Blog Insights & Inspiration

Guns may get all the attention, but words will do more damage. Let me tell you a story on why this journey to become more effective as a Dad matters.  There will come a day in your journey where the enemy is unknown, it will happen in places you thought to be safe.  The enemy

Kids Don’t Need Us to Be Perfect Last year I decided to take my oldest daughter skiing; I had been a few times early in my life but not much as an adult, but living in Wisconsin, it had been on my mind for a while to pick it up again. I remember procrastinating the

I spent the first 5 years after my Military service looking for the feeling of home.  I had a good-paying job, I had just built a brand-new home, I was a husband, I was a dad, but dam if I didn’t feel empty inside.   This early mid-life crisis led me precisely ​to where I am

Stadiums are filled with thousands of people but only a few people on the field. For example, there might be fifty thousand in the stands in football, but only 100 players on the field between the two teams, and only 22 people engaged in the game at any one moment.  It speaks to the crisis

What do fear and faith both have in common? They both represent the future in an unknown state. They are both a choice that we have every day we wake up. Are you going to lean into the fear in our thoughts or lean into the faith? Before humans left the cave, fear kept us

How do you feel about your life so far at this point? Is it the one you wanted, or is it the one you felt like you had to have? Ever get worked up into the comparison game trying to see who has the better life, and why can’t that be my life? Or maybe

As a Marine, one of the most sacred places we can visit is Iwo Jima, it is a small island in the Pacific, and until WWII, it had little significance in the world. Being stationed in Okinawa, it is only a short flight on a C-130 but getting on the list of people to go

I recently heard this parable, and it illustrated why most men struggle to grow past where they are or heal from generational trauma passed down to them. A policeman sees a drunk man searching for something under a streetlight and asks what the drunk has lost. He says he lost his keys, and they both

What Was Your Relationship with Love Growing Up? My Grandma was my first best friend growing up. She was at the end of our driveway and was there every day of early life. She was the first one I would see when I got off the bus, the first place I went during the summer,

During my time in the Marine Corps, I was stationed in Okinawa, Japan, and did my 4-year enlistment there.  And one thing we did often was deploy for exercises in South Korea.  If you have never been to South Korea, it is an exciting place, and I would often joke that it felt like America,

I just want my family back. I hear these words a lot with the dads I am talking to. Either they are on the edge of losing everything, or it’s already fading in the rearview mirror. There is a reason the rearview mirror is smaller than the view ahead. The conversations are not easy to

It was 2019; I was on my way to Washington D.C. for a conference; I had preplanned to arrive on the first fight in the morning so that I could have the entire day to enjoy D.C. I arrived at the airport, parked the car, and at that moment it hit me. I don’t think

I remember the moment that this question became clear to me like it was yesterday. I remember it because it was the moment I became a United States Marine. I remember seeing my Dad in the bleachers and knowing they moved a lot of mountains to be there in San Diego.     I knew

This thread has become the common one in all the conversations I have had with dads over the past five years.   It can be a sliding scale between my Dad was a dumpster fire for problems and my dad guided me towards the idea I could be and do anything in this life I

Broken One of the worst feelings one can feel is when they feel broken.  Broken can be something someone gives you as a label or the voice inside our head repeats it like a bad record.  In a mind that believes its broken, any thought is possible from divorce to suicide, or maybe just walking