Igniting your Inner King with Michael Diamond and Russell Reynolds

[00:00:00] Ned: What is up? My friends welcome to Rebel and creates Fatherhood Field Notes podcast, where I interview incredible fathers, gaining wisdom from their stories for you and I to grow in our craft. I'm your guide Ned. Shout father to five kiddos, currently ages 10 to 17, and husband to my rad wife Sarah, working on our 20th year of marriage.

[00:00:19] Ned: So yep, I'm in the thick of it and I am working daily to rebel against the low expectations for fathers and create a world where fathers know who they are as they show up for their families. You and I have the greatest opportunity to impact our world through the way we embrace our fatherhood role.

[00:00:34] Ned: This episode is brought to you by the adventure of fatherhood, helping men discover their powerful fatherhood role and build their fatherhood skills. The role of the father is to serve, guide, provide, protect, and of course find joy and have fun in the messiness of it all. Today's guest is my friend Michael Davis, and I don't even know what to say.

[00:00:53] Ned: My mind is blown. Dads, you will feel the weight of power, authority, and opportunity you have as a man, as a father. At the end of this conversation, please get 15, 20, 30 minutes in. There are nuggets that Michael drops that are literally gonna change the way that I live my life, change the way that I speak to and raise my children.

[00:01:16] Ned: And will have massive impact on my family 500 years from now. I can't stress how serious I am about this. Enjoy meeting my friend and mentor Michael Davis.

[00:01:37] Ned: Michael Davis, we've been talking about doing this for a while. Welcome to the Fatherhood Field Notes podcast. How are you?

[00:01:42] Mike: Excellent. Thank you mate. I'm looking forward to, uh,being on your show.

[00:01:46] Ned: man. Let's talk some fatherhood. So before I get started, a few rando questions for you. How old do you find yourself today? I.

[00:01:52] Mike: How old do I find myself as in my real age? Or how am I feeling?

[00:01:56] Ned: However you want to answer the

[00:01:57] Mike: Well, I'm, I'm 47, mate. four, seven feeling good. I'm feeling about three seven, so,

[00:02:04] Mike: oh, not long. May that continue.

[00:02:06] Ned: Okay. And, many years you've been married?

[00:02:08] Mike: I have been married, 27 years

[00:02:11] Ned: Dude. Amazing. Amazing. Thank you. That's good. and how many

[00:02:15] Ned: kiddos do you guys have?

[00:02:16] Mike: so we have seven, seven boys from 2121 down to five.

[00:02:22] Ned: Oh my gosh, I love it so much. handsome boys. Handsome boys, for sure.

[00:02:28] Ned: Where does your family live?

[00:02:29] Mike: we just moved back from England to the sort of Sacramento, Northern California, Sacramento area. We're just outside Sacramento in a little, sort of an old, farming town of Loomis, Loomis, California.

[00:02:42] Ned: Beautiful.

[00:02:44] Ned: I love and hate this question, but just in a couple sentences, what is it that you do for a living?

[00:02:48] Mike: I'm in manufacturing and we manufacture chemical admixtures sealants, coatings for concrete water and vapor proof concrete.

[00:02:58] Ned: Okay. that's been a family business for a while.

[00:03:00] Mike: Yeah, it was a business that my granddad on my mom's side started in 1975,

[00:03:07] Mike: so year I was born. it's been going for, 48 years and it will be, 50 years old in 2025.

[00:03:13] Ned: Mm, that's awesome. And then some of your boys are working with you in it as well.

[00:03:16] Mike: Yeah, yeah. I've sort of recruited my two, three eldest boys to get involved and, my plan is for all of them to find a place for all of them. We got a, a unique business where, we've got various roles, my eldest son's, not super academia guy. He is more hands-on, tactile, you know, a kinesthetic dude.

[00:03:37] Mike: And so he's fantastic for, being out in the manufacturing and more on the construction side of things. And then I've got other sons that are more geared towards marketing and, one, one that will probably run the company one day. So, you know, you got different, ACEs in the places, so to speak.

[00:03:53] Ned: Yeah. Dig it. Dig it. Well, man, before I get into some questions, deeper about fatherhood, I just feel like I have to at least make mention of the connection that you and I have. It's not like you were just referred to me and we're jumping on here to talk fatherhood. We've known each other for about 10 years. you and I just spent a week.

[00:04:10] Ned: Skin together in Colorado with a group of other dudes. and just to kind of bring people

[00:04:14] Ned: into, that connection, I'm actually looking at a picture on my wall here. I'm sitting right next to you with, I don't know, there's maybe 20 guys at this event, in Breckenridge, and I'm sitting right.

[00:04:24] Ned: Next to you, in between you and Josh Weir. And, I had made this comment to you during the time that I had kind of looked at you as an older brother in the sense of, you've been so loving and kind to me over the past 10 years. I haven't always known why. there's no motivation there. but you have. Affirmed my identity at times as a man, as a husband, as a father. And so there's just this connection I have with you. deep gratitude and appreciation. so thank you for being an inspiration and for falling into a role like that for me.

