Kevin D’Anna: Cherishing Small Moments The Secret to Lasting Dad Connections

[00:00:00] I wear it on the course, it gets so many laughs from all the guys. The best piece of advice that somebody gave me was it’s really just to cherish the small moments. I’d like to tell all the fathers out there, make sure you just show up, you know, show up for them. Be present. Like everybody goes through this.

We all get hit, we all get knocked down. We all gotta learn how to pick ourselves back up and keep moving forward. To be intent on listening and learning from your children.

 

Kevin, every dad has that story. They just love to tell. What is your favorite dad story? So my favorite dad story comes from my oldest son, Aiden. He was in his second year of basketball and I just became his head coach. He was the backup point guard and in our second game, the starting point guard broke his thumb.

My son had to step in [00:01:00] versus the hardest team we were gonna play that year and we lost. But what he developed over the course of that year, the leadership, the skills of helping other people and putting his team first, not looking to score, but looking to lift people up and allow other people to score and win was something that still brings tears to my eyes these days.

We ended up beating that team too at the end of the season by 22 points. Uh, see that’s the nice, that’s the nice full circle right there, right? You lost the first. Yeah. Come back and get him. That’s good. Yeah. After that, he was invited to play for, um, some a a u squads that he never thought he would, and it really helped set him on a path for the rest of his life to see what he could achieve by just pushing himself where he was uncomfortable to be pushed.

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Welcome to the Dad Hat Shenanigans podcast, the unfiltered truth about being a dad, real dads real stories, unfiltered, candid conversations on [00:03:00] fatherhood. I’m your host, Brent dLAN, and my guest today is Kevin D’Anna. D’Anna. See, I told you I screwed up least once. Kevin. Kevin, welcome to the show. Thank you.

I appreciate you having me here. And as always, I predicted it right. I blow it every time, dude. I, my, I get my mouth just starts rolling on the intro. You were close enough. Many times. I was close enough. Uh, it used to bother me. Now it’s just like, wow. If I ever get that ironed out, my podcast will flow too smoothly and then I’ll, then I’ll really be in trouble.

You’ll screw something else up, right? Yeah, yeah. That, that’s, that’s the one right there, Kevin, I’m looking at your hat and for all of you guys listening, it says I tap that and now we’ve definitely gotta get some answers on it. What is the story for your dad hat? So this is actually a gift from my 10-year-old son Father’s Day, two years ago.

So he was about nine. I got a hat and a matching cup and he, [00:04:00] um, he was asking my wife, what, you know, what I would really like. And I spent a lot of time with my kids out on the golf course and playing sports and fishing. And so me and my middle son, every Sunday we’d pack up my little one and the stroller and we’d go out to a par three golf course and we’d walk.

I’d have three clubs and my son would towed around his little bag. He loved to play golf with me, so he got me this hat. He, he got me a, um, a key chain that goes on my bag that holds a couple balls, just two. And, uh, so he, uh, he didn’t know the meaning behind him. My wife thought it was hilarious. He literally sat there looking at her phone and picked out a couple different hats.

And this is, this is my favorite one. I got the hat, the matching cup. I wear it on the course. It gets so many laughs from all the guys, especially when they know my 9-year-old picked it out. [00:05:00] I was gonna say that, that’s, that’s the what makes that even better. That’s just amazing. Yes. Oh, well, what’s gonna be real fun is eventually he’s gonna be old enough.

He’ll get it. Mm-hmm. Then he’s gonna be like super, like, oh my gosh. Yeah. He’ll love it. Don’t wear that hat dad. Dope. It was fun. When they are eight, right? And they do something like, I, so I’m, I’m a nerd. I love the Big Bang Theory, uh, the old TV series, I have the whole series. So like, we’ll, we’ll just watch reruns of it.

And my kids have seen it probably, you know, six times through, over the course of several years. But as my kids get older, they start to get certain jokes more and more. Yeah. My 13-year-old is now cracking up at jokes that she’s missed for years. Watching this. There’s like, oh my God. Like, she’s like, like she’s turning red.

And it’s like, [00:06:00] that’s fantastic. It’s amazing when they start to get those innuendos, they didn’t get both. Mm-hmm. A little uncomfortable sometimes. And at the same time, it’s also hilarious. Yeah. Yeah. He will, it does happen. You’ll have that hat for years. He will never let it down. No, no, no, no. When maybe I’ll give it back to him when he is older and he has kids, and I’ll be like, just so you remember to spend every minute of quality time you can with them no matter what you’re doing.

So that sounds like good game plan right there. Absolutely. Kevin, tell us a little bit about yourselves. Let’s, let’s fill the listeners in. How many kids do you have? Who are you, what do you do? All right. Uh, so my name is Kevin Deanna. I have three sons, beautiful sons, four, 10 and 16. So we got a broad spectrum of issues that we deal with on a daily basis.

We got one, we just got potty trained about three months ago. [00:07:00] My youngest one has a speech deficit, so he’s still learning to fully speak, um, which has its own challenges. And then I have a 10-year-old who. Um, loves life. He is, he is really big into fun right now. Responsibility is not really his thing. Um, then I have a 16-year-old who is going on 30.

He’s, uh, he’s, he’s actually impressed me so much in the past few months. He has gotten into day trading. He’s studying it. He is spending an hour every day for the past two weeks on it. He has started his own business, uh, pressure washing driveways and houses. I am an entrepreneur by trade. I have, uh, started a few companies in my lifetime.

I recently just sold my collision center and we moved down to South Carolina. We love it down here. There’s so many opportunities for these kids. [00:08:00] Um. I have opened a coaching and consulting business where I help other blue collar entrepreneurs build out their businesses, streamline their operations, and really help them with their systems.

Um, I’m also a leadership coach, so there’s a couple things I try to instill in my children, leadership being one of them. Um, I think it really has the biggest return on investment as far as skill sets go. If you can learn to help other people, then there’s no way you can, you can’t better your life at that point.

Um, so when my 16-year-old was looking at, uh, he got a speeding ticket a few months after getting his license, and the deal was if you got a ticket, you gotta pay for your insurance. So he is looking at his insurance, you know, $3,000 a year and he’s like, man, $250 a month, I’m gonna have to work. 30 hours at $12 an hour to pay for this.

And uh, and then he came up with a [00:09:00] pressure washing thing and now he can work for four hours on a Saturday and make as much as he did working 30 hours at a, at a KFC or cookout or something like that. So I was really proud of that. I had to buy the pressure washer to start, but he pressure washed the house in the driveway and he’s working off the other half of it, so.

