GARY JOHN BISHOP ｜ Become the Father Your Kids Deserve
Episode Stats
Length
1 hour and 4 minutes
Words per Minute
180.71687
Summary
New York Times bestselling author Gary John Bishop joins me to talk about his new book, Grow Up: Becoming the Parent Your Kids Deserve. We cover a wide array of topics in this conversation, including why you should question your past and how to heal from it, the value of empathetic intelligence, how to use it effectively with your kids, how responsibility oftentimes supersedes truthfulness, overcoming shame and guilt from parenting mistakes, and ultimately, what it means to truly forgive someone.
Transcript
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If you're a father or plan to be one, I know how it is to feel completely inadequate to be the type
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of dad your children need you to be. Self-doubt, challenging life circumstances, and past emotional
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trauma all combined to create this perfect storm of insecurity in raising your sons and daughters
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right. My guest today is New York Times bestselling author Gary John Bishop, and today he joins me to
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talk about his latest book, Grow Up, Becoming the Parent Your Kids Deserve. We cover such a wide
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array of topics in this conversation, including why you should question your past and how to heal
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from it, the value of what he calls empathetic intelligence and how to use it effectively with
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your kids, how responsibility oftentimes supersedes truthfulness, overcoming shame and guilt from
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parenting mistakes, and ultimately what it means to truly forgive someone. You're a man of action.
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You live life to the fullest, embrace your fears, and boldly chart your own path. When life knocks
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you down, you get back up one more time, every time. You are not easily deterred or defeated,
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rugged, resilient, strong. This is your life. This is who you are. This is who you will become
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at the end of the day, and after all is said and done, you can call yourself a man.
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Gentlemen, what is going on today? My name is Ryan Michler. I'm your host. I'm also the founder of
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this podcast and the Order of Man movement. And if you're very new to the movement or to the podcast
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itself, I am glad that you're tuned in. Hopefully you're here because you want to be a better man
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because that is our goal and our objective. And I do that by recording these podcasts. I've had guys
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like our guest today, Gary John Bishop on before, Jocko Willink, Tim Tebow, Tim Kennedy, Terry Cruz,
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Ben Shapiro, Matthew McConaughey, Andy Frisilla. We've had such incredible, incredible men on the podcast,
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which is a testament to the fact that these guys want to serve. They want to share their insight.
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They want to impart their wisdom and also the lessons that have come hard for them. So we don't
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have to replicate those same hard-earned lessons and do it hopefully better than they have done
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or that we've done in the past. So again, glad you're tuned in. Make sure you subscribe to the
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podcast. You never miss a conversation that we have. One announcement I want to make is I'm very
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excited for this week because once every quarter we open up our brotherhood of men, it's called
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the iron council and inside the iron council, we're all working together to identify goals
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and objectives, to complete goals and objectives, to improve our lives, improve the lives of the
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people around us. And like I said, we only open once per quarter and we're opening up later
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this week on the 15th of September. So if you're not on the wait list, go to order a man.com
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slash iron council. And you can watch a quick video, learn more about what we're doing and
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get signed up as soon as you possibly can. When we open up on the 15th again, order a man.com
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slash iron council. With that said, let me introduce you to my guest. His name is Gary
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John Bishop. He has been on the podcast before. If you don't already know, this guy is a leading
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personal development expert and he's also the author of the million copy New York times
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bestselling book on fuck yourself. Uh, he's helped millions, millions of men break free
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from self-sabotaging behaviors in our everyday lives, our relationships and careers. He's
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actually been very instrumental in my own personal life. And now he's tackling a topic that really
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hasn't been broached by other authors in this no BS self-help space before, which is parenting
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with his newest book, grow up becoming the parent your kids deserve. Gary, good to see you again.
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Thanks for joining me on the podcast. Awesome. Great to be with you, Ryan. I'm, uh, really looking
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forward to this conversation because as I was, as I was thinking about our discussion today with your
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new book, grow up, um, parenting is, you know, the most fulfilling, rewarding thing I've ever embarked
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upon, but it's also one of the most painful and frustrating, uh, journeys that I've ever been on
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as well over the past 15 years now. And I know you've been doing it a bit longer than me, but man,
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it is a wild rollercoaster of emotions and highs and lows. Yeah. Yeah. It's, you know, it doesn't
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matter what people tell you, but being a parent or how many tips you've had, or even if you think your
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parents did a brilliant job, when you get exposed to that and it's like, you know, you're exposed to
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it, it's like, you got to make choices and decisions and, and you're dealing with the pressures of being
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a functioning adult. Um, it's, it's the most challenging thing you can ever ask anybody to do
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because you don't get to participate in it without the threads of your own childhood
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weaving their way in. Yeah. That's one thing I thought as I read your book, uh, in the past week
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or two is I I've had some revelations over the past several years, specifically with regards to
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my relationship with my father, which was estranged and he's passed away now, unfortunately, but, uh,
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we always had a decent relationship, but there was a lot of strain there. And as a young man,
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it was hard for me to see that I had put him on a, up on a pedestal that I, I don't think was fair
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to him. And when he passed away, I took him off that pedestal and I started to see him as a man.
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And that also happened to, when I became a parent, I was like, Oh man. And my only hope with parenting
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at this point seems to be, and I'm saying this a little bit tongue in cheek, but also a little bit
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accurate is I hope one day my kids will forgive me too. And lesson that's not, that's not, that's not,
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it's, it's an unusual thing to say. It's not an unusual thing for someone to think. Um, one of the
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things that I wanted people to get out of this book, to really get to get out of it was part of
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the deal with growing up is to make your parents wrong for what they did and didn't do. That's part
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of the, it's part of the design and it's designed that way to make your departure easier. So when
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you're 18, 19, 20, 21, you started, you know, you're getting knee deep in your own life and what you
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want to do with your life. So, so, you know, that kind of critique of how your parents are doing
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begins at about 10, nine, 10. And then as you, as you get a little bit older and a little bit
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older, you're starting to kind of, that mystique starts to melt away and you end up with a judgment.
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You know, I've got an 18 year old son right now and I actually just said to him today, I said,
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yeah, you must enjoy that like at 18 watching me parent and working out all the ways that I'm getting
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it wrong because that's the nature of the beast. And so I think what I want people to really get
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with this book is the biggest thing you can give to your children would be number one, authenticity,
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but number two, to just kind of lay your cards on the table in terms of like how you're doing and how
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they're doing. And, and no pretense is not like trying to hold up to some past or, you know, or,
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you know, some noble venture, you're going to get this wrong. You're going to, you're really going
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to get it wrong at times. And I think the more authentic you are about that, the better.
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I know one of the, I've had a rough year and a half. I went through a divorce and obviously trying
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to help my kids transition through this. And it's, it's been very challenging. But I had a really
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cathartic moment with my oldest son. This was probably about a month or so ago. And I thought
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this was blasphemy as a parent, but we had a deep conversation. And I said, among other things,
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I won't, I mean, a lot of that conversation is between him and I, but among other things was,
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I'm sorry. I know you're struggling and I'm struggling too. And I'm doing the best that I can
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right now with the tools that I have. Just know that I love you. I care about you.
