Nathaniel Turner: The Intentional Dad Crafting Your Fatherhood Legacy

Every dad has that story that they just light up. They love to tell about their kid. What is your favorite dad story?

I, I have, I have so many of them, but I’ll, I’ll start with, um, I’ll start with one. My, when my son was two and I realized, uh, he was gonna be a little bit different, gonna be a bit of a handful.

So I asked him to, it was, it was early afternoon. Um, he had lunch. Uh, we’d sit down on, on the couch and watched a little bit of like blues clues or something, and it was time for a nap. So I said, Hey man, it’s time for a nap. And he balked at this idea of he that he should go take a nap. So he, he starts to walk up the stairs and he gets to the landing of the stairs and he, and I said, Hey, so I, so what you waiting on?

And he looks back at me, he says, dad, you are rude and foolish, and you ought to be ashamed of yourself, and you owe me an apology. I now he’s two and I’m, I’m looking at him and I’m wondering, should I bow to him? Because what 2-year-old puts a sentence together like that? Or should I run up the stairs and throw him off, off the ledge?

So yeah, I was one of the, one of the moments and I realized this kid is gonna be different.

Wow. Yeah. I was, I don’t know any 2-year-old that could say that string of words together, much less like. You, you wanna applaud? It’s like, well, that was actually really well worded. It was spectacular.

When when they, when they go that well, you’re just like, I really don’t appreciate that. But you did it really well.

You did it really well. And it’s, and it’s one of those things that reminds me all the time that children become what we. We programmed them to be. And so as his, as his tree and him being my fruit, that’s the stuff, you know, my wife and I started reading to him, obviously in the womb, and before he was, before he could talk, he was listening to multiple languages and so forth.

And so, so there was no surprise. It really shouldn’t been a surprise that, that he said that, but, but it shocked me nonetheless.

Oh yeah. That, that would, I think that would shock any dad. Yeah.

Welcome to the Dad Hat Shenanigans podcast, the Unfiltered Truth about being a dad. Real dads real stories, unfiltered, candid conversations on fatherhood. I’m your host, Brent Dowlen, and today my guest is Nathaniel Turner. Nate, welcome to the Dad Hatch Shenis podcast.

Thanks for having me, and it’s good to see you again

man.

It’s, it’s nice to connect again. It’s been a while. I was looking actually back, uh, as to what season you were on my other show, and it’s like, wow. It’s, it’s been a hot minute. So it’s great to see you, man. Uh, I’m looking forward to this conversation because you and I have talked about fatherhood in the past, and I know you have a lot of value to share with dads today.

But right off the bat, I’m digging the hat, uh, for all of you listening on the audio, it’s, it is a beautiful purple. Is that a light in the front?

It is. Lemme see if it comes on. It may, it may be dead ’cause I haven’t been charged it, but yes, it’s a, it’s a hat with a light.

So, so what is the dad hat story?

I’ve gotta ask?

So I made a commitment to my son, uh, in 1999 that I would get in the best shape of my life. He was then four and I promised him that I would be, get in the best shape of my life and by. Six months afterwards, I was in good enough shape to, to start preparing for my first bodybuilding contest.

And so that was 25 years ago. And so each day now, I still, I strive to do the same thing, to stay in the best shape of my life. And so my, as the weather changes, ’cause now today it’s like 60 degrees here, I’ll go out and walk and my family will be telling me, Hey, it’s dark. So they bought me a hat with a light.

So I can, so I can see where I’m going and more importantly, the other people can see I’m that I’m walking.

That’s awesome. Yeah. It it’s part of your commitment to your son. Your son is through college now and you’re still keeping this Oh, yes, I’m loving. Yeah.

Yeah. He’s through college, through through his PhD.

Finished his MBA, but started his own company last year. So yeah, he’s, he’s a full grown man now. But you’re still keeping that commitment to your son, but I’m still keeping the commitment. Absolutely. That, that’s awesome. And this is just the one, that’s all I know of. If you know something else, like keep it to yourself, brother.

I, I just gotta ask, you know, I, I thought it was just the one, but just one. Just one. I, I met you before, so We’ll, we’ll, yeah. Share that with the audience. Just the one, one

wife, one son. If those relationships don’t work out, I’m done. That’s, that’s, that’s my motto.

I love it. I love it. And wow, your son started his own company after, man.

He’s, you’ve put him on such a great track. Uh, that’s just awesome. What company, what’s he doing for a company?

Uh, he runs an energy, uh, consulting company. So his, his focus is, um, I, I, I won’t say that it’s renewable energy, but a lot of his focus is around renewable energy and really finding ways to make energy.

He says that his words are safe, secure, affordable. There’s one other word and he’s going to, he’s gonna be mad at me ’cause I can’t remember other word, but there’s, there’s four, there’s four pillars to what he’s doing around energy mo. But mostly it’s about like helping you and I and people like us figure out what the, what the skyrocketing costs of energy.

