459 | The Distracted Dad Audit, Pausing the Hustle, and Finding the Keys to Your Kids’ Hearts (Jeff Zaugg)

Rhythms & HabitsPrayer & Hearing God's VoiceJEFF ZAUGG
Written by Jeff Zaugg

Episode Description

A wrong shuttle bus, a kiosk that kept saying "you're too late," a lost wallet, and car keys that slid two rows up the airplane aisle. In this solo episode, Jeff Zaugg walks through one stressful Monday morning at the DFW airport with his wife and four daughters and pulls out five fresh dad discoveries from the chaos. You'll hear why distraction puts your family on the wrong bus, why getting up and asking for help beats solving it from your seat, and how a Holy Spirit nudge to check his pocket saved the whole trip home.

  • Jeff Zaugg is the founder and host of DadAwesome. He and his wife, Michelle, have four daughters and live in Florida. DadAwesome exists for the turning of a father's heart: heart-level fatherhood work rooted in Malachi 4:6, because when a dad's heart turns toward heaven and home, it ripples into his family, his church, and his community. In its first nine years, DadAwesome has served roughly 6,000 dads by name through the podcast, coaching cohorts, challenge events like Team DadAwesome Spartan races, and twice-weekly prayer calls, with a 20-year mission to reach 75,000 dads by name by 2038. DadAwesome helps dads be awesome dads, then resources, launches, and celebrates them as they carry it to other dads.

    • The distracted dad audit: Make a list of the things, even the responsible ones, that are pulling your attention away from presence with your kids. A distracted dad ends up on the wrong bus.

    • Get out of your seat: Stop trying to solve it alone from the back of the bus. Get up sooner and ask someone who's been there before: a friend, a pastor, a counselor, a book, a podcast.

    • Why not try? When the screen says "you're too late," try anyway. Our kids benefit from a dad who tries again after a daddy-daughter date flops or a connection attempt falls flat.

    • Pause the hustle: Sprinting under your own strength makes you reactive and emotional. Pause long enough to pray, ask a trusted friend, or send a text asking for prayer.

    • What's in your pocket? God has given you the keys to your kids' hearts (and your wife's). Carry a physical reminder and keep asking the Holy Spirit, "What's the key I'm missing here?"

  • Transcript lightly edited for readability. Timestamps are approximate.

    Cold Open

    Dads (montage): Being a great father takes a massive amount of courage. Instead of being an amazing leader and a decent dad, I wanna be an amazing dad and a decent leader. The oldest dad in the world gave you this assignment, which means you must be ready for it. As a dad, I get on my knees and I fight for my kids. Let us be those dads who stop the generational passdown of trauma. I want encounters with God where he teaches me what to do with my kids. I know I'm going to be an awesome dad because I'ma give it my all.

    Introduction (0:39)

    What's up, guys? Jeff Zaugg dropping a solo episode for episode 459. 459 coming at you.

    Two weeks ago, it was a Monday at the DFW Airport, Dallas/Fort Worth Airport, and I discovered five fresh dad takeaways, five fresh dad discoveries in one stressful morning at the DFW Airport. I've been thinking about this for the last couple weeks and decided to share with you guys what happened with my family.

    So my wife Michelle and I and our four daughters, we were in Texas for a Spartan event, for a Team DadAwesome obstacle course event and a vision night for the ministry. Had an amazing long weekend, and we woke up Monday morning to return home to Florida. So we headed to the airport.

    Beautiful sunrise overlooking Dallas/Fort Worth. Gorgeous. We're driving back to the Turo return lot. And I'm gonna share this story with you, and then I'm gonna pull out these five dad discoveries.

    The Story: One Stressful Morning at DFW (1:43)

    So let me share the story first. As we return our Suburban, the Turo vehicle that we had rented as a family, I noticed some scratches on the hood. There were some scratches that I just did not remember being there before. We picked up the rental vehicle in the evening. It was really dark. I took pictures all the way around it, and I was stressing about these scratches because I knew that I didn't hit anything, and I immediately started assigning blame to my wife.

