460 | Story, Identity, Intentionality, Freedom, Wonder, and Leadership (Six Mini Conversations with Six Dads)

DADAWESOME BOOKIdentity & Living as Sons of GodBrotherhood & Mentorship
Written by Jeff Zaugg

Episode Description

What happens when you stop reading about being a great dad and start talking about it with a friend? To celebrate finishing the DadAwesome audiobook, Jeff shares a slice of six conversations with six friends, one for each of the book's core discoveries: story, identity, intentionality, freedom, wonder, and leadership. You'll hear why you have to be "son awesome" before you can be dad awesome, how one dad heard his son's voice before he was born, and why throwing your phone across the room might be the best leadership move you make this week.

  • This episode features six friends of DadAwesome, each joining Jeff for one core discovery from the DadAwesome book.

    • Story: Cameron Clark. Cameron leads a discipleship group that meets every two weeks, where one person shares a seven-minute slice of their story.

    • Identity: Kevin Klaas. A dad of four boys who has pressed in over the years to believe he is a son of the King.

    • Intentionality: Matt Markman. A girl dad who writes his yearly goals in a journal, including twelve daddy-daughter dates.

    • Freedom: Joseph Dalton. A dad of boys who gave up alcohol in 2009 while his wife was pregnant with their first child.

    • Wonder: Kelsey Romshek. A fire captain learning to approach his twelve-year-old son, Luca, with wonder instead of orders.

    • Leadership: Kelly Smith. A dad who turned his phone habit into a game that gives his kids a voice.

    • Story: Relationships make for a richer story, but only if you go below the surface. Inviting someone to share a seven-minute slice of their story can change a whole room.

    • Identity: You have to be "son awesome" before you can be dad awesome. Believing and resting in who you are as a son of the King changes how you show up for your wife and kids.

    • Intentionality: Don't confuse intentionality with achievement. The intentional piece is showing up, and your goals have a far better chance when you invite your kids and your friends into them.

    • Freedom: There's no such thing as secret sin. Your kids are in the front row watching, and you can't lead them into freedom you aren't fighting for yourself.

    • Wonder: Routine and age choke out wonder. Trade "Captain Dad" orders for curiosity, and ask one question before you jump to conclusions.

    • Leadership: Leadership isn't stages and microphones. It's a posture, and sometimes it looks like handing your kid the drill or giving them permission to say, "Daddy, put your phone down."

  • Transcript lightly edited for readability. Timestamps are approximate.

    Cold Open

    Being a great father takes a massive amount of courage. Instead of being an amazing leader and a decent dad, I want to 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 pass down 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'm going to give it my all.

    Introduction (0:26)

    Jeff: Welcome back to DadAwesome. Guys, today, episode 460, I have six guests joining me. So instead of bringing one guest on, I am going to have a little fun. We are going to have some fun together this week, and we're going to celebrate the end of the audiobook process. So it's not out in the wilds. Don't go to Audible, don't jump to Spotify right now and try to purchase or listen to the DadAwesome audiobook. But it's done. I've read the entire book, and I just finished this fun project where I interviewed six friends around the six core discoveries.

    Jeff: There's a bunch of bonus content. So the book, I'm trying to bring the book to life in unexpected ways to move dads to action. Just like the lab section at the end of every chapter of the book, I have a QR code to go to the DadAwesome labs. Let's put things into action instead of have intent. Instead of me saying, "You should go do this thing," I'm giving you guys an example of a conversation with a friend around this core discovery.

    Jeff: So these short mini conversations. Instead of waiting, I'm going to give you guys a little slice, about a four-to-five-minute slice of each of the core discovery conversations from these six friends. So this will feature Kevin, Kelly, Joseph, Kelsey, Cameron, and Matt, all joining me for a little short segment on the core discovery that we're exploring. So we're going to go from story to identity to intentionality to freedom to wonder to leadership. Ready? Are you ready, guys? Ready, set, let's dive into the first theme around story.

