How to prioritize our time as busy husbands and fathers

Show Transcripts:

Intro: Welcome to the Father on Purpose podcast, featuring author and ministry leader, Kent Evans, and business executive and military veteran, Lawson Brown. This is a show for you, dad. You want to be a godly and intentional father. Unfortunately, you’ve turned to these two knuckleheads for help. Let us know how that works out for you. Before we begin, remember this, you are not a father on accident, so go be a father on purpose. Please welcome your hosts, Kent and Lawson.

Kent Evans: Hey, Lawson. How are you my friend?

Lawson Brown: What’s up buddy boy?

Kent Evans: Man.

Lawson Brown: Doing good.

Kent Evans: I’m just hanging out. Yeah. Today I walked into the YMCA in Louisville, Kentucky, and there were roses up on the door, and I thought, why are there roses on the door? And I realized, oh shoot, next week is the Derby, the Kentucky Derby.

Lawson Brown: Yeah, no doubt.

Kent Evans: Speaking of Kentucky, speaking of Kentucky, that’s a shameless, awful segue.

Lawson Brown: Hey, look at that segue.

Kent Evans: Thank you. Thank you.

Lawson Brown: Yeah.

Kent Evans: Speaking of Kentucky, as many of our listeners know, we have this cool feature on our site where you can go in and leave us a message. I would love for a big chunk of our show to become just answering questions that dads raise, or sharing tips that other dads share, or talking about challenges dads have.

Lawson Brown: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It also makes me feel like, okay, we’re all struggling in the same thing. I’m not alone.

Kent Evans: Yeah. Exactly. And so today we have a voicemail that was left on our website by Eric Davenport. And Eric turns out, lives not super far from me. He’s one of our Louisville listeners, Louisville, Kentucky. And then in the next coming couple of weeks, we got a message that was sent to us by a guy named Chris from California. So we’ve got people leaving us voicemails about either questions they have as dads, or ideas they have, or challenges they have as dads, and we’re going to drop some of those in right here over the next several weeks, man.

Lawson Brown: How would somebody Dell to do that?

Kent Evans: Oh gosh. I’m so glad you asked, Lawson. They would go to manhoodjourney.org/podcast. That’s manhoodjourney.org/…

Lawson Brown: No, no. Don’t use your radio voice.

Kent Evans: Can I use my old lady smoker voice? So look honey, you got go to manhoodjourney.org/podcast, and you just leave us… You hit the button. Okay? You mash the button.

Lawson Brown: Mash.

Kent Evans: You mash, you mash. Thank you for… I married an amazing woman almost exactly 27 years ago, by the way, just celebrated our 27th…

Lawson Brown: Right on.

Kent Evans: … anniversary.

Lawson Brown: Congrats.

Kent Evans: She’s from Alabama, for the most part, born in Georgia, lived in Alabama. And so that’s the first time I’ve ever heard someone say mash in terms of a button that you press. So if you’re from the south, God bless you for saying the word mash when you’re hitting a button on a phone or a gas pump.

Lawson Brown: I know that term. You can mash potatoes or you can mash that button.

Kent Evans: So you go to manhoodjourney.org/podcast, and you mash the button that says speak now, and you can just leave us a voicemail and we’re going to play it. So today, the cool thing about this one that we’re going to share here in just a moment is it is a common, common challenge. I have not ever met a dad… I think I can say this with all accuracy. I’ve never met a dad who at some level did not struggle with what we’re going to share today. Wouldn’t you agree with that?

Lawson Brown: Yeah. And I love the way how Eric… Well, first of all, you got to… When you replay this, listen to the entire thing, because it gets funny at the very end. But Eric is coming from, I think, a genuine place. And when you listen to this one minute long message he gave us, you’ll probably hear your own self in there. I know I did. And so first Eric, thanks, dude for dropping us that voice message. And I’ll say the same thing that we’ve mentioned before in other places. You’re not alone. A lot of guys struggle with this. How do you find the way in which you interact with everything around you, including obviously your work and your family.

Kent Evans: Cool. So let’s dive in, let’s listen to Eric, and then we’ll come back and we’ll pick apart his comment ruthlessly.