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Your interest, your best interest is what's in my heart and I'm going to get it wrong from time to
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time. And man, that, that was a connection that I think we hadn't had for a very long time,
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but it was something that I almost thought wasn't, wasn't appropriate as a parent to say,
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I'm sorry, or I I'm, I'm lost too. I'm figuring it out. It didn't feel appropriate. But then I,
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when I read your book, you talk a lot about this authenticity of, of being true, being honest,
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I think is the term you use, being honest with your children.
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Yeah. I mean, look, you can't, you can't share everything with your children because there are
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some things that would just be irresponsibly share, right? You'd be burdening them with something,
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but to say, look, this is not easy for me either, or I'm struggling with this too, or, you know,
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this is, I'm not always going to get this right with you. Right. And I'm not. Oh, and look,
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I think it's one of the biggest burdens of being a parent is the pretense that you somehow are getting
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it right. Cause we pretend it's like in the back of our minds, we're like, I think I might've just
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screwed that up, but I'm just going to continue. Like I know what I'm doing. So I think it's
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important from time to time, especially in those challenging times to be able to just get your cards
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on the table. I mean, I've had those conversations with my sons, but I've said all of my sons,
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I didn't get that right. And, uh, and there'll be other times when I won't get it right,
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but that doesn't mean to say, we're not going to do what I'm saying we're doing.
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We're going to do that. I'm just not always going to get it right. I'm going to lead the way,
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but, um, but I'm not always going to get it right. And, and I think your children kind of watching you
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dealing with that authentically, I think it gives them access to that, gives them a doorway to be
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authentic to say, Oh, this is all right. I don't need to pretend that I've got it together or pretend
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that this isn't bothering me, which, you know, kids will do that all the time. They'll say,
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they'll deny what's bothering them. So that kind of pathway of being authentic from time to time
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to get your cards on the table. Cause the truth is we don't have this figured out.
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That's the truth. We're working. That's, uh, um, and, and, and life comes along and hits you upside
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the head. And so what are you going to do then? Just try and, you know, fuffle your way through it.
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Are you going to say, look, this is the direction I'm taking. And again, with my children, sometimes I
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get that right. Sometimes I don't, but, but that's okay. And, and I need them to know that that's okay
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for them too. They're not always going to get it right. Um, but it, but I believe in them. And so
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there's this kind of like, it's like this environment of authenticity that you start to
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create with your children that just makes for a much healthier and more empowering kind of
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kind of circumstance or situation. I think one of the concerns that at least I have,
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and I'm sure other men feel this way is that when we are going through difficult times, we don't want
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to, you alluded to it earlier. We don't want to burden our children with emotional baggage that
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isn't theirs to carry. Um, I actually ran across a term and the term is escaping me right now. Maybe
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you know what it is, but there's the concept that, and I think this happens in divorce couples where
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for example, a son may take on the fatherly role in the home of the single mother and the daughter
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may take on the motherly role or the wife role almost of the single father. And I want to say
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parenting transference or there's, I can't remember the term right off hand, but that is unfair when
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you put all of that emotional baggage on them and they can't be kids. And now all of a sudden a son
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believes he needs to be the husband to his mom and a daughter believes that she needs to be the wife
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to her father. And I think that's the, the extremes, right? One extreme is I don't share anything.
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The other is I share everything and burden my children. Right. Right. So I think, you know,
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it's very challenging to get, to be a parent. It's very challenging to be a parent when the parents
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are divorced or divorcing, it just adds an extra thing in there. The only one thing I would offer
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in that kind of environment is there needs to be a meeting of the minds. There needs to be
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an area when it comes to the children where you both say you're going to continue to function
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together in their best interests. So you might not be together as parents, but you're saying when
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it comes to that subject and what's good for them, we're going to work that out between the two of us
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and function for them, even though we're not together. So I used to have this saying,
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this was years ago when I was doing a lot of personal growth work and doing workshops and
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stuff. And I used to say, I'm committed that families work, whether they're together or not.
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And that was my big commitment in life. I was committed that families could work. They could
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work things out. They could make things workable, even though they're not together. So I think that's
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important when there's a separation or a divorce, right? But, but you're buying on the money with your
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kids. You know, it's important that you don't burden them. And, and, and, and you got to be
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clear about that. Like, you know, I'm not expecting you to be anything other than the way you are. I'm
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not expecting you to change the way you are at all in the face of this. You know, all you need to know
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is you're still loved. You're still cared for. I got your back. Both your mom and I still got your back.
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So that'd be one thing. I don't talk about this in the book, but I actually talked about it in my last
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book and relationship. When it splits, when it doesn't work, you got to resist the urge to go
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down that pathway of kind of barfing it all up with each other. There has to come a point where that
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ends, but it's just like, I think the way I said it in my last book is you got to end the relationship
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with the same kind of values that you started it. And that's challenging. That's very challenging
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because if you started that relationship, you said something like love, honor, and protect or
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something. All right, well, that's how you end it. Those same principles. And again, it's like,
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I think somebody said, they called it like lighthouse parenting. That is, it's less about
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what you do. Sorry, less about what you say and more about what you do, because that's what they
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watch more than anything. And I do get into that in this book. I say, you know, like you're being
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observed and everything you say and everything you do. Now that doesn't mean you say you need to kind
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of walk in on eggshells, but you do need to realize like they are picking up cues as to how
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they should be or how they should not be. So you should kind of treat those kind of things
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responsibly, you know, like not like a burden, but really like the opportunity to demonstrate
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something because your children are going to face these challenges in their lives too. You know,
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maybe not these ones, but similar ones, life-changing situations that come along
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when you don't feel like you've got your shit together.
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You know, how do you keep your shit together when you feel like you don't have it together
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anymore? How do you form some kind of foundation, some kind of principle-based, you know, foundation
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for you to make your way through these times? And I do think in this book, I do touch on that
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and I get into that with people like, you know, and as I always do, you know, life is not,
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Yeah. I mean, it's, it's a challenge, you know, it's, as you're talking about,
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I like how you said, and the relationship, the way you started with those same values that that's
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actually really powerful. The other thing I often talk with guys about, because there's a lot of
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vitriol and hostility and animosity towards exes in these situations. I don't have that. So I want to
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be clear. I don't, I don't have that with my ex. But there is a lot of that for other men. And they
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often ask, you know, how, how do you overcome that? Well, it's the same way that you would
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overcome not wanting to go to the gym or not wanting to go to work and do your work for the
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day. Like, you know, it has to be done. There's a reason why it's done. And so you may have vitriol
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on animosity and hostility towards your ex, but you can make a decision to be amicable.
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It's not for her. He may hate her. It's not for her. It's for your kids. It's for you. It's for
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your own wellbeing. And it's for your kids to see how, you know, these guys say, I would do anything
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for my kids. Really? Would you treat your ex with dignity for them? Well, you know, you don't know my
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ex. I don't need to know your ex. Like what if treating your ex with dignity is the best thing
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you could possibly do for your children? I'll give you a little, a little addendum to that little
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piece to add on to that. When you're in the throes of that thing, when you're in the, you know,
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either the beginning of it or in the middle of it, right. And there's that big temptation now.