Well, you know, a lot of people have to get investors to start their business, right? You either Oh, absolutely. Gotta get an investor. We’re actually working on, my girls starting a business this year. They had a T-shirt business off Redbubble for years. They’ve been designing t-shirts for kids and selling ’em on Redbubble.

Um, Redbubble has just gone downhill as far as a platform and, uh, we’re, we’re looking at some other possibilities ’cause we homeschool the girls and so as part of their curriculum. They’re, I’m requiring them to build a business together. And so they’re looking at, uh, [00:10:00] my mom is saying, Hey, I, I, I don’t want them ’cause they were gonna like bake stuff ’cause we’re right on the walk route for the junior high in one of our elementary schools.

So they were gonna get stuff and sell stuff in the afternoons. Mm-hmm. And my mom was lives with us and she’s like, uh, that’s a lot of baking and taking them out of the day and then cleaning up the kitchen and we’re trying to cook. I have a small kitchen, so they’re working towards popcorn, gonna do popcorn.

And so my mom is in, in negotiations with them, she’s going to buy their popcorn machine up front. And we’re working out the business plan of how much they’re paying her back at a time and. So they can sell popcorn on the school route. There’s so much they can learn from something like that. I love how you’re making them work together to do it as well.

Um, because having a partner in life takes a lot of effort and a lot of energy. As, as fathers, we, we know this [00:11:00] from having partners ourself in life and uh, so working with somebody, especially a sibling, is extremely hard. And if you can master that, then there’s no business partner you can’t work with out there.

Right. Yeah. I just, I was not introduced to the entrepreneurial concept until I was probably 40 before I even imagined that there was another way to work other than go to work 10 to 12 hours a day every day. Right. I spent most of my life doing that. I started working when I was 16 and didn’t doing it every since.

It’s like, oh look, there’s another way to make money. They don’t teach you that in school. Like, I had no idea. There were seven ways, like seven different styles or streams of income that you could build. Mm-hmm. I was like, what? What is investment? What is, what do you, what is, uh, royalty? I, that’s, that’s something musicians get right?

You know? Yeah. You make your dollar work to make other dollars. So the first book, [00:12:00] my 16, so my kids don’t get an allowance for doing chores. My, my sons do chores because they’re part of the household and that’s what we do in a household. We have to clean up, we gotta clean bathrooms, we gotta do dishes.

Yeah. My sons get paid for the books they read. I learned this from John Maxwell. Uh, John Maxwell’s father made him do this if he wanted to earn money. And so I pay my kids, depending on the size of the book and how hard it is. My 10-year-old gets $20 a book. Um, but the first book my 16-year-old had to read was, uh, rich Dad, poor Dad.

That’s a good book. Yes. He, uh, when he started this day trading thing a little while back, he set some goals and he wanted to buy a house at 25. He finished the book while I was away in Orlando about three weeks ago. And he texts me, he goes, I don’t wanna buy a house anymore. He goes, I wanna buy an apartment building.

He goes, I just, I just finished that book and I’m changing things. And it was, it was a, it was a really [00:13:00] proud moment to see that he actually was paying attention to what he was reading. And he was learning that there’s, there’s a different way than, like you said, we’ve, we’ve always been told in school that like, you go to school, you go to college, you get a good job, you’d be happy with that.

Good job. Yeah. And, and it’s, you know, I, I started my first business at 13 mowing lawns, and it was at a necessity. It wasn’t because I was so eager to go out and mow lawns or make money, it was ’cause I, I needed money. If I wanted a bike, I, I better get out there and earn the money to do it. If I wanted anything other than thrift store clothing, I better get out there and go do it.

So I, uh, I learned at an early age to take things in my own hands. Um, I still went to college, but it, uh, it taught me that there, like you said, there is another pathway and [00:14:00] there’s a lot of reward for being in business for yourself. So I, I learned a lot about this when I purchased my collision center and, uh, I grew it to 15 employees and it was fantastic going in every morning and talking with them about where they were in life, not about the business, but about what they wanted to accomplish themselves and how I could help them accomplish.

Helping young men get driver’s licenses and bank accounts and apartments and that, that was terrific. There was nothing more rewarding than that. I love it. Yeah. I, I, I really take to heart the whole, you know, don’t buy your kid. Get your kids the things you didn’t have. Teach ’em the things you didn’t know.

The first time I heard that. Bam, that’s spot on right there. You know, my dad didn’t know any of this, anything about this kind of stuff. So, you know, I, I don’t fault him for not teaching me, but it took me till I was 40 to stumble on these ideas, and it’s like, I’m [00:15:00] gonna start teaching my kids this stuff.

Now my kids have investment accounts, uh, with Fidelity and we, we talk stocks and we talk dividends versus capital gains and long-term mm-hmm. Term investments. And I, I, I, I really wanted to claim. I, I had no idea that Maxwell actually, uh, shared that I pay my kids to read books. That’s one of the ways they can earn money, is I pay them to read books on marketing, on investing on things that they aren’t gonna learn in their normal education.

And I have for several years now, they have to read the book. I will buy the book and then they have to do a book report on it. But I pay them to read the books and learn these things to teach ’em that they can learn things that way, and that there are things out there that are worth learning on their own.

I had no idea that John Maxwell’s dad did that. I thought I could. Yeah, an original, ah, you can still claim it. You can still claim it. That’s all right. [00:16:00] It was original to me. You didn’t? Yes. There you go. You, you had no clue. John Maxwell did that and I didn’t know it until recently and I was like, oh my God, what a great idea.

But guess what boys? I. Right. So I got something for you now. Yeah, that’s right. Put away that Harry Potter book your hair’s, think and Grow Rich. Good luck. I love it. I love it. So let me ask you, Kevin, what was the best piece of advice you were given when you found out you’d be, were gonna be kind of a dad?

The best piece of advice that somebody gave me was, it’s pretty simple and it, it’s really just to cherish the small moments because it really is just of a blink of an eye. And the next thing you know they’re, they’re four, they’re not crawling, the diapers are gone. And then you turn around again and they’re 10 years old.

They’re out riding their bike with their friends. You’re telling ’em to be home by dark, [00:17:00] and then they’re driving, they’ve got a girlfriend, they’re hiding in their room. You’re just not cool anymore. And, uh. It goes so fast. So when I was told to, to really cherish the small moments, it, uh, it didn’t strike me then, but years later is, it is so true.