Speaker 4: Hey, Kent and Lawson. I love what you guys do. Love the podcast. Kent, I am also from the Ville, fellow Kentucky in here, so crazy to hear that you’re from Louisville when I bumped into your podcast. So I would love to hear your guys’ perspective on grinding at work, getting things done from the work side of life while balancing family and time spent with your kids at the same time, and your wife. A little background, my wife and I have a side hustle in real estate where we [inaudible 00:04:34] turn them into Airbnbs, and we are heavy into that right now. We do all the work ourselves. I have another nine to five, so I’m doing this work at nights and on weekends. And I do my best to spend time with our three and one year old boys, we have a little girl on the way as well, and try to give them definitely a few hours in between working, but I still feel super guilty when they’re crying because I can’t hold them because I have to go use a tile saw.

So Kent, as an entrepreneur in the ministry world, and Lawson, as a high level business guy, I’m sure you guys have come across these seasons of life, and I would love to hear how you balanced that, what that looked like for your family. Maybe give an idea, and I know it’s different for everyone, but what’s the line? So thank you guys so much for everything you do.

Kent Evans: Wait for it.

Speaker 4: Oh man. Phone locked out. Sorry for the awkward silence here at the end.

Kent Evans: So Lawson, what’d you think of what Eric shared?

Lawson Brown: That’s hilarious.

Kent Evans: I know the ending was classic. He’s so-

Lawson Brown: I’m sorry, my phone locked out.

Kent Evans: He’s so busy as a dad, can’t even keep track of what his phone’s doing. Eric, pull over. Eric, pull over.

Lawson Brown: Yeah.

Kent Evans: But no, what’d you think, man? I mean, can you relate to where he is?

Lawson Brown: Yeah, you can… I mean, he sounds like an energetic, fun guy. And what I find myself doing too, is listening to these things and wishing that we could go back and forth some with other questions. But look, our audience understands that this is one of those situations where probably everybody feels that same way. And something Eric mentions where he’s got to kid pulling at him, and he is like, “Sorry, I got to run the tile saw.” I totally get that. Although I am not out renovating houses to then turn around and rent them, every job has its tile saw. What he means is there’s something going on at work that he can’t not do in that exact moment, and how do you prioritize what you’re doing with what your family needs, I think is a broader way of asking that question.

And that’s… Dude, that’s the age old question, especially in our society today where everybody is just so stinking busy, it’s hard to… It really is hard to figure out how do you handle it all and do it well. But I want to hone in on something. He says… Talking about balance, he says, “So what’s the line?” And that’s what I would want to ask him. What do you mean what’s the line? I think I’m going to interpret it as this. If balance is the goal, and I think we need to talk about balance, if balance is the goal, is your question, is your thought process about where’s the line? Well, I would say the line is what does imbalance look like? Is it that you’re spending 60-20-20, work, family fun? Is it 70-30 and you’ve cut out all fun/

I don’t think so, nor do I think it’s 50-50. I think imbalance could be, are there symptoms of imbalance showing up in your life in the form of disruption among your children that is seeming to get out of hand, or maybe a strain between you and your wife, or maybe strain at work that you’re not handling correctly? I don’t believe, and you can correct me, I don’t believe there’s such thing as harmony in life where everything is just perfectly balanced. That’s what I picture when I think of someone’s got everything in balance is, there’s a level of harmony where it’s just like, “Okay, cool, everything is just right where it needs to be. I’m really doing a good job of allocating time and effort to all the very different things, and it’s all in balance.” Because I also think once it’s there, one little thing will tip it over, will tip it out of balance. And so I don’t know, what do you think about that?

Kent Evans: Well, so I’m glad Eric said the word balance, because I think a lot of us would express it in very similar terms, right? Even now, there’s a bit of a movement, I don’t know, the last 5 or 10 years in corporate America that talks about work-life balance, right? And it’s this idea that there are moments when life has to trump work. I mean, and that’s what corporations mean when they say it, is, yeah, if you have a death in the family, we get it. You got to have a work-life balance, or you don’t need to work here a hundred hours a week, we’re going to burn you out. And so there is that idea. I think what’s interesting from my perspective is years ago, I had a friend of mine kind of challenge me on using that exact same word, and I’ve come to kind of warm up to his sort of challenge.