How to, how to reduce our cost of energy to also to get to the point where we don’t have to pay anything for energy.

Okay. It’s a very cool direction. Yeah. So Nate. You and I have talked before, but for our audience, different show, different audience. Mm-hmm. Tell us who you are and a little bit about you, what you do, uh, to help our audience get a grounding before we dive into the show.

Sure. So, um, I’m, I’m, I’m the, the son, I always say this, I’m the son of Tommy and Gladys Turner. I am the, uh, product of Gary Deanna. So Gary, Deanna, and all of the people who made up my village, they raised me. I’m now the. Husband of Latonya and the father of Naim, uh, the brother of Kim, and hopefully a friend and, uh, brother to a lot of other people.

Um, by day for the last 30 years, I’ve run a financial services company where I’ve mostly helped families, like my son has attempted to help with energy, uh, families who are typically forgotten or who don’t have the, the resources that most financial institutions look to, to help them. Um, but the last. 14 years or so, I’ve been helping families do what, what my wife and I did for our son, which was tobacco design his life, so that he could, first of all meet the academic, uh, admissions requirements of schools like Harvard.

And, um, and he did. And then that’s really what we do. We we’re in help, we helping students figure out how to get, to get to college and get people prepared, mostly for, for an opportunity to live their best lives.

All right. Uh. I’ve gotta ask back when you first found you, you were pregnant, if you can, I know it was a while, but mm-hmm.

What was the best piece of dad advice you were given?

Oh, I remember when I, when I found out. So, so I hope this is, this is, I’ll make it pg for your listeners. Uh, my wife told me she wanted to, she was ready to conceive, so she was, she had just turned 30. And she was talking about her biological clock was ticking.

And I said to her, you can’t hear it ’cause it’s digital, so I don’t know what you’re talking about. And she insisted that, that the biological clock was ticking. So then she took me to see this wonderful movie called The Lion King, because I didn’t want to be a father. Uh, and then when I saw The Lion King, I realized, oh yeah, I think.

This thought about what I’m gonna do as a father and how I’m gonna ruin it. Maybe I won’t. ’cause I’ve just watched this, this lion Mufasa raise this, this Cub Simba, and this is great. I think I’m ready to do this. So, um, a few months later, my wife travels to, to la She’s working for a university, uh, Valez University in the admissions department.

And so I fly out there to surprise her. I wanna say cute or porn music. And then afterwards I said to her, you’re pregnant. And she says, get outta here. I said, I’m telling you today was today. So a few weeks later, she wakes up and she comes in the room, it’s about four 30 in the morning and she starts talking about It’s plus, it’s plus.

And I’m like, what are you talking about? I go to the bathroom. And then there’s the, there’s the early pregnancy test. So I knew, uh, that was a very unique way. To find out that I was gonna be a father. Um, there was no particular lessons that anyone told me except, um, that it was gonna be harder than I thought.

And, um, whatever I, uh, whatever I thought I knew, I didn’t know, right. Whatever I thought I knew about being a father, I, I didn’t know. And it was one of those things like just sort of get ready, ’cause it’s gonna be the ride of your life.

That’s, that’s not inherently bad advice. It’s, it’s not the best advice necessarily, but it’s not bad advice.

Yeah. Well, it was not a lot of great advice. I mean, I, to be, to be given, to be, to be truthful, I didn’t have a great relationship with my father, so I wasn’t going to get good advice for him, and I wasn’t interested really, in listening to his advice. I went to meet my grandfather for the first time. My father’s father, that was a terrible experience.

I was not gonna get any advice from him. My mother’s father, my grandfather, he, he passed my senior year in high school, so he wasn’t around for me to get any advice. And all of the men that I knew who had helped me figure out how to get out of Gary, so to speak, they were all deceased. So it wasn’t, it was really just, Hey, I’m just gonna fly, uh, by the seat of my pants.

Remember it’s gonna be a wild ride and the, you know, to do the best that I possibly can. Okay.

Yeah, that, that’s fair. Uh, I, I thought I had a pretty good handle on it. I grew up working with kids. Uh, I’ve been a youth minister for years, or used to be. Um, but my wife and I both grew up in the church and we were always working like nursery and the elementary school classes and stuff like that, both before we were in a relationship and after we got married and.

I thought I had a pretty good handle, right? I worked with a lot of people’s kids and, and it’s like, and I have, you know, multiple nieces. Uh, most of my. My siblings children’s are all adults now. I have the babies and the family at 11 and 13. See? Uh, and so we thought we had a pretty, and then we had kids and it was like all the rules, all the preconceived notions that you thought you had.

There’s some legit ice out there. But yeah, there’s, there’s a lot of like, yeah, you’re gonna learn on the fly a lot.

Yep. I think though, the thing that helped, I would say this is that. Um, having watched The Lion King, honestly. Mm-hmm. Um, that was the best advice I got about being a parent from that animated mood.

