The Art of Manliness - July 31, 2025


#209： Raising Men： What Navy SEALs Teach Their Sons


Summary


Transcript

00:00:00.000 Brett McKay here and welcome to another edition of the Art of Manliness podcast. So Father's Day
00:00:14.020 is this week. So I thought I'd do a special Father's Day edition of the Art of Manliness
00:00:18.120 podcast. And to do that, my guest today just published a book with advice on being a dad.
00:00:24.400 And he happens to be a retired Navy SEAL. His name is Eric Davis. His book is called
00:00:29.000 Raising Men, Lessons Navy SEALs Learned from Their Training and Taught to Their Sons.
00:00:33.900 And today on the podcast, we discuss advice on being a dad, particularly for boys that
00:00:39.060 Eric learned from his time as a SEAL. We're going to discuss how to teach your kids personal
00:00:43.620 responsibility, how to make your kids intentionally uncomfortable in order for them to grow. We
00:00:50.220 discuss leading from the front, providing a vision for your kids and respecting your kids
00:00:56.660 respect. A lot of great advice if you're a dad out there or a dad-to-be, or even if you're
00:01:01.880 not a dad, the advice that we talk about on the podcast today is just all about how to
00:01:06.560 be a better man in general. So without further ado, Eric Davis and Raising Men.
00:01:16.940 All right, Eric Davis, welcome to the show.
00:01:20.060 Yeah, thanks for having me on.
00:01:21.300 So you're a retired Navy SEAL, now author of a How to Parent book. But before we get
00:01:28.160 to that, let's talk about your career as a SEAL and what you did as a SEAL and what you
00:01:35.000 do now that you're no longer doing SEAL stuff and how your career as a SEAL influenced your
00:01:41.780 current line of work.
00:01:43.160 Yeah, so I spent 16 years in the Navy. 10 of those years were spent as a SEAL. I first
00:01:50.160 went to SEAL Team 3. That was my first assignment. That was a Middle East platoon. Spent a few
00:01:56.920 years there, did some deployments, did a lot of shipboarding, what I would call legal pirating.
00:02:03.380 Probably took over 20 ships or maybe even 25 in my career span there. Went on from that,
00:02:10.480 became a sniper instructor. Spent actually five years, I spent half my time as a SEAL,
00:02:16.080 as a sniper instructor. But what happened there is a unique time in my life where I just decided
00:02:21.640 I wanted to dive into something and see how good at something I could get. And what I was doing was
00:02:26.740 coaching and training. And the course had a really tough attrition rate. A lot of guys were failing
00:02:31.700 out of the course. So I kind of got myself in a spot where I was real effective at helping turn
00:02:37.520 that around. So they kept me there for quite a while. And that's where my training and kind
00:02:43.700 of human performance background really got developed. Then I did some intelligence work
00:02:48.920 before I got out. And then about 2008, I left and went into the executive world where bulk of that
00:02:55.360 time, like 98% of that time, I spent training either sales teams or process through performance
00:03:03.040 type things in organizations. And a couple of years ago, I broke out and started writing
00:03:08.280 online blogs, started a leadership and training company. And then the book came about. That's
00:03:14.780 kind of the short history of Eric's transition there. I like that. Let's go back to the ship
00:03:19.060 boarding things. You write about this in your book, Raising Men, Lessons Navy SEALs Learned from
00:03:23.640 Their Training and Taught Their Sons. This was interesting because I didn't know this happened.
00:03:27.420 Um, it's, as you call it, it's legal pirating. Uh, can you describe what like a ship boarding
00:03:33.880 mission would look like? Cause I think it's fascinating. Yeah. Yeah, I do too. I really loved
00:03:38.740 it. It was, uh, so there's, there's basically two ways we get on a ship. Uh, one and my favorite
00:03:45.120 way is, you know, these oil tankers or whatever, or whatever the vessel is, they'd be, they'd be
00:03:49.940 cruising at night. Usually their lights are off because they're smuggling. And, uh, the Navy has like
00:03:55.640 these kind of really, these really fast boats called ribs, rigid hull inflatable boat. And we
00:04:00.980 zip up behind them and they can't hear or see us cause we're all blacked out. Literally use a
00:04:06.500 grappling hook, uh, to throw a caving ladder up on it. And then I was the lead climber. So I'd go up
00:04:11.480 first. So we'd sneak on this ship, um, and basically take it down and, and, and render it,
00:04:16.640 you know, dead in the water. And then we'd have the big Navy come over and we just hand it over to them.
00:04:21.380 Uh, the other way we would take it as a helicopter would swoop in, we'd throw a rope out
00:04:25.120 and we'd slide down. Uh, so that's a little bit, they can see us coming for a quickly. I mean,
00:04:31.420 right when it happens, but we'll subdue them so quickly. And my favorite part is, uh, I was,
00:04:37.260 I would do sniper operations. So sometimes I'd be in a helicopter covering the team.
00:04:41.200 So I'd get to see the FLIR footage, which is like infrared plus night vision, plus thermal,
00:04:46.320 like whatever the technology they're using on the helicopter. Uh, so you're watching this
00:04:50.780 boarding happen. And basically you see like these dark figures attach themselves to the boat. These
00:04:56.600 are my seal platoon, you know, my buddies in my, in the platoon and you see them just overcome the
00:05:01.840 ship. And I would describe, it looks like a cancer taking over the ship. And you know,
00:05:05.920 so this vessel's cruising through the water, you see these black objects get on it and then go
00:05:10.840 inside of it. Then they disappear. Then all of a sudden the ship stops moving. And I love to watch it.
00:05:15.760 It's just like, and then we, we just take them. That's awesome. It's like Tom Clancy stuff right
00:05:20.100 there. Yeah, it's fun. It was fun stuff. I, at the time I was like, ah, I want to be doing even
00:05:25.040 more. But then as I look back, I'm like, man, that was a really cool time. And I just love the idea
00:05:29.420 that we've got the pirate ships is what a fun thing to do. All right. So, uh, you've taken, uh,
00:05:33.980 the, the skills you develop on leadership development, uh, human performance that you picked up
00:05:38.620 and acquired while you were a seal. And now you're an executive coach and do consulting for,
00:05:42.440 uh, civilian businesses. Uh, but then you wrote this book, uh, it's called Raising Men Lessons
00:05:48.320 Navy SEALs Learned From Their Training and Taught Their Sons. Uh, why did you think there was a need
00:05:53.940 to write a fathering book, uh, specifically on fathering sons? Yeah, I was just, so I was just
00:06:02.180 reading, uh, Tony and I think it's pronounced Dungie's book, uh, Dungie, Dungie. Uh, he's from the NFL.