He goes, “Here’s the problem with the word balance. The problem with the word balance is it sounds like everything’s equal.” So what you’re saying is my wife is worth a pound of attention, my kids are worth a pound of attention, my job is worth a pound of attention, my Bible study’s worth a pound of attention, and you see it like this giant plate with things all around it and they’re all equal. And his challenge to me was, that may not be the best way to look at life, in terms of treating everything equal. And so I said, “What do you mean?” He goes, “Well, your relationship with your wife needs to be the most important relationship in your life. You don’t want to give her five minutes, your poker buddies five minutes, your fantasy football league five minutes, and everything gets balanced. It’s all smoothed out and even.” And I was like, “That is a good kind of correction,” so to speak. So I’m glad Eric used that word, because I think a lot of us would use that word. I think what I might pivot toward is a word like prioritize because I think that’s the spirit of the question. How do we get to where the pie chart of our life, which we only have a fixed amount every day, so many hours that we’re awake, 16 hours awake, maybe. If you’re awake 16 hours, how do you carve up those 16 hours in a way that honors God, honors your spouse, honors your family, honors your employer. And then Saturdays might look different and Sundays might look different yet. And so I think that in my head, when I hear balance, I think prioritize. And when I think prioritize, I think of a pie chart, and I think of different areas of my life and how much time can I give them.

And I think for me, Lawson, one of the more important pieces of that consideration is this age and stage of life. So for example, we have boys who are 22 down to 7, and we adopted two younger boys. And what that means for our family is, I’m 52, and I’ll be going to a high school graduation at 63, 64, right? That’s just where I’m going to be. I’ll be in my mid sixties, attending my youngest sons, and Lord willing, if I don’t die [inaudible 00:11:23] don’t rise and Jesus doesn’t come back. I’ll be attending a high school graduation, not for my grandson, but for my own son in my early to mid sixties.

Lawson Brown: Have you done the math? Could you perhaps do a graduation of a son and a granddaughter at the same time?

Kent Evans: Not quite, because…

Lawson Brown: There’s not that much time.

Kent Evans: No. No. Okay. But it’s quite possible that I’ll be coaching my own son, you know, in our church soccer league. And then the very year after, I’ll be taking over for my grandkids team, who knows, right? Because it can be that seamless. So the reason I bring that up is because a couple months ago, a good friend of mine reached out to me… I guess it was actually last summer. And he goes, “Hey man, when are we going to start playing golf again?” And what I found to be super interesting about that is his kids are like 24, 22 and 20. So his kids are all out of the house, and he’s entering the empty nest phase where he’s starting to pick his golf clubs back up again. And I told him, I said, “In about 14 years.” Not that I’m never going to play golf until my kids… However, I would tell you that I used to play golf 20, 30 times a year. Now, I play once or twice, and it’s if I’m invited to a golf scramble and I get to play for free. That’s pretty much the only time that I go, and it’s with one of our board members or a donor, or somebody… I filter those moments way differently. I’m going on this kind of random sort of Mulberry Bush run going around just to say a couple things. One is…

Lawson Brown: Yeah, I’ll say.

Kent Evans: Shut it. One of the things is, dads, I think we need to figure out how we prioritize our time. Secondly, that may change season by season. When you have younger kids, it’s harder. You’re losing sleep. They need constant attention. It’s bedtime stories, it’s hugs, it’s, you know, “Will you get me out of bed in the morning, daddy,” all that. And you want to leverage those years if you can. And then as they hit their teen years, you’re going to get a little more time freedom back. And so a lot of this is age and stage dependent based on your family, because Lawson, where you are with two daughters in their twenties, you’re in a very different place right now than I am.

Lawson Brown: Yeah. Yeah. A hundred percent, very different than where we were when I was… Listening to Eric’s message, I remembered back when we lived in Louisville, and I was going back for a some night school at Bellerman University and had a new job at [inaudible 00:13:50] and we were launching a big program, and the girls were basically toddlers and babies. And dude, I’m telling you, it’s like a period in my life that was kind of blacked out because it’s such a blur. I just don’t remember half of what happened. I was always tired…

Kent Evans: Like the sixties.