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It's a massive temptation to what I'm going to call indulge yourself. And you're going to indulge
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yourself. You're going to indulge your anger. You're going to indulge your fruit. You're going
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to indulge. You're going to double down on it and go for it. You just need to realize all of that
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that you're doing will have to be undone at some point. You'll have to undo it. Now, maybe not with
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a person. You'll have to, at some later point, come to terms with yourself. A lot of people will just
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justify their way to death. Justify, justify, justify, justify. But in the background,
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in the background of their thoughts, they know that was bullshit. And they know that that's not
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who they are. And they know they're not proud of that. And they know that that wasn't their best
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moment. So the more that you can function out of some, like I called it, some kind of value-based
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principles, the actually, the quicker you'll go through that process, let's go through quicker.
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Sure. Now, it doesn't mean to say just bottle everything up. You know, you can journal,
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write things down. You can go see a therapist. You go work out. You can, you know, meditate.
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There's a lot of things you can do to deal with that. Do personal growth and development work,
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whatever you need to do. But yeah, like barfing up your guts, it doesn't actually serve anything.
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People will say, oh yeah, I feel better after that. Yeah, I know. But then it starts eating at you.
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You get the temporary relief and then it comes and gets you.
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Yeah. Well, that's the hard part is you get some sort of validation immediately, right? It feels
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good. You say something nasty or you get her or you, you know, withhold something from her that
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she might need a request. And you're like, yeah, got her. It feels good. But like you said, long-term,
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it's not going to serve you or anybody that you care about.
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It's just payback. It just keeps towing and froing and towing and froing.
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Yeah. Yeah. I do have a question about the line with regards to children. I was talking with the
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woman that I'm dating and we were having a discussion about parenting. And I think we have
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a little bit of a disagreement in this, you know, not so much so that we can't come to some mutual
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understanding, but I'm really curious on your thoughts with regards to the line of allowing
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children to freely express themselves, freely pursue things without our, our own biases or
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thoughts into that schooling or religion, for example, the line between that and then allowing
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and offering guidance, instruction, focus, and even offering our bias towards what we believe will lead
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them to a more fulfilling life. Yeah. It's all good, but your children mostly won't take that on.
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They'll do their thing. So if you think about it this way, okay. Think about the form of years,
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think about the years between say four and about 18, 17, 18. Okay. In that pocket is when a human being
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will come to some pretty significant determinations. Okay. You cannot intervene in that process,
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no matter what you do, no matter how regularly you do it, how incessant you are, they will come to
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their own determinations. And very often they're the exact opposite of what their parents were trying
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and still because a child must have the freedom to make those determinations. And they do. And that
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doesn't mean to say you don't live your life a certain way. Doesn't mean to say you don't guide
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your children. Doesn't mean that at all. You just need to be prepared for, and they might go the exact
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opposite way from whatever you're suggesting, because that is the want of a developing human being.
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But do you think that there's any sort of element of, of, you know, this, this idea or this concept
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of the prodigal son, where you might instill a set of values and beliefs and virtues, and they may
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stray purely out of contempt, just rebelliousness. And then at some point, maybe, uh, fall back or come
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back to what they had seen as an example that you have set in, in, in their lives.
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They might, they might do. Um, I think we have to realize, you know, without going into the
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neuroscience of it too deeply, because I don't, I'm not a neuroscientist, but, you know, you're born
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with a certain, certain kind of genetic soup that will make you kind of predisposed to X, Y, or Z.
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It's not half you, half your wife. It's your family and her family. That's the soup. Um, so there's
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that. And then there's just the way that life happens to a human being, right? So by that, I mean,
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in this book, I talk about trauma. You talk about child will get traumatized, which a lot of people
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like, well, I was never traumatized. Everybody's traumatized. You, if you think about a child
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coming into this life, you know, like curiosity, imagination, creativity, and then it meets the
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world and then it meets people. So rather than trauma, isn't necessarily traumatic, you got to
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think of it more like an interruption to the way that life was. So life is going along, you're seven
00:22:53.020
years of age, and then boom, an incident. It doesn't have to be particularly big, or like I say,
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traumatic, but it changed you. And from that moment on, life took a turn. Those turns, a parent has
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absolutely zero say in what those turns are and when they're happening. Zero, no say in it. So that's why,
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that's why you can live your life by a certain set of values, but you'll meet people all over the
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world who are the complete opposite of the values with which they were raised. There was no
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returning. There were other people who had to explore it for themselves, which I think is way
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more valuable. You can say to your children, look, this is how I live, and this is how this has benefited
00:23:43.380
me. You're going to have to make some of these decisions on your own as you're getting older.
00:23:48.660
You can copy some of these things, but you might want to adopt some new things of your own.
00:23:53.420
See, that's a much wider and more available kind of future for your child rather than you must,
00:24:00.820
you must, you know, because ultimately, you know, as the old saying, whatever you resist persists
00:24:07.720
by function of your resistance or whatever you press and press and press and press,
00:24:18.040
Yeah, I want to get, I want to get to this concept. I think what you're, what you're talking
00:24:23.020
about now is learning to let go of things outside of our control. And I want to get to that.
00:24:27.420
Before I do, when you said every child is, is, is traumatized, I think is the word. Is that right?
00:24:34.040
Traumatized. That's the phrasing you used. A little bit of me, like, like cringe, like,
00:24:39.100
because if everybody's traumatized, then nobody is. And I think that in society,
00:24:43.860
we have this tendency of over dramatizing scenarios. Like for example, my mom would
00:24:52.740
whack our butts with a wooden spoon, but she didn't beat us black and blue. I wasn't ever,
00:24:59.780
you know, molested by, you know, my uncle. Like those are what I would consider traumatizing
00:25:06.080
events. But I think the distinction you're making is that we all deal with things that change us.
00:25:10.600
The wooden spoon changed me until it didn't. I remember, I remember I got to a certain age
00:25:15.380
and my mom said, I'm going to get the wooden spoon. I'm like, go ahead, give it your best shot.
00:25:21.240
Like at some point is just, it didn't, it was no longer relevant. Another tactic was necessary.
00:25:27.100
Right. Um, yeah. And we have a great relationship, but then I think you're making the distinction
00:25:32.560
between, uh, traumatized and traumatic. It sounds like you're, you're using those two words as,
00:25:39.400
as different things. Right. So, so, you know, people just think about it like this.
00:25:47.080
If you think about your life like this, kind of, if you think about it like this pathway and the
00:25:52.540
pathway is clear, right? When you start out this journey of life and then, like I said, life happens.