Just so true. Because one day, you know, they grow up and it’s not that they don’t need us, but we hope that they don’t need us anymore. I, I’m, I’m in that InBetween stage of, I, I hope they don’t need me, but I really want him to still, right? Yes, yes. My, my oldest is 13 going on 30, and she has been for, since she was like two.

She’s very, very independent. Very. And it’s like, I really want you to need me. I, I don’t want you to need me, but I really want you to need me. Right. [00:18:00] Oh, yeah. Oh, she’s, it’s, it’s great. My oldest one yesterday borrowed my truck to go do some marketing for his, uh, pressure washing business. Mm-hmm. And he calls me and he goes, you wouldn’t believe this.

I stopped at McDonald’s, their bathroom’s closed. I stopped at two gas station, their bathroom’s closed. And I’m like, well, you know, there’s a public bathroom down by the beach there. And he is like, yeah, but then I gotta pay to park. And I’m like, no, no, no. I got the parking pass. It’s right in my, my glove box.

And he is like, oh my God, thank you so much. And it’s just like, yes, yes, you needed me just for something small. But has he found, uh, Cody Sanchez yet on mine? Uh, uh, you know what? I don’t know if he has or not. I’ll have to introduce him. He needs to check out Main Street Millionaire. Yeah. No, she’s done a lot.

Her book is, her book is excellent. I’ve read it, so, oh. Put it on my list. Like, we’ll, we’ll sit down with the girls and watch Cody Sanchez videos. And yeah, [00:19:00] as she looks, the ones where she goes out, I love her podcast, but I’ll sit there and go watch the ones where she actually goes to a job, uh, a business somebody’s built that’s a little out of the norm and she actually goes through it with them and looks at how they do it.

And, you know, uh, we’ll, we’ll sit down and watch those as part of school sometimes. It’s like, let’s, let’s get you interesting. Right. Let’s get you thinking about some other ideas here. Yeah. Yeah. No, he likes Alex for Mosey. He actually, I just finished the a hundred million dollar money models and he’s like, can I, can I borrow that?

So, um, I turned him onto Dan Martel. I loved it. Um, yes. Yeah, no, Dan’s been great. I jumped in his business group a while back. It’s phenomenal guy’s. Unreal. Yeah. Yeah. So his book, uh, buy Back Your Time is probably one of the best bus business books I read in the last year. Mm-hmm. Absolutely. Yeah. I was four chapters into it.

I called like three people. I’m [00:20:00] like, you need to get this book for your business right now, bro. Called the Front, my trucking company, and he is just buried by his trucking company. I’m like, you need to buy this book right now. Say the word, I’ll hit sin and I’ll just buy it and send it to you. Like you need to read this right now.

’cause we just had that conversation like two weeks earlier about his business. ’cause he’s just overwhelmed. Mm. He’s yeah. Scaling back. I’m like, no, no, no, no. Let’s, let’s look at some other solutions here. That’s right. Wow. Yeah. No, you don’t, you don’t realize it when you’re so deep in the weeds too, though.

Yeah. But yeah, he, he’s check out Cody Sanchez’s book next as you’re paying him to read books. I mean, hey, now I want somebody to pay me to read all the books I read. Oh, wouldn’t that be great? Instead of us paying for the books. Wow. There’s so much reward though. I tell my kids, you know, my 10-year-old struggles with it and I’m like, look, this is an entire lifetime of somebody’s knowledge that they’re giving you for 20 bucks.

Mm-hmm. You [00:21:00] know? Oh yeah. You can start to download that. I introduced my oldest to audio books recently. Mm. I buy a lot of business books for me anyway, so I was like, I have them on Audible. Why don’t you listen to them? She’s like, oh yes, I have the book too. You can follow along, but this way you can listen to it.

Yeah. So she’s digging the audio books right now. Oh, I’ll have to try that. What do you, I’ll have to try that with him. What do you want to dive into today? ’cause I think we’ve talked business with our kids and. I’m not sure that was the intention of the conversation. What do you wanna dive into today?

Well, I actually, I was gonna talk about leadership and creating an entrepreneurial spirit in, in your children. Um, you know, not everybody’s meant to be an entrepreneur, but that doesn’t mean that we, we can’t have a little bit of that spirit, a a little bit of the looking at problems and trying to problem solve and, and seeing a [00:22:00] situation and being like, wow, this can be done a better way.

Um, I, to me, an entrepreneur doesn’t mean somebody that just opens businesses and it is a serious serial business opener. Um, an entrepreneur to me is somebody who sees something that’s broken and can visualize a better way to do it, a way to fix it, and a way to move forward. Um, so I try to create that with my kids.

I try to always tell them, don’t focus on the problem, focus on the solution. How do we solve this? What is the way we’re gonna move through this and forward? Um, so, so that’s something that I, I really like to focus on with ’em. And then leadership skills, again, in the beginning I said that leadership is, is one of the biggest bang for your buck skills that we can learn.

Um, not just in business. I mean, we, we know this applies in sports. We know this applies [00:23:00] in being a father. Um, you know, I, I, I use these communication skills all the time with them. Meeting them where they’re at and relating to them is something that’s absolutely priceless. Um, seeing my oldest son become a leader on the basketball court, and he wasn’t a captain.

He still led the, the people, people looked at him for the answers and he, he didn’t realize it then. And I don’t know if he really realizes it yet. Um, but, but he stopped being a follower that day and, and he stopped always looking at the other kids as to what they were doing, what, what clothing styles they’re doing.

And he started caring about what he cared about and, and how he could help other people. Um, and, and to me as a father, you know, that’s a huge success. [00:24:00] A huge success. Success. A leadership shows up in such people. I think a lot of dads miss leadership encompasses so much. Right. One of the first books I actually point toward people towards is the Five Love Languages.

Hmm. Because that helped me. I used to be a, uh, supervisor, a team supervisor and manager. And that book as much has been great for my relationships, honestly, helped me lead my teams so much better As I, when I started think stopping and thinking and identifying, it’s like, okay, how does so and so hear love slash appreciation?

Right? Because it, it’s the same thing one way or another. So how does so and so need to, how do I need to speak to them? So they’re getting this in a positive light, so they’re hearing it in a affirming way to encourage them to step, keep stepping forward, right? [00:25:00] As opposed to this other coworker who’s like, how do I need to speak to them?