00:06:07.900 Uh, it's called uncommon. And I apologize to him if I messed the, his last name up, but, uh, there's
00:06:13.000 a quote in there that really answers this question. He was telling some of the older players that he
00:06:17.800 said, continue being who you are because our young people need to hear from you. If anything, be
00:06:23.140 bolder in who you are because our boys are getting a lot of wrong messages today about what it means
00:06:28.720 to be a man in this world about how they should talk, act, and dress. That's I, that I just read that
00:06:33.740 book, that part from the book a couple of days ago. And I think it really sums this up. Masculinity,
00:06:38.920 I believe has gotten hijacked, right? The, the world's changed. You guys can't just go to work,
00:06:44.880 come home, play catch with the kids anymore. It's a lot more complex. And this got a lot of guys really
00:06:49.600 busy. Um, it, it pulled us out of the role for a little while and it left a huge gap. And from what
00:06:56.280 I can see, popular culture has filled that gap in and started to redefine masculinity. So I think women
00:07:03.600 are on the rise. And again, I mean, they need support and help too, but we don't want to do
00:07:09.280 it or what we don't want to let happen is where men really did hold the role and it really helps
00:07:14.220 society. We don't want to lose that. So that's why I wanted to start two reasons. One, the publisher
00:07:18.980 wanted to start there. So I was like, okay, first book, I'll do it. And then as I thought about it,
00:07:23.560 I'm like, you know, this is a really good place to start because we're, I don't want to say under
00:07:27.360 attack, but we're definitely losing a functional definition of masculinity.
00:07:31.200 And how do you think pop culture has changed the definition of masculinity?
00:07:34.900 Well, it's, I mean, you know, if you look at the definition of masculinity, it literally,
00:07:39.120 it, it, it literally means that somebody is holding the traits that, uh, the culture would
00:07:43.740 think are manly. So in a way, masculinity is the product of pop culture from the get go.
00:07:48.760 Um, but what I'm seeing it do is it's, it's the kind of grandiose, right? It's, it's a lot
00:07:55.680 of marketing. Uh, I would think of masculinity or being a man is understanding all of the
00:08:00.660 responsibilities, all of the complexities that go into life, uh, assessing them, prioritizing
00:08:05.860 them and taking action on them so that we can lead our sons and daughters and other people
00:08:10.140 to do the same. Um, right now, popular culture or, you know, people think of masculinity as
00:08:16.260 getting in fights, being aggressive, uh, you know, those kinds of things, losing our temper.
00:08:21.280 Like these are things that aren't manly. They're actually things that happen when we fail at
00:08:25.800 manhood. Uh, so I think there's too much violence. I think there's too much physicality to
00:08:31.160 masculinity. Um, and I understand why, because back in the day we had to hunt and fight. That's
00:08:35.860 how we survived. And that was a man's role. But today's a little bit more of a Renaissance
00:08:39.820 time. We need to study, we need to invent, we need to, we need to make money. Like it's a
00:08:44.120 different world now.
00:08:45.220 And I think that's interesting. This is coming from a guy like you taught, trained people how
00:08:48.980 to be snipers, like how to do those sort of like traditional traits of masculinity, right? Kill
00:08:54.940 bad guys, jump on pirate ships. Yeah. I mean, you know, at the end of the day, there's evil
00:08:59.500 out there and, you know, sometimes violence is the last and final option, but you know,
00:09:04.900 violence is really just a product of like ignorance. So it's when we ran out of better
00:09:09.520 ideas is when we have to respond or offend in violence. Um, and it is different. And that's,
00:09:15.460 I like that seal platform, that voice. I like that for this reason so that I can show up
00:09:22.300 at a school or talk to kids or write a book and tell them that violence is definitely not
00:09:26.380 the answer. It's actually the, the end state of failure. Um, and seals, what they do, most
00:09:32.200 of it's not violent. I mean, we're experts in surveillance, technical and physical surveillance.
00:09:36.540 We study all the time. I mean, there's all kinds of things we do to avoid, uh, the conflict
00:09:41.600 and we're trained to do that. Just that's not as exciting. So we don't have so many
00:09:45.260 books or movies about that. Right. Um, so you have this phrase in your book called,
00:09:49.900 uh, chasing the bull. Um, and you say that many dads are chasing the bull when it comes
00:09:56.140 to raising the kids. So what do you mean by chasing the bull and how are dads chasing
00:09:59.780 the bull when it comes to raising their sons? Yeah. So chasing the bull and sniper terms,
00:10:05.460 it means chasing the bullseye. And what guys would do is, you know, they, they have scopes
00:10:09.820 on their gun. There's, there's some complexity to a weapon system, you know, for long distance
00:10:14.180 shooting and they would shoot and then their bullets, you know, they wouldn't hit the
00:10:17.860 bullseye. So then they would take their scope off, put their scope back on. They would readjust
00:10:23.260 the knobs on their scope and then they'd shoot and hit the bullseye for a little bit. But
00:10:26.740 then some of the variations that naturally occur inside of the weapon system would show
00:10:30.560 back up and then they'd come off the bullseye for a shot or two. And then they'd do it all
00:10:34.520 over again. They'd break down the scope, you know, they'd readjust their knobs and then
00:10:38.500 they'd hit the target once or twice and then it would come off the bullseye again.