00:25:57.760
So things come along. Some of them are, I think you could say, are, would be described as objectively
00:26:06.020
traumatic. Like, wow, someone went through that, right? But people get traumatized by
00:26:15.200
being single dirt in class in front of their kids. One moment life changed. It was like, life is suddenly
00:26:24.420
like this and that experience hit them. And what, what children experience is a failure to be in those
00:26:32.160
traumatic moments, the experience failure to deal with what they're getting presented with. And it starts
00:26:39.200
in those moments, they become something that eventually, right? Like, so one of the things I
00:26:45.280
would say you became from that was independent. So if you're looking at early childhood, you became,
00:26:50.420
you became independent somewhere in that little kind of fluctuation of life. You learned that being
00:26:59.080
self-sufficient was where no one could get you. So then that's, that's what I would call, yeah,
00:27:05.600
that's one of those moments where life is going along like this. Something happened, then it went
00:27:11.620
there. It went there. Now, when it went there, believe it or not, that was actually a decision of
00:27:17.840
yours. And believe it or not, no one could take that away from you or alter that. And in fact, even
00:27:26.560
though it was a decision of yours, you probably have very little recollection of having made it because
00:27:32.760
it was like an adjustment, an adjustment and a moment of time. And once you've adjusted to that
00:27:39.200
or a path, off you went. So then you go on that pathway. So when I call, I do call them traumas
00:27:46.540
because they're like, for that three-year-old, five-year-old, eight-year-old, nine-year-old,
00:27:52.080
and their mind, it's a, it was a big deal, even if it lasted five seconds. And you can talk to people,
00:27:58.880
you can get into people and they'll take you back. And they'll be like, oh yeah, there was this time.
00:28:03.840
And I remember, I had a client one time who had some really, really simple experiences with a group
00:28:11.260
of friends. He said, let's go do this thing. They were on their way to do it. And the last minute,
00:28:16.720
there was about eight of them. He was only like 10 years of age. And they all said,
00:28:20.760
no, let's go that way. Now that's nothing. That's nothing, right? But in that moment,
00:28:26.240
he felt betrayed. And that experience of betrayal for that little 10-year-old boy just sunk
00:28:31.580
right in with him, like smoke. Like they turned their back on me. And so it became a thing for him
00:28:38.380
in his life. He started to pick up the little nuance because that's what I said this in earlier books.
00:28:44.760
You're not quite born a blank slate, but man, there's a lot of blankness. And so that's why I talk
00:28:51.540
about it. Like if you take the case that you have these things in your life, whether you think your
00:28:57.440
childhood was traumatic or not enough, coached an awful lot of people over the years and people
00:29:01.720
who've come in and said, I had a great childhood. And I'll say, okay, let's take a look. And they
00:29:05.760
were right there. They had their moments when life took a turn and so were this thing. Or, you know,
00:29:12.460
like a very common one with parents is, my mother was the weak one or my father was a weak one and
00:29:21.120
the other parent was the strong one. Now that child created that dynamic in their mind and followed it
00:29:28.780
and believed it and gathered evidence for it and found, yeah, other biases were coming to the fore,
00:29:36.620
like all the way through the life. Same with divorces. They might not admit it to you,
00:29:41.240
but one of the two is getting the blame, right? So one gets the blame and one's the innocent one
00:29:47.260
in the mind of the child. You can't, you can try and undo that with them, but that's only something
00:29:53.660
they can undo for themselves later when they become adults and they work their way through it.
00:29:59.160
You can kind of point them at their action, you know, like, look, this is one of these things that
00:30:04.060
happens. There's no bad person here. There's no good person here. This is just one of these things.
00:30:08.440
But, uh, but yeah, these, these, these kind of changes that you'll see in your life
00:30:14.680
can sometimes be very subtle and seemingly innocuous, innocuous.
00:30:20.540
Man, let me just step away from the conversation very quickly. Uh, one common objection that I hear
00:30:25.460
quite often when it comes to our brotherhood, the iron council is I'm not going to pay money for
00:30:31.700
friends. That's one thing a lot of guys will say, and that's good because my answer to that is we don't
00:30:37.300
want to be your friend. If friends were all it took to be successful in your life, you'd have all
00:30:42.380
the money you want. You'd have the six pack abs. You've never had the dream life you've always been
00:30:46.460
interested in, but we're doing something more inside the iron council than just there to shoot
00:30:51.940
the shit and talk about the latest ball game or complain about our wives with each other. We're there
00:30:58.240
to hold you accountable and we're going to hold you accountable to the hopes and dreams and desires
00:31:02.180
that you have built for yourself. We don't build that stuff for you. And that's it. We're going to
00:31:07.120
help you identify what those goals are using a proven science backed approach and keep you on track to
00:31:13.540
make more money, build better relationships, get lean, strong fit, and really any other objective
00:31:19.420
you have in your life. So if you're looking for friends, I don't know, go ask your neighbor or go to
00:31:24.880
the bar or whatever. But if you're looking for a brotherhood of men who are going to be accountable
00:31:30.880
and hold you accountable to something higher and have the guidance, direction, and mentorship along
00:31:36.120
the way, then you'll want to check out the iron council. You can do that at order of man.com
00:31:40.300
slash iron council. We open on the 15th. So here in the next few days. So again, make sure you check
00:31:44.920
it out. Order of man.com slash iron council. Hopefully we'll see you inside in a few days. All right,
00:31:51.100
let's get back to it with Gary. The question then is how as a parent, do you help your children
00:31:56.500
navigate that? So as an example, my empathetic intelligence isn't real high. I just, I don't have
00:32:06.000
a lot of empathy. I don't have a lot of time for, and even as I say it, I say bullshit. It's not really
00:32:10.420
bullshit, but like I interpret it as that sometimes. If somebody else is feeling something for me to say
00:32:15.600
it's bullshit is probably not right. But, um, for example, I might have one of my kids and my kids
00:32:21.620
don't wear glasses, but I'm just throwing this out here. One of my kids might come home for school
00:32:24.760
and say, Oh, you know, little Timmy called me four eyes. And my thought is, well, yeah,
00:32:29.700
welcome to life. Get tough. Get over it. Right. What you're saying is that might be something that
00:32:35.320
actually means something significant. So how do you manage, Hey, you're going to have to get tough
00:32:40.980
versus let me put my arm around you. Let me like, let's talk through it. I don't really think
00:32:46.160
there's a lot to talk about in that situation, but I don't know. I don't know how to, I don't
00:32:49.240
know how to ask him a question, ask him one question. And the question is, what are you making
00:32:55.300
that mean? And you'll get right to the heart of it right there. Hmm. I'm writing that down. Cause
00:33:03.200
that's a question. I like the phrasing of it. What are you making that mean? It doesn't actually
00:33:08.240
mean that, but what are you making it mean? Right. So what do you make it mean? And you can
00:33:12.980
say to them, look, I get that you would make that mean that you don't, you don't take it away from
00:33:17.460
them, but it's, but you're starting to let them see that to quote Sartre, the great French
00:33:22.260
existentialist people make meaning out of fucking everything, right? Even the way I'm talking right
00:33:28.920
now, you've got listeners who are adding shit to what I'm saying and like, Oh yeah, either agreeing or
00:33:37.480
disagreeing, coming to their own conclusions about me and you and this situation, because
00:33:45.960
that's what human beings do. And those formative years, some of those meanings, if you like,
00:33:54.320
the children come up with, stay with them for a lifetime, a lifetime. So if you look at,
00:34:03.040
if you don't mind, I'll use kind of your situation as an example. Okay. When you sit, you would say
00:34:08.440
to your kid, you're welcome to life, get over it, kind of deal, right? You weren't born that way.