Lawson Brown: Yeah, it was just… No, not quite that. That’s a different,

Kent Evans: Different blur.

Lawson Brown: Yeah. Different kind of blur. But you know what I mean? It’s like, how did we get through that? I was on the road, I was flying all the time, going to all the different markets where we were launching these programs, do school on the plane, get home, try to meet up with the study group, and then go to class on the weekends.

Audrey was holding it all together family wise, and with Abigail being… She was probably two, three, something like that. So I want to come back to this season of life and I want to get your opinion, but that was a season of our life that Eric kind of spurred a memory from, because what I want to think through is, seasons come and go, seasons change. And so when you talk about there’s this pie chart, I agree with you, the things in your… If you imagine a pie chart, the things that you need to spend your time and attention on and prioritize, those pie pieces, morph. They grow and they expand. And then that means that means one other one can either grow or expand conversely. And so I’d say it’s a dynamic pie chart that changes over time from day to day, from every season, whatever you want to… I want to dig into the word season, because here’s what I have found myself doing in the past that I don’t like. And Eric, sorry, I’m not saying that you did this. I’m saying I did this. And that is kind of…

Kent Evans: Oh, here we go. Here we go.

Lawson Brown: We kind of use…

Kent Evans: No one will ever leave us a voicemail again after Lawson says whatever he says next.

Lawson Brown: Eric made me think of times that I’ve dismissed, I’ve given myself a pass by saying, “Well, I’m just in this season of life. And what that means is, what that meant to me at the time was, well, that’s just the way it’s going to have to be, because I’m just in this season, it’s winter, and so we just don’t have that much food. And I’ve got to…

Kent Evans: Lawson, listen. I have a good friend named Dave. And when Dave was… He was living like two labs, busy job, continuing education, et cetera, et cetera, coaching his kids. And he kept saying, “Man, I’m just in a busy season. I’m in a busy season.” And eventually one time, I looked across the lunch table to him and I go, “Bro, you’ve been in a busy season for 15 years. It’s no longer a season. It’s a lifestyle.”

Lawson Brown: Yeah, exactly.

Kent Evans: Seriously, come on.

Lawson Brown: Thank you. Yes.

Kent Evans: If it’s 15 years…

Lawson Brown: Right.

Kent Evans: … it’s not a season.

Lawson Brown: Right. That’s right. And so in Eric’s case, they’re renovating homes and putting them up on Airbnb. Maybe that is some planned, there’s a finite period of time and they’re going to be doing that. And then you get X number of houses, and then kick back and watch the rental income flow. And that season is now over. Okay. Well then, to me, I think if that’s where we’re coming from, great. There are times in our life where you just go, “I just feel so out balance. I’m not spending time on the things that I need to. I’m not prioritizing what I know God has called me to do,, but if I can just cross that finish line right there…” And then you actually do get there and change. I guess what I’m saying is, what I didn’t do was have that in mind. It was just… I guess it’s just our life. We’re just in this crazy season of life, and I had no plan, no endpoint, no…

Kent Evans: Yeah.

Lawson Brown: Right.

Kent Evans: I think definitely… Well, I have a nephew who’s remodeling his next house, right? So he currently owns two houses, and he’s got the one he’s going to move out of and the one he is about to move into. And the one he has to move into has a ton of work that needs to get done. And what’s really cool is, he has a four or five year old son who now is at the age where he can take him over with, not every night, because sometimes you’re doing heavy demo and that kind of thing, but there are a bunch of those evenings and weekends when his son, his oldest little boy, can now be part of the renovation. Now, he really actually gets in the way more than he helps, of course. And Eric, please don’t have your three year old go work in the tile saw. That’s probably not a good idea. So little disclaimer here on the podcast. However what’s interesting is sooner than you realize, Eric, you’re going to be able to have your kids along the ride with you.