    My wife Michelle had used it, like, twice without me—not many times—and she was uncertain. She just didn't know for sure if maybe she bumped into something. So I'm taking pictures. I'm stressing. It's early in the morning, and we're headed as a family. I had to put the key in the lockbox. We're headed to the shuttle vehicle to get to the airport, and I was not focused on walking with my family. I was focused on looking in the app, trying to log on to Turo, trying to put photos in, return, mark the journey complete, and we all hopped on a shuttle bus and headed off.

    Well, about 25 minutes later, we were still circling different terminals. There are six terminals at the DFW Airport, and we're circling. It's not ours. We're circling the next one. Not ours. Circling the next one. Not ours. We're 25 minutes into this shuttle experience, and I'm still kind of distracted on my phone. I'm looking, trying to figure out, stressing about... Well, initially, I was stressed about the Turo return, but then I began becoming stressed about what terminal Frontier Airlines was flying out of and why we had not gotten there.

    I'm looking at Google Maps. I'm stressing. Eventually, I walked up and chatted with our bus driver, and she said, “You're on the wrong shuttle.” I had never checked as we got on the shuttle. I just kind of followed my family on. We were on the wrong shuttle. She's like, “Get off here. Go up the elevator. Go out. Find this specific shuttle. It will take you to your terminal.”

    So we get out. We go up. We walk a long way in the wrong direction at the terminal, then we see the colored bus, the shuttle bus that goes between terminals. We run. I run three lanes out, stop this little bus, and he just shakes his head at me and points. He's like, “Not a chance. I'm not gonna pick you up.” So we have to trail all the way along the terminal to the other end, and we wait, and we wait, and we wait, and then we get on the bus. Of course, there are four stops. We're the last stop, and I know that we're getting close to the one-hour timeline of getting there early.

    We had one checked bag as a family, and the rest were carry-ons. I head to the spot where I thought Frontier Airlines was checking in, and they had changed gates. So I was at the right gate, but not at the right check-in point for Frontier. I'm running. My little girls are seeing Dad run to try to check this bag in. I get to the spot to check the bags, and I'm scanning my boarding pass because it's all automated. There's no gate agent at this point. It's all automated to try to print your tag to check your bag.

    So I'm trying, and the screen comes back and says, “You're too late. You've missed the deadline.” The screen keeps coming back: “You missed the deadline. You're not going to be able to check this bag.” At this point, in my head and in my heart, I'm thinking, “We're too late. It's 52 minutes before the flight departs, and they won't take the checked bag. There's no way. I'm gonna have to send my family. I'll fly back separate, or we have to throw the bag away, or there's no way. It's way too big.”

    We do find someone from the airline who says, “I'm not supposed to tell you this, but you can try to take it through TSA to the gate and pay a late fee and check it at the gate.” This bag is ginormous. It's a huge checked bag. We only had 40 pounds of weight in there, but it was a huge bag. So we head to the TSA area, and I go to grab my wallet to try to get through with this ridiculous-sized bag, and my wallet's gone.

    Guys, as a dad, at this point I'm stressed. I'm stressed more. I'm stressed even more. I'm thinking about fees. I'm thinking about how all these liquids in our bag—there's no way they're gonna let us through. Well, my wallet's gone. My wallet is magnetic. It kind of hooks to my phone, and my immediate thought is it's way back at those kiosks where I was trying to scan to get my bag checked.

    So I leave the family and sprint through the airport, and I check these kiosks over and over. We're already late for our flight with a bag that's probably gonna get denied at TSA. I'm sprinting. I have no wallet. I've lost my credit cards, my ID, my driver's license, and it's not there. I ask the agent, “Did anyone see a wallet that matches this? It's brown leather.” And she's like, “No.”

    I sprint all the way back to my family, and I start checking pockets and bags. For some reason, I was stressed about being late and thought I might have tucked it into a bag, but it wasn't there. So I look at Michelle, and I say, “I'm gonna sprint back again and check again.” So I sprint again all the way down. My wife calls a friend and is praying. She's standing at the entrance of the TSA Pre area, praying with a friend over the phone, and I am sprinting for the fourth time back and forth.

