayer to our kids. And we can bring those three things to other dads as well. Like these three layers of childlike kingdom of heaven. says, such as these, the kingdom of heaven belongs to such as these. I think there's a little bit of a, it's not a formula, but it's a, there's aha moments in this scripture around us and the Father's love and not being like a beggar.
speaker-0 (42:10.254)
It's a child. I love the Ruthless Trust book. If anyone's like, I've never even heard of Brennan Manning or Ruthless Trust. So set the book, Dad Awesome aside and go read Ruthless Trust. Truly it will change. will explosion. You have to read it slow because it's a lot more dense than Dad Awesome. But it's explosive moments of I've been living again under my own strength versus trust. So it's huge.
speaker-1 (42:39.212)
very practical example of that in my own life right now is that we are, my wife and I are looking at a new car and the cars are just so, so expensive. And it's like terrifying. I feel like an orphan. You know, like I have to do it on my own. And the orphan in me wants to get something that's like really old.
And Dave Ramsey would probably, I also hear Dave Ramsey's voice in my head, you know, like get yourself a Toyota Corolla with 70,000 miles on it because it's got 400,000 miles left in it, you know, sort of thing. But man, wanting to bless my wife with something that's nice and she can keep for several years has me going to God and I'm like, I just need to take the posture of a little child and say, Papa, would you bring us something that we're going to be
you know, really happy with and satisfied for a long time. And also I want to make my wife happy. You know, how can I help make something, make this possible for her? But yeah, that's a big reality. And I love the story of the, of going in the kitchen and getting stuff. My daughter comes home and before she leaves to go back to Stephen, where she leaves, she'll pull out a bag and she says, I'm going grocery shopping.
speaker-0 (43:53.387)
Yeah
speaker-1 (43:53.736)
And she's 21 years old, she'll just like take everything from the pantry. And luckily I have developed over time with God the mindset that I want our house to be the place of abundance for her and I will work with God to refill the pantry with whatever's there. And my son was surprised when my daughter told him that that's what she does and he was like, what? I didn't know we could do that. I'm going shopping too.
speaker-0 (44:20.073)
It ripples, it ripples.
speaker-1 (44:21.63)
It it does. It's very fun. Very fun. Okay, you said at one point in the book here, fathers who operate from abundance naturally become the most compelling voice in the room. Can you say more about that?
speaker-0 (44:38.306)
I'll use you as an example. So the abundance thinking of household is a place of just generosity, kindness, warmth. Like when we have this abundance thinking, we actually will draw our kids, their friends, other families, other neighbors, like our voice, generosity, blessing others, abundance thinking does open, it opens so many opportunities, I think, to have closeness and closeness,
provides a place for maybe the coaching or the guidance or the training. And so, yeah, I think the posture of I have more than enough, Psalm 23, the Lord is my shepherd, I lack no good thing. mean, truly, I need this reminder every single day. We're down to one vehicle as a family of six right now. So same thing you're talking about. And coordinating who's got the vehicle.
I strapped a light onto the bicycle this morning, biking in the dark, just because I wasn't sure if my wife needed the vehicle. The abundance mentality of God is good, I'm good, I lack no good thing. I live like a king throughout all of history, the thousands of years. My level of comfort is so, like, how can I ever fear? Truly, my concern of things of this world,
is contagious to my family. My wife feels it, my daughters feel it. So when I carry thankfulness and abundance, it trickles and then my voice has more, it carries, they want me to speak into things.
speaker-1 (46:19.886)
Do you have a morning routine? Anything that's like absolutely incontrovertible, this has to happen every morning with your family.
speaker-0 (46:23.32)
You're
speaker-0 (46:29.814)
I've had a few friends help train me on a few new things. So before the girls are up, so I'm up early, 50 pushups before coffee, know, electrolytes before coffee. I've got a few like anchor things now that are newer, the last three months, three months. The John Eldridge head of household prayer, if you guys haven't heard of it, it's all free in the wild at heart. But praying that, usually I'm praying that from a cold water scenario. We don't have a cold plunge, but our pool's been cold the last three months.
So I'm in the water, stocking head on, ear budded, and he coaches me to pray the prayer and I pray it out loud. So these are, so declarations, coffee, some physical, some journaling. I do a five-year journal. And so I'm looking at just five lines on what happened yesterday. But then I have the vantage point of, can see what happened in 2018, 2019, 2020, 2021. I'm actually to look back at a chapter of five years from my earlier five-year journal.
and it's anchoring me back. do that in the morning. Really, it's, I mentioned to you earlier before we hit record, I'm meeting with a group of group workout on the sand, sandy, sweaty, early in the morning. So that three days a week, that's throwing off my morning rhythm a little bit, but the other four days are pretty clear.