For them to feel appreciated, for them to feel lifted up and, you know, we’re moving together, we’re going in positive directions, right? Because as a leader, you’re always trying to lift up the people around you. Right. That’s right. You’re picking up your team, you’re going through it together. You’re not dragging them along.

You are motivating them along. You’re helping them to grow. And so I had to really work on speaking the right way to them. ’cause I have my way I do it. And I realized to some of these love languages is like, man, I sound like a jerk. I sound so horrible. Okay, I gotta, so, you know, you suddenly jumping into all kinds of goodness, even if he isn’t the team captain, right?

Mm-hmm. Because there are mm-hmm. Stages and learning that leadership and learning that how to pick up your teammates and how to lead by example and, yeah. No, and that’s, that’s very [00:26:00] true. That’s something that took me probably God until I was. 28, almost 30 before I learn that, you know, there’s, there’s different communication styles and the way we communicate with different people and their personalities matters.

Mm-hmm. That, you know, like, just like you, I’ve got my way and I’ve got the way that I like to be encouraged or motivated, but that’s not the way that other people like to be encouraged and motivated. So it, um, it took me a while, but at the end of my, my career in the body shop business, I was telling the people who were buying the business about the people’s personalities and how to approach them.

And as we talk about this, I sit here and I kind of laugh to myself and it’s like, you know, I bet they brush me off and I’m, I’m sure that they’ll find out because people react differently [00:27:00] depending on how you frame things or even that, your tone of voice. So. You know, that’s a great book to recommend just about anybody.

Yeah. It it’s got this universality to it because everybody needs to feel loved and appreciated. Yeah. It some professionally, personally, right. It, it’s universal there. So I always lean into that ’cause it helps me at home. It helps me with my wife, it helps me with my kids, helps me with coworkers. They, my butt with my coworkers.

I almost end up, I had one coworker, man, we butted heads so bad. We both almost lost our jobs. ’cause it was just the team and it, it was, I had to step back and go, all right, check your ego. How is this not working? What are you missing? Let’s, let’s break down what we know about him, what we know he responds to.

And it’s like, okay, we’re, we’re on opposite ends of the spectrum. And that’s, that’s what the problem is, is I’m doing it this way. And [00:28:00] he hears blah, blah, blah. I hate you, you suck. And when I’m really just. Trying to convey information that’s not what’s happening. Uh, is save my job. So that’s fantastic. Have your kids read that one already?

Not yet. Uh, we’re 13. Might be a little on, I think. Yeah, she could start to process it. The 10-year-old, no. Or sorry, 11-year-old. She just turned 11. She can yell ’cause she watches these sometimes and I was like, dad, that last one was really good. Oh, I’m glad you like that baby. We gotta be careful. ’cause she’ll hear this and be like, Hey, I’m 11.

Okay, got it. Now I haven’t done that way. We’re really focused. You were saying, you know, not everybody’s meant to be an entrepreneur. I think I’ve heard the term intrapreneur, right? For people, they’re content working for somebody else, right? They’re content with the job. But the idea of, but how as an employee can you still.[00:29:00]

Make it better, improve it. Right. How can you grow inside the company? Yeah. And help people do it. And I, I know there are some people who are much, I, I have some friends who like, they’re very happy. They, they like working for somebody else. They don’t want that ache of running their own thing. Now that I got a taste of it, it’s like, I don’t know that I could ever actually go back to working for someone full-time again.

I just, I hated every moment of it. For years. I’ve got a taste of working for me. I’d rather struggle working for me than Thrive working for somebody else. Yeah. Uh, it’s a, for sure, it’s, it’s funny because being a dad of three sons, I’ve, they’re three different personalities, completely different people.

And, and so we were just talking about the love languages and, and so how I show affection with my, my 16-year-old versus my 10-year-old. Is is completely different. The way they [00:30:00] process information’s completely different than, you know, the, I think eventually their life goals will be completely different.

Um, my, my 16-year-old is a lot more like me and, uh, my 10-year-old is a lot more, uh, not even quite like my wife. He’s a little bit different than both of us, but it’s, it’s early to tell who they’re gonna be in another five years. Mm-hmm. And, and how different events will help shape them. Um, my, my oldest two are technically my stepsons, so, um, yeah, technically, technically, you know what?

Anybody ever in my neighborhood, they’d be shocked. No, nobody would even guess. Um, I come from. A couple failed fathers. My biological dad and my mom got divorced when I was 15. My [00:31:00] dad up and left in the middle of the night, didn’t tell a soul. We lived in Vermont and uh, I was spending, me and my brother were spending a week with him a week when my mom, we got back to the house and he was gone.

The pipes had frozen over the ceiling in the kitchen, had collapsed, and, uh, and it was just nowhere to be found. He, you know, did it in spite of my mother so that they wouldn’t make as much money on the house. She wouldn’t have as much money from the sale of the house, whatever the reasons it was. Mm-hmm.

Um, and so my, my oldest two sons both don’t have a great relationship with their biological fathers fatherhood to me, ever since I was 15, I knew I would be a great dad. The lessons I learned from him leaving my state championship game early to beat traffic to, you know, his alcoholism has shaped me and in a way that I don’t [00:32:00] think he intended, but what the lessons that I learned and that I took from his absence, his demeanor, his DUI in my karate class when I was 10, eight years old, are lessons that I have been able to apply to fatherhood and say, look, you know, it matters if we show up.

It doesn’t matter if you don’t think it means much, if it’s just a practice or a scrimmage, but it matters. Um, my oldest son recently, his dad was supposed to stop here in South Carolina on this big road trip he was doing, and he told me the other day, he said, well. Dad’s over in Kentucky heading west. And I’m like, well, he goes, yeah, I guess he is just not gonna stop here.

And I told him, I’m like, well, Aiden, look, you’re, you’re almost 17. You’re old enough at this point for me to tell you that he’s wrong, that he’s [00:33:00] really screwing things up, and it’s okay for you to tell him that as well. And I told him, I’m like, you can take this two different ways and you can say that this is normal, or you can say that this isn’t okay.

And I won’t make this mistake with my sons or my children, um, because that’s, that’s what I had to do. And I, I hate to see him go through it because I know how hard it is. But I told him that, uh, that I would always be there, that I would never miss a thing and I don’t. There’s been a couple practices where me and mom have had to go separate ways ’cause they’re both playing soccer, but I, I don’t miss a thing.