    As I'm sprinting, they're announcing over the loudspeaker in the terminal a location and a time for the prayer gathering they're hosting. So in Dallas and Texas, they host prayer gatherings at their airports, supposedly. I guess. They're announcing it, so I'm hearing them talking about prayer, and I'm thinking about my wife praying, and I'm sprinting. I get back, and the gate agent's holding my wallet. I'm so thankful. It had gotten tucked somehow because I took it off to get my phone to slide into the scanner.

    Crazy. So I sprint all the way back again. We go through TSA. I push this baggage down to make it cram to fit through the scanner. It's got a bunch of liquids in it. It's huge. I thought it was gonna jam the whole thing up. Somehow, all the TSA agents were having a team huddle, and there was one person watching the scanner, but nobody's around. They're all having this huddle, and it goes through. The person scanning didn't notice anything, and we have no hiccups. We grab our bags and take off running.

    We run for the plane, and we make it, barely. I pay the twenty-five-dollar fee, and Frontier Airlines—shout out to Frontier Airlines—they took care of us gate-side, checking the bag. We fly back. It's not over. The story's not over.

    We arrive in Orlando, and in the hustle of getting off the plane, I've got two of my daughters. My wife's got the other two. We're hustling to get off the plane—or not hustling because we're in a rush, but it's just always stressful getting off an airplane with little kids. I decide, I have this nudge, this feeling that I should double-check that we have our car keys for our vehicle that's parked at the airport, and they're not there.

    So I'm holding up the whole line of people trying to get off a plane. I lay down on my stomach in the aisle, and our car keys had jiggled out of my bag and gone two rows ahead of me and were sitting on the floor. Without that nudge, without that pause to check, I would've gotten out to the shuttle, gotten our bag, gotten to the vehicle, and it would've been, who knows, hours later, or someone would've had to bring us another set of keys.

    At this point, when I finally got home, the level of exhaustion, the level of stress, the level of thankfulness that I was home—it was every layer was stress, more stress, more stress, more stress. I could not believe the level of stress returning from Texas two weeks ago on a Monday morning.

    Discovery 1: The Distracted Dad Audit (9:18)

    So here's why this story. I'm gonna walk you through briefly the distracted dad audit is the first one. Then I'll walk you through get out of your seat. These are applicable to all of us dads. The distracted dad audit, get out of your seat, why not try, pause the hustle, and what's in your pocket, okay? I'm gonna hit these real brief for all of us. These are my dad discoveries from a stressful morning at the DFW Airport.

    The first one is the distracted dad audit. So when I was focused on the Turo return, the scratches on the hood, when I was distracted, I needed to look at what shuttle bus are we getting on or ask the shuttle driver, "Are you going to our terminal?" That would've saved all of this stress if I would've just looked, and I wouldn't have been distracted and focused on my phone. And I think all of us could make a list, a distracted dad audit of there's the wasteful things like Netflix series, but there's also the distracted dad audit of, like, I'm paying attention to notifications on my phone, this, that, these responsible things that are actually causing me to be distracted. At least make a list of the responsibilities that could be distracting you from presence with your kids.

    The distracted dad audit. You will get on the wrong bus if you are living life distracted. You'll be headed in a direction you don't wanna go. The distracted dad audit is a discovery that we all can take a step. We all can make a list and really think, "Am I going to be on the bus that's gonna take my family in the right direction, or am I distracted with the lesser things?" So distracted dad audit is your first dad discovery.

    Discovery 2: Get Out of Your Seat (11:01)

    The second one is get out of your seat. Get out of your seat. I, for the longest time, tried to solve the problem from my seat in the back of the bus with my family, checking Google Maps, checking terminals, Google searching, asking AI questions about, “Am I on the right bus? What shuttle from Turo lot to this, to this, to the Frontier?” And I just need you to walk to the front and ask the driver. My encouragement for you as dads is get up sooner. Get up and ask someone who's been there before. The bus driver knew more than I did, but I had to get up and ask, and this comes to really being learners as dads. Being learners, get out of your seat of the norm, the drift, the direction you're headed, and read a book on fatherhood.