00:10:41.560 They never settled into a fundamental principle of shooting. So with fathers, it's the same
00:10:47.700 thing and we'll see it, right? Like, okay, I need to spend more time with my kids. Like,
00:10:52.260 oh no, no, I need to make sure that I'm, I'm working out and I'm healthy. Like, oh, nope,
00:10:56.020 I need to start focusing on making money. You know, they'll jump around from one concern
00:11:00.360 to the other and they're basically chasing the bullseye. You know, spending time with kids
00:11:05.280 is not the point, right? We want to, we need to focus on desired in-state. We want to
00:11:09.260 produce happy, healthy, successful kids. Now that might mean that we need to spend a certain
00:11:13.960 amount of time with them, but spending the time isn't the end state. And when fathers or parents
00:11:19.080 or anybody's not focused on the end state, they end up chasing all these different tips and
00:11:23.940 techniques. But what they need to do is focus on the fundamentals and have those things cared for
00:11:29.240 in a harmonious way so that they can lead their sons, daughters, and others to do the same.
00:11:33.080 So, I mean, what are the fundamentals that dad should be focusing on if they shouldn't be so
00:11:37.460 concerned with all, you know, chasing the bullseye?
00:11:39.540 So inside, so inside of the book, I basically pulled out the fundamentals that we use in SEAL
00:11:45.160 training, like the principles that we talk about a lot. Those are the different chapters.
00:11:50.260 But perhaps even deeper than that, I take a very holistic approach to life. Like I literally keep,
00:11:56.640 I literally keep a mind map of all of the human concerns in life that I've been taught.
00:12:01.220 So money, body, spirituality, helping others, family, things like that. Those are the things,
00:12:08.740 those are the core elements to life, in my opinion. And there's some science to back that up,
00:12:13.840 that it's all about noticing and observing those things so that we can care for them
00:12:18.100 and keeping those things in harmony. So, you know, spending time with kids and things like that,
00:12:23.860 yes, that's important. But what's more important is that we're caring for those things so that we can
00:12:27.560 lead by example. Gotcha. So, you know, the book Raising Men is geared towards fathering
00:12:34.840 sons. But on your blog, you wrote that we can no longer raise our daughters for different purposes
00:12:41.640 than our sons. I'm curious, you both, you have both boys and girls. Are there differences in the
00:12:46.640 way you raise your daughters and your sons or do you raise them in the same way?
00:12:50.080 Yeah. Especially now, you know, my, so I have four kids, my oldest, they're all three girls,
00:12:56.140 one boy. My oldest is my first daughter. She's 23. I've, of course, my parenting style has changed
00:13:03.120 over the last 20 years. But what I've really, what I've come to is, yes, I raise the girls for the
00:13:09.640 exact, I think the best way to say it is I raise them for the exact same purposes as I do my son,
00:13:15.260 meaning that they have to compete on the same field now. They have to go out and make money just
00:13:20.720 like men do. They have to compete in careers. It's the same game, right? We don't have boys and
00:13:25.500 girls teams in real life. That only happens in sports. And that's not even probably going to last
00:13:31.060 too much longer. But girls are no different to train than boys. Fundamentally speaking, you have
00:13:39.060 to meet anybody, whether it's a dog or a kid or a person or a teammate, you have to meet them where
00:13:44.460 they are and move them to their next truth, their next capability, their next capacity.
00:13:49.920 So where people think girls and boys are different, they are no different. Now, so a girl meeting her
00:13:55.340 where she's at and moving her to her next truth, there could be different tactics and different
00:13:59.040 strategies. But fundamentally, we're doing the same thing and they absolutely have to compete.
00:14:03.500 That's why my girls are in jujitsu and I have them fighting Spartan boys all the time. Like,
00:14:07.540 I don't want them to be confused that way.
00:14:10.360 Okay. So that sounds very Spartan, like the Spartans raise their boys and girls.
00:14:14.460 Pretty much the same way girls were doing the wrestling naked as well.
00:14:18.800 Yeah. Well, I mean, a warrior, the thing about a warrior culture is that it's almost always going
00:14:26.560 to be functional. It's going to be focused on being effective, not being popular. So there'll
00:14:31.280 almost always be contrarian that way.
00:14:33.760 Yeah. So like, as you said, you take in the book, you take principles from your SEAL training,
00:14:40.320 your SEAL career and apply it to fatherhood. And you talk about asymmetrical warfare for our,
00:14:48.160 and you say that parenting today is much like asymmetrical warfare. For our listeners who aren't
00:14:52.720 familiar with asymmetrical warfare and what that means, can you describe it and maybe explain why
00:14:58.600 you think parenting today is akin to it?
00:15:01.460 Yeah. It's, it's, it's another way of saying, it's another way of describing the difference
00:15:06.460 between conventional and unconventional warfare. And I think the best example is, you know, the
00:15:11.860 red, you know, back in the day, the, the red coats, uh, coats fighting and, and, you know,
00:15:16.060 standing face to face and say, okay, you ready to lift your gun up and shoot. And then we're
00:15:19.800 going to lift our gun up and shoot. Um, that's very conventional. Um, and unconventional warfare
00:15:25.360 would be the guys in ghillie suits, sneaking around, you know, sabotage using intelligence,
00:15:29.580 different things like that. The reason why I relate it to parenting is I want to kind of help
00:15:35.680 people wake up to the idea that it's very popular to live a simplistic life. And, and there is,
00:15:41.920 there is wisdom in that we want thing, we want to simplify things, but we have to recognize that we
00:15:47.000 live in the most complex dynamic and competitive environment that this planet has ever seen because
00:15:52.380 of technology and it's, it's preservasiveness. It's all over. We have competitors coming from left
00:15:57.520 and right. The world is changing at a very rapid place or a rapid pace, excuse me. So what I'm,
00:16:04.020 what I'm saying there is it's not just, Hey, go to, you don't just go to college and go to work in
00:16:08.560 the factory for 30 years, come home, you know, drink a beer and go to bed. Uh, we need to be much more
00:16:14.360 engaged in different ways with our kids. We need to under, we need to be more like, uh, polymaths,
00:16:19.180 like Renaissance men. We have to understand different domains of concern. We have to understand
00:16:23.280 technology. There's no room for that anymore. Uh, so we just need to take a much more, uh, uh,
00:16:30.160 approach, uh, using, being experts in different domains. Now it's not so simple.