[00:04:56] Mike: Yeah, my pleasure, mate. It has been an honor to do that. and again, it's just me being me,

[00:05:01] Mike: I'm, not trying to, make something happen, but I'm allowing things to happen and yeah, a hundred percent it's, this is your quality individual and you know, it's exciting to, be a friend, really, more than anything.

[00:05:13] Ned: Man. I think just those things, if, people could walk around as a man, walk around with, that attitude is I'm not trying to make something happen, but I'm available for things to happen and I'm just trying to be a friend to people. I mean, already you said you run a company and you've got seven boys. You're married, that's like so much already, but to create space in your life to be available for others is, is awesome. I've got a few specific questions and then I wanna jump into some things that might take us down some rabbit trails. But my first specific question is, you've been a dad, you said your oldest is 21.

[00:05:46] Ned: Is that right? so you've been a dad for 21 years. What have you learned about yourself? So at some point, you know, you've had lots of phases, you've been in lots of different phases. As a dad, what has being a dad revealed to you about you?

[00:06:01] Mike: first of all, being a father, it is the best hat I get to wear. You know, I feel, I mean, you've got a lot of hats running a company. I have a ministry. I'm a husband, son, nephew, all these different various roles. Being the father, that is the best,

[00:06:17] Mike: so very grateful, you know, to the Lord for giving me seven boys to, understand this role and a greater measure. obviously you learn a lot about yourself being a dad because of, things that just would never have come out of you had you not.

[00:06:33] Mike: being a father and a lot of them aren't great. To be fair, you learn how angry you are when you first start to parent. how little patience I had,

[00:06:43] Mike: I didn't know how to be love, to my boys. I once went to hear, John Eldridge speak, on the wild at heart, and my wife and I went to hear him speak live a little church, I think it was like Modesto or something like this, in California.

[00:06:58] Mike: And he basically said, look, your eldest child is guaranteed to be in therapy. Like you just don't have a manual for raising children, and so you're gonna hurt the first one. and not even intentionally, but.So many triggered responses come out when you're trying to parent. And then you find out how much you really do need to grow in the nature of what I would call the nature of God.

[00:07:21] Mike: it's a gift from God for you to have children so that you can find out how little of God you have in you and how much you can, grow in that nature.

[00:07:31] Ned: Hmm. Beautiful, bro. Okay, so I'm actually gonna skip a question and maybe come back to it. I've never asked this before, but in knowing I was meeting with you, I wanted to ask this, what is this revealed to you? Fatherhood? What is it revealed to you about God? There's so much that's revealed to us.

[00:07:48] Ned: I feel like once we become a father, we start to understand him in a different light. So in thinking about that, what has been revealed to you in your understanding about God and his character?

[00:07:58] Mike: I think, when have children there's almost nothing you wouldn't do for your child.

[00:08:03] Mike: now I coach competitive soccer. I recruit every parent to do something on the team, and they're so willing to do it because it's the son's involved. what would you not do for your child?

[00:08:15] Mike: You know, there's nothing that you wouldn't do for your child. And so I think that was a big eyeopener for me. Like, wow, God, there's nothing God wouldn't want to do for me. I mean, I'mI'm his son, And so the same way I feel about them, how much more so. so it says in the Bible how much more so does he, desire to do good things for us?

[00:08:34] Mike: I mean, a hundred times more than we can, I mean, that's impressive. just how loving and how much he desires to bless us.

[00:08:41] Ned: So interesting because. like you're saying this statement and I believe it to be true. but why would you say a lot of men in particular, cause I think men struggle with identity and look at our world. Our world is in desperate need of leaders. if you profess Christianity and you follow that path, and that's true, that God loves you, I mean infinitely more than, even love your child, which is hard to imagine.

[00:09:04] Ned: why aren't more people operating in that? Or how can more men embrace it? Like if a,lemme make this simple, if a dude's listening to this right now and go like, yeah, like, I believe that, but I'm not operating as a child that has a dad who loves him a lot.

[00:09:19] Mike: you have to be honest with yourself that look. I've got some serious, character flaws here. not easy to do, but very rewarding when you, get real with yourself and when you realize that you are up to the task.

[00:09:31] Mike: It's just a matter of identifying the areas with which, you know, you are not presently being a proper dad, And, It's okay. There's no shame in that. It's just a matter of going, okay, why? That was the questions I had. God, why am I being so short with the boys in this instance? why am I responding in this way?

[00:09:49] Mike: Why am I not being loving at this moment in time? A lot of it due to stress, due to, triggered responses from ways I was treated. When I was growing up, there's a lot of baggage. You know, I mean, a lot of this baggage comes from probably pre seven years old that, ends up, showing up when you're trying to raise your own children.

[00:10:08] Mike: I. It's a great, it's, such a great opportunity to be, to unpack all the crap that you've carried that you didn't know was there. it's on show when you start, raising children I think men have to be, get healed in that area, you know, in their hearts.