    Get out of your seat and—well, you're doing it right now. You're listening to this podcast. That is a way of getting out of your seat of the norm and saying, “I want some more tools. I want some more resources. I wanna know perspective on, is my bus going where I think my family should be going?” So I want to be a dad who gets up sooner and asks for help from friends, from a pastor, from a counselor, from a book, from a podcast, from wisdom. I just don't wanna be stuck in my seat as a dad. I wanna get up and ask for help.

    Discovery 3: Why Not Try? (12:14)

    The discovery, Dad discovery number three, is why not try? Why not try? So this was when we went and I found the kiosk that said, "You're too late. You're too late." The robot, the kiosk screen said, "You're too late." And we all feel this as dads. We feel it all the time. I'm too late. I tried it, and it didn't work. I tried this. I tried this. We could blame the shuttle driver. We could blame our past. We could blame our spouse. Why not try? A perspective in fatherhood of why not try? Try again. I tried connecting, doing a daddy-daughter date, and something didn't go well. I tried this. I tried that. Instead of letting discouragement say, "Well, it says it's too late. Fifty-two minutes before check-in. It's too late. I guess I can't fly home. I guess I can't bring this checked bag. I guess, I guess, I guess, I guess." Instead, we tried based on a hunch and a suggestion from someone, like, "You could try," and we tried, and it worked because we tried. And that's a dad principle I think we all can say: "Well, why not try again? Why not try again?" Our kids benefit from a dad who tries again.

    Discovery 4: Pause the Hustle (13:20)

    Discovery number four: Pause the hustle. I sprinted through that airport even when the loudspeaker was saying, “There's a prayer gathering happening to pray. A Christian prayer gathering's happening at this terminal at this time.” I sprinted, desperate, trying to solve the crisis, the problem on my own. My wife called a friend and started praying, and if I, after even the first sprint, would've just paused and prayed.

    Pause the hustle. We are trying under our own strength as dads so often. I do this all the time. I'm hustling. I'm trying to solve. I'm sprinting. I'm sweating. I'm stressed out. I'm emotional. I'm reactive. Prayer. Pause the hustle. Pause the hustle long enough to just ask some questions and get some perspective. My wife paused. I sprinted.

    Pause the hustle. It's a huge deal, huge deal in fatherhood to pause and ask your heavenly Father, pause and ask a trusted friend, pause and send a text asking for prayer. Just the hustle of sprinting back and forth and back and forth—our kids benefit from a dad who pauses the hustle.

    Discovery 5: What's in Your Pocket? (14:34)

    And the last one, discovery number five from this DFW Airport catastrophe as a family. It wasn't actually. We made it, but it was a stressful morning. It was, “Hey, what's in your pocket? Where are the keys? Where are the keys?” There was the moment on the airplane that I had this Holy Spirit moment of, like, “Check for the car keys,” and that check, that pause to say, “What's in your pocket? Do I have what I need to bring my family home?” Without the keys, I could not bring my family home. I was gonna be ... The level of stress, I can't even describe the level of stress that I would've been feeling if I showed up with no keys at the shuttle parking lot after this morning we had just had. The level of despair if I would've had to travel back to the Orlando airport, get back to Frontier Airlines, ask for the lost and found, try to get back to that gate. I mean, at this point, the keys are probably in Denver, Colorado, right?

    The level of despair I would've felt, but because I asked this question, the Holy Spirit prompted me to ask, “What's in my pocket? Where are the keys?” We have been given, in ways that sometimes we miss as dads, the keys. And God wants to show us the keys to our children's hearts, to our family's hearts. In some ways, it's like, man, the moment of connection and warmth and the words that our kids need—God has given us keys to connect deeply, to speak love and life into their hearts. And we need, we have to pause and remember that God wants to give us the keys so we don't have these huge delays and frustrations. God, in His Holy Spirit, the nudges from the Holy Spirit, will save us so much stress if we listen and we say, “God, what is the key here? What's the key that I'm missing? What's the key?”

    This is massive, and I missed it last night, guys. I missed this. I missed it on a date with my wife. I missed having the key to her heart, and instead, I was defensive, and it caused so much frustration and wasted time and arguments. And because I didn't pause, I didn't pause and think, “What's the key to her heart here? How can I meet her where she's at? How can I show empathy and compassion?” Instead, I was kind of rushing off like a dad rushing off the airplane. I didn't lay down and look for those keys.