    Story with Cameron Clark (2:18)

    Cameron: Seeing the impact the story had not only on me personally, but on the guys around me, I was like, “Okay, well, this is so profound.” It left such a positive imprint, and now it impacts the way that I mentor, the way that I do discipleship. We have this discipleship group that meets every two weeks, and we get two volunteers every week to raise their hand and say, “Hey, would you share a seven-minute slice?”

    Jeff: It’s so trademarked DadAwesome. You’re doing it. You’re doing the multiplication, right?

    Cameron: Exactly that. It seems so simple. And this is another one of your gifts: you just make these impactful things so accessible and feel so easy to say yes to, Jeff. It really is. You demystify, and you lower the bar to jumping in on these things that have massive impact on people’s lives.

    Cameron: So every two weeks, we meet with this group of young adults, and they get to share their story. By sharing their story, we get a view into how God can transform people’s lives. Every time, it’s new, and every time, it’s impactful. It’s my favorite part of our entire evening, every single time. So a very huge thank you to you for that. I don’t know if I owe you royalties, because I literally don’t even—

    Jeff: Oh, we could have made it the eight-minute slice. We could have made it the eight-minute wedge or whatever it is.

    Cameron: You chose seven, though. You chose—and this was on the day of the first cohort we launched. It was the day of. I was like, “I want to hear, but how long?”

    Jeff: And I’m praying, “We’ll call it a slice,” because we honor what was shared, but it’s not the whole thing. It’s a slice of your story, and it’s still a gift. It’s still a gift. So I’m making a connection right now, Cameron, that I haven’t made before. It’s the deep connection between story, the first core discovery, and leadership, the sixth core discovery. At the time these dads listening right now to the audiobook are at the first core, they’re ending the first core discovery. They don’t even know leadership is coming. They’ve got a few hours of listening before they get to leadership. What you’re doing is taking story principles and, through leadership—your initiative, your spark, your welcoming, your choosing to lead this discipleship group every other week—you’re using leadership to connect yourself and the room with each other’s stories. And the positive of one dad saying, “I will convene, lead, even though my story might be in a valley right now.”

    Cameron: In fact, many of the moments that I have led—which is pretty regular; I’m leading, I’m a leader—it’s from a place of walking through a valley. That actually makes me, I think, a better leader in some ways, and a more hopeful leader, because I’m hoping I don’t stay in the valley. Through leading and serving and welcoming and stoking the shared stories, the shared faithfulness, and the shared miracles that we get because we’ve opened up versus stayed surface level, my story is a better story because of it.

    Jeff: I’d say that about you, Cameron. My story is a better story because our stories overlapped and we’re friends, right? Relationships make for a richer story, but only if you go below the surface.

    Identity with Kevin Klaas (5:48)

    Kevin: You've got to be son awesome before being dad awesome.

    Jeff: What does that mean? Tell me, where did that come from? What does it mean?

    Kevin: Mark 1:11 says, “This is my beloved son in whom I am well pleased.” What’s been impressed upon me is that until I understand who I am in Christ and actually believe it—I mean, I have it—we’re all sons of the King already, positionally, but we have to believe it, accept it, and live in it. It’s been a struggle for me to get there, and over the years, I’ve had to press in to get to a place where I believe it. I think that’s a big part of the fatherhood journey, a big part of the journey of marriage and showing up in the way we need to for our spouses, too: understanding that we are sons of the King, believing it, and resting in that. Because it changes the way we show up in every way.

    Kevin: Acts 13:22 says, “The son of Jesse is a man after my own heart who will do all my will.” When you really study David’s life, he was nobody special other than that he pursued a relationship with the Father. He tells poems all throughout the Psalms about how intimate his walk was with God and how he spent time with Him. He would lie awake in the night watches thinking about his Heavenly Father and meditating on His Word. Psalm 63 is one of my favorite Psalms, where he talks about the intimacy of his walk with God. I wanted the same thing, selfishly. Just like we want strong relationships with our kids, God wants strong, intimate relationships with us. And I want that back. As I think about why I’ve pressed in, it’s just out of a desire for that.