I mean, it really was. I mean, people like I’ve written, I, I’ve watched it so many times, and I think at this point I probably have about 60 rules for parenting that I, that I’ve figured out from the Lion King. So, um, that movie was great. I would encourage any expecting family or even new family, um, to go back and watch the movie.

There’s so much in it that, that would help you be a great parent.

Well, good on you. Disney, you, you did something right? Yeah. You did something right. Yes. Watched a lot of Disney movies over the years. I don’t think I’ve taken a whole lot of life lessons out of them, but now I gotta go back and watch Lion King again.

Uh, there is, from the very beginning, there’s, there’s, there’s lessons from me beginning to watching, um, the village that surrounds. Mufasa and Simba and Sarabi in the very beginning, they’re not. And then I think that this is a great thing in terms of a nation. There’s not just lions, there are, there are all animals.

Are there? They’re not there just because Mufasa is the king. They’re there because they understand it truly does take a village to raise a child, but to, but in order. So they’re all there sort of to make their commitment to raising the child, because then they also understand that this child who’s gonna be a king is one day gonna be responsible for them.

And I, I, that’s, that’s the beauty of what we do. When you have a child, you, we are supposed to raise children who understand and will care deeply about the planet. The people who understand that one day they’ll be old, should come and make sure that they pour into those children, all the things that will help them to be great leaders.

Yeah. I like to tease parents, like, remember one day your kids will be either taking care of you or plugging you into a nursing home. Absolutely right. They will be in charge of your care later in life, so make sure you raise ’em well.

Yeah, it’s a, it is a great thing to go see. And any, any dad, like the very first scene that where’s Mufa, he doesn’t want to get up and he says Before 7:00 AM before sunrise.

Before sunrise, he’s your child. Which is just a, in that point, she’s like, no, like you get up. You made this child a promise. You said you were gonna get up and show him. And, and that’s, that is what it means to be a father. You can’t make excuses. You make a promise. I don’t care how uncomfortable it is, how inconvenient it is for you.

If you make a promise, you gotta get up and go do what you said you’re gonna do. That’s right in the beginning.

Yep. I, I gotta go watch the movie again. Now let’s go later. You gotta go watch it. You gotta go watch it again. Now that’s, yes. I’m not saying thinking I was looking deep enough when I saw it originally.

Yeah,

well, yeah. Or I, or I look too deeply at it. So there’s that.

You know what though, if, if they’re, if the lessons are there. It, it’s worth going back and checking out. ’cause you know, we watch, we watch, I’m, I’m a movie nerd. I love movies. I love to watch movies. Uh, I don’t watch as many as I used to, but I mean, my, my video collection was in the hundreds, back when it was still on VHS tapes.

Gotcha.

Yeah. Old saying that out loud, you know, VHS tapes. But, uh, you know, I, I own thousands of movies probably at this point. Um, I’ve had to digitize my whole collection because I had to remodel my living room to put in shelving for all my DVDs at one point. Oh. Right. Uh, yeah. Then it was, then it was Blu-ray, right?

Yes. I, I get tired of buying the same movies again and again.

Yeah.

Um, but I love to watch movies and, and some of my watch just for pure entertainment and some of ’em, you know, I’m looking for things I never really thought about digging deeper into Disney, but. Hey, I’m, I’m worth looking, right?

I have so many of that.

If Disney ever wants to hold a parent cap, I can hold a parent cap for a whole week on the, the lessons from the liking. I like, I, this is no, no exaggeration. I’m absolutely positive. There’s so much, there’s so much there. They’re so rich.

Nate, what is the best part about being a dad?

At this point it is watching to see if I, if I succeeded or failed.

I mean, it really is. It’s a, I I see, uh, being my son’s father and I try to change that because it’s like an attachment. So, uh, the guy who calls me dad, it, watching life through his eyes is. Is like the ultimate test, the ultimate test of whether or not I am who I said I was. I, the better he is. Then it suggests that maybe his parents did something right.

Uh, if he fails. I’ve always said that to him, if you fail, it’s my fault. If you succeed, it belongs to you. So that’s really the the test I get to see. Get to watch life unfold and hit from his eyes and to see if we did enough good stuff to help him how the kind of life he wants to have.

Fair. That’s absolutely fair.

I still got a few years before I to try and do my best before I’m, I’m looking at it from that angle, but I definitely think that’s a fair assessment.

Yeah. I mean, the truth is if you, you even now, I mean I, I’ve felt that way, the entirety of his life. So to now he’s 30, but when he was, when he was three, when he was five, when he was 10, I’ve always felt like, um, his, his outcome, it’s again, I’ll use, ’cause you, you said you pastored, so the tree and the fruit analogy works really well and you get it.

If a tree is judged by the fruit that it bears, the tree is always judged by the fruit that it bears. It’s judged by the fruit. When the fruit is small, it, it’s judged by the fruit. When the fruit is ready for the harvest, it’s always judged. And so I, I have to, I then, I judge myself by how well my fruit is turning out at whatever stage that the fruit is being produced.