00:16:35.960 Right. And you could even argue like the influences that, you know, kids are experiencing today. Like
00:16:40.380 it's asymmetrical, right? It's like, they're getting blasted from all sorts of different sources on social
00:16:45.280 media, through their peers, through celebrities, via Instagram and all this stuff. And like your job as a
00:16:50.920 parent is like trying to help your kid and guide your kid amongst these competing voices. And so
00:16:56.240 you have to, you know, use some asymmetrical tactics to handle that. Absolutely. The, the,
00:17:02.080 the marketing and the access that marketing has to their little pumpkins is incredible. Even if,
00:17:08.560 even if your kids don't have a cell phone or a smartphone, their friends do. So it's hitting them
00:17:13.340 from all angles. One of my favorite things to teach is a little bit more advanced, but I like to
00:17:18.200 explain to people that freedom is not to do what you want or freedom, isn't doing what you want or
00:17:23.620 feel like that's only true. If you have control over what you want and feel like doing, but because
00:17:29.580 like you said, marketing and the world, it is so asymmetrical, they are controlling our behavior.
00:17:34.840 And I don't mean this like conspiracy theory. I mean, effective marketing that produces an environment
00:17:40.220 that has us behave in a certain way. They are doing that way more than we realize it. And if people
00:17:45.860 doubt that they can just look at their bank accounts and how much they're saving, they're losing that
00:17:49.720 war, right? So the marketplace is winning. Right. Uh, so this is fun. You liken, there's
00:17:55.340 the different phases of fatherhood to different phases of SEAL training. Uh, can you explain that
00:18:00.000 analogy a bit? Yeah, absolutely. So first phase, you know, SEAL training is three phases. First phase,
00:18:06.500 physical conditioning, second phase, dive phase, third phase is what they'd call land warfare
00:18:10.420 demolitions. So in first phase, uh, this is how it was explained to me when I was in training,
00:18:15.660 they said, okay, in first phase, really, you can only hurt yourself. You're kept kind of separate.
00:18:20.360 It's like a man on man defense that when we're parenting pretty much, you're trying to make sure
00:18:24.560 the kid doesn't just hurt themselves, walk themselves off of a ledge or, or toss themselves
00:18:29.400 into a gorilla pit in the zoo is what's happened, you know, happens nowadays too sometimes, but you're
00:18:33.720 making sure that they don't get hurt. Um, as they develop their ability to walk, crawl,
00:18:38.380 run, right? They're getting physically strong and ensure there's psychology and there's things we
00:18:42.700 can teach them there, but that's more or less what's going on. Then second phase, as they get
00:18:46.720 older and they go to school inside of SEAL training, you have what are, what's called your dive buddy.
00:18:51.700 So really all you can do is hurt yourself or maybe just your dive buddy. So you're kind of your
00:18:56.900 responsibility and power is expanding as you prove yourself and you develop your skills. Um, now with
00:19:02.380 parenting, if you look at behavior, behavior is a whole lot has to do with our experiences.
00:19:07.840 And one of the things kids experience from preschool to elementary school to middle school
00:19:13.620 is, are their friends. So we really watch their dive buddies, quote unquote, to make sure that the
00:19:19.520 people they're spending time with aren't warping their kind of sense of reality and their behavior.
00:19:24.740 Um, and that's how I look at second phase, those younger years. Now, third phase is when they start
00:19:29.680 to develop power and skill and capacity in SEAL training. You're using C4 plastic explosives,
00:19:35.260 you're using machine guns, all these things. So you can literally kill the whole class if you're
00:19:39.600 not careful. Same thing, third phase of life. When they start hitting those teenage years and
00:19:44.920 their young adult years, they can make choices that can kill the whole family. I mean, really
00:19:49.760 destroy the family. They can destroy themselves and people around them. And that's also where I
00:19:53.740 want to start teaching them. We before me, that's where they start learning like, Hey, life isn't
00:19:58.740 about just yourself. Life is actually about caring for others. And when you do that, life works out for
00:20:03.720 you. So I see those phases really work in parallel, um, from, Hey, just worry about myself and not
00:20:09.680 getting hurt to like worrying about myself and the people right immediately around me. And then being
00:20:14.300 concerned with like, you know, all the way out to the planet, other people, the entire planet,
00:20:18.800 the world that way.
00:20:20.360 Right. I love that. That's a great analogy. And so after you make this analogy, the rest of the book
00:20:24.420 is sort of directed to, um, highlighting different attributes, qualities, skills, um, you think,
00:20:31.060 um, children should learn, um, based on your career as a seal. And you also interview, uh,
00:20:35.760 fellow seals and get what they've taught their children, um, you know, about how to be a functioning
00:20:42.280 adult, uh, in society, um, based on their seal training. Uh, there's one aspect that I thought
00:20:47.880 was interesting. So today, you know, one of the, I guess, an idea of masculinity being warped is the
00:20:52.240 idea of, you know, dad sort of being these bumbling idiots who don't know how to do things. They,
00:20:57.320 they, all they want to do is eat and watch football, whatever. Um, but you say an important
00:21:02.120 aspect of fathering is respecting your kids respect. Um, how does that help you become a
00:21:09.660 leader in your family?
00:21:12.100 So if someone's going to follow you, right, it's, it's always a choice, right? So if someone's going
00:21:17.440 to follow you, then it's going to be really important that you understand what they're concerned
00:21:23.140 with and where they're trying to go. I mean, that's kind of an obvious one. If you think about
00:21:27.240 it, but so many parents and leaders in corporations, you see this all over the place.
00:21:31.100 They want people to respect them. They want people to follow them, but I'll ask them like,
00:21:36.320 well, you know, let me like the corporate analogy. I'm like, okay, do you know everybody on your team?
00:21:41.040 Do you know where they're trying to get? What are their really, what are their life's ambitions?
00:21:44.300 Where are they really trying to go? Or do you pretty much just assume that they want what you
00:21:48.900 want, whatever your objectives are. So to respect somebody else is to understand what it is
00:21:54.540 they're after. And then to lead someone else is to help them get there, to be the best source,
00:21:59.920 the best way for them to get to where they want to go, or even better to show them a better place
00:22:05.560 to go. So if parents want respect, then they need to, they first need to understand what respect
00:22:11.080 is. Most people can't really define it. And then they need to pragmatically and purposely produce it.
00:22:15.420 Yeah. And one of the things I love about that phrase, respect your kids respect, it's just,
00:22:20.200 it's always thinking about, okay, am I, the way I'm behaving or comporting myself, like, would this,
00:22:26.300 would this make my kids respect me? Right. And that's, that's a huge check on your behavior
00:22:30.980 and what you do.