And, uh, that I was proud of him. I’m proud of the man he was becoming. So it, uh, I hope it helps him. I hope it helps him to know that there is somebody in his corner [00:34:00] no matter what. I’m always fascinated by the fact that a similar situation can have two very different outcomes. Uh, when it comes to this kind of situations.

You’re talking about your dad and how you’ve gone through that and their dad’s right. I have met people who they had a horrible father and they became horrible fathers. And then you meet other people who had a horrible father and. They’re like you. They went, no, this is never going to be my children.

They will never go through this. And they became some of the most incredible fathers ever because they went, this is not acceptable, and I will not let this be my legacy from my family and other people who just went, oh, I guess that’s how it’s done. I guess that’s how it is, whatever. And accepted it. [00:35:00] It, it’s always interesting to me that he has, it’s one of those two, two, and, and his father actually, my, my wife was with him in high school and then just outta high school and, uh, hi.

His grandfather was the same way with his dad. Didn’t show up for anything, you know, drop him off at sports and just leave. So I thought he would be different, but after a couple years of him not buying birthday gr gifts, or not showing up at the, the Christmas dinner we invited him to and, and stuff like that, it just, it really dawned on me that.

That’s just not the type of man he was gonna be. So, um, you know, I guess I’d like to tell all the fathers out there who watched this that, you know, make, make sure you just show up, you know, show up for them, be present, you know, I’ve got this habit or, you know, I, I was never on social media. I jumped off Facebook when it went public.

I was in college when it first came out. I had to [00:36:00] pull all the photos and videos off my Facebook. Um, and, and recently with the coaching thing, I’ve gotten back into social media and, uh, my wife went to me a couple months ago. She goes, man, you’re on your phone a lot. And I’m like, I feel like I am. This sucks.

So now at five 15, the phone is off, it’s sitting in my bedroom and I, I make sure I dedicate time blocks to each child over the weekend. And stuff like that. So it’s, it’s really important that they know that they have your time and your attention, because no matter what we have going on in life, no matter what business we’re trying to build, our, our kids didn’t ask us for that.

All they ask us for is our love and our attention. Oh, yeah. I’m, I’m a seriously structured individual. You and I were talking about it before we started recording, right? Living by your calendar. Mm-hmm. I, I [00:37:00] used to get, I’ve talked about it so many times on my shows over the years now that I don’t hear as much feedback about it, but when I first shared that, I actually like time blocked, time off with my children on my schedule.

Like it’s on my calendar. I had pe some people who were like, that’s, that’s just kind of weird, man. I was like, no, it is not because my children, uh. Anyone listening can’t see this. If you guys listen to it, normally, if you ever watch the video, you’ll see I, I have a digital screen behind me. It’s one of those Alexa devices, got a calendar and everything on it.

My kids love. They can come in and tap my calendar and see that they’re scheduled on my calendar. They know, oh, it’s right here where dad’s doing this. Right? They know where I’m gonna be and what I’m gonna be doing. They know what my schedule looks like, my availability, and they know if they’ve got something that they can, Hey dad, we’ve got this going on.

Can we put this on your calendar? Will you come to this? It’s like, yeah, [00:38:00] okay. Put on my calendar and let’s do this. Right? But I used to get so much like, uh, that’s kind of weird. dLAN, no, this just makes my children a priority. It makes them as much of a priority, if not more than everything else that’s on that stupid calendar of mine.

’cause I live by that calendar. So I, you know, I do my best to make sure I have that time, uh, as the day we’re recording this. This will come out on a Wednesday, but I record all throughout the week. But it’s a Monday at four o’clock today. There is nothing else. Four o’clock till they go to bed is their time Every week.

Yeah. Every Monday afternoon. That is what, Monday is the best day of my week. Everybody’s like, I hate Mondays. I love Mondays. ’cause at four o’clock the phone goes off, the computer goes off, everything is done. It doesn’t matter if I’m done, I will produce a show late over cutting into that time. And my daughters know it.

They’re like, y’all done? [00:39:00] It’s like, well, no, but that’s okay. The podcast can come out an hour later tomorrow. It will live. You know, uh, I, I, I ize with you on social media. I, I’m only on social media because of my podcast. I, yeah. I absolutely despise social media. I spend much time on it with three, four podcasts.

Yeah. I, you know, being, being a creator also involves with consuming a little bit and interacting with the audience and, and everybody who’s interacting with your content. And, uh, it’s a struggle for me because it, it consumes time that I’m not used to having to consume. So, um, but I, I couldn’t imagine not doing what I do.

Like I’m able to drop my kids off in the morning. I can make it to anything and everything that I want to do with them. I get to coach my son’s football [00:40:00] team. Um, you know, I, I get to take my 4-year-old to speech therapy lessons. I get to talk with the doctors. I, I get to be involved and not just. You know, trying to, I not play catch up, but, but I get to be really deeply involved in this stuff.

And, and granted my wife being an er night nurse kind of sets me up that I, I have to be around a little bit more than a lot of other people. Um, but I really enjoy it. I told her before we made this move that, uh, it was time for her to live up to her end of the deal and be the sugar mama for a little bit so I could be a stay at home dad.

And she goes, so, dishes, laundry, cooking. And I’m like, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. I said, stay at home, dad. Um, but, uh, but I love it. I love being involved with my sons and, and knowing that they look forward to it. They look forward to going out in the kayaks and [00:41:00] going fishing, and they look forward to going out on the golf course.

They, you know. Don’t look forward to me yelling ’em at football practice, but at the end of the day, they enjoy it. My 10-year-old, um, I’ve been training for, uh, 10 K and my four year, or my 10-year-old, 4-year-old went to in the jogging straw. But my 10-year-old went with me this weekend and I was like, all right, well, we’re gonna do four miles.

We’re gonna, we’re gonna jog, we’re gonna walk, we’re gonna jog, we’re gonna walk. And halfway through it, he’s like, I hate this. I’m never coming to do this with you again. And he got done. And he is like, well, that wasn’t, that wasn’t too bad. And this morning he goes, he goes, my legs don’t hurt at all. And I’m like, well, you wait till after football practice another day.

Yeah. So it’s, uh, it is, there’s just so many moments like that where you get to see them work through stuff. Mm-hmm. And like, you, you know what’s on the other side. We we’re, we’ve been there, we’ve got the experience, but a lot of the stuff they’re seeing and dealing [00:42:00] with for the first time, um. You know, my 16-year-old with emotions and fitting into a new high school, I, I went to 10 different schools throughout my childhood, so it was, it was normal for me to pick up and go and make new friends.