I think it’s fair. I like, and I like the analogy, the tree and the fruit analogy works. I, I live in the middle of Orchard country. Okay. Just, just to the west of us. 30 miles is the apple capital of the world. It’s, this is orchard land. Uh, we have pears, we have apples, and we have cherries out here. Uh. Like just you in Washington?

Yeah. Central Washington, Washington state. Mm-hmm. So I remember that.

Mm-hmm.

Uh, and it is, yeah, I mean, I’m up on the plateaus, so it’s hay and corn and potatoes, but just 20 miles to the west of us, it’s orchards like thousands upon thousands of acres of orchards. Uh, so, you know, I, I have several friends who are orchardists.

It’s like. No, I get that. I’ve been there when they cut trees out ’cause they stopped producing and so that really works for me. Nate, what do you wanna dive into today on fatherhood? What’s on your heart?

I heard you talk, uh, once about, um. Work life balance. Maybe that’s a, that’s, that’s something we could, because I don’t think that, and I think, I think I heard you say you don’t believe that there’s a such thing either.

I’m certainly absolutely positive there’s no such thing. And I think perhaps that this search for this worklife balance, so this belief that you can have work life balance is a large problem in the way that people parent today.

All right. Let, let’s dive into it. The topic is work life balance, guys. And I know a lot of dads who this is a big stressor for them.

Like they’re always scrambling. It’s like, how do I, how do I do this? How do I do all this? So what do you think?

Yeah, I think we’re, I think all think parenting is a little bit like, uh, being a circus performer and we don’t recognize that. So, you know, we don’t have circuses anymore. ’cause I think, I’m pretty sure it’s because of the way animals were treated.

So I completely respect that. But when you think about the old circus, there was these three rings and there’s the, uh, ring Master, I think that’s the name of the person, but. In the circus, there will be people doing various things. So there’s someone who would do a highwire act, but the Highwire Act person wasn’t trying to figure out also how to balance and be a lion tamer because you know why?

’cause the lion will eat their head off. So they stuck to the thing that they were great at. The person who’s a lion tamer is not trying to then go up on the, the person who is the clown is not trying to. Tame, uh, an elephant. I guess my point is that what we all try to do is we try to do what one, only one person can do in the circus, which is juggle.

The juggler only juggles. And I think that that’s what parents think that they, that we can do. We think we can juggle everything. You, you cannot juggle everything, um, parenting you want when you decide to be a parent, you have to make a decision and understand that the thing that I’m going to be the best at is I’m either gonna be great at being a parent or I’m gonna be great at being an employee, or I’m gonna be great at being something else.

But what I’m not gonna be able to do is be great at everything. So that’s the, that’s the, that’s the choice you have to make. I, I’ve made the choice that I wanted to be great at being a father. Um, I didn’t, some of the people in my, in my industry want to be great at being financial advisors. They wanna make how, you know, go gobs of money and have all these assets under management and all that kinda stuff.

I just, that didn’t matter to me as much as making sure that my son had the best opportunities to have a great life. And I think that’s where we, we get a little lost in our society today where we are thinking we can have everything. You cannot have everything, and you’ll never have work-life balance.

Something will always be out of balance. You just may not realize it until it’s too late.

I miss the circuses. I grew up going to like the Barnum and Bay Circus back when it was like at the big, like coliseums, like the big mm-hmm. Cities, right? We would come through out here. Yeah. The Tacoma Dome or someone, something like that.

Uh, the big sports arenas. I, I do, I I understand backing off on the animals. There was one that came through town. I’ve only taken my kids to one circus. Uh, okay. Because one came through the area. I think they had a dog act and you know, they carried around a snake so people could see it, that it wasn’t like a performing snake kind of thing.

Um, the kids got a kick out of the high wire, but I do, I I miss those mm-hmm. Events ’cause like mm-hmm. It was such an event. Uh, it’s one of those things I wish I had been able to show my kids. Like, yeah, we used to go to things like this. Right. Um, but I do respect that they quit them out. But I think that’s a really great analogy.

Because there is just, if you’re old enough to have gone to those circuses like we are, there was so much happening. Just it was so overwhelming. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. And the specialist, right? Yeah. I was remembering the time I saw the big cat trainers. Like that would’ve been funny. I wanna see him like, you know.

Work the cats on the high wire. That’s, yeah. Good luck with that. I’m also pretty sure is why half the nation is afraid of clowns, but you know,

oh my, I think you’re absolutely right. I think, you know, his dads were always trying to juggle and find because, because. And, and that’s the thing, you don’t have to give up other dreams to become a father. It just means they aren’t the highest priority at the moment. Correct. Correct. So you can, how, how do you recommend approaching this?