[00:10:22] Mike: in a very, deep and real way. when, once you're healed in that area and it's, you're no longer, I'm so much more patient now. I mean, the younger guys are definitely getting a better version of me, than the older boy garden, But I've just been to a one week father son retreat up at j h Ranch, Northern California with my 19 year old, we're still unpacking stuff,

[00:10:42] Mike: so that was, that was world class event. But do you know what the letter that he wrote me, At the end of the week was just, I just wondered. There was a time when he. publicly just said, when I did a Rite a passage program for him, when he was 13, he was, receiving his sword. And, he got up and said, I, I just, he just thought, felt like I was the best dad in the world, from 13 to 19, my biggest question going up there with him was, does he still feel that way about me? I still feel like I'm the greatest dad that he knows And a hundred percent, he just so put the exclamation point on what's writing this letter to me.

[00:11:19] Mike: I was just a, a mess reading it because, at 19 boys start to get a little bit baggage themselves and, they're not exactly maybe the most honoring and, but he was like, no, dad, you're the man. Like, if I could be like you, I feel I could be like you. I'll, feel like I've won.

[00:11:35] Mike: what a gift, that's the best touchdown

[00:11:38] Ned: Dude. I love that. I love that. Okay. Something you said in there about learning about yourself. I have been leaning into this idea that.

[00:11:48] Ned: Our kids aren't given to us just so that I can teach them how to live well in society. It's a huge opportunity for me to grow. Like I feel like call it 50 50, but God gave me kids half so that I can learn to be. The man I'm supposed to be. I don't know, like when I was a kid, I sort of felt at times that my parents like had it all figured out. and with my kids a lot of times I'm like, dude, I don't have it all figured out like, you're my first kid, or you're my first son, or you're my only son.

[00:12:17] Ned: I'm doing this as we go, let's have a conversation around this. I'm learning alongside with you.

[00:12:22] Ned: and so what are your thoughts about that? your kids aren't just for you to teach them, but they're really there to reveal so much about how God sees you as well.

[00:12:31] Mike: Yeah, I mean, look, again, one of the biggest things is you start to realize how much you are loved by him. is, that is massive, Because when you have a child, as you know, you didn't know, you could love someone that deep, you can love your wife in a certain particular way and it's, very rich.

[00:12:47] Mike: But then you have a child. It's just like, what is this different compartment of your heart opens up, then you have multiple children. You just realize your capacity only grows. how could I love the next one as much as I love this one? And then you realize, wow, a hundred percent you love 'em as much.

[00:13:04] Mike: Just different. with that experience, I think you've realized just how much you are loved. And let's be honest. Your ability to receive love is what forms you to become who you, what I believe already were before you came. I mean, that, that love is the very thing that reveals, my truest identity, my authentic self itself.

[00:13:26] Ned: If you were to define love, what would you say? Love is.

[00:13:29] Mike: I mean, I would define it straight out of, one Corinthians 13. You know, love is patience kind, doesn't keep record of wrong, every adjective that one Corinthians 13 uses, is what I would use.

[00:13:40] Mike: That's the best definition of love. But I think patience and kindness, if you wanted to kind of define it super quick and easy for a little one to understand patience and kindness. that's how it is demonstrated. I find most often in day-to-day living.

[00:13:56] Ned: Man, that's so simple. and I think if we were to apply that to almost every situation throughout the day, if I had patience, it's not about agenda and if I'm kind, it's, not so much about how this situation is like always thinking, how's this impact, Ned? How's this impact Ned?

[00:14:12] Ned: So if we could take patience and kindness as far as the action points throughout our day. That is, operating in love. So, dude, I'll, share something with you. Ever since that retreat we went to in, Breckenridge, I've actually read one Corinthians 13 every single morning since then as part of like a kind of like a little morning ritual. And what's funny is this morning I woke up and I actually sent it out, in a text that I send out to men, every Wednesday morning. But this morning I woke up like the last few days. I feel like I've been feeling more love towards. Those in my care. and what I've been doing is reading it out loud, so not just reading it silently, but sitting outside with my coffee or whatever and like reading it out loud one time through. And I feel like I'm starting to notice the benefits. It's been about, I don't know, 25, 30 days since we were all together. but, interesting.

[00:15:00] Mike: Yeah, that's beautiful. I mean, another thing I would tell the boys, you know, little guys don't necessarily understand these words. Patience is, waiting. We always tell 'em it's waiting with a happy spirit. you get to wait with a happy spirit rather than be anxious. I mean, look, if you're anxious for anything, God says he's anxious for nothing, and he says, be anxious for nothing.

[00:15:21] Mike: I. If you're anxious for something, there's probably a lack of love in there somewhere. cause in love, you got your patient, you can wait with a happy spirit, irrespective of the circumstance at hand. what a gift. you have that in you.

[00:15:33] Mike: It really doesn't matter what's going on around you. You're gonna respond in the same way. Every time, which is patience, patient kindness. is just too legit.

[00:15:43] Ned: you, so you use anxious, as an opposite to patients, what would you use as an opposite to kindness?

[00:15:49] Mike: if you're not kind, you're kind of mean-spirited. I, I would say is the opposite of kindness, And, hurting people, hurt people. that's the bottom line. And so with our children, if they respond with any type of mean spiritedness, which they do from time to time, of course the human, But we want to get to the root of, why are you responding that way?