00:34:13.260
There was a time before that you became that way at a point in your life that way that you
00:34:18.840
and it brings its own set of problems, right? It's not, it's not the golden ticket,
00:34:25.760
right? It's not the right way. No, because it can be a blind spot. You can leave people with
00:34:35.300
the experience that you don't care, even though you're trying to get them to get that they shouldn't
00:34:40.200
care. It's so easy to leave them with the experience that you don't. And they're so, they're like, Oh,
00:34:46.340
he doesn't give a shit. Understand? Even though what you're trying to do is equip them. Right.
00:34:52.880
And that's another part of the parenting thing that needs to come with authenticity. And I say this all
00:35:00.200
the time. Don't be vague about why you're doing what you're doing. Be clear about why you're doing
00:35:07.260
what you're doing. It's not that I don't love you. It's not that I don't recognize you're feeling
00:35:12.340
something right now. What I want to do is equip you. That's a different conversation than get over
00:35:19.340
it. So you're kind of letting, you're letting your children in on, listen, you know, like I don't
00:35:28.280
always, and I think that's part of the problem because I talk about, you know, again, back to
00:35:33.000
the Sartre thing about adding meaning. If you're not clear, you're leaving the field open for your
00:35:40.680
child's imagination to take over with what you're saying. Yeah. I actually had an experience with
00:35:47.340
that over the weekend. It was my daughter's birthday and we celebrated and did her thing
00:35:51.300
all day. And we had a great time and she stayed up a little past her bedtime, which was fine. No
00:35:56.440
problems. Her birthday, we're having a celebration families over good. Uh, and then it came to a point
00:36:03.320
where I've decided it's time for her to go to bed. And I told her, Hey, it's time for you to get your
00:36:07.880
pajamas on, brush your teeth, get ready for bed. Let's go. And she was like, why? I said,
00:36:12.480
because it's time for bed. It's past your bedtime. Like it's time for bed. You need to go to bed.
00:36:16.140
And that was the, that was the reason I gave her. And my mom was in town and, uh, she had told me the
00:36:22.900
story and I guess they were talking afterwards and she was really upset because she thought that
00:36:26.720
I didn't care about her birthday because I made her go to bed at this certain time.
00:36:31.080
And fortunately my mom had my back. She was like, no, your dad loves you. He cares about you
00:36:35.040
so much so that he wants you to go to bed so that you can get sleep and be well-rested and
00:36:41.000
wake up tomorrow in a good mood and ready to tackle the day. And I'm like, yeah, those are things I
00:36:45.580
probably should have explained, but my mom had to, in that case, fortunately she was there to be able
00:36:49.500
to pick up my slack. Right. But, but it's so true. You know, like we, we do things in the name of
00:36:57.420
something. I mean, I'll tell you one of the big in the name of, okay. As parents is fear. So I'm
00:37:05.380
doing this, but really I'm afraid of something else. That's why I'm doing it. So we we've got a
00:37:11.040
lot of in the name of like, um, I'm saying this and I'm doing this because la la la la la la. But if
00:37:17.200
you get underneath it, you'll see a lot of times with parents, it's the fear of how this might turn
00:37:24.760
out. If I don't, it's the fear of where they might end up because ultimately comes back to the same
00:37:31.060
thing for parents. We're shit scared that we're going to fuck this up. That's it. We're scared
00:37:37.520
we're going to fuck it up. And that is what adds to a lot of those pretenses and a lot of those in
00:37:44.660
the name of, right. You know, um, you know, cause you know, I'm, I'm definitely, I'm definitely a
00:37:51.300
rules dad. I definitely have rules. I don't have a ton of rules, but I'm a rules guy.
00:37:55.260
So we got a little amount of rules and we stick to them even when it's not convenient for me. So
00:38:00.960
it's not convenient for me for us to have this rule, but we got it. So here we go. Right. Um,
00:38:08.320
and so, you know, like, I don't, like I said, I don't have tons of, I don't box my children and
00:38:15.260
all they'll do when they have 13 and 14 and 15 is just try and burn the house down, maybe even
00:38:21.540
literally in an environment that they can experience freedom and they can be free in it,
00:38:27.360
but it's still an environment that is a, yeah, that is a bit of a bubble here. That's right.
00:38:31.440
Because in that bubble, you get a sense of the world from a fairly safe perspective, but it doesn't
00:38:37.840
protect them from their own imagination. What are some of the rules? Do you, do you still have kids
00:38:43.440
at home or are they all out of the house now? And what were those rules? No, no, my oldest is 18.
00:38:48.020
I have an 11 year old at home and a nine year old at home. Got it. Um, I mean, you know, like it's
00:38:53.300
bedtime at a certain time, definitely a rule of ours. Um, you know, the toothbrush and all that sort of
00:39:00.480
stuff, homework, that sort of stuff, whatever things that end, so that end, you know, music
00:39:08.660
teacher or something to do with sports, they, they got to be all in with it. If you want to do that,
00:39:13.740
we're all in and we don't kind of, you know, we don't paddle it around. So if we're going to do it,
00:39:18.440
let's do it. Um, and I'm big on that with the kids to let them experience what it's like to go two
00:39:24.420
feet in on something. And so we do that even when it gets tough for them, we still do that. We still
00:39:30.260
pursue that. And then the simple things like, you know, being respectful, you know, like,
00:39:35.240
and it's, and, and they don't always get that right, you know, you know, and they don't like
00:39:41.740
they'll say things, you know, in a fit of temper or some, you know, upset they've got, or maybe just
00:39:46.840
carelessly. So I tend to be very understanding, but the big thing for me with all my boys is tell me
00:39:54.200
the truth. If you tell me the truth, we'll work this out. If you lie to me, I'm going to
00:40:00.240
handle you first. You're probably going to end up with something you didn't want to do.
00:40:04.680
Then we're going to work at it. So you're just going to double up on it. So being truthful to me
00:40:09.860
is key to everything. Like it's just cards on the table. And when my boys put the cards on the table,
00:40:16.500
there is, there's no, there's no repercussion other than we're going to talk it out and repair
00:40:23.180
any damage that might've been done. That's it. I'm not going to be like, Oh, well now I'm going to
00:40:28.000
double down on you because you, you know, if you tell me the truth, then we'll work it out.
00:40:34.600
Are there times where you're asking your, your boys to tell the truth? And I think that's a great
00:40:39.040
rule. And, and I imagine that for most of us listening and you and I, we, we, we would say
00:40:44.180
that we do tell the truth, but that's probably not entirely accurate. And are there times and
00:40:49.300
places where it's appropriate that we, as parents don't disclose the entire truth,
00:40:54.180
or should we hold ourselves to be entirely truthful?