Because I mean, there are a lot of men listening right now who are in this stage, whether they’re kids are really little, are in the middle somewhere or even older going, okay, well I still gotta be an employee, or I’m trying to run my business, or gotta be a husband, I’ve gotta be a father. I I want to build this or do this.

I, I, so I, I would say this, I think a lot of the, a lot of things we do are, uh, are ego driven. Um, so I wanna, I want to, I wanna say, I realize there are realities in, in life that, that we, that we, we have to earn a living. ’cause they’re bills that have to be paid. There’s. There’s rent or a mortgage that has to be paid, that we want to have a place that our family can be safe and secure and have clothing and all that kind of stuff.

But it feels like a lot of the stuff we do is the pursuit of, again, here’s another reference of things that, that rust and moths do destroy. It feels like a lot of it has a little to do with anything other than proving to other men. ’cause we love to measure ourselves against other people, that somehow we’re equal to another man and what he has, what he drives, what he wears, et cetera.

But I know this, at the end of your life and my life, there’ll be no comparison written about you or I in our obituary with another person. There’ll be no words spoken at our eulogy. If anyone cares to eulogize us, that’ll compare us to another person. There’ll be no words on your urn or your tomb that compares you with another person, and so that if the end doesn’t matter, if the, if the, if the end doesn’t take consideration, a comparison to another person, why then are we living our lives every day trying to compare and compete with other people?

I feel like that’s where we lose, sort of lose our way. Who’s gonna write about me when I’m gone? More likely than not, my son’s gonna write my obituary. Who’s gonna say something about me when I’m gone? More likely or not, my son is gonna be the person who speaks about me when I’m gone. Who’s probably gonna be responsible if I have a tomb or earn?

It’s gonna be my son. And so then if that person is going to bear that responsibility for me in the end, why shouldn’t I bear that responsibility for that person while I’m still here?

I think that’s really, really a great point. Um, I feel very, very blessed. I grew up a preacher’s kid. My dad preached for 40 plus years.

Okay. But growing up a preacher’s kid, I attended a lot of funerals from the time I was very young, I, I attended a lot of funerals, which might seem odd to some people who didn’t grow up in that life, but. For me, it actually made a really deep impression early on in my life, because that’s what I heard, right.

I, I heard members get up and talk about these people. Right. Um, I mean, I, I heard some business stories along the way, right. You know? Oh, he sure. Absolutely. But, but that was usually a, a fun, or, but I heard for years of my life going to various, uh, funeral services. I listen to families talk about the person who was no longer there, right?

Mm-hmm. And they told what they remembered, what was important to them. And it really made an impression very early in my life is like, okay, you know, this is, I know, I, I decided by the time I was like 12 or 13, that two of my big life goals were to when I died. Someone’s gonna be able to say I was a good husband and a good father.

Okay. That if they can, if they can etch that in the tombstone, if they can utter that out loud afterwards, my life went pretty well. Right. And, and so that was an early impression for me. And I think that’s one of the things we miss sometimes as dads is we’re so busy and there’s so much pressure. It’s like, oh, you gotta provide, you gotta provide, you gotta provide, okay.

But we all think we have to, you know, become millionaires and try and give our kids everything financially. Mm-hmm. And that is just this consuming thought. Right. When I found out I was gonna be the DA a dad, the first thing that came to mind is like, oh my God, how am I gonna pay for all this?

Right.

Right.

I don’t make enough money. Right, right. I think a lot of men feel that way, and so we get obsessed with that part.

Yep. Provision doesn’t have to be just monetary. And I see your point. When we are thinking about providing, it’s just the way we socialize, we, we think about provision in terms of what can I give them That is, that is.

Tangible that cost, uh, money that they can wear. But provision is also what can I give them so that they can be the kind of human being that cares about the greater good? What can I give them that allows them to be intellectually ambitious and curious? What can I give them so that they, uh, have an understanding of other people’s cultures and, and the planet itself?

What can I give them so that they care deeply about something greater than themselves? That’s a provision too. But very few fathers understand that like we’re, again, we’re simply and living in this, what is it? Fomo, fear of missing out. We’re all thinking we’re going, we’re missing out on something that we don’t have some material possession, like I’m just telling you, that’s just not what this life and this journey with being a father is about.

It is not about materials. It’s about when I leave here, because most of us are not gonna leave great wealth to anybody. So I’m not a robber baron, and you’re not a robber baron. And, uh, we’re not the Gilded age people of today, so I am not going to, it is unlikely that I’m going to build some big something to give to my son and leave it to him.

But even if I did, if I don’t raise a good human being, he’s going to squander it pretty quickly. So what am I going to leave? The best thing I could leave is a person who lives their life in such a way that when I’m gone, someone could say, oh yeah, you are the son of, and then I get to continue to live.

My father gets to continue to live, hopefully, because I’m gonna live a decent life. And people are gonna say, well, who I, you know, you started off, you said, who are you? I said, I’m the son of Tommy and Gladys. My mother is still alive, but my father is not. My father gets to still live and you don’t know my mother in deciding if once you decide what kind of human being you think that I am, you’ll decide what kind of human being you think my mother is.