    Okay, what's in your pocket? We actually can carry as dads something to remind us to connect with the hearts of our kids. So think about it. Is there a toy? Is there a Lego? Is there something? My daughter's got a 3D printer now. Do I 3D print something that's like a reminder? Maybe a little key, little four-key ring, a key for my daughter's four hearts. Is there something that I can put in my pocket? Now I have a knife that I often carry that's a reminder. God has a very specific reminder of the knife when I carry this knife. But is there something, some way we can carry something in our pocket or put it on the dash of our car or on our desk that reminds us God has the keys to connecting deeper with each of our kids' hearts, with our spouse's hearts, and we need His insight. Holy Spirit, give me insight. Help me to be the dad that lays down and looks and pursues a different posture and angle and perspective so that I have keys to connect with their hearts.

    Recap (17:58)

    So those are the five dad discoveries I wanted to share from this stressful morning. Sometimes as dads, if we can just reframe stress with, “What did I learn here? God, what did I learn?” Five discoveries, okay? Simple. These are simple things, but they’re five discoveries that I pray are helpful.

    The distracted dad audit: We all can do that. Get out of your seat. How can we get out of our seat and get wisdom that we don’t have? Why not try? Why can we be dads who try again, who try again? When frustration hits, when it feels like we failed, we try again, dads.

    Pause the hustle. Instead of being dads who sprint and try to solve under our own strength, what if we pause? What if we pray? What if we take a deep breath instead of being so reactive? And then, what’s in your pocket? God wants to give you the keys. He wants to give you the keys to your family’s hearts, but we gotta seek Him for it.

    So I wanna pray for you guys, praying that this solo short episode is connecting with your hearts, and that when you have delays, devastations, when you feel like you’re having a morning at the DFW Airport with your four kids and wife, and you’re stressed and you’re sweating and you’re gonna miss your flight, God wants to teach us something in those moments. He has more things to teach me as well, and I need those lessons from God, my Father, to be a loving father for my kids.

    Prayer (19:23)

    So let's pray. God, thank you for these dads who are listening. Thank you for being their guide, their shepherd, their strength, their source of steady. God, they can be—we can be—anchored because we have a Father in heaven who is our source. God, we wanna receive from you, and we're asking for breakthroughs from heaven at connecting with the hearts of our kids.

    Okay, give us insight from heaven, God. Give us wisdom from heaven. Help us to enter with courage into this journey of deeper connection with our kids' hearts. Thank you for your guidance and your love. In Jesus' name, amen.

    Closing (20:13)

    Thanks for joining us this week for episode 459 of DadAwesome. The show notes are all at dadawesome.org/podcast.

    And I wanna encourage you guys: if you've never joined us for one of our short prayer calls, Monday mornings at 6:10 AM Central Time, Hearts Toward Heaven. We are praying with Scripture around our hearts turning toward heaven as dads to receive the love of the Father.

    And then Fridays, to launch into the weekend, at noon Central Time, we're praying Hearts Toward Home. How do we turn our hearts toward the ones we love, our families, and pursue them with God's love? We take Scripture and pray to those themes.

    So you can join. There's a number to text right in the show notes. Text pray or prayer to that number, and you'll be signed up for updates around our Hearts Toward Heaven, Toward Home prayer team, praying twice a week. Hey, praying for you guys. So grateful you're listening. Have a great week.

    1. "You will get on the wrong bus if you are living life distracted. You'll be headed in a direction you don't wanna go." (Jeff Zaugg, 10:36)

    2. "I just don't wanna be stuck in my seat as a dad. I wanna get up and ask for help." (Jeff Zaugg, 12:10)

    3. "Our kids benefit from a dad who tries again." (Jeff Zaugg, 13:18)

    4. "It's a huge deal in fatherhood to pause and ask your heavenly Father, pause and ask a trusted friend, pause and send a text asking for prayer." (Jeff Zaugg, 14:19)

    5. "God has given us keys to connect deeply, to speak love and life into their hearts." (Jeff Zaugg, 16:00)

 

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