    Kevin: As a human father, I have four boys, and I want a deep relationship with them. But in order for me to have a relationship with them, they have to be willing to spend time with me. If we don’t have time together, we won’t have much of a relationship.

    Intentionality with Matt Markman (7:45)

    Matt: I sat down and actually wrote in a hard-copy journal this year what my goals were for the year. One of them was 12 daddy-daughter dates this year. So in my mind, being logical, it's okay, one a month. Easy. Done. Got it. I can definitely manage that. We're in October now. I think I'm five for ten at the moment, five or six for ten.

    Jeff: You're going to cram in Q4.

    Matt: Definitely an option. And then there's also the reality or potential of getting to December 31, January 1, looking back at that goals journal and seeing that I got six out of twelve, or five out of twelve, or seven out of twelve, whatever the number winds up being. And so there are two ways to look at that. There is, “I failed, I fell short.” And then there's the flip side of what my girls will think, which is, “I remember those seven or six daddy-daughter dates we went on, and here are the things that we did.”

    Matt: Where we often confuse intentionality with achievement is where we get ourselves in trouble. And I say “we”—me. That's where I get myself in trouble. I confuse achievement and what I've done with that intentionality, the intentional pieces, showing up. It's checking the box, not in a transactional way, but saying, “Yes, we did this.” And so that, for me, requires talking to my girls about it and saying, “Hey, this was my goal. Here's where we're at. You want to help me get there?” And inviting them into it. That makes a massive difference from an accountability, motivation, and just top-of-mind component. Because if it just lives in a journal that I put on a bookshelf somewhere, I never tell anyone about it, never talk to anyone about it, it's probably going to fall by the wayside. The more people I invite into my goals and how God is shaping me, the better I can move forward. Because, like anything, I'm not meant to do it on my own.

    Jeff: Matt, show me your friends, and I'll show you your future, right? I mean, these classic business one-liners.

    Matt: Most areas of intentionality where I show significant follow-through have a friend attached to them. I mean, even areas where I have a daughter attached or a wife attached, because our family unit goes through these ebbs and flows, and our whole family's got sickness for a week and a half, it feels like, and our whole family rhythms are disrupted because of this or that. It's like if it's just attached to someone under my roof, it has a greater chance of rhythms being disrupted, and, “Oh, we need to restart because of this and this and this,” versus if I can attach a goal to someone else, another friend, even a friend across the country. If I can attach a goal...

    Matt: I've done this with prayer. So I pray twice a week with some guys from DadAwesome all over the country: Monday mornings, heart toward heaven; Friday lunchtime, heart toward home. It's on my calendar. I've invited others in. So, do I pray twice a week for 20 minutes? I do, because I invited someone else into a desired area of intentionality.

    Freedom with Joseph Dalton (10:45)

    Joseph: We talked about my decision in 2009 to get rid of alcohol in my life as a 100% sobriety decision. To me, that was the only way. I knew it was a crutch, something I craved and wanted and desired. It wasn't casual, and it wasn't in moderation. That allowed me to be freed up from that chain or that weight.

    Joseph: At the time I decided that, my wife was pregnant with our first child. Becoming a father, while she was still pregnant, already started to keep me accountable to what that means. That's when I decided to give that up, and I haven't had a drink of alcohol in 17 years. But what God gave me as a vision very clearly—I remember it was a Saturday morning, about 8:30. I was sitting at work, got alone, and prayed. God allowed me to hear my son's voice before he was born, and he very simply said, "I want to be just like my daddy."

    Joseph: That basically covers it all for the fathers listening to this, because if your son grows up to be like you, or your daughter grows up to marry a guy like you, you should be able to smile and have confidence in that. I always tell my boys, there's no such thing as secret sin. The enemy knows secret sin, God knows your secret sin, and those secret sins get passed down. You talk about it in your book, with trauma getting passed down from generation to generation. I did not want my son to make decisions that could steer him in a direction apart from what God has because he saw me do it.