So she gets to continue to live and hopefully live, uh, in a way that people think of her positively. So I think that’s the provision that I think we should spend more time thinking about.

I would absolutely agree. Uh. My father spent his last year of life here at my house. My mom still lives with us after my dad passed a couple years ago.

And you, you were talking about, you know, your kids are gonna be the ones who speak at your funeral, and I mm-hmm. Over my father’s funeral, um, planned it with my siblings and my mom. And you were talking about, it’s like, man, that’s, there’s so much truth in that insight. Uh, because yeah. My, my brother and I were the ones working with my mom to plan my dad’s.

Funeral, his obituary. Uh, right. And it’s been a couple years now, but one of the great things, like every now and then I’ll run into somebody and they’re like, you’re Dave’s kid, aren’t you? I’m like, yes, I’ll take that association.

Yes. Right, right. See, Dave’s still alive. And and the better you do the, the better they remember Dave fa uh, favorably.

Yep. You know, my dad and I did not, didn’t talk at one point for probably about 20 years. And the interesting thing is that when my father passed, my family called me ’cause I’m the writer in the family, and they asked me to write the obituary. And I thought, well how interesting this is that this guy and I didn’t have a great relationship and, but when he’s gone he didn’t think about this.

If, I’m sure if he had thought about it, maybe he’d have, he, our relationship would’ve been different, that it was gonna be the son who you oftentimes had difficulties with who was gonna have to tell the story in words who you were. And so I’m just mindful of that, that that, and that brings me to this point where I tell people like this word that we don’t take in consideration enough, which is the word who, and I say like when you say you are a father, you are defining who you are.

But the truth is when you say you are a father, you don’t get to define who you are. Your child does. ’cause as a father, you’re not who you think you are. You’re not who you believe your child thinks you are. You are exactly who your child understands you to be. Wow. The too many fathers think that we get to say who we are as a father.

No, you don’t. You don’t get to determine who you are as a father. Your children decide who you are, not you, not your opinion of you, not what you think your children should think of you. No. Who your children say you are is exactly who you are. ’cause they’re the only people who know you as a father. Wow.

I just wanna let that sit for a minute ’cause

right,

I, I’m, I’m, I’m sitting here in the back of my mind going, how would my kid answer that question right now?

Well, you’ve answered her for your father though. See, you’ve, you’ve done that for your father. Your father’s not here. But you, you get to tell me. I, I get, I can look at you on the screen and I get some idea what kind of father your father was. You’re telling me who your father is. Your dad’s not here to tell me that.

It wouldn’t even matter. He could tell me I was a great father. I did all this stuff. I’m like, yeah. I’m like, yeah, yeah, yeah. Lemme talk to your children,

right? Lemme talk to your children. That’s why I’m asking myself. So my kids answered that question. I gotta think about that one.

Right. I mean it’s like any, any like, and I think when, when we and men who we think about, you know, provision in terms of products and what we produce, if you and I ran a company and let’s say, ’cause you mentioned, uh, orchard.

So let’s say we, we ran a farm and we produced, we said we produced the best apples in the world, but if nobody bought our apples, we could, we need to stop. Right? Like, what, what does it matter what we think? The consumer has decided that our apples are not any good. In this particular analogy, the child is the consumer.

Are, are you who you believe you are? And the only way to know that is what does the consumer say and the consumer in this particular case are children.

Nate, you, uh, you know, we started this conversation on work-life balance. Now I’ve, I’ve talked many times. I use block scheduling. It’s a really big, i, I live by my calendar.

Uh, Monday nights are my kids’ time from, from four o’clock till they go to bed. Nothing else in the world exists. Right, right. That’s great. It doesn’t matter if I’m done or not for the day. At four o’clock I shut everything down. It’s their time. Uh, and I’ve talked about that a lot over the years on the show and my other show.

What do you utilize, so you’re not trying to juggle back and forth, what techniques, styles, ideas.

I honestly, uh, I’ve done some of that right up when my, when my son was young, I didn’t, there was no block scheduling ’cause I’m old. But, but, but, uh, like you, if I said I had to pick him up at school at three, I picked him up at school at three and my clients would understand that I was getting my son and I was on these particular days.

I was not gonna be in the office after this time. Um, I, I would say l less tool and more heart, but that my objective is just to remain connected to my son at the heart. So, so he was with me a lot. So in the early days when Mike was starting out in, in this profession, I would ask my clients, I’d say, Hey, listen, I, I don’t have a childcare provider, but is it okay if I bring Naim to the meeting?

He’s gonna sit in the corner. And he’s gonna have a coloring book or do, or have a book and he’s gonna read. And they were like, great. And today all of those people are his extended family members. So I, it just, it was less about me blocking out in time just realizing that, um, I just find to find a way to be present as present as I could be.