So what’s really cool is, let’s say in a year, two, or three, you’ve got a six and a four year old, and they can be going over and sweeping the floor of the Airbnb, or they can be going over and helping you pot the plants or fix the draperies or whatever. As we pull our kids into these life decisions of ours, they can be part of the process, right? So in my case, I’ve traveled and spoken quite often for Manhood Journey, and I’ve often negotiated a plane ticket or an extra hotel room for one of my boys, or to take my whole family so that I can go on [inaudible 00:18:57] for me. Last time, I was invited to a church to speak on father’s day weekend, and it’s an airplane flight away. Now, how crazy would it be for the guy who runs a fatherhood ministry to leave his entire family on father’s day? Like for real. That seems really odd.

So when I asked this pastor, I said, “Hey man, can I bring two of my boys?” You can cut my fee, you can do whatever, but can you cover a couple extra plane tickets? And he said, “Oh, absolutely.”So I took my older kids with me, and we went to a Astros game, we went downtown, we went and got barbecue. That event, I started to fold my kids into the ministry work at Manhood Journey. And so not every single time. Hunter’s been on some road trips with me. He’s like my sixth son. He’s like my sixth boy, even though there’s no inheritance that comes with that, Hunters, don’t get too excited. But having said that, I think as Eric was illustrating, he’s got super young kids, but as your kids even hit that 3, 5, 8 year old range, you can pull them in on the play, right? And I think that’s one really interesting way to leverage father-son, father-daughter time is pull them into what it is that you’re doing when possible, and when it’s safe and they’re not operating a tile saw.

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Lawson Brown: I remember the times of sitting in a three and a half hour dance practice or gymnastics practice that Olivia was doing, or a swim meet that Abigail was doing, or sitting around in the, in the audience while they were practicing a performance and a high school play. And I had zero to do, meaning I had nothing to do with it, I wasn’t a sideline coach, I wasn’t involved. Some dads have kids where you are. You are a part of the coaching team for their league or whatever, and you get to spend time with them in that way. But when we were… To and from, when we were getting… I’m talking about my daughters, when the setup was happening, my laptop was away, my phone was away. I was there. I was with them. And then they get to a certain point where they’re just doing their thing and I’ve got an hour to kill, two hours to kill them. Then I would pull my laptop out, get some work done, whatever. And so was I out of balance? Did I have my priorities right or wrong?

I did what I thought I could do. I wanted to be with them and I wanted them to know that I was there, and that was my priority. But then in the time when I could use it, I went and did what I needed to do. So it’s not so cut and dry that you can measure it or understand in some sort of a linear fashion, how you’re doing. And so I guess what I’m leading to is, couple things. Ask your kids. Ask them how they think you’re doing. They know better than anybody how to best be their dad from their perspective and get their thoughts on it. I still do that. And then something else I want to hone in on is, I think in our day, there’s a real drive for always having something to do, versus I think back on my granddad. It was nothing for us to just sit out on the porch for, I think what I remember as being hours.

Kent Evans: Probably like 12 minutes, but yeah.

Lawson Brown: I know. Right. But it was just relaxing and it was part of life, and we just had this time. And so as fathers, I think part of our job is to be guardians of the rush and hustle and bustle and just doing too much. And I don’t know where we want to go with that, but I do want to encourage dads to have patience in the process.

Kent Evans: Yeah. Let me share a quick story. About a week ago at the time we’re recording this, a friend of mine, who’s a pastor in Missouri, stayed with us for three nights while he went to a conference here in Louisville. And while he was here, he told me this story, which man, if you’re a crier, you should probably get a tissue before I start this story. It’s brief. He was playing with his one or two year old daughter at home, and his wife was there. And so he’s playing with his daughter and he’s having this fun moment. I don’t know what it was, tea party, dress time, whatever it was. And a text came from one of the parishioners at his church. And he said to his daughter, “Oh, excuse me, honey. I need to take a quick look at this.” So he walks off and then he takes care of that text message, and he comes back, no daughter, only wife, and the daughter’s gone.