00:40:58.860
No. So that's when you got to be responsible. So I got to look at this cat and say,
00:41:04.260
you're 10 or you're eight or you're seven. How much of this can you take? So let me communicate
00:41:12.060
this to in a way that, that you can take right now. And that's what I'm going to do. I'm going to
00:41:18.220
communicate this in a way that you can handle it because I'm just not going to give you something
00:41:24.740
that you can't take. Right. And, you know, that's, to me, that's responsible communication. You know,
00:41:31.540
one of the things there's, there's two types of responsible communication. Okay. The first one
00:41:35.860
is being responsible for what you say. Okay. So that is, what am I doing with that? Well, I'm actually
00:41:41.500
looking at how might this go down with that person. Right. That's, that's being a responsible
00:41:47.560
communicator. The other side of the responsible communication is responsible listening. So that
00:41:52.480
is, am I adding anything in here? Right. Am I, what am I bringing to the table here? So I think I
00:42:00.380
talk about this in the book. I say, you know, speak like it means everything and listen, like it doesn't
00:42:04.200
mean anything. So I speak like the words that I use, I talk like, you know, what's coming at my mouth
00:42:10.240
is going to land. So the younger they get, you know, you got to be the responsible one. You got
00:42:16.520
to be like, okay, so how can I phrase this in such a way where they get a sense of what the world is
00:42:22.760
right now. And, and yeah, that can be tricky, but that is the job. That's what the way shake from,
00:42:29.100
from authenticity, right? Some people mistake authenticity for candor. I'll just tell you,
00:42:35.900
right. That's not authenticity. Authenticity begins. Well, authenticity begins with talking
00:42:44.560
about yourself. Like, you know, mostly when you hear the law, especially these days, people talk,
00:42:52.800
well, I'm just being more authentic self. And I'm like, no, you're actually being an asshole.
00:42:58.040
Right now. And, and so people, you know, when they're complaining or venting, that's not
00:43:06.400
authenticity. Okay. That's letting out your upsets. That's, that's not authenticity begins
00:43:13.720
with, I mean, let me give you an example. I might really dislike someone. Authenticity would
00:43:21.180
be me saying, I've been hanging on to my view about that person. And I've been letting it
00:43:27.000
sour me. That's authentic, right? Not like this person isn't. Again, those are the kind
00:43:35.580
of examples. When you speak that way in front of your children, you'll hear them talk that
00:43:43.380
way. And not too, not too long a time, they'll start to key in, they'll watch, they'll hear
00:43:50.600
because authenticity, as long as you're not, I mean, you don't, again, authenticity isn't
00:43:56.320
dwelling in your upsets. Authenticity is fundamentally telling the truth about yourself, right? And
00:44:03.600
with no shame, no guilt, no, you know, not blaming anybody. I'm not hanging on to it.
00:44:08.680
I'm not pitying myself. I'm not victimizing myself. I'm just being upfront and straight
00:44:14.640
about it. This is, listen, I've been being this way. You know, I've been being angry.
00:44:18.900
I've been being upset. I've been being, I've been blaming other people for how this is
00:44:22.880
going and that doesn't work. That's a powerful conversation. And then, you know, one of these
00:44:28.800
days, you'll, because my children will do it too. It'll come out of their mouth. Like
00:44:33.800
my older son, he's, his aim is to become a professional soccer player. And he's playing
00:44:41.280
in a, you know, pretty prestigious setup here in Germany. And he came off the field the other
00:44:46.720
thing. And I just went, okay, I just raised my eyebrows and he went, yeah. Okay. So what
00:44:55.220
happened was that I have made some decisions and I lost my focus and I'm like, Ooh, that's
00:45:01.900
powerful right there. Right. Yeah. He says, what I need to work on is staying focused when
00:45:08.200
distractions are happening around me. Hmm. That's powerful right there. You know, that's
00:45:14.700
like, that's, you got the mindset, you got, you're pointed in the right direction. Um,
00:45:20.700
and I think, again, I think the more you're that kind of person, the more you're that kind
00:45:25.520
of man, the more that becomes the environment around you.
00:45:29.640
Yeah. I used to have a coach that experience you just shared. I used to have a coach that
00:45:34.220
when we would complain in football in high school about the referee, you know, ruining
00:45:38.500
the game or making a bad call, he would always say, why did you let the game get so close
00:45:43.420
that a single call from the referee would determine the outcome? And it was
00:45:47.260
like, Oh, yep. That's exactly right. One bad call from the referee determined the outcome
00:45:53.160
of the game. Or did you play that horribly? It's like, yeah, we need to take ownership
00:45:57.240
of that. Right. And so, so that kind of responsibility isn't burdensome.
00:46:05.980
How do you, maybe this pivots and shifts gears a little bit, but one thing you
00:46:09.440
mentioned is being authentic, meaning starting with yourself, self-assessment,
00:46:13.820
self-reflection. Uh, and then I think as we do that, at least in my experiences, I've
00:46:18.420
done that. Uh, I, I feel, I feel a lot of guilt and shame for the way, for example,
00:46:24.480
that I've showed up with my children or how I may have disciplined them in a moment or
00:46:28.720
reacted to a situation or even the breakdown of the nuclear family within my dynamic, which
00:46:34.140
is something I value, something I cherished. And I hold a lot of guilt and shame in, in
00:46:40.400
that. How do I begin to, or anybody who's listening, begin to release that? Um, because
00:46:46.840
I, I think if I do and learn how to do that, I can lead my children as their father more
00:46:51.920
powerfully, but it's still really hard for me to overcome those things.
00:46:56.180
Yeah. So guilt doesn't show up in a vacuum. It's not just showing up because it's not
00:47:03.860
just what you did. Okay. So I'm going to use the same question on you. You did what you
00:47:10.720
did. Now, what do you say that means about you? And you'll see what the meaning you're
00:47:17.320
writing. Well, this means I'm, yeah, it's a lot of negative self-talk in the, in, to
00:47:22.100
answer those questions a lot. Like I, you know, like I failed, I'm a failure, those types
00:47:27.560
Very good. Right now just hold that, just hold that right there. Okay. Just hold that thought
00:47:33.740
right there. That's what you just said. That is the one thing in this life that you're out
00:47:41.600
to avoid all costs. That's a now doing that. No, what you just said, I'm a failure. That's
00:47:50.580
a, like an undercurrent, very common amongst me, by the way. But anyway, that's an undercurrent.
00:47:57.720
Like that's, everything you're building is to prove that that's not true. And then when
00:48:05.480
you have these moments, up it comes to experience this guilt or something, shame, guilt and shame.
00:48:14.560
I talk about in the book, they're like the twin towers for human beings, right? They arise,
00:48:20.920
guilt and shame, they often come up together. And so if you want to talk about traumas, right?
00:48:28.260
That's a, that recurring, I'm a failure, but I'm avoiding it and I'm getting past it.
00:48:34.900
And look, I'm not, I'm not, I'm not, I'm not, I'm not. But it's in the background, like
00:48:39.960
waiting to come up. It's like trying to keep a beach ball under the water. Up it comes, right?
00:48:45.860
And then I'm going, I'm going, I'm going, I'm going. And then, so then I'm in a good spot.
00:48:49.420
Things are going well. And then bang, up it comes, right? So it's like a recurring battle.
00:48:55.080
And, and sometimes it feels like it literally, but it's a mental battle, right? And so one
00:49:03.380
of the things that I invite people to take on for themselves is whenever you do reflect
00:49:10.180
and you find yourself in these spots, because you, because you will find yourself in them.