He brought, but nope, no, nope. My dad just liked to move. He found himself in trouble from time to time. We had to get outta there. So, um, so this was a whole new experience for him. He’s been at the same school since he was in preschool. And, uh, so, you know, he’s learned lessons now of how, how to go and how to be open and meet people.

He, uh, he brought five buddies over here the other night and I was like, man, I didn’t even know you had five friends. How many of these guys you gotta pay to be here? Oh, so it’s a, it’s a lot of fun to be a dad too. Like, [00:43:00] you know, uh, my wife told me a long time ago, she goes, moms are for, for cuddling and comforting, and dads are for fun.

And, uh, it, you know, I don’t know how it is with the daughters versus the sons, but, but it seems to be a lot like that. Like my, my little one loves to cuddle with me, but he loves cuddling with mom. But like, and if there’s a problem, you know, if they’re not hurt, they come and see me. And if they want to go and do something and have fun and fool around or go throw a football or go horse around in the pool or something like that, they come to me.

So it’s, it’s just really nice to know that you’re their outlet for stuff too. I, I get the bonus ’cause my girls are daddy’s girls. Ah, yeah. So, so I get equal amounts of play and cuddle. Yeah. Because. They’re just daddy’s girls. I’m, I’m the first one to sweep in if they’re actually hurt and get the situation under control.[00:44:00]

I, I, I was a klutzy kid, so I had lots of practice on myself growing up. I got a lot of scars. Yeah. And my wife, like if the kids are actually hurt, my wife escalates to me. ’cause I’m the calm one who knows exactly how to fix it. Mm-hmm. So kids have picked that up and it’s like, just straight to dad, straight to dad on these things.

Let me ask Kevin, you got a dad joke for us? Oh, I do. I do. So I used to really hate facial hair, but then it grew on me.

Oh, I’m glad you got it. Uh, I just, I, I laugh because every time I hear something like that, my children have never seen me without a be. Like my, my oldest is 13. They’ve never, like from the day be before she was ever born, like in the hospital, my, my daughter was needing her fingers in my [00:45:00] beard. Mm-hmm. So facial hair jokes always make me laugh anyways ’cause it’s like, I’m not even sure what I look like without facial hair at this point.

Oh my God. My wife had me shave probably the second Halloween we were together. She wanted to get everybody in these skeleton stuff and do face paint. She’s like, you gotta shave. And I came outta the bathroom and she goes, that is the last time you’ll do that. So God probably, I wanna say it was 16 or 17 years ago, um, was working big construction projects and there were two major projects happening simultaneously.

And the company’s got this good natured kind of fundraiser going back and forth and it was who could raise the most money for Seattle Children’s Hospital? And so anybody who shaved, who normally had facial hair and was winner already, right? So all the guys had facial hair. We had these huge crews and anyone who was [00:46:00] shaved their beard, they would donate a hundred dollars to Seattle Children’s.

And then my company matched who was subcontracted to the big project, right? Matched. So in essence, it was like, I’m never gonna have the money to just give and donate. So I was like, okay, facial hair, I can shave it for that. Right? Then they actually went farther, like they were really into this. So if we shaved our heads, it was another $200.

I got ’em to actually buy into me shaving my legs. So I shaved my head and my legs and my face raise 600 bucks. Right. I had a row of guys, ’cause I was the only one who lived in town. I had a row of guys military style. My back deck the day before with a set of cli clippers just in a, in a row handed to the next guy.

He shaved the next guy. We did it military style on my back deck, my 15 guys. Right. But I think, honestly, that was the last time I always had a goatee before I started growing a beard. But I think that was the [00:47:00] last time anyone’s ever seen me without at least a goatee and without a beard. It’s been at least 15 years or more.

So I, yeah. I told my daughters, they’re like, well, what do you look like without a beard? It’s like, I look like I’m 12. That’s why I have facial hair. ’cause I look at him 12. Uh, I’m not, that’s why my high school girlfriend wouldn’t, uh, never let me grow a beard or nothing like that. So the day I left for college, the day I stopped shaving and I always joke, my my wife uses the same brand Mach three or whatever it is.

She started using my razors. She’s like, I can buy you a pack for Christmas and you use one all year long. And I’m like, yeah. I mean, when you shave like this much of your face, there’s not a whole lot to, to go through there. Sorry on that. Totally random hair tangent, but, you know. Yeah. Yeah. It always makes me laugh.

’cause my, my, my wife saw me, I shaved that one time for that fundraiser. She’s like. Never again. [00:48:00] She said, I feel like a creep. I feel like I’m robbing the cradle. Every time you shave, you look like you’re 12. Oh, that’s, you look younger than me. That’s fantastic. Yeah. Well, I, I was like, Hey, this is payback.

’cause when I’m marrying my wife, she was 19 and I was 21. But my wife has a very young face. And so when we were first married, I, I was driving a forklift in a warehouse. I had a magnetic pitcher from se her soccer team from her senior year on the upright. So soccer pitch. Right. She was 18 in the pitcher.

She doesn’t look 18. And so everybody was like, robbing the cradle. Why aren’t you dialling? I was like, she’s legal. Like it’s, it’s all me. Up and up. I get her ass about it for a long time. So I don’t really feel bad. Yeah. Oh, now you feel better about it though. You’re like, ah, my wife looks, feels like she’s 25 still.

Yeah. No one, no one guesses. She’s in her forties. No. Yeah, yeah. [00:49:00] There, there are benefits. Ever wonder what really happens behind the mic when lights go off and the Polish show ends? ’cause that’s when the real story begins. Join our Patreon and get exclusive access to behind closed mics. Fallible, unfiltered, the messy, honest truth of growing as a creator and a man.

No scripts, no Polish, no highlights, just the highest lows and the chaos of running multiple podcasts. Were at Four Guys Coaching, building a brand, and showing up as a husband and his dad. Husband and dad. Plus, you’ll get all the insider content from all three of our public shows, unique community opportunities and direct interaction with me.

Available every level. If you love what we do and really wanna see in the back room to see what happens, behind the mic, behind closed doors, raw and unfiltered. Guys, join us at patreon.com/the Fallible man to support this show and help [00:50:00] us keep making things like this for you every day. So you do, so you did the whole Maxwell leadership training thing, is that correct?