And he looks at his wife, and she goes, “Do you see what just happened?” And he almost couldn’t get any words out. And she goes, “These moments are few and far between, and she’ll be gone before you know it. That parishioner can wait.” And so he told me this whole story, almost tears in his eyes. And he was like, “Man, my wife really spoke life into me that day and helped me see a blind spot that I had. And I’m not going to ever let that happen again.” And so what’s interesting is, the other thing I would say, as dads are trying to wrestle with this idea of balance and time, and where does the right priority fall, and are you given too much to this or that in the given season of life, if you’re married and if you have a wife, ask her. Ask her what she thinks. And I think my wife has always been a source of immense insight and wisdom for me.

And if she says to me, “Hey, you probably need to talk with one of your kids about subject X,” man, it’s almost the next thing I go do, because she is on it. And if she ever tells me, “Hey man, the way you dealt with him was really harsh and I think he’s really upset about it…” I can’t ever think of a time when I thought, “Man, she’s just crazy. She’s just nuts. She’s wrong.” She’s always on it, man. She’s right. And so as dads are wrestling with this, not every dad is married, some dads don’t have a wife to bounce stuff off of, but the vast majority of our listeners are married. Listen to your wife. She will be a great weather vein for you through these different seasons of life.

Lawson Brown: Yeah. Yeah. Something I wanted to finish up on this part of what we’re talking about, Romans 12:2, “Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind that by testing, you might discern what is the will of God.” And here’s the part that struck me, “what is good and acceptable and perfect.” And like I was saying, the world we’re in is busier, is more productive. The more you have, the better you’re doing, all those things. God’s timing is perfect. He knows where you need to be spending your time in your career. I’m talking to dads who are ambitious. Don’t try to rush him. He won’t budge, and you’ll just get tired and frustrate everybody around you when you try to make something happen too far, too fast.

And so I guess what I want to come back to is, it’s okay to rest in where we are right now. And if that means that we’re not “getting done” everything we feel like we need to be getting done, but your focus is on the children that are in your home right now as best you can. Then I think that is a way to test your, like he’s saying, test that you may discern what is the will of God. You’ll know. Pray about it. And if you feel like, I just don’t feel like things are in balance right now, I feel like things are out of whack,” man, listen to that, because that’s probably right, and you can easily adjust that by thinking through… Look at your calendar, look at how much time and energy you preserve for yourself when you get home and when your kids come running in the door. And if that tank is always empty and your calendar is always full, then yeah, I think you do need to address something.

Kent Evans: That’s a good way to say that. Did you practice that line? Because that was a good way to say that. There’s a verse, Lawson, that I’ve noticed over and over again because I tend to want to chase the next thing. And one verse that is a bit of a governor for me, a pullback, a throttle, is Proverbs 10: 22, and it says, “The blessing of the Lord makes rich and he adds no sorrow with it.” And I’ve always found that an interesting verse. The blessing of the Lord makes rich or brings wealth, depends on your translation, and he adds no sorrow with it. Proverbs 10:22. And I think what’s interesting about that verse is we tend to only look at wealth in purely dollar terms, where if you think of this as a more of a agrarian society that this would’ve been written in, wealth would’ve been perceived as a good harvest, a good crop.

And that was even more true for them, because you can’t control sunshine, you can’t control rain. And so you kind of knew if you had a bumper crop, praise the Lord, because he gave you just the right ratio of sun and rain and no crows taking the seed. And so there was a more of a direct tie to God’s blessing on a farmer and his produce and his wealth than it is today as for a stockbroker or a podcaster, where it’s like, “No man, if I record more stuff or I write more books or I sell more things, I can disassociate my wealth production from the blessing of the Lord a bit.”

Lawson Brown: Interesting. Yeah.

Kent Evans: Mentally, mentally.

Lawson Brown: Right.

Kent Evans: It’s not true, but mentally. Where if you’re a farmer and you think you can control the sun, the wind, and the rain, you know better. You learned that over time as a farmer. And Proverbs 10:22 says, “The blessing of the Lord makes rich and he adds no sorrow with it.” And one of the things about… You made a comment about pacing and not getting ahead of God. That is a tough challenge, man, especially in Western, US kind of mindset, bigger is better, and money makes the world go round, and time is money, that kind of thing. Time isn’t money. Time goes one direction, and you cannot create more time. You absolutely cannot create more time, but you can create more money, right? I have a friend, John, who was really wealthy. He had the end of his life. He’s already passed away, but in the second half of his life, he was very wealthy, but in the middle of his life, he had bankruptcy and all kinds of trouble.