    Joseph: So as a father, I feel like I'm on stage 24/7 with my kids in the front row. There's really no excuse for allowing behavior that you know down deep is not right. So that's just one story in my life that definitely allowed me to taste freedom by giving up alcohol.

    Jeff: I think about the conversation you just mentioned with your boys, explaining and talking about secret sin and how it doesn't exist. I can't have courageous conversations with my daughters—or with their future husbands, if I imagine them seriously dating and me talking with their future husbands—if I'm not living it. The courage to wade into some of these waters and talk about freedom: if I'm not living it, I basically forfeit my right.

    Jeff: Now, we're not at all talking about, like, I have to be a perfect dad. We're saying, no, I have fought for freedom. Back to the William Wallace, the Braveheart scene: he yells “Freedom!” with the blue paint on his face and his huge sword, and he's very much free, walking up and down this hillside. Then he yells at the end of the movie while being tortured. He's not physically free at that point; he's completely in bondage. But the visual of a dad being locked up, being enchained—in that case, being physically broken—that dad is not able to fight for his family, right?

    Jeff: This could be areas we're looking at. It could be pornography. It could be what we're consuming. I'm thinking about my friend who did our accelerator. During the freedom week, he decided, “Will you start texting every day?” So I texted with him every day for the first month around stepping away from marijuana and alcohol. Those were the two things that he knew weren't causing short-term harm, but he's like, “I don't want this for my kids.” He has four little kids, and now he's at 13 months. Thirteen months later, I'm like, “Yes, you're a dad. Great job. That's awesome.”

    Jeff: When you take away something like that from your life and completely break up with it, right? I did another men's mentorship course, and they taught us to write a breakup letter to our old self. You talk about in your book how you wrote on the rock about the things your dad did well and the things that caused sadness and pain. These are the places we need to go to get healing and freedom.

    Wonder with Kelsey Romshek (15:15)

    Jeff: I think we miss wonder. Most times, I miss the gift, the thing that would actually cause my body to respond physically, like, “Whoa.” I miss the rainbow. We did see one last weekend with my family, and I love rainbows. But we miss most of it in dad life. It gets washed over by the regular, normal day-in, week-in, week-out, month-in, month-out routines. All of a sudden, we’ve choked out wonder, and age chokes out wonder. I’d love to hear what popped out first pass in your heart for your own family as a dad when the theme of wonder comes at you.

    Kelsey: It’s real time for me, even now, just having this conversation with you. I think about wonder. I was just sitting with a pastor friend this morning. We were talking about this challenging season of marriage: three kids, a new little one at home, and the flurry of hormones, lack of rest, and words that can be sharp and pointed. Through my journey, and with the help of DadAwesome, I’ve been seeing things with a sense of wonder, a sense of adventure. He gave the analogy of his wife’s words—or another pastor friend had shared it with him—being like catching a porcupine. Being soft-handed and catching a porcupine, or reaching out and grabbing the boundaries of an electric fence. I’m like, “Wow, dude, those are painful examples.” Those are kind of harsh examples. I know those words can be harsh at times, from both her or myself. But what about having a sense of wonder about where that’s coming from? Where within her story is that coming from? Where within my story is my reaction coming from to these words slinging my way? So I think that’s a real-world example, current time for me, of a sense of wonder for my bride.

    Kelsey: And I think even for you and me coming into this conversation, it’s still real-world time, right? My 12-year-old son—I’m learning with him. For me and my work and my job, it’s Fire Captain Kelsey. I give an order, my men follow it. That’s it. Those I lead follow it to a T. Even strong-willed personalities do. Then I’ve got my 12-year-old son, and when I give an order or direction, most of the time he bristles up, shells up. If I put pressure on him, he almost implodes. But if I can approach him with a sense of wonder—

    Jeff: Even just your words, “shiny eyes.” Am I seeing his shiny eyes, or am I just coming at him as Captain Dad? “Get your chores done. Let’s go. Get your backpack. Get your helmet and pads. We’ve got to get to practice.” Or am I approaching him with that sense of wonder? Or is it like, “No, let’s go. Got to get going”?