I did. Yep. And now you speak on that and and train people on that. For our dads listening, what is something from that perspective that you feel like you could give them right now that will help any dad listening in raising their kids? So, uh, from the book everybody communicates with you Connect. There’s, it teaches you how to connect and it, it takes effort and energy, and we have to meet them where they’re at.

We can’t expect our children to have mastered these lessons that we have and, and decades of trying and failing and learning how to overcome that. So we, we [00:51:00] really gotta go to where they’re at mentally. Um, so when I try to connect with my 16-year-old, I, I try to put myself in my 16-year-old shoes, but then I try to throw the twist on it with the new modern stuff and new technology and all that and, and, you know, talk in terms that he can understand and relate to.

And same with my 10-year-old. When I try to relate to my 10-year-old, it’s, it’s really simple stuff. It’s, um, concepts that he can understand, generalize stuff, and, and letting him know that I’ve got his back and he can fail. It’s okay, we’ll figure it out. Um, and, and just letting them know that you’re really there to support them.

I, sorry. Sorry to just throw that at you, but I wanted to take advantage of it while I was here. I I have a great deal. Yeah. Respect for Maxwell’s work. Uh, I’ve read several of his books over the years and so, [00:52:00] uh, I, I grew up as John C. Maxwell has been a name in leadership my whole life, and it’s like, I don’t think I’ve ever actually talked to anybody who’s been through his training, so I wanted to tap that while we had you here.

It’s like, I know there’s gonna be some stuff in there we can take away for this. Absolutely. Absolutely. I’ve only been part of the group for about six months now. I’ve practiced leadership for a long time. Mm-hmm. Um, but as I’ve established my coaching company, leadership is something that I really wanna push to the forefront because like I said, I think it pays the most dividends, like being able to connect with your, your employees or your, your family and being able to communicate with them and get your ideas across to them and have them communicate with you.

Um, so here, here’s a great one. I actually got to ask John Maxwell a question about four weeks ago when I was at a conference in Orlando. Yeah, I know. Really cool. Um, they put up a [00:53:00] microphone and he is like, all right, anybody? And I was like, um, so I am not the greatest listener I am. I’ve always been a problem solver and an idea man.

So. Becoming a great listener is on my list of goals this year. And I asked him, I’m, I’m like, you know, John, how do I become a better listener? What do I need to practice? And he told me, he goes, Kevin, you, you need to listen with the intent to learn, not to respond. If you do that, if you intend to listen and learn from what they say, it’ll change your perspective on how you deal with them and, and the answers that you’ll give.

And so that’s something I try to practice with my kids a lot is, is just listening to them. A lot of times they don’t need me to respond or to solve their problems. They just really need me to listen [00:54:00] and listen, to learn what they’re trying to tell me. I love it. Yeah. I love it. Yeah. Kevin, what is your favorite thing about being a dad?

There’s so many things that I enjoy about being a father. The thing that I love the most is being able to spend time with them one-on-one and hear about their day. To hear about what’s going on with them, what’s in their mind, what, what they wanna do, um, what they find really fun right now. And, and being able to be a little silly.

It’s, it’s a lot of fun being able to act like a kid again and not be judged by other adults looking around at you. Um, you know, if you’re being goofy in the grocery store with your 10-year-old, you know, it, it’s just a lot of [00:55:00] fun to be a dad. And that would probably be my favorite thing, is being able to connect with them and be goofy and just.

Just have a good time and, and enjoy them. I’ll tell you, one of the, one of the things you’re missing by not having girls, this is, I like, it’s like I said, I talk to a lot of dads, the jaw dropping look on someone’s face when they tease you about having pain and fingernails and you’re like, my 4-year-old did this.

Yeah. Like, I, I have seen grown men just go white because they realize they, they trespassed on something sacred. Yeah. Yep. Big guys. Oh, nice fingernails. Yeah. My 4-year-old did that. She did a really good job. This is like really smooth before backtracking quick. Oh. Boy, dads don’t get to do. No, no, I don’t get that.[00:56:00]

So, um, my, my 10-year-old finally convinced my wife to let him play football. Mm-hmm. I, I’m an old football player. I got two blown out knees from it and broke, broke my right arm, dislocated my shoulder, just some other stuff. And my wife’s always like, well just look at you. And I’m like, yeah, look at me. Ah.

And, uh, yeah. Right. And, uh, so at practice the other day, he got the wind knocked out of him for the first time. Mm-hmm. And, uh, one of the coaches looks at him and goes, congratulations. And on the drive home, he is like, what does he mean by congratulations? I mean, like, it’s, it’s like you’re part of the club now, buddy.

Like, everybody goes through this. We all get hit, we all get knocked down. We all gotta learn how to pick ourselves back up and keep moving forward. So. That’s a, it’s like a rite of passage. And it’s, you know, it’s funny as dad’s, right? ’cause we all had these stories of the injuries we racked up playing sports in school and stuff like that.

We’re like, send ’em in, let him play. [00:57:00] Like, blown out knees, correct. Ribs broken around, you know, you you, yeah. Go, go do that baby. That sounds like a good idea. You know, I destroyed my knees wrestling by the time I was 12. Ugh. Just completely wiped ’em out in junior high wrestling. Uh, I, I still had problems at 45 that started when I was 12.

And my, my daughter’s like, I kind of run and wrestle, but I don’t, I was like, you’re not, period. Not because I have a problem with wrestling, but because we don’t have an all girls team and you’re not wrestling boys. Ah, yeah. Yep. I’m a little stuck in the mud on these things. Like no was in junior high. We had a one girl on the wrestling team.

Like none of the guys wanted to wrestle with her. Yeah. If you beat her, you beat a girl. If you lose, you got beat by a girl. Like there is no win in this situation as a [00:58:00] boy. It’s like, eh, that’s not happening. Yeah. He’s a basketball player. Yeah. My daughter’s a basketball player. Like I have no idea where she got that from.

I, I wasn’t doing it usually. So, although it’s more contact support than you would think, I had no idea there was that much contact. In basketball, uh, there is a lot of contact in basketball, especially if you get into like the a a U circuit mm-hmm. Or the mini metro circuit. It’s, it’s, it’s like full contact.

The rest will only blow a whistle from on occasion. Somebody trips and is bleeding or something. Yeah. I, and then if they’re on a breakaway, they don’t blow the whistle till the breakaway is done. I was appalled with my kids playing a a u basketball. It’s like I started bringing the medical kid in my backpack.