And he said to me, “Kent…” One time. He goes, “I got a PhD in finance. I was seven figures in debt and I got a PhD in finance.” He said, all I wanted to be was broke. My only objective was to get back to zero. And then he went flying past zero into the millions. But the point of that story is he could go to negative, seven figures in debt, and work his way back to positive in one lifetime, in maybe 15 years. But you can’t do that with time. You can’t recover time. It moves in one direction, linear, and that’s it. And so for us, the challenge becomes, in seasons of life, I want to encourage every dad out there who’s kind of where you, me, and Eric have been at some point, we’re finite. We’re finite individuals. I mean, if you have any sense about you, spend almost a third of your life sleeping anyway.

Lawson Brown: What is that stat? Is it something like 70% of your time, your physical time spent with your children is before their age what?

Kent Evans: Yeah, by the time your kids have hit the age 18… There’s different numbers out there, but I’ve looked at a bunch. I’ll average them together. By the time your kids hit the age 18, you have spent somewhere between 70 and 75% of all the time you’ll spend with them for their entire life, their entire life. So as they go 19 and 20 and college and marriage, and then you see them at Thanksgiving and Christmas, and maybe Sunday dinner if they live in your own town. And you get down a couple hours a week, if you’re lucky, if you’re lucky, if they live nearby. And so that curve drops off super sharp after they turn 18, 19 years old. And so you have about a quarter of the time left after they leave your house. And so it’s difficult, man. You got to hold on, and you got to do what you got to do by way of closure loss. And maybe let me just tell a personal story in this regard.

When I was in my early forties, I got an opportunity to take a job that took me overseas fairly regularly. And quite frankly, I had almost an unlimited travel budget and they would’ve liked for me to be there every single month. And I’m talking Paris, London, India, Hong Kong. It would’ve been just nonstop. And I remember going over two or three times in about a two month period, and then sitting down with my boss at a hotel in Normandy, France. And I sat with him, and I said, “You’ve got the wrong guy for this job.” And I’d been in the job maybe two months, three at the most. And he goes, “What do you mean?” And I said, “I am not coming here every month. And if that’s what this job requires, I will help you transition and will move me into a different role or I will resign.”

And he was pretty shocked. The reason he was shocked was because travel, at that company, in that culture, was seen as a status symbol. The more you traveled, the more important you were. And to some degree, that is kind of true. All the executives traveled a lot and the lower ranked people didn’t travel as much. And so your travel mileage was a sign of your status at that company. And I just looked at him and I said, “Brother, I’m not in a season of life when that makes sense for me.” And I said, “Now, quarterly or on occasion, why not? Can I do most of this job from where I’m based?” And he agreed. And to this day, to this day, he and I are still close friends. And if I ever needed a job, he would actually probably hire me again. We had a great working relationship. And it was not because I was mean or hateful or threw the gauntlet down. I just said, “Man, I just think you have the wrong guy.”

And it was a season thing, right? It was a season thing. And I think one of the challenges we have as dads is we want to go where we’re getting the biggest pats on the back and where things appear to be the most victorious and we can keep the score the most. And so we head toward that job with the big travel budget, we head toward that job where we got to be in a different city every night of the week. And again, sometimes you just go do that, and it’s a season and you choke it down. But in my case, personally, personally, in my case, I was imploding, mentally, emotionally. I’m not a crier. I’m really not much of a crier. I may cry once a year, and it’s basically at the same song we play on Easter. Oh my gosh, I can’t stand that song. I love it. And I cry at the same song. Once a year, I cry on Easter.