    Jeff: This example is perfect because last night, like most nights, I was in charge of bedtime for the four girlies. I move from the living room to the bedroom to knocking on the bathroom door, doing laps to make sure we’re moving in the right direction. Then there’s a point where I think we have most of it covered. I’m going to sit down with a little salt lamp on and begin story time. When I make that pivot to sitting down, I find myself getting really frustrated if things don’t keep moving as I’d put into motion as Fire Captain Jeff, to steal from your example. The level of frustration—it should not match that moment. The salt lamp is on. They’re overall doing good. But it’s crazy how much frustration I feel. If I could just ask a question, if I could crawl over and wrap up my five-year-old and ask, “How can I help show you love and help you get from here to there?” If I just would ask, that would be wonder. But instead, I jump to conclusions. I’m snapping. It’s crazy. It doesn’t take that much energy to move from sitting against this bunk bed, to crawl a little bit and wrap up my five-year-old. She won’t be five in a year. I’ll have missed it. So I bring that up to say, I know, talking to you right now, Kelsey, what would help stoke some wonder. And most nights I don’t choose it.

    Kelsey: Even as you and I are chatting about this, I’m thinking about conversations with Morgan Snyder and the pressure that you and I put on ourselves as dads to have the right bedtime routine, story time, morning devotional, or, within Christian men, “I’ve got to have this masculine initiation ritual and path and process.” What comes to mind as you’re talking through that is Morgan saying, “Kels, I’ve seen all the Christian masculine programs, and it doesn’t work if you miss the heart.” Watching you hug your girl in that moment, I’m thinking of the same thing: approaching it with wonder, seeing this little growing person developing. What are they seeing in this moment and experiencing from Dad? How has God uniquely wired that little five-year-old’s heart? Being open to where God’s going with this. Just the bedtime routines, God bringing in the Way of the Warrior Kid books. I never imagined Luca bringing home a graphic novel of The Chosen series. Here we went from the Way of the Warrior Kid book series, and we’ve shifted to The Chosen graphic novel series. This does not look like the perfect journey or bedtime routines for a Christian father, but it’s what God’s using. It’s striking that chord with Luca’s heart. These are really cool moments as a dad. I don’t know, sharing with you your experience and Kiva, how somehow the Way of the Warrior Kid books struck a note with Kiva three years ago. Last night we played the trailer of the movie. I can’t recommend it because I haven’t seen it yet at the time of this recording, but I do like Chris Pratt, so I’m counting on it being great.

    Leadership with Kelly Smith (22:29)

    Jeff: Kelly, I'm having a little flashback moment here to a couple months ago. I had my oldest daughter. Was she sitting on my shoulders or standing?

    Kelly: She was definitely on your shoulders.

    Jeff: But it didn't start with her up there. She actually looked back and pondered a problem-solving moment where the two of us were working on a project in my garage. And we're talking about leadership right now, but leadership in this moment was actually the two dads inviting the 12-year-old to solve a problem. Leadership was actually handing leadership over and then giving her the drill, the impact driver, which she wasn't quite used to, so we stripped a screw out. That's okay. But she actually solved it by saying, "What if you take this bracket off, then you could slide the plywood in?" Do you remember the moment?

    Kelly: It was amazing.

    Jeff: I was like, that was exactly what we needed in the moment. But it was your idea. You actually welcomed it. In that moment, as a dad, it was because I had a friend who was thinking beyond, "Here I am, the leader of a dad ministry, and you're in my garage," and you're like, "Hey, you should come help us with this." The reason I bring it up is leadership is not stages and microphones. It's not founders of Fortune 500 companies. Leadership is really more posture, is what I see it.

    Kelly: Yeah.

    Jeff: And it sneaks up in so many ways. We get to choose to lead as dads, or choose to do it the way it's always been done, or lean back and wait for somebody else to lead. I'd love to hear what, from either what I just shared or just in general around leadership as a dad, is bubbling up right now?