’cause I knew their coaches didn’t have one. I’m like breaking out ice packs and ace wraps. And for the kids in the [00:59:00] team, the coach is like, Hey, thanks. Should have one of these. That’s funny. Like really? Why don’t you have, I just, I just got my box of the instant ice packs the other day and my wife’s like, oh, another one.

And I’m like, they love these things. They go fast. Yeah. I’ve had to go down and wrap my daughter’s knee like three times now. ’cause she grew really fast. Mm-hmm. And so the hard pivots really took a whole, I, I’ve had to go down and wrap my daughter’s knee like three times now for her to keep playing. It’s like, Hey, play through the pain baby.

Just go do it. Yeah. Yeah, our oldest got the jumper’s knee when out in like a second or third season of basketball, he started complaining his knee hurting and mm-hmm. We, uh, the wife checked it out and she’s like, I think, and I was like, all right, well, we’ll roll it up and we’ll wrap it around your patella like this.

Let’s see if that helps. So now he is like, oh, I figured out to jump off two legs. My knees don’t hurt anymore about time. [01:00:00] All the things you’ll learn. Kevin, what is your best advice for dads to be there to, to show up even when you don’t think it matters? To be intent on listening and learning from your children.

Spend the quality time with them. Put your phones away and make it all about them. Don’t make it about yourself at all. Make it special for them. One day they’re gonna remember that and they’re gonna remember what you did for them, and they’re gonna pass that on to their children. Where is the best place for people to connect with you?

You’ve got your coaching services, where can people find you? So you can find me on LinkedIn, Kevin Deanna. You can find me on Instagram at Kevin Deanna 12. That’s Kevin [01:01:00] DANA two, or you can find me by email at Upward Path coaching@gmail.com. Kevin, you got any big projects in the works? I am intent on changing the collision industry for too many years.

We have. Walked into these body shops where we’re not even sure if they can find the parts that they need for our cars ’cause they can’t find the paperwork in their office anywheres. The vehicles that we drive today are not the vehicles we drove 10 years ago. The fact that they have autopilot autonomous braking, um, we need to change the way in which we do things in this industry.

Um, so I am teaching leadership [01:02:00] skills to these owners so that they can communicate with their employees because I don’t think a paycheck is enough anymore. I, I think we need to lift the people up around us and inspire them. And by doing so, if we can help them make their dreams come true, then they’ll help us make our dreams come true.

All right. Sounds like a noble effort. Yeah. I, I hate new vehicles. So you talk about the vehicles. We, I, I miss my non computerized vehicles, my transmission when I’m out on my motorcycle and I’m heartbroken ’cause it would cost more to replace the transmission than the bike is worth at this point. ’cause it’s a 99.

Yeah. But it was all mechanical. Mm-hmm. And it was still all mechanical and I could work on those and fix those and it didn’t try and do things for me. I hate new vehicles. Autonomous braking, [01:03:00] worst thing in history for someone who locking up, going down the highway. Yeah. That’s great for someone who grew up driving everywhere.

Like I, I had driven across the country twice before I had my actual license, like on my permit when I was learning. Fastest way we traveled as a family is we drove and so mm-hmm. I, I’ve grown up driving my whole life. My wife drives school buses, drives regular buses and. I hate auto braking systems. The auto detect for cruise control where it auto adjusts.

I’m like, what is this? Oh, I lose my mind. Oh, it’s funny you mentioned the mechanical thing. We were going on a boat ride down the river we live on, and um, we came to a mechanical, um, pivot bridge, like a draw bridge, but a pivots. Mm-hmm. And, uh, my son, my 10 year old’s, like, what is that? And I’m like, that’s a mechanical bridge.

It rotates so that, you know, if, uh, if a train’s coming, it can rotate and everything like that, let the train through. [01:04:00] Or if the water’s high and they need to turn it so debris from the river can flow freely down the river, they can do so. And I’m like, I bet you that thing’s 80 years old and it still works.

And about, well, the hurricane came through on the east coast about a month ago. The river level went up about six feet and sure enough, they turned that thing, let all the debris through. And I pointed it out to him and he is like, you gotta be kidding me. And I’m like, you think you’re game? I call it a game boy, it’s whatever.

A switch. Yeah. I’m like, you think that thing’s gonna be working 10 years from now? I’m like, we, we buy a cell phone for 1200 bucks and it’s only good for three years if we’re lucky. Mm-hmm. Oh yeah. Now I, uh, my first job was on a ranch in Wyoming. I, I went to high school in Wyoming. My first job was on a ranch and the pump that we used to fill our stock tanks for the cattle, ’cause we had a set of pins that were like, where our steers who were cut separate from the herd to sell.[01:05:00]

And then we had our calving corral and we had some rams that we raised just for their horns. And we had this big, you know, deep, uh, water trough for those pins. The pump that filled that thing was 110 year old John Deere water pump hand, water pump that my boss had custom built a motor onto it. So it was motorized.

Mm-hmm. But I mean, the pump itself, 110 year old pump still cranking hard used every day to pump hundreds of gallons worked great. I guarantee it still works great today. Yeah. And that was wild three years ago. Uh, they just, yeah. Oh, this is great. No it’s not. ’cause I’m gonna have to replace it in two years.

It’s not great. Yeah, no, no. My hard mechanical, I know how it works. I, I worked in the electrical industry, both in the IT world and as an [01:06:00] electrician and, Nope, just, just gimme good old fashioned mechanical stuff that just does it forever. Forever. Forever. And then you can fix it with a little bit of gum and duct tape if need be, right?

Hell yeah, man. Duct tape and paperclips go a long way. It just works. You add duct tapes and paperclips to electrical stuff, it ends really badly. Like guys, as always, we’ll have all of Kevin’s connection points and the show notes are on a YouTube description. Wherever you’re joining us for this conversation today, Kevin, if the dads today listening heard nothing else, what do you want ’em to take away?

To be present for your children? Show up for them. Make that practice. Make that recital. Practice with them. Spend time with them because you only get a short amount of time to do it, and once the day is passed, you don’t get to go [01:07:00] backwards and try it again. We can fail at other stuff in life, but we can’t fail at this.

They’re depending on us. Guys, for myself and Kevin, thanks for joining us today on the Dad Hat Shena Podcast. A community of dads just navigating life’s challenges together. Until next time, laugh, learn, and live the dad life.