00:22:31.880 Oh, it's crazy. We just, just last night, I mean, my, uh, my wife just last night, uh, said, Hey,
00:22:38.380 we let the girls, uh, read on their iPad or something. I mean, no, they're on their computer
00:22:43.380 reading something before they went to bed. Um, actually they might've been watching a show.
00:22:46.820 I don't even remember. No, I think they were watching videos. Sorry. So we, it was like a
00:22:50.080 special treat schools coming to an end, like, yep, go ahead and watch a couple of videos before you go
00:22:53.340 to bed. And then my wife said, Hey, turn it off. Time to go to bed. And I go, I said, Whoa, whoa,
00:22:57.900 ask, you know, I whispered, I go ask them if they're almost done. Cause think about that. If you're
00:23:02.320 reading a book or watching a video and someone says, shut it off now, like how disrespectful is that?
00:23:07.280 And especially with the girls, right? And like, honey, don't just tell them, ask them. They might just be a
00:23:11.580 minute away. That's respecting somebody's concerns. That's showing respect. And that's actually
00:23:16.640 teaching respect to your kids as well. Cause I don't generally respect somebody that just says,
00:23:21.100 shut your book off or turn your computer off. And I'm like, dude, I like two minutes away. Can you
00:23:25.340 just ask me? You know, that's not very respectful. Um, so, uh, we had, uh, Jocko Willink on the podcast,
00:23:33.280 uh, the other day, and he talked about this idea of extreme ownership. And you talk about this too,
00:23:38.080 is about, you know, personal responsibility. It's a big part of the seal ethos. How can dads
00:23:43.580 teach that to their children? Cause that's one of the things I worry about, right? As a dad,
00:23:46.900 it's like, am I going to raise a kid who's going to, you know, just like, just constantly give
00:23:51.100 excuses, not take responsibility for their mistakes. Um, so how can you, how can you teach your,
00:23:56.000 your kids that, that concept? So the best, so parenting, training, coaching, leading a lot,
00:24:04.960 like, think about consistency. Consistency is key. So I listened to my kids, the way they talk,
00:24:11.860 the way they explain. My son was king at telling me how stupid his teachers were and that he
00:24:16.580 shouldn't, shouldn't have to do the homework or it's not his fault or, you know what I mean?
00:24:20.900 He'd love doing that. Even to this day, he'll say something to me like that. And I'll be like,
00:24:25.160 seriously, are you ready? Here it comes. Um, so how I, how I train it, how I teach it
00:24:30.920 is first being aware of it, right? A lot of us, I mean, we all have to check ourselves first.
00:24:36.280 The book is more about becoming the man or the person that we want to be so that we can lead
00:24:41.260 our sons than it is about being like a parenting book. So this is another example. We have to check
00:24:46.600 ourselves. And that's what I think Jocko and Leaf were doing in their book is seals are brutal.
00:24:52.020 And after actions report, if you try to make an excuse, they'll hammer you. I mean, you get beat up
00:24:56.660 for something like that too. In a war zone, it's very, very dangerous. So it's to be consistent
00:25:01.300 when you hear your kids say something and they're given an excuse, right? And understand the difference
00:25:06.320 between an excuse and a reason, right? So there are reasons we can't do things, but when we remove a
00:25:11.700 re the reason we were able to move forward and excuse, if you remove it, you're not able to move
00:25:17.460 forward. They'll just be another excuse. And this constantly be with them, always give them those
00:25:21.880 rhetoric corrections and help them understand when they're basically BS in themselves, but check yourself
00:25:26.340 first. Cause God, we do, we all do it a whole bunch. Make sure we're being real with ourselves
00:25:30.620 too. Right. Yeah. The kids are watching. If they see you constantly making excuses, they're going to
00:25:35.000 do the same thing too. Oh yeah. And they're going to perceive it too. That's the scariest part before
00:25:39.960 they can put it into language and understand that that was an excuse versus a reason it, right?
00:25:44.920 They're going to perceive it. Like they're human beings are good that way. That's how we survive.
00:25:49.200 They're going to be like, wait, something's off there. What mom or dad just said, that doesn't sound
00:25:53.160 like something that really stopped them. It sounds like they're making something up, but that's even
00:25:57.320 worse because they're experiencing it. So another concept you borrowed from your career as a SEAL
00:26:02.900 and applied to parenting is this idea of IAD. So what is an IAD and how can dads implement them
00:26:10.680 into their family to help their family be the best family they can be?
00:26:14.320 Oh yeah. So we call them IADs or immediate action drills. And inside of SEAL training, you'll do these
00:26:21.580 for everything. If your gun jams or your scuba tanks go off. And I think they're best known for if you,
00:26:28.880 if you get contacted by the enemy. So if you're on patrol, you're approaching a target and you get
00:26:34.080 contacted and you weren't expecting the contact, we have an immediate action drill. So meaning we've
00:26:39.560 practiced responding to the unexpected. SEALs never have anything happen to them. We always are
00:26:48.340 controlling our environment, our situation. We're never victims. So the IADs is like, okay, if your
00:26:54.940 kid rolls your eyes at you, what are you going to immediately do? If you're tired and fed up and
00:27:02.000 your patience is low, what's your immediate action drill? You recognize like, man, I'm not patient.
00:27:06.800 I'm not going to be a very effective parent right now. What is it I do? One of my favorite IADs is when
00:27:12.780 my kids ask me for something, I have an immediate action drill of always saying, starting with yes.
00:27:17.780 I don't always say yes. I always start with yes. Meaning it's now on me. Is there a functional
00:27:22.140 reason I have to say no? And the purpose of IADs is that we're not reacting to things.
00:27:28.300 Use martial arts as an example. When someone throws a punch at you, you can either flinch or throw your
00:27:32.780 hands in the air and they throw the jab and then they hit you with the cross and knock you out.
00:27:37.380 Or you can condition yourself to respond in a much more effective manner. So IADs are all about just
00:27:42.260 thinking about all the situations that come up in parenting and prepare for them ahead of time and
00:27:46.560 come up with more effective and efficient ways of handling them. Like it's bedtime, but the kids
00:27:51.980 are reading a book. Immediate action drill when they say, hey, can I stay up? Is to say, oh, maybe how
00:27:56.880 much more time do you have? Something like that. Gotcha. Okay. I like that. I like that a lot.