speaker-1 (47:46.062)
That's awesome. I've read about several of those practices here in your book and want to put some of those in, specifically the daily affirmations. Can you just share with us a couple of your daily affirmations?
speaker-0 (47:59.608)
Yeah, these are, I, less of, so I'm often using a resource like that prayer that I mentioned. You know, the topics we've talked about today are things that are incorporated in those, but less memorized, more guided right now, as far as I haven't written, like, this is my own five things that I'm declaring. Maybe I'll share this, the three things that are true of our family. I pray and,
and I'm leaning into God help this be true of me because I'm leading my family. The three things are I am loved, I'm a learner, I'm a leader. And these are things that if I lean into each day of I am loved son, we've talked about that identity. I'm a learner means posture of curiosity, humility, growth, teachability. I'm gonna seek mentorship, I'm gonna seek wisdom. And then I'm a leader means I change the atmosphere of places. I do not react, I lead.
I solutions, I problem solve, I don't blame, I own. So these are things that are core to our family. I'm raising girls, these are the core three things. I'm loved, I'm a learner, I'm a leader, and I have to press more into myself every morning.
speaker-1 (49:11.406)
Well, friends, I am so glad that you joined us for this podcast. There is way more that I wanted to ask, but we've run out of time. This book right here, Dad Awesome, it's not a gimmick. This is a real guidebook for small one-degree changes. You're not going to read this book and feel like,
This sounds great if I can do a 30 or 45 degree angle change. It's like one degree changes, all of them very, very practical, but of course, all of them really relying on God to be your partner in it. know, God begin to show me how to be a better father, how to be a better husband, how to be a better man. This is really a book on manhood, I think, as much as fatherhood.
And I want my son to read this. I want him to have a copy of it because it'll give he and I stuff to talk about. He's 23 right now, about to be 24. So I highly recommend the book. Jeff, congratulations on having over 400 podcasts. Congratulations on the launch of not only a book, but a really good book that is very worth reading. I'm going to be recommending this to a lot of dads out there. How are you handling the release of the book? How's that going for you?
speaker-0 (50:37.454)
So we planted 300 seeds. You just held up one of the 300 seeds that we planted, which is giving away 300 copies. And the launch is coming at the time of this recording. We're five days away from book launch. I am so grateful for almost daily, a couple of times a day, people are sharing things that God has illuminated that I'm like, that's God, that's God. just, it feels like I'm in a cycle right now of.
of pointing out, what God has done, what He's shown me, which I'm grateful for, and now He's showing others. So it's a really sweet season right now. I've never launched a book before and just praying, you know, we're just praying that 30, 60, 100 times that there would be a multiplication of the seed and the dads would read. I do know that most books slip to a bookshelf or they slipped lower on a stack on my nightstand if I don't have three other friends.
going through the same book. So my prayer is that we call it DA plus three, just find three other dads, and it can be anywhere in the world, because you can just text each other, hey, second chapter, here's a little takeaway. Accountability loops are massive for me to have any gains. I need accountability loops. So that's a hack. If there's one hack I shared today, it's find three other dads and just choose to do it together, because otherwise, odds are most people don't finish things that we start without other people in our corner.
speaker-0 (52:00.814)
Thank you so much for joining us this week for episode 428 of Dad Awesome. All the conversation links to the book, to the free video series, they're all at dadawesome.org slash podcast. And one more, just drop in a voicemail line. I want you guys to hear from one other caller. Here you go.
speaker-1 (52:20.238)
Brian McGill coming at you from Marathon, Florida. Share a voicemail with you regarding just reading the chapter six. was the ding dong ditch. It just reminded us to treat our daughters like a prodigal son, Unconditional love through times of struggle. And it just really helped me lead this family today. How it's difficult sometimes. And just want to say thank you for this book. It's been great and it brings a lot of perspective in. So, been loving it so far and just want to say hello.
speaker-0 (52:47.402)
I am so thankful when I get to hear your voice. So simply click the link in the show notes to leave up to a 90 second voicemail, leave your first name and where you're from to start it out. And you can again, ask a question. You can leave a like, hey, this was my takeaway. You can just share something that popped off the page or kind of just a broader encouragement for other dads to check out the ministry, Dad Awesome.
or read the book, Dad Awesome. So thank you for doing those call-ins. Thank you for taking what you heard today and prayerfully saying, God, what am I going to put into action? Let's be dads of action. Thanks for listening. Thanks for being Dad Awesome. Have a great week.
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"Your heavenly father has set the scoreboard to infinity. You can't add to it. You can't subtract from it."
"As I learned more about my identity as a loved son of God, I danced more, cried more, laughed more."
"Gratefulness and fear can't live simultaneously. When we are grateful, we move toward more vision and more hope."
"Fathers who operate from abundance naturally become the most compelling voice in the room."
"You are not behind. God in heaven is not disappointed. He is loving this moment that you are turning."
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