[00:16:09] Mike: Where have you been hurt before that's causing you to now respond in a mean-spirited way to your brother, you know, to a friend, to your parents or whatever

[00:16:17] Ned: Yeah,

[00:16:18] Ned: as I'm writing some notes down and just thinking about a dad who's listening to this right now and going, it's pretty easy to go, Hey dad, are you anxious? Are you walking around, anxious and stressed? If so, then you're missing your opportunity to operate out of love, which is patient, So it's a skill. You gotta train it. And I think if they hear the word mean, they might go, oh, I'm not mean. But let me ask you this, dudes, are you harsh with your wife or your kids? you find yourself harsh with them? Like quick and reactive? and I think that that is mean, their perception could be that you are mean. But you might just be like, ah, this is just the reality. 'cause you're factual cut and dry. So if you can walk away from that harshness and think about the tenderness of your wife's heart and the tenderness of your children, even your, son and daughters, Operate from a place of kindness, then you're choosing to operate outta love.

[00:17:05] Ned: And I think that's your opportunity I kind of like placed myself as that 85 year old man looking at myself in the mirror. Am I proud of the man I see. And it's comes down to did I take actions each and every day up until that point that we're loving, provided a characteristic of love. okay. I got a couple questions for you with having seven boys. when you think about your boys moving out and going off into the world, what are a few things that you want them to know so you go, okay, I've got these boys that are living under my roof for a certain amount of time when they walk out of my home.

[00:17:36] Ned: Here's a couple things that I really want them to know and take into their future.

[00:17:39] Mike: Well, for one thing, I'm very much an outsider when it comes to this mentality, but I haven't raised my boys to ever think that they're leaving me. think that they're meant to be prepared and have it all together and leave at 18 and For me, that's not a sustainable good plan, for multi-generational blessing.

[00:17:59] Mike: I'm raising my boys to be around me all the days. if I look in the Bible when Abraham was a hundred and he is, With Isaac and Jacob and all this, it's like dude's still calling the shots at a hundred and they're honoring, I mean, they really genuinely like, let's go find out what, dad has to say, or Let's get granddad, or he's running the tribe, you know, and he's, he's a patriarch.

[00:18:20] Mike: And he's well honored, but it's earned, it's not as if they have to do it. don't have to honor Abraham. They get to honor Abraham because they know he is, the man, So for me, I've been after this for a long time. I just got back from this father son retreat.

[00:18:36] Mike: Every guy in the group, they said, Hey, what is your aim or goal? They're all building a. and they had to kind of put it in an image. And in this image, every one of them were put an image of a big house with all these little houses around them. They're going. This is what I aim for, to have my family living around me.

[00:18:53] Mike: do they have their own space? A hundred percent. But they're around me. You know? And, and I, I just thought it was interesting that every dad's heart we're going, that's a dream. Just going. That is a dream. But it's the way it was for thousands of years up until about 150 years ago with the industrial revolution.

[00:19:12] Mike: kids were on the farm, there could be 50 on the farm, and granddad's 80, everyone's grown up together and it's not, abnormal, it's only in this last a hundred years, it's gotten a little weird, and if we look at the breakdown of society, I really think it's because the lack of granddad's wisdom around the camp, you got granddad's, the super dad, you want a super dad, you want a super OG dad, go look up a granddad who's lived life well, if you don't have that input around the, camp, You could be an okay dad, but you ain't gonna be a super dad because the super dads learn how to honor OG dads, So I wanna become an OG dad, and I mean I'm looking forward more to me being a granddad than I am a dad even, really looking forward to being a ground that, 'cause you get the chance to. Coach your dads or your sons, through that time that we just talked about, all the clangers that you're drop, all the bonehead reactions that you're having towards children hurting him.

[00:20:08] Mike: You know, imagine a granddad that's in the camp that just knows how to love his son. Well coach him through those moments. Where he's not doing them day after day, but he pulls 'em aside in love and just says, Hey son, I just observed the way you've, dealt with, Colin, in that situation, would you be open for me to just sharing some, different ways that you might be able to tackle that situation?

[00:20:30] Mike: to get that kind of input on the fly, but unfortunately in this day and age, you got Granddaddy lives in Florida. you're living in California, your kids are now after university in Arizona. it's just how is that going to happen? I'm not suggesting that's wrong 'cause a lot of people are in that situation.

[00:20:48] Mike: I'm not judging their situation. I just know the situation I'd like to have, and I'm moving in that direction. So it's a very, different approach. I know and I'm okay with that, but my aim is to keep them around. I. Went to Lisa, home one time from a, gentleman who is from Israel and his family go back three, 400 years in Israel.

[00:21:08] Mike: And you know, when I went to meet him in his business place of work, he introduced me to his five sons all working for him. They're all in their thirties. I'm meeting all these guys. They're happy. They're not begrudgingly being there. They're just excited about life being around their brothers every day.

[00:21:22] Mike: They're just having a great, great time at work every day, having a laugh, you know, enjoying, having joy. they're just so happy to be around dad and brothers, and I just go, this is amazing. It's like all five of your boys work with you in the business. Oh yeah. He goes, they'll live with me.