    Kelly: Oh, man. Just a different way I've been trying to approach things with the kids. There are certain things I realize that I do that are probably not helpful. Does anybody have one of these and focus on this?

    Jeff: Holding up a smartphone.

    Kelly: Yes. It could suck your time and energy and that kind of thing. A fun example I do with my kids is, I realize that sometimes I'll look at this and I won't be present. So I got the kids, and I was like, "Hey, Elijah, come here, come here. We're gonna practice something." I use this word practice, where I'm like, "You know, hey, let's practice this. If Daddy's on his phone, I want to see if you guys can say, 'Daddy, put your phone down.'" So I'm like, "Okay, let's practice." I'm just doing my thing, and they're like, "Daddy, put your phone down." I just go crazy. I throw the phone literally across the room into a couch or something like that.

    Jeff: Good.

    Kelly: And they love it. So I go get it again, and I'm all serious. I'm like, "Okay, guys, are you ready to practice this again?" And then they're like, "Yeah." I'm like, "All right, okay, here we go again." They're kind of like, "Dad, put away your phone." I just throw it across the room, kind of thing. Just something to make it fun and to give them an opportunity to have leadership over me. You know, it's like I'm giving away a little bit of power and authority and autonomy, and I'm saying, "Since this is something I want to do, I don't want to be on my phone all the time. I want to be present with the kids. I'm just going to try to find a fun way to give them a little leadership, even over me, at various times."

    Jeff: Your role in your company, right? A leadership role, management role. When you find a problem, a leader figures out a solution utilizing their team. So you're sharing a great example of a leader seeing a problem. In this case, you created the solution. You trained them: "Let's practice this. I throw this." So sometimes you're giving empowerment, a clear next step, and practice, and then you actually are solving a problem that you have of looking at your phone too much.

    Kelly: Right, right. And it's fun. It's not a weight.

    Jeff: So we've heard two examples: my daughter taking leadership and solving a problem, and you giving a model and letting them practice.

    Closing (26:20)

    Jeff: Thank you so much for joining us for episode 460. These are six mini conversations around the six core discoveries. As many of you know, the book DadAwesome—the audiobook I mentioned earlier—will be releasing in about a month. The book journeys through these six core discoveries, so you're getting a little slice of six conversations that I had with friends.

    Jeff: I also want to remind you guys that these discoveries, these conversations, are part of a seven-week video series that introduces them and takes you through each one. That will be linked in the show notes, our mini video series. We have small group resources that we want to share, so those are in the show notes as well. I have these action guides I created around each of the discoveries, and I have a list of discussion questions.

    Jeff: And then, of course, there's the whole folder of every chapter, with DadAwesome labs—ways to put this into action. So I'm just trying to remind you guys: there are a bunch of free resources available, and I created them for you to help more dads dive in deeper. And with these conversations that I had with my friends, you guys can do this. You can invite a couple of friends over and just choose one of the core discoveries. Let's talk about wonder. Hey, let's talk about intentionality. Let's talk about story.

    Jeff: And regardless of whether you read the book or not—which I hope many of you do—I hope you read the book. It really is the journey of just trying to share from our first 400 conversations: these are the most actionable dad discoveries that we discovered in those first... And we're about to celebrate nine years of this ministry. I'm trying to keep bringing more tools for you to be DadAwesome and to spark it in others. So, praying for you guys this week. Thanks for listening. Thanks for being DadAwesome.

    1. "You've got to be son awesome before being dad awesome." (Kevin Klaas, 5:53)

    2. "The more people I invite into my goals and how God is shaping me, the better I can move forward. Because like anything, I'm not meant to do it on my own." (Matt Markman, 9:27)

    3. "As a father, I feel like I'm on stage 24/7 with my kids in the front row." (Joseph Dalton, 12:53)

    4. "Am I seeing his shiny eyes, or am I just coming at him as Captain Dad?" (Kelsey Romshek, 18:32)

    5. "Leadership is not stages and microphones. It's not founders of Fortune 500 companies. Leadership is really more posture." (Jeff Zaugg, 23:33)

 

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