00:28:03.080 So, you know, kind of related to IADs, I guess it's not related. I'm going to edit that part out
00:28:08.600 because it's not related at all. But this idea of helping your kids self-regulate, it's a big
00:28:12.880 part of parenting. You know, it's basically self-regulation is how we become humans, like
00:28:18.920 move from like chimp phase to human phase where we can control our impulses and not act like feral
00:28:24.820 little beast. So what lessons from your career as a SEAL can dads use to help teach their kids
00:28:31.260 self-regulation? So these I actually think are really related to IADs, the immediate action
00:28:38.420 drills, because that's what we're doing. We're consistently training them. So I think the first
00:28:45.740 thing to recognize is the power of real training. And that's the thing. Parents aren't ever, you know,
00:28:51.580 the only thing required to be a parent is just getting someone pregnant or becoming pregnant.
00:28:56.640 Like parents out of all roles on the planet should be the best at behavior science training and
00:29:03.380 coaching and leadership, right? Because we're shaping these guys when they're at a young age,
00:29:07.560 very, very malleable, and it's going to stick with them for a long time. So I'd say the first
00:29:12.860 thing is recognize the power and importance of training. We're not born like these little crazy
00:29:18.680 kids. They're not born to react a particular way. Sure, we have propensities towards aggression
00:29:23.380 or propensities towards making excuses. There's different things like that. But again, like the
00:29:27.880 martial arts example, we can recondition ourselves to act a certain way, but you need a very powerful
00:29:33.380 and effective coach. So if parents want to shape their kids' behavior, they need to understand
00:29:38.820 behavior science. They need to understand coaching. They need to understand training,
00:29:42.180 and then they have to be consistent. So I have a Belgian Malinois, which they're like little,
00:29:46.900 like German Shepherds, 30% smaller, but 30% nastier. They're the same dogs they use in the SEAL teams.
00:29:51.860 And I train her to be an executive protection dog. And one of the key ingredients to training
00:29:57.580 these dogs is consistency. When we're not consistent, if we're not good trainers, the
00:30:02.420 dogs get frustrated and confused, and they don't learn. It stresses them out, actually. And you see
00:30:06.420 that with a lot of kids. I watch parents yell at their kids or respond to their kids being those
00:30:11.800 little feral beasts, and they're just mean about it. They're disrespectful, and it just beats the kid
00:30:17.040 up. Because a lot of parents just suck at it. It's embarrassing to watch sometimes.
00:30:22.160 Right. Yeah. And they've actually found that. The same thing that works with dogs,
00:30:25.700 the consistency works with kids as well. It's like if you're inconsistent with how you discipline
00:30:31.460 children, they get anxious, and they don't know how to respond to setbacks. And they just
00:30:37.520 get really... Become neurotic, almost.
00:30:39.700 Oh, yeah. There's a big section. Mike Ritlin, he went to Bud's with me. He was a SEAL with me. And
00:30:46.140 he trains dogs for the SEAL pipeline and other government agencies. And there's a whole section
00:30:50.220 where him and I talk about... I had an entire chapter. We ended up pulling it out, but basically
00:30:54.940 to raise your kids like dogs. And the name is to kind of spark people's interest, of course,
00:31:00.440 and maybe even fire a few people up. But it's the exact same thing. Behavior science is behavior
00:31:05.280 science. And if you talk to a dog trainer and you understand their knowledge of reward and punishment
00:31:09.800 and how that all works, they'll outpace a parent any day. They take training their dogs way more
00:31:14.060 serious than parents take training their kids. So you have this section I thought was interesting
00:31:20.500 because I think it's one thing that people love to carp about in today's culture is this idea of
00:31:26.160 participation trophies. It's like, oh, why did you get a trophy just for playing t-ball? You got to win.
00:31:31.820 But you kind of have more of a nuanced approach to it. And it's based on your
00:31:35.960 experience as a SEAL. So what can the SEALs teach dads about how to handle participation trophies?
00:31:43.480 So think about SEAL training. The way I like to describe SEAL training to people, especially kids
00:31:49.460 that they want to go, and they're like, what's your advice? And the obvious advice, the number one
00:31:55.540 piece of advice any SEAL is going to tell anybody going to SEAL training, or it's going to be pretty
00:32:00.140 darn close to number one, is they're going to say, don't quit. And what does to not quit means
00:32:04.980 to participate? SEAL training is very unique in the fact that as long as you don't quit, you win.
00:32:12.120 Now, of course, there's exceptions. People get hurt and stuff like that. But I'm talking about for the
00:32:15.840 whole, right? On average, as long as you don't quit, you win. So people don't understand participation
00:32:21.660 trophies going back to behavior science because they don't understand behavior science, right?
00:32:26.880 So now participation trophies are misused a whole bunch, but again, because they don't understand
00:32:31.760 it. So my two daughters were in a swim league and they went to their first competition and like one
00:32:38.160 of them got like a fourth place, which was unique because I think there was only three swimmers. So
00:32:43.660 she swam so slow in the race. I think they had to bump her back a place. There wasn't even a human
00:32:48.060 there. It was so bad, but she got a ribbon for it. And she came out, got that ribbon and was beaming.
00:32:53.540 It was her first competition. She loved that she got the ribbon, came running over to me and showed
00:32:58.460 it to me. Guess what those guys were doing? Well, the competitions we have to pay for,
00:33:03.020 the coaches we have to pay for, they were making sure she came back. They were rewarding her for
00:33:07.840 participating. Most military awards are awards for participating because they want you to keep
00:33:12.840 going. So participation trophies are a reward for showing up so that you continue to show up.
00:33:21.560 Now, if you keep giving them over and over again, they're going to get diluted and become
00:33:26.160 ineffective. And there's ways you can use them in an effective manner where you start actually
00:33:29.840 punishing the performers. That's something different. Participation trophies are extremely
00:33:34.380 good. And anyone that thinks they should be removed, they just need to study some behavior
00:33:38.000 science. What they need to do is be corrected on how they're used.