[00:21:38] Mike: I go, they live with you. He's like, I have a 20,000 square foot home. This son here, he's married, he has two children. They live in nuts. 2,500 square feet over there. And he just described this thing. He's got five sons, a daughter, they all live with him, 26 grandkids. He says, we have dinner together every night.

[00:21:55] Mike: You know, and this It wasn't abnormal. It wasn't weird. that's just how life should be done, when I got that picture, I go, is this even legal? I'm like, this is awesome. Like, yes, please. so, again, to look at that as weird just means that you're a product of this last hundred years of living, but you're not, you're not really in tune to the last few thousand years.

[00:22:18] Ned: Dude, that is the challenge right there. Like, I love the thought, is this even legal? Because we have been so accustomed to like the way things are this, like looking at you and a few other men who are ahead of me in this and thinking about this multi-generational, worldview of life and what does that look like?

[00:22:35] Ned: You know, I've got four daughters and a son, and even as you're talking about this, I'm like, yeah, am I currently building a business where. I would have a place for my four daughters, husbands, and, or my daughters. I'm not saying it has to be like men are the ones who work, but am I even building a business with that in mind right now?

[00:22:50] Ned: Am I thinking about 10 years, 20 years from now, or am I just thinking about how can I get this next sale so I can trade in my Prius for a Porsche or whatever? Right. And I think that's kind of this mindset that we come into where it's like, how soon can I retire? But what the hell am I gonna do if I were to just retire and play golf every day?

[00:23:08] Ned: I'm gonna get bored outta my mind pretty quickly. And so I think once you say some of these things, Michael, I don't know about everyone else listening, but for me, there's something stirred inside of me. It's a little frightening actually. Because I haven't probably put enough effort and time into it, because also I think my kids have been grown up in this world where they have this view of like, I'm gonna move out and I'm gonna go do. Something out into the world. Like that's what they've been shown is the way. and not that they still can't do that, but how are we as fathers? And I love what you said here, if we want to be honored, okay, we have to earn the right to have influence in their lives. How are we building towards that vision for our family now?

[00:23:48] Ned: I love it. I mean, you're doing it, So I think this new vision for your family, like what is the vision for your family beyond the 20 years? Like they live with me for 20 years and then, so here's pretty cool, I started writing this out for you in my fatherhood journal like a thing I do with dads a lot is I have them write out, The influence they'll have at like 85, 90 years old as a granddad.

[00:24:10] Ned: A great-granddad. if you were to take seven sons and then now there's seven marriages. And now if they each have say four kids as the average and then they each have four kids, your influence. At age 75, 80, 85 is enormous. If you've earned the right to speak into them and not just, oh yeah, that's grand.

[00:24:29] Ned: Uh, one, did you take care of your body and take care of yourself to the best of your ability to be able to show up and even have an influence?

[00:24:37] Ned: Right? And then did you invest in your kids in a way where they want to hear what you have to say? The great grandkids wanna hear what you have to say.

[00:24:43] Ned: Oh dude, this is fatherhood man.

[00:24:46] Ned: This is what Fatherhood is about, is thinking multi-generational, thinking beyond just, how am I showing up for my kid today? We're talking, what does your a hundred year plan look like

[00:24:56] Ned: As I say this, what are some other, thoughts that come through your mind? what are things that you're thinking about or doing to help build this out, to help give guys some more vision around this?

[00:25:06] Mike: we're being super intentional about looking for big properties, like massive amounts of acreage. so that something like this can become a reality. it's kind of important, we're just at that point where the eldest two, uh,getting into relationships, fortunately for us, our boys didn't really start, dating till about 19, and that was mainly 'cause they just weren't that needy, for a relationship which is healthy.

[00:25:30] Ned: Okay, hang on. Let's just pause right there. I think dads need to hear this because you're not talking about, we set a standard you can't date till you're 17, 18, 19. You just said, my kids weren't that needy.

[00:25:43] Ned: Talk to me about that for a second. 'gimme your perspective.

[00:25:45] Ned: What does that mean?

[00:25:46] Mike: Yeah. I mean, it just means that they're complete without. girlfriend, they're not looking for the girlfriend to complete them. they're complete because we say they're complete and they feel that, and,for us, we're Christ followers, there's a, a measure of, not just a measure, but really the ultimate completeness comes from the connection with God.

[00:26:05] Mike: And so, they understand that, and, it's been framed up in a way that it makes sense to them they don't need a girlfriend to complete them.

[00:26:14] Ned: Okay, so dude, Michael, father to me means creator. And, you and I, we create life in our kids with our words and actions. And this statement that you said, they are complete because we say they are complete. That sentence right there is so freaking powerful. You as a father, dad, you've gotta hear this. Listen to what Michael said because I know that. You may struggle with identity and that's, okay, like work on that. But you have the authority to tell your kid, you and your spouse, if you're married, that your child is complete because you say they are.

[00:26:47] Ned: have that power to speak into them.

[00:26:48] Ned: dude, they're not needy. if you meet the needs of your kids and show them who they are, then they aren't like everybody else. And that's something I've been talking to my kids about is like, we're not like everybody else and not, better then, but we're not pursuing the same things as everybody else.