And I was literally in a hotel room in Grenoble, France, crying, sitting on the floor of my hotel room going, “Why am I in the middle of Europe?” I was like, “What am I doing with my life?” And I remember leveling it off and figuring it out, but the point was I look back on that season, man, and it was nuts. It was nuts. But looking back, we did what we could through a pretty rough couple of years. And in the end, it all worked out, but it was not pleasant. So let me wrap a couple things up. Number one, Eric, thank you for the voice message. Bro, you are speaking the language of giant percentage of dads out there who are trying to figure out the same challenge.

And none of us get it perfect. There’s not an answer. The answer may move a little based on seasons. That’s why I don’t think Lawson and I say, “Well, here’s the five ways you fix your problem, Eric.” However, I will tell Eric, if you make a big, fat donation to Manhood Journey, we will tell you the five ways to fix your problem. Feel free. I’m going to see Eric this week, literally this week at coffee in Louisville. So yeah, he won’t hear this recording until then, but I’m going to shake him down, man, on Friday. At least he’s buying the coffee. I can guarantee you that. But Eric, thank you for doing that, man. And guys, listen, please come to manhoodjourney.org/podcast and share with us your challenge, your question, or even your tidbit, your interesting insight…

Lawson Brown: Yeah. Please, bring it on.

Kent Evans: … about how to be a godly dad. Hey, if y’all want to take a swipe at what we should have said to Eric that we didn’t say, send it to us, send it to us. We’ll put it in a future episode, because we’ll we’ll ridicule anybody. We’re happy to do that. Feel free. Secondly, I want to let you know, next week, we’re going to have… I think next week, or in the next week or two or three, at the time this drops, we’re going to have an interview with none other… Well, I can’t tell you the actual name, it’s a secret, but it rhymes with Ken Blanchard. It rhymes with Dr. Ken Blanchard. You may not remember that name because you’re too young.

If you’re under 40, you’re probably going, “Who is Ken?” Man, the guy is one of the top 25 authors on Amazon of all time, literally. He sold over 60 million, six zero million books, 16 or 20 of which just one book, The One Minute Manager. Raving fans. This guy, his buddies were Tom Peters and Peter Drucker, and this just the guys he ran with. And Ken Blanchard shared with us, for almost 45 minutes, maybe 50 minutes, about fatherhood, grandfatherhood. You talk about a guy who had to manage a busy lifestyle. This guy was traveling and being asked to go lots of places in his thirties and forties and fifties. He said he was celebrating the 62nd anniversary of his 21st birthday or something, so I think he’s in his early eighties. I can’t do the math that quick. We had a fantastic interview with Ken Blanchard. You’re going to want to come back and subscribe now so you don’t miss an episode, because that’s coming up very, very soon. Lawson, final word to you, my friend. Wrap us up.

Lawson Brown: Yeah. I want to encourage dads, as we always do, you don’t have to get it perfect. You just have to make an effort to get it right and talk it over with your wife. And for you guys that are out there, you single dads, for whatever reason you are out there, and maybe you don’t have a wife to bounce things off of, I just want to encourage you as well. You can go to your father in prayer and he will guide and direct your thoughts. And then also, please keep listening. We’d love to hear from you guys as well. Come to the website, leave us a message, leave us maybe an idea that you’ve cracked the nut on something. We’d love to share that as well. So thanks, guys. We’ll talk to you later.

Kent Evans: Hey dad, thank you for listening to today’s show. If you found this episode helpful, remember you can get all the content and show notes at manhoodjourney.org/podcast. And if you really liked it, please consider doing three things. Number one, share this podcast with someone. You can hit the share button in your app, wherever you listen to podcast, or just call the person up and tell them to listen in. Number two, subscribe to this podcast so you get episodes automatically. That helps us as well to help dads find the show. You can do that through your favorite listening app, whatever that is. And finally, review this podcast. Leave us a review, good or bad, wherever you listen. Those reviews also help other dads find the show. You can always learn more about what we’re up to at manhoodjourney.org, or fatheronpurpose.org. We will see you next week.

Outro: You’ve been dozing off to the father on purpose podcast, featuring Kent Evans and Lawson Brown. Now, wake up, head over to fatheronpurpose.org for more tools that can help you be a godly, intentional, and not completely horrible dad. Remember, you are not a father on accident, so go be a father on purpose.