’cause there’s no way I couldn’t find any balance. So today he and I schedule time, uh, to work on his business. And we do that each Friday from two to four. But generally I just pick with the phone and I just call him and he picks with the phone and, and call me and or video and whatever I’m doing, I just try to stop and give him first dibs on my time and energy.

But that’s, that’s, I don’t know that that’s an effective way. Uh, but I figure if, if today were my last day on the planet and it very well could be. There is nothing that would, that would be more important to me than having a conversation with him. So I just stop. Whatever I’m doing can’t be that important.

If I, when I look at it from that lens, if today was my last time to have a conversation with him and I see, oh, not is calling me and I can, I can, like I can’t do it now, ’cause you and I on this recording, so I probably would let it go to voicemail, but outside of that. I would take the call, say, excuse me, I, I gotta take this call.

This is my son. And most people would understand that. They’d like, okay, okay, fine. Take the call. I’ll, I’ll call you right back.

Okay. You got a dad joke for us.

A dad joke. Oh, man, I, I’m, I’m, I’m the comedian in the family, so, so, but I don’t know if I have a particular joke that I tell. Um, no, I don’t have a dad joke.

I apologize. I, I think I had written one. Um. Before to be on a show. And now I can’t remember exactly what it, what it is, but yeah,

I think you actually did write what in the response?

I, I did. And I just can’t remember what it was.

That’s okay. I’ll, I’ll insert it later or something. Okay. Cool. Nate, you said something interesting, um, that I wanted to jump into real quick that I don’t think a lot of fathers are familiar with the idea.

Right. So I do a lot of videos, uh. A, as a podcaster, as a YouTuber, I, I do a lot of videos and I always start at the end, right? Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Working from where I want it to land, this is the end result I want trying to work backwards. And you mentioned that in talking about parenting your son mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm. That you, the end goal and, and I wanted to mm-hmm. Touch on that a little bit because I think that’s a new concept for a lot of dads.

Sure.

So

we, we call it backward design. It’s not, it’s not mine. Um. It, it is the mind in the way that I use it. But educators have used backward design for a long time.

It’s the way they would create, uh, a lesson plan. We, we think about, well, how, how much do we want these students to, to learn, let’s say third graders. And we want them to learn, you know, a hundred percent of third grade math, which I wish, because nobody in America, uh, teachers their kids a hundred percent of anything.

But if we could, if we could imagine, then we go teach them a hundred percent of third grade math. The, the. Third grade teacher would say, okay, on day one, in order for us to get to this a hundred percent, there’s, we have, let’s say we have 200 days of class time. So if I broke this into one 200th every day, we’re gonna learn one 200 till we get to the end and they’ll have learned everything.

So that’s the way I’ve, I’ve approached, um, being. Helping my son, we, we backward design this idea for him to meet the academic qualifications for Harvard. Well, what does that mean when you have an unborn child? Well, it means that there are things that we learn in science that we should do to stimulate the brain of a, of an of a, of.

Uh, of an, not an embryo, but as a life that’s growing inside of a mother’s womb. And there are things you should do when a child is born and there’s things that child should be able to do by the time they’re one and things they should be able to do by they’re two and three, et cetera. And so you’re working backwards to get to the place that when your child takes this SAT test, they can score well enough on SAT tests or their grades are good enough because most families sadly wait to their kids.

Maybe are eighth graders to start thinking seriously about where I want my kid to go to college. And by then, I don’t say it’s late, but it’s, it’s much more difficult to do if you wait till their eighth and ninth and 10th graders than it would be if you spread it out. Right. The, the, the, the journey from zero to 18.

So that’s, that’s a little bit back. That back design. It’s like GPS, you and I decide to meet somewhere. You were in Washington, we decide, I don’t know, we’re gonna meet in Hawaii. You gotta map out a route to get to Hawaii. I have to map out a route to get to Hawaii, but if we plan it correctly, we can arrive at the same time.

And that’s, that’s sort of what back design is.

All right. I, I, yeah. I don’t think a lot of parents, right? We, especially early on, you’re just like trying to figure out how to survive. It’s like, oh my gosh, how do I change the diaper? What do, why are they still crying? Right? We thinking about college or the end game at that point.

Um, I think you, a lot of parents just get into this, we’re doing life trying to get through today. We’re trying to get ’em past fourth grade or whatever. Right?

But the interesting thing is that is the children oftentimes are the only thing that we think about that way. See, if you are a person and you say, I want to be a medical doctor.

You’re not thinking about, oh, I just gotta figure out how to get through lab. You’re not thinking about that. You are thinking about one day when I have my practice. So everything you do you understand is a part of the process to get to where you want to go. If you meet a woman and you think she might be the woman that I want to to marry, there are things that you are doing in order to secure.

Uh, this commitment that she want. And so, but when we have children, we, so we act as if that’s different. It’s not different. It’s the same thing. But why don’t, wouldn’t we give the same intentionality to another life that we know one day is going to be an adult? That we would for anything else. Why would I give an intentionality to growing a business but give no intentionality to growing a child or growing a human or growing an adult?