[00:27:02] Mike: Yeah. that's right. they say dads, essentially give the identity to the child, and then the mothers affirm it, reason why so many children have identity crisis. A I really feel like the whole movement right now where people are confused about their sexual identity, I'd really like to see some statistics on, how many of those come from a home with.

[00:27:23] Mike: Your father's not present, either emotional or physically present, but I, have a sneaking suspicion it's high levels of children who don't have father telling them who they are because that voice does carry a certain amount of weight. And then mothers affirm what the DATs. You know, it said, so the dad's giving him the identity, the mother's coming alongside and affirming him and not just sexual identity.

[00:27:49] Mike: This is identity is, it's the same thing about a father helping a son find his bent. that is something that's scriptural. we're meant to help them. this whole idea of like, well, what do you wanna do in college? And they're supposed to come up with an idea. It's like, Are you having a laugh?

[00:28:02] Mike: Like they don't know shi from Shinola, about

[00:28:07] Mike: they wanna be, I mean, this is the whole point of how someone's supposed to know who they are on a sexual level when they don't even know what they wanna do when they grow up. 40 year olds don't even know what they want to do when they grow up, let alone an 18 year old.

[00:28:19] Mike: but Gen A father really should be the one who's. at least been observant enough to know my son, who I, I know is going to smash it in marketing. When he was five years old, he was running around with one of our phones, recording people, oh, check this out. Look at Ashton over here. He is about to jump into the pool and da da da.

[00:28:39] Mike: And he runs over the, across the, uh, the room and filming someone else. And he is doing all the commentating along with it. And I've gone, this, this dude's gonna be really good with multimedia, and, marketing and. just put some videos together recently of him and his brothers and cousins at the gym, and on his own, he just went and edited this thing down.

[00:28:59] Mike: Like, where'd you get that? How did you make that video? You know, the, the sound effects, the intro, editing, you know, I just got this editing tool. It just tinkered around with it, da, da, da. It was world class, you know,

[00:29:10] Mike: they give you hints as to what the gifts are.

[00:29:13] Mike: again, If someone's in an element, you gotta help your son or daughter find their element. But the element is where their passions are meeting their giftings they're intersecting, so when, look, he's passionate about this, his gifts are, say he's this. Can we find something where these two intersect and that's helping them find their bent?

[00:29:33] Mike: Probably best thing somebody can do is just hire someone to do an aptitude for children before they go off to university. Instead, you're spending 200 grand. I. At a university on a degree, they're never gonna use, I love what Jordan Peterson's doing, by the way, the guy's, looking to start an online university.

[00:29:51] Mike: It'll be accredited university for four grand, four year. Accredited, they do aptitude test on the way out the door. He brings the right instructors in $4,000. You know, it's like, it should totally upend the whole university system, that's about right. Value for money right there, in my opinion.

[00:30:10] Mike: it shouldn't be a penny more than that, based on what they're picking up and learning,

[00:30:14] Ned: I love it. Right now, things that are going on my mind is okay. I have a senior, a daughter who's a senior, so this came up at the retreat we were at too, but doing some aptitude tests, for her throughout this year as she's making some decisions about what she wants to do, and then wrestling with, for her, this dream.

[00:30:30] Ned: She's had her whole life of like what high school would look like and what college would look like based on the movies she watched, essentially. and now it's, been pretty good because it's been opening up conversations you know, we just changed what my, twins are gonna do both for high school.

[00:30:42] Ned: We just changed it. I. this last week because now we're having conversations about, okay, well this is where we see you and where do you see yourself? And so we just shifted their schools and everything. so having these conversations with your kids is, is powerful. man, Michael, we could talk forever.

[00:30:58] Mike: if I,

[00:30:58] Mike: could add one thing about, you know, like you have daughters, I don't have daughters, but, what I wish, what I'm looking for, and I don't know if I'm gonna find it. Look, I'm raising my sons to be spiritual leaders, boundary setters. Proven providers, they really can't really talk to me about relationship unless they've ticked them boxes.

[00:31:16] Mike: it's like who decides? Who decides who's ready for marriage? For me, It's the father of the son. So the father, me, I'm the one who determines he's not ready. this isn't, you know, if a girl's interested and the parents are getting excited, he's not ready.

[00:31:32] Mike: He hasn't proven himself in these areas, But for me, I'm, raising my son to be a proven provider, where are the girls who have been raised to be world-class homemakers for my sons? Where are the girls who know how to bless the spirit of a baby when she conceives?

[00:31:49] Mike: Where are the girls who know how to make, world-class meals for the husbands when they get home and they've done the, the heavy graft, where are the girls who have been taught about intimacy and How to please the husband in that dimension of the world.

[00:32:01] Mike: It's like, Hey, if we're gonna do this heavy lifting on our end with the boys, we are looking for some girls who are raised because the very, one thing that we know about women is they have a. Innate desire to have children. They go off, they get this big old degree, they come home, they're like, I wanna have kids.