00:49:15.220
You don't, I mean, I wish we could all aspire to what Sartre said, that it doesn't mean anything,
00:49:22.300
right? Now, when Sartre said that, he was basically saying, no, it is in fact fucking meaningless.
00:49:28.980
There is no inherent meaning in any of that, right? We adhere and, and, and, and add meaning
00:49:37.900
to everything, but, but in terms of universe, it doesn't mean anything, right? That doesn't
00:49:45.080
mean to say it's pointless. It doesn't mean to say it's without repercussion. He's just
00:49:49.060
saying there's no inherent value in it. It's just that.
00:49:55.240
But does that drive to future nihilism where it's like, yeah, that didn't mean anything?
00:50:01.060
Well, I mean, does that keep us from improving?
00:50:04.820
No. Well, no, no, because it's like, it's like instant forgiveness of oneself.
00:50:10.560
So I can be like, I'm a freaking human being too. I've made mistakes. You know, I can't,
00:50:18.080
I can't, because sometimes we live with this model in our mind of this kind of perfect human
00:50:25.540
I'm just going to be that, which on its own is impossible, right? Because, you know,
00:50:32.800
there's much at times, right? I mean, you know, neuroscience is still arguing whether we
00:50:37.340
have free will or not. I mean, it's not like, you know, I'm just throwing up to the wind,
00:50:43.980
but there has to be, there has to be times in your life and those moments of self-reflection
00:50:48.320
where you're just not going to continue punishing yourself when you're saying,
00:50:55.840
I did what I did and I own it and I own all of it, but I'm not going to continue to punish
00:51:02.880
myself for it because it doesn't serve me and it doesn't serve anyone. And in fact,
00:51:06.780
that self-punishment, try this on, is a way of absolving yourself of blame. So self-punishment,
00:51:17.180
yeah, is a way to distract. So, and I do talk about this in the book, I talk about
00:51:25.540
the importance of the tribe and how you appear to the tribe.
00:51:29.580
So, and if you try on the idea that a lot of what you experience as a human being is,
00:51:37.120
is a communication to your group, to a lot of what you do and, you know, well, everything you do,
00:51:45.140
everything you say is a communication. You know, you're letting people know, right? Even though
00:51:50.680
you might not be saying anything, you're letting people know. Here's what you let them know. I'm not
00:51:55.620
saying anything. So you're always communicating something. And so that sense of shame, that sense
00:52:03.940
of guilt is a communication to the group. And what's the communication? Communication is,
00:52:08.100
I've fucked up, but can you see, I feel bad for it? Because you, because ultimately what we're,
00:52:14.220
even people who are like fiercely independent, you're only ever independent in the context of the
00:52:19.820
group. There was no group, then there'd be no independence. It's only against the background
00:52:27.440
of community and group that one is independent. So, so then that whole idea of like, well,
00:52:34.440
what's the communication here? And in the book, I kind of dig into and say, in society,
00:52:41.640
how we punish is we exclude. So we cut out, we exclude, we push away. So we do it in relationships
00:52:52.420
too, by the way. It's how we punish in relationships. If we're having an argument, I'm done with this.
00:52:57.700
I'm not going to talk to you anymore. That's the punishment. So I exclude the bomb. I'm shutting
00:53:03.160
it down. I'm taking control. And there's no more communication here because I say so. But the
00:53:09.000
intention is to leave the other person with no voice and alone. And often those people will turn
00:53:15.360
and turn to their friends and say, I need to, you know, but that's the point of seclusion, right?
00:53:21.760
So if you take it to the extreme in society, someone breaks the law, they go to jail. You're the
00:53:27.820
president. You go to the president, you continue to break the law, you're isolated. It's this constant
00:53:33.780
cutting, moving that to the outside of the tribe. Why? Because, you know, back in the day,
00:53:41.160
thousand years ago, if you were kicked out of the tribe, you're dead. You're dead. So isolation,
00:53:50.820
that's why like in relationship, somebody leaves a relationship and one person wants to continue
00:53:55.640
that relationship. The person who's left there has that experience of like abandonment and
00:54:01.060
vulnerability and being exposed and they hate it and it feels terrible. But that's that kind of
00:54:09.340
primordial experience of being isolated, being left alone. And I know those guys are like, well,
00:54:15.740
I love being alone, but I get that, right? But it's all in the context of the group, right?
00:54:20.280
That's your little bubble of safety. So, so then with the shame and the guilt, you're just,
00:54:26.440
you're basically saying to the group, I'm punishing myself, right? Look at what I'm doing,
00:54:32.260
right? And that's, and it's a big thing if you look at like maybe celebrities or whomever,
00:54:38.600
maybe do something, whether they really mean it or not, and they're apologizing, right? You're like,
00:54:42.820
hmm, I don't think that was a genuine apology because that's what we're looking for. We're looking
00:54:49.700
for the authenticity. Do they really mean it though? Like, let's look at the way they are.
00:54:56.080
And we're, and we're picking up on all those little cues, right? And then the more they are about it,
00:55:01.780
then we're like, okay, you can stay in the group. That's basically what we're saying. You can stay
00:55:07.880
in the group. So if you try on the shame and the guilt, if it's continuing, continuing and continuing,
00:55:14.140
then you got to ask yourself, okay, what am I getting out of this? What does it absolve me of?
00:55:20.520
What is it kind of, you know, what does it get me away with? What is it? You got to look down those
00:55:25.740
avenues to see if there's some, in other words, a payoff for you. If there's some kind of payoff,
00:55:32.880
you'll often see that there's a payoff in it. And it's okay. That's a human thing. And that's what
00:55:38.840
I come back to. It's okay. You're a human, but you know, you're not going to get this right all
00:55:44.580
the time. And if you experience the shame and the guilt, I get that. Okay. And one of the ways you
00:55:51.700
can do is you can clean that up with the people and say, look, I didn't do the best there and I
00:55:56.540
own it and I own all of it. And I'm not going to use excuses for why I did do it or didn't do it,
00:56:01.400
but I own it. And, and I'm, and I'm, and I acknowledge and I'm, and I'm responsible for
00:56:06.780
the impact that it might've had on you. I'll own that too. And then you, you say to them,
00:56:12.020
and if there's anything you want to say about that, if there's anything you want to communicate
00:56:14.400
to me, I want you to know I'm available for you to communicate to me, to talk to me about that.
00:56:19.280
I'm not shutting you down and I'm not going to even try and change the way you feel about it
00:56:25.120
because I, because the way you feel about it, I get that. That's how you feel about it.
00:56:30.340
Now, again, you hear the authenticity, you hear how flat it is. There's no freaking drama in it.
00:56:35.640
There's no big hoo-ha in it. It's just laying it out there and, and being responsible and owning it
00:56:41.800
and realizing, you know, you're not, you're not going to get life right. And you are going to
00:56:49.620
screw some things up. And those are the times when, and I talk about this deeply in this book
00:56:54.600
about the power of blame and what it does to a person and what it does to a family and what it
00:57:00.680
does to a group or a company, you take blame out. You say, okay, I'm not going to blame anybody here.