00:33:41.420 Right. And so on top of the participation, eventually you'll add in awards for, you know,
00:33:46.400 merit for excellence and merit, like just as the military does.
00:33:49.640 Well, yeah, it's like perseverance, right? It's like keeping going. You have to continuously up
00:33:54.280 the bar of the challenge. The challenge always has to be a little bit beyond your skill, just
00:33:58.180 like in a video game. That's how people keep going. So if you just keep rewarding people for
00:34:01.980 showing up, showing up, eventually it's not going to have any oomph. Same thing, behavior science.
00:34:05.800 If you give a dog the same reward over and over again, pretty soon they're just going to expect
00:34:09.640 it and not even care about it anymore. You have to, there has to be variables. And like we were
00:34:13.980 talking about our environment, the asymmetrical situation we're in, if you look at like gambling
00:34:19.940 or even text messaging, there are participation trophies to get you going. And then they start
00:34:25.000 to vary the reward. They call it ratio and schedule. It starts to change from there. And if it doesn't
00:34:29.280 start to change, the reward becomes ineffective, but they're really good at it. That's why we all
00:34:32.960 stay on our phones and like to gamble, or at least I do.
00:34:37.160 So throughout the book, you describe some of your parenting style and man, you were tough
00:34:45.640 on your kids. Like you intentionally made them uncomfortable throughout their childhood and
00:34:50.720 even up and through their teenage years. So why do you think it's important for dads
00:34:56.080 to create intentional discomfort in their children's lives?
00:35:01.720 Well, okay. So yeah, I'm a good, I'm glad we're talking about the behavior science stuff
00:35:05.940 because this, this steps right in, this is in the same, same vein as well. So it's, the discomfort
00:35:13.400 is part of the training and conditioning. There's a popular term, punishment should fit the crime.
00:35:20.120 And that's, that's not true. That's kind of a misunderstood thing because we're kind of all
00:35:25.820 our society is all about justice and we can point at prison systems and understand that punishment
00:35:30.980 does not change behavior. Punishment should be, if you're using punishment, it should change the
00:35:37.060 behavior. So, you know, there's, there's four quadrants of behavior change, right? There's,
00:35:42.780 there's something to encourage behavior. So it's positive reinforcement or what they call negative
00:35:47.100 reinforcement, or there's something to discourage behavior, positive punishment or negative punishment.
00:35:52.820 And so producing discomfort could be a form of both, but it's not about the production of
00:36:00.300 discomfort. It's about the behavior change, if that makes sense. So, uh, with my kids, I'll, you
00:36:06.720 know, my son, there's a story in the book about him. You know, I came home and he just refused to do
00:36:10.820 his homework and I, and he was disrespectful to his step-mom who they have a loving relationship. So
00:36:16.800 it's not like a, you know, it's just inappropriate. So he was behaving in that manner. So what I did is
00:36:22.420 I applied intentional discomfort. And I think it's important too, cause like, I don't want to get
00:36:27.920 like child, uh, the child services called on me because you know, I dump them in a really cold pool
00:36:33.580 and I've dumped them in the ocean and things like that all the time. But what's important is for him,
00:36:39.320 these weren't these super extreme, uh, kind of borderline abusive, uh, reaction. He's, he's grown
00:36:46.020 up around the water. He's grown up in extreme circumstances that we've done both for fun.
00:36:50.040 And, you know, we do it all the time. Um, and that's an important thing here. So when we're
00:36:54.980 talking about dads creating intentional discomfort to either encourage a behavior or discourage a bad
00:37:00.820 behavior, um, it's gotta be appropriate for the child. It's gotta be appropriate for the,
00:37:05.660 the behavior. So again, using dogs as an example, if you come down on the dog too hard, they're just
00:37:10.720 going to stop training. Same thing with kid. You can't come down on them too hard. It has to be just
00:37:15.220 a little bit outside their comfort level and inappropriate for their behavior.
00:37:19.020 And if I remember correctly, like the, the intentional discomfort that you applied to your
00:37:23.040 son in that situation with the, with your wife, I think like you make him like throw his
00:37:26.980 PlayStation into the swimming pool or something.
00:37:29.320 Yeah, no, that was part of the same story. I was just going there. So, okay. So in the context
00:37:35.540 of behavior change, right? So, uh, positive punishment would be to add something, uh,
00:37:41.560 uncomfortable enough that somebody would change their behavior. So first thing I did,
00:37:45.240 um, or, uh, negative punishment is to take away something they like. So I took a skateboard,
00:37:51.760 smashed it on the cement, uh, took his PlayStation and chucked it in the pool. So I started with what
00:37:57.280 they would call negative punishment. I said, okay, well, we're going to remove some things that you
00:38:01.020 really enjoy. Um, and I don't, I'm by no means, I don't want to be careful. Like I'm not a tyrant.
00:38:07.400 I'm, I'm, I'm a, if you watch me teach and lead, I'm actually, people will say, man, you're patient
00:38:11.340 and kind and loving. Uh, but there are times where like, you know what, we're going to have to do
00:38:16.260 something that's going to stick here a little bit. I'm going to need you to remember this buddy.
00:38:19.720 You know, that's, that's what that was. And I do those things very seldom. I mean,
00:38:24.240 probably three, four times in the kid's life. Will I do something somewhat extreme? Um, and yeah,
00:38:30.780 I tossed that PlayStation and it was a really cold night, even though we were in Southern California,
00:38:34.680 the antifreeze was coming on, on my pool. It was just super cold. And then I said, well,
00:38:38.880 you're going to have to go in and get it. And he went and grabbed the pool net to fish it out.
00:38:43.720 And I was like, no, no, no, you're going to have to go in and get it. So I sent him into the water.
00:38:48.840 Um, and, and that would be called, that would be called positive punishment,
00:38:52.300 meaning something very uncomfortable that would change the behavior. Um, and then I spent a lot
00:38:56.620 of time talking with him. Um, anytime we're in a situation where there's kind of that heavier
00:39:01.120 discipline, I won't leave his side. I won't depart from him until we've come full circle and we're
00:39:05.780 like hugging. Uh, so we kept going until he was cool and I was cool. Uh, and that's important because
00:39:11.480 I want to make sure he wants to continue to train with me, uh, for lack of a better word.