[00:32:18] Mike: It's in them. the most important thing, I don't care if you ask one of the, you know, wealthiest CEOs in the world, what's your greatest accomplishment? Probably my children. And how much time did you spend learning about your children before they came? How much? You spent a lot of time learning about how to have an M B A in marketing, but how much time did you spend learning about how to raise a child from zero to seven?

[00:32:41] Mike: You know, I mean, the whole system for me that is a little bit backwards I'm gonna sound a little bit old school to some people, but, and I don't. But I don't really care. I just call it as I see it, and I just see the thing backwards. You send a kid off to go get an M B A in college, they don't even have faith, hope, and love, which in the Bible it says those three are the ones that remain.

[00:33:02] Mike: So, okay, they can figure out a calculus equation. But they don't have enough faith, hope and love to get through, 90% of life's challenges. I just think we've got the whole thing backwards and I would love it if we just all just took a time out and said, hang on a minute. 'cause this is a great time on the earth to look at.

[00:33:20] Mike: I. transformational, shift, a little bit of a Renaissance period of getting back to what's really important rather than what the world has framed up is meant to be important.

[00:33:31] Ned: Dude. my

[00:33:32] Ned: mind is going a million miles an hour. We don't have time to unpack the homemaker, But it is funny, we were having this conversation around the dinner table last night with, 'cause my wife is, she, she stays home. She has stayed home since, she was pregnant with Brooklyn, so it's been, you know, 17 years. but she's still like, See, it's funny, she's still like a go-getter. Like there's something in me saying like, she's not a total freaking badass. 'cause she stays at home. It's insane. the level that we discredit that. But I love this quote, so I'll bring this up, but I do want to ask you a question about, we can focus on the sons for a minute. C s Lewis says this quote, he says, the homemaker has the ultimate career. All other careers exist for one purpose only, and that's to support the ultimate career.

[00:34:10] Mike: Send that to me,

[00:34:11] Mike: just that

[00:34:14] Ned: bro, bro, yeah. Then this is a dude who is like, atheist or whatever he was, and then through his search realized, okay, there is only one answer. So let me ask you this for men right now who are listening to this and they have sons, What are the things that they should be talking about their sons now, so that when their son's 22, 25, it's not like. Hey son, you need my approval to get married. The son, we wanna raise them up from the moment that we're handed them to know like, Hey dad, am I ready to go get married? In a sense, like if you start to do that now when they're young, then he's gonna be looking to you to go, Hey dad, am I ready for this? so with that you said boundaries.

[00:34:52] Ned: Tell me what those things were again, that a father should start working with his son on.

[00:34:56] Mike: Yeah. a friend Greg Gunn is a big proponent of as well. but one is they are spiritual leader. we're all spirits with a soul in a body and we love 'em all, but a lot of people focus on the body and or they focus on the mind and emotions, but don't spend a lot of time focusing on their spirit.

[00:35:14] Mike: that's the sage of the, three minds there. So, spiritual leader, they're boundary setters. the ones that set the boundaries, not the wife. when I got married to Linda, she was the boundary setter, not me. It was sad, it was just like, I just went to bed whenever I thought it was time to go to bed.

[00:35:29] Mike: And, but she was far wiser than I was. Primarily due to the way she was raised.

[00:35:33] Mike: her family just had better boundaries on their lives than my, family did. but it shouldn't be that way. sons need to learn how to set boundaries they need to be proven providers.

[00:35:43] Mike: what I did with the boys, if you're asking about what do you guys do, in advance of the kids being ready for marriage. A lot of it is we let them know. Linda and I both let 'em know that, Hey, look, here's what we expect in who you marry.

[00:35:54] Mike: And I mean, I mean this will be really old school, but let's be honest, the range marriages have a higher success rate than these other marriages. I think there's a reason for it. These people are concerned about who they're getting married to. 'cause you're really marrying families,

[00:36:07] Mike: know, you're not just marrying a person, you're marrying their family as well. And so the people who have spent, you know, if you, if you care about your child, I. you would think you'd like to make sure that they are gonna spend the rest of their life with the right person,

[00:36:22] Mike: we just up at JH Ranch, they said, listen, whatever you do, never let your child marry a Christian. Only let them marry a godly person. And there's a big difference between the two, they unpack what a godly person is, and a godly person is someone who abides with God, on the daily, they understand what that looks like.

[00:36:40] Mike: They understand what that means. So there's just, there's all kinds of, but I think the most important thing, our sons grew up with the understanding that we would be, Heavily involved in who they were gonna be married. I when that person arrives.

[00:36:54] Mike: Just know that we will be taking their parents out for multiple meals, getting to know them. it's one step removed from the old Spanish Inquisition, you know what I mean? It's like really having a deep desire to understand what our sons are getting themselves into.

[00:37:10] Mike: 'cause things can look rather great at the surface, But, what ends up happening though, and same thing, JH Ranch, kids end up getting married, they marry someone for their personality, but what they get is their character after they get married.

[00:37:23] Mike: You're meant to be marrying for character, not for personality.

[00:37:28] Mike: so this is, very important, that's essentially what we've kind of lined the boys up with is like, look, The character's gonna be, most important thing of all. so we need to understand is there some godly character there, just so that you guys are avoiding a bunch of headaches.