00:57:08.700
Then where do you turn? What you're left with is, okay, well, there's no juice here. There's no,
00:57:15.560
I'm not blaming anybody. It's just like, it went the way it went. I'm not going to be like,
00:57:19.900
yeah, and you did and then I did and then they did. When there's no blame, there is no shame.
00:57:23.840
There is no guilt. It does. They can't exist together. Shame and guilt require blame.
00:57:33.720
Yeah, that's really powerful. I, you know, I, I want to shift gears and I can't believe how
00:57:38.380
quickly the time has gone. There's a segment in the book that I really like, and it's towards the
00:57:42.820
end. And you talk about the three heirlooms. And I, I think that conversation is so valuable.
00:57:48.660
Uh, we often think about, uh, personally, I think about, you know, how do I leave my financial
00:57:54.140
legacy? Um, is the business that I'm creating this movement, something that can be handed to my
00:57:59.300
children and they can be engaged in it and have a leg up. But when you talk about the three heirlooms,
00:58:04.300
it's completely different than any material gain that we often as fathers think about passing down
00:58:09.700
to our kids. Right. Right. You know, I want my children to know what it is to love another
00:58:15.580
and to express love. I want to know what that is, you know, the, all of it and, and how to continue
00:58:24.200
to return yourself to loving people. Cause sometimes you need to get yourself back there.
00:58:29.100
You can drift away from loving somebody. You need to get yourself back there. That's a massive thing
00:58:33.180
for me. Authenticity is another one, you know, like to get your cards on the table. It's, it's such a
00:58:39.820
massive thing for people. And when you can be authentic with no shame or no guilt, you're fucking
00:58:44.900
bulletproof. You're bulletproof. You can take it all. That's a robust human being. They can lay it
00:58:53.100
out there and set it empathetic to how, what I've done or didn't do. It might've impacted other people,
00:58:57.940
but it will not shake me from owning it. Um, and then the last one is forgiveness, which is,
00:59:04.120
it's a tricky one. And I said that in the book, it is a tricky one, but what makes it tricky is you
00:59:10.560
can't get to forgiveness and have your blame. You can't get there. Not unless you're going to go
00:59:16.560
into some kind of self-righteous version of forgiveness, which isn't forgiveness.
00:59:21.540
Forgiveness simply comes down to one thing. I'm no longer going to punish this person.
00:59:26.760
And if you can, if you can create that as an environment at home, you'll, you'll, you'll equip
00:59:35.060
your children in a very powerful way. Taking some notes here. I, I tell the guys, I often joke,
00:59:41.620
like I, I feel a little bit selfish when I have conversations like this, because it seems like
00:59:47.140
they're more for me than anybody else. And I'm the one who gets to ask the questions. Other guys are
00:59:51.560
like, ask this question. I'm like, no, but you're being the guinea pig too. I mean, come on.
00:59:57.360
Yeah. Yeah. No, no. Why would you? Yeah, of course you should.
01:00:03.020
Well, Gary, I appreciate you. I appreciate your work. And, um, ever since you came on,
01:00:07.700
gosh, it's been years ago now, but when you came on and talked about unfuck yourself and
01:00:11.980
your other books, I mean, I I've been a fan and I've been sharing this work because it is so crucial.
01:00:18.240
And also I got to say the way that you communicate it, I think is really relevant to men. Um, it seems to
01:00:23.100
me there's a lot of like woo woo, like feel good spiritual journey type stuff. And I think there's
01:00:30.300
probably a place for that. It just doesn't resonate with me the way you communicate. It really resonates
01:00:35.080
with me. And I know it does with a lot of the guys as well. Awesome. Well, will you let the guys
01:00:40.860
know where to connect with you? Obviously they can pick up a copy of the book, wherever books are sold.
01:00:44.260
It's out today as of the release of this podcast. Um, but where should the men connect with you to learn
01:00:48.580
more, to communicate with you? The book is called grow up and becoming the parent that
01:00:53.080
your kids deserve. And, um, you can connect me at garyjohnbishop.com. I'm on Instagram.
01:00:58.440
I'm on threads. I'm on, I think we're fucking calling it X now X. I'm on X. Um, I have a Facebook
01:01:05.560
page of course. Um, and, and I have, you know, there's still a ton of episodes of the unfuck nation
01:01:11.640
podcast, which goes into these kinds of topics, you know, like some of the struggles that we have
01:01:16.040
as human beings goes into these subjects in depth. Um, but it's not an interview platform.
01:01:22.680
It's really just me talking about, you know, philosophical issues and how they equate to
01:01:27.960
human beings. So unfuck nation, you can find me there too. We'll sync everything up. I, the term
01:01:33.920
that I was thinking about earlier with the, the child becoming the, the, uh, the, the quasi wife
01:01:42.040
for her husband is parentification. Yeah. Parentification. That was the term I was looking
01:01:46.360
for earlier. So that makes total sense. Yeah. Yeah. I appreciate you and, uh, we'll stay in
01:01:54.720
touch. I never like to dig into psychology cause it's not my thing, but I'll take a dive into that.
01:02:01.320
It is. It's an interesting concept and it's something that's been on my mind. Am I doing
01:02:04.960
that to my children? I certainly don't want to rob them of any childhood opportunities or think
01:02:09.000
they have a greater responsibility for me than they actually do. So it's something on my mind.
01:02:13.160
I'll shoot off. Gary, I appreciate you again. Thanks for joining me today.
01:02:20.480
There you go, gentlemen, my conversation with the one and only Gary John Bishop. I hope that you
01:02:24.700
enjoyed the podcast. If you're a dad or you will be at some point, this information is invaluable.
01:02:31.380
And I know it's a little interesting because we didn't get into the tips and tactics and tricks
01:02:36.580
and hacks on what you should say to your kids or how to deal with difficult conversations.
01:02:41.160
That stuff's already out there. This conversation was more about how to get right with yourself
01:02:47.000
so that you can lead your little ones more effectively. And I found in my own personal
01:02:51.640
life that the less I have my own self dialed in, the harder it is for me to manage the fatherhood role
01:02:57.540
that I play in the lives of my four children. The more that I have that dialed in, the better
01:03:02.160
father I become. So that's crucial. And not only better father, but just better man in general,
01:03:06.300
friend, brother, business owner, you name it. I'm better because I'm getting these things locked in.
01:03:12.480
So I would highly encourage you to pick up a copy of Gary's newest book, grow up.
01:03:16.900
Also check out the iron council. I mentioned that earlier, order a man.com slash iron council.
01:03:21.440
We open up on the 15th. So just a few days here and make sure you connect with me on Instagram
01:03:26.340
and Gary John Bishop on Instagram as well. Tag, just take a screenshot real quick. Tag this on
01:03:32.840
Instagram, Twitter, Facebook, wherever you're doing the thing, tag me, tag Gary and let other
01:03:36.800
men know what you're listening to. All right, guys, those are your marching orders for today.
01:03:40.740
We will be back tomorrow for our ask me anything until then go out there, take action, become the
01:03:47.360
father your kids deserve and be the man you are meant to be. Thank you for listening to the order of
01:03:53.400
man podcast. You're ready to take charge of your life to be more of the man you were meant to be.
01:03:58.660
We invite you to join the order at order of man.com.