00:39:16.020 Right. And I guess there wasn't any problems after that.
00:39:18.980 Um, not, I mean, that problem was gone. I mean, then he'll,
00:39:22.300 here's the thing he knows the, my kids know me to step in for every little thing. So for me,
00:39:31.320 there's a chapter called, it's better to keep up than catch up. And there's a couple of different
00:39:34.600 ways to apply it. But one of them is with the disciplining and raising your kids. I don't want,
00:39:39.700 when my kids are in a heavy, heavy situation, that's not going to be the first time I come in
00:39:44.280 to start coaching and teaching. So I'm doing it all of the time. Um, so it doesn't, it's like them
00:39:51.200 to be coached by me and it's like me to address every little thing for them. Uh, so yeah, I would
00:39:56.880 say it's more of the little things that, that deal with the behavior than something like that.
00:40:01.380 Those kinds of things are almost just to show them like, Hey, when I say I'm going to do something,
00:40:05.700 I am going to do it. So if, if you get into drugs and I tell you that I'm going to take you
00:40:11.020 out into the wilderness for four weeks, two weeks to whoop your ass and two weeks to let you
00:40:15.620 recover. So I don't get arrested. He knows like, man, that's serious. Cause I've seen him do it
00:40:21.420 before. Right. Um, so we've been having a great conversation, but, and I, I know these questions
00:40:27.320 are kind of dumb. I mean, cause it's so trite, but I'm curious, uh, is there one piece of advice
00:40:32.240 from your book that you think if dad started implementing today, they would see, start seeing
00:40:37.380 some immediate return on investment? Yes. Lead from the front has become my favorite. I didn't know how
00:40:42.960 much it was my favorite when I was writing, but now I've done some interviews lead from the front
00:40:47.460 beat. I heard just too many times guys say, man, I'm going to just sacrifice myself so I can make
00:40:53.100 money for my family, or I'm just going to go have fun and do whatever feels good for me. Forget the
00:40:59.880 family or it was always this extreme version of something. Right. And it's nothing that they wanted
00:41:05.240 their kids to be like the idea of dads sacrificing their happiness and health just to care for their
00:41:10.800 family. I'm all about the sacrifice, but here's the problem guys, like everybody out there,
00:41:15.660 how that's what you're teaching your son to do. So leading from the front, be the happy,
00:41:20.740 healthy person that you want to have your son or daughter or friend, anyone around you be
00:41:25.820 so that you can lead them to do the same. That's right.
00:41:30.060 Yeah. And like you, that's kind of based on some personal looks, cause you, you talk about in your
00:41:33.620 story, like your dad was for that self-sacrificing guy. Um, but it got to the point where he has,
00:41:39.780 you know, had a severe bout of depression where he had to go away from you guys.
00:41:44.400 Yeah. He got really, really sick. And at the, you know, at the end, and he's in a nursing home to
00:41:48.780 this day, but at the end of the day, it was the life he lived. You know, he was a sheriff and he
00:41:54.000 was a Bishop of our church. My grandfather was an FBI agent. And these are just tactical lives. You
00:41:58.420 don't have to live those lives. My point being at the end of the day, what I did is I ended up
00:42:02.180 following what he did in his whole life. Uh, so whether he, that's why like, yes, we have to be there
00:42:08.140 for our kids. We want to spend time with our kids. That's important, valuable stuff. But a lot of
00:42:12.880 times what we do with our life is going to trump all of that because they're going to, they're
00:42:16.720 going to watch us. I think so. I've heard it said, don't, they are going to catch more than they
00:42:20.380 hear or whatever, whatever it's called. It's that, that experience. And just too many guys are just
00:42:24.800 that they got a sacrifice like that. It's a, it's a, so in SEAL training, I was a medic and I was a
00:42:31.080 corpsman or we're a corpsman, which are medics. And it was my job to take care of the students,
00:42:35.800 a whole bunch. And, and some guys wouldn't rehab at night. They wouldn't take care of
00:42:39.320 themselves. And I always thought, man, that's weird. Um, that's not going to work. And then
00:42:43.300 sure enough, they'd get injured and then they get rolled or dropped from training. Then later on,
00:42:47.540 as I studied psychology and philosophy and things like that in my forties, and I've done all this
00:42:51.400 training now, I look back at it and I realized, oh man, what those guys were doing, they were
00:42:55.660 quitting. They just didn't want to say I quit. And I see men do that all the time. They're just
00:43:00.660 running themselves into the ground because they're so miserable. They're trying to quit,
00:43:04.160 but they don't want to say I quit. It's their psychology kind of taking care of them.
00:43:08.420 So it's an, we can't do that. That's quitting. When we don't take care of ourselves, guys,
00:43:12.380 we're quitting because we have to be the example to our kids.
00:43:15.680 That's great. Well, Eric, uh, where can people learn more about your book?
00:43:20.140 Uh, best place is just my website. Cause I have everything I do in my books or anything I'm
00:43:25.140 writing is there. So it's Eric Davis, two one five.com. It's Eric with a C Davis, two one five.com.
00:43:30.680 And I've got links to the book and then all my papers. Um, and I just try to keep my hub of
00:43:35.100 the work I do right there. So it's accessible. Great. Well, Eric Davis, thank you so much for
00:43:39.920 your time. It's been a pleasure. Uh, thank you, Brett. It's been fantastic. I really appreciate
00:43:43.420 it. My guest today was Eric Davis. His book is called Raising Men. It's available on amazon.com
00:43:48.260 and bookstores everywhere. And also you can check out Eric's website at ericdavis215.com, uh, to read
00:43:54.740 more of the content he's put out there and also make sure to check out the show notes
00:43:58.340 at aom.is slash Davis. Well, that wraps up another edition of the art of manliness podcast.
00:44:17.160 For more manly tips and advice, make sure to check out the art of manliness website at
00:44:20.260 art of manliness.com. And if you enjoy this podcast and have got something out of it, I'd
00:44:23.840 appreciate it if you give us a review on iTunes or Stitcher as I will help spread the word about
00:44:28.360 the show. As always, I appreciate your continued support. And until next time, this is Brett McKay
00:44:33.080 telling you to stay manly.
00:44:50.260 Thank you.