[00:37:44] Mike: And what's sweet is they trust us. So is not like they're like, oh, whatever dad. no, they understand like, no, and we use, we've used examples along the way, Hey, do you see, it could be a family member in the family. That's a bit of a shit show. have you seen what their life is looking like?

[00:37:58] Mike: How do you like that? Is that something you want? or do you like this family over here? and it's very easy that way for them to get a picture. It's like, I'd rather have that family. Well, let me tell you about what that family does that's different from what this family's done. that's a great easy hack to teach your kids.

[00:38:16] Mike: Like, let's take a family that's very functional, thriving multi-generations. The grandkids are thriving, the kids are thriving. The marriages are intact, versus this little, you know, circus over here and it doesn't take much. When you

[00:38:31] Mike: described two different families,

[00:38:33] Ned: Michael, dude, so many notes, so many nuggets. Um, we will have to do this again. oh, we're gonna be taking their parents out for multiple meals. It's like, okay, where's the framework for all this? Where, where are you getting all this from? Like, I want more. I want more. but I wanna honor your time, dude. Thank you for your time today. Thank you for.

[00:38:54] Ned: This conversation and I'm sure we'll have more of them.to Any last thoughts before we end this?

[00:39:00] Mike: No, just,to those that do tune in. I mean, look, wouldn't have been given the honor and the opportunity to have children if God didn't see you as being fit for purpose. anyone listening. Already is fit for purpose. they have what it takes to be a good parent. they will be a great parent if they allow and they're willing to go on a journey.

[00:39:22] Mike: you gotta seek the truth, So you gotta go on journey be a truth seeker, find out what truth is in these. Don't take my word for these ideas. Seek out your own truth in the matter. And, let that be your guide. what you'll find is that more you desire truth and parenting, I think be very happy with the end result.

[00:39:41] Mike: I.

[00:39:41] Ned: Michael, dude, keep being yourself. Keep being that kind patient, loving friend, who shows up for his wife, shows up for his kids, and then, make space to let the world see and inspire them. Thank you, bro. Thank you for being a good friend to me and I look forward to when our paths cross.

[00:39:56] Ned: Next. I.

[00:39:57] Mike: Great. Look forward to it, Ned. Bless. All the best.

[00:40:07] Ned: Wow, what an incredible conversation. I mean, I just finished talking with Michael. I have so many notes and a couple things just to read right outta my journal, that I'm gonna be taking into, things is like, what's the new vision for my family?

[00:40:21] Ned: How do I start to think multi-generationally? How do I think about my job career, my business, my crafts? Being something that I can teach to my son, teach to my daughters, husbands one day. what does that look like? Thinking beyond just how to be a dad day to day. And, frankly, this could be a little bit overwhelming, but also Michael said, pursue truth, pursue the journey. This is a journey. This isn't just about getting the dad mode down so that I can execute well to then go do what I really want. No, let's make this what we really want. Like what if fatherhood was truly my craft? When I'm on my deathbed, there's no way that I won't look back over my life and be like, I wish I would've been better at surfing or golf or business or whatever.

[00:41:02] Ned: If I can say I gave it. All for fatherhood. The way that I love my spouse, the way that I love my children, my grandchildren, my great-grandchildren, I'm leaving them with character. Oh gosh. And speaking of character, That statement. Don't marry for personality, marry for character. If we start to say that to our daughters and sons now when they're young, get that ingrained in them guys, we have such an opportunity to set our kids up for massive success in their life.

[00:41:28] Ned: It doesn't mean life won't be messy, but I think some of the things that we are okay with being messy don't have to be okay. They don't have to be the standard. We have to speak life into our children in a different way, which speaking life into, I just love how Michael talked about his kids.

[00:41:44] Ned: They're complete because we say that they're complete. So many nuggets. I'm gonna listen to this again. Incredible, super thankful. this comes down to, this little pitch right here for you is like, We gotta know who we are, And the world would look different if men showed up in their identity to love, serve, guide, provide and protect.

[00:42:01] Ned: And that's why I launched Adventure of Fatherhood, so check it out. Adventure of fatherhood.com. Lots to come. It started with a children's book. A children's book that you could read to your kid to help you see who you are to help connect you to your child. And ultimately, I created it so that you and I who are already on this journey of knowing who we are.

[00:42:20] Ned: We could invite another man into his journey, whether he's got a new kid, a young kid, and we could hand him this book. You could order a gift box for him on adventure of fatherhood.com and just simply say, brother, you have what it takes. I see this in you and,and the way that Michael made you feel just now in this 40 minute conversation, you could make another man feel simply by.

[00:42:39] Ned: Welcoming him into fatherhood with a simple gift. so that's what that's all about. thank you to all your dads out there listening to Rebellion, creates Fatherhood Field Notes podcast. What you do matters. Obviously. You gotta feel that right now. Don't be like everybody else. Be yourself. Be yourself.

[00:42:56] Ned: Be who you are designed to be. That is who your kid's, spouse and community needs. This is your guide, Ned. Shout together. Let's rebel against the view that fatherhood has little impact and create lives engaged in mastering the craft of fatherhood. I look forward to hanging out with you next time.