That makes no sense whatsoever, but that’s the way that we socialize, um, being parents in this. We socialize the idea that it’s just, Hey, you just, there’s no book for it. There’s no methodology. You know, just gotta figure it out. Nope. That’s the dumbest thing in the world. We don’t just figure out going to college, there’s a process.

We don’t just figure out driving the car. There’s a process. We don’t just figure out building a building. There’s a process. Well, there’s a process also to raising the kind of life that you, that will be happy to say good things about you in your obituary, in your eulogy. On your tomb or your, there’s a process and we just have to apply that.

I love that thought. I, uh, we got really post the dreaded Rona. We, we got really more intentional about our kids’ education. We pulled ’em out of public school. Uh, you know, our schools did the best they could to come up and fumble with some kind of program too. Have edge can cont continue during that time when everybody was at home.

Mm-hmm. That gave us this window into the public school system that we thought we were pretty, like my, my wife was the head of the parent volunteer committee. She was at the school twice a week. Anyway, we knew the teachers and, and we have, and I’m not crapping on, we, we have a lot of friends who are teachers who are really grateful.

Sure. Teachers. Mm-hmm. There are a lot of really good teachers that are forced to teach what the system says they’re supposed to teach. Sure. Absolutely. But we got this insight into what my kids were being taught, and it’s like, yeah, it’s time to, uh, rethink this and take this in another direction. Uh, my oldest daughter was already stru starting to struggle a little bit with, it was, it was too simple for her.

Mm-hmm.

Starting to get distracted. Get herself in trouble that way and been doing homeschooling ever since. And it’s so funny ’cause my daughter gets frustrated with math because it actually challenges her because she’s not doing, um, let’s see, this year she’ll be in eighth grade. Well, she’s been doing math that they teach in high school already for two years.

Right,

right, right. And you know, and she’s like, oh, she got used to things being easy. And it was like, oh, this actually challenges me. Well honey, let’s be, it should challenge you. That’s okay. Absolutely. But it took that to get us serious about being a little more focused on how do we need to support the kids in education.

Right. I grew up a public school kid, so I was like, ah, we’ll put ’em to school. They’ll be fine. But you know, that was a dinosaur’s age ago these days. Um,

I, I get a kick outta that. It’s like, wow. It’s been a, been a minute. My kids were like, dad, what year did you graduate? I’m like, before you were born a lot child by a lot. Uh, you get invited to the, God, I think the 30 year reunion or whatever, and you’re like, Hmm, that’s interesting. Yeah. Well. Yeah, we’ll

try, yeah, try your four.

I think if we had our reunion be, this should be 42 years since I was in high school, so yeah.

Again, like I said, I’m old. Yes. A lot of, a lot of dads don’t. We, we like to pretend it’s not, but the system has changed. The world changed radically. We like to think. Absolutely. It’s, it’s the same as when we were growing up.

It’s not, it’s really not anymore. Um, so it took that wake up call for us to get intentional about it.

Yeah. Yeah. I think the truth is that the, that. What what I, my sense is, and so I want to say this, I don’t, I didn’t hear you. I don’t hear you complaining or saying anything bad about educators. My wife is, is an educator.

Mm-hmm. Been everything from a high school guidance counselor to a university dean. So I’ve seen the landscape of education through her lens for a long time and she and I. Have disagreed vehemently on the state of education today. She’s, I would say, on the dark side with me in terms of what’s, what’s, what’s taking place.

But the, so then I would say this, the truth is that what you and I are now discovering is that what something people have already known, people who have wealth and privilege have always escaped the traditional forms of education. That’s just something we’ve done. We’ve all been, uh, convinced to essentially outsource everything we do to somebody else.

Wealthy and privileged people haven’t done that. They’ve always sent their children to to great private schools. They’ve always hired former college professors and so forth to to teach or coach their children. They’ve always had professional athletes working with their kids if they thought their kid had an aptitude for something.

The thing is that we now live in a world where we are able to see. Everybody’s doing. Everybody’s sharing it, and nobody keeps it a secret anymore. It’s on Instagram. It’s on YouTube, it’s on right? It’s almost on TikTok. Everybody’s sharing it. Everybody’s saying, well, whoa, whoa, whoa. Wait a minute. Why did they get to do all that stuff?

So, yeah, so now we’re kind of awake that maybe that there is something better, but there’s always been something better because the folks who have always remained at the top have done so because they weren’t doing what the common person was doing. So. Yeah, now you get a chance to do what the, what the uncommon person was doing and you get to do it.

And now more people are doing it. They’re commonly choosing to do that thing as well.

Absolutely. Nate, where can people connect with you? It’s the best place to find you

at a website, just like every everybody else. But we have two now. So we have, uh, uh, if you’re interested in finding out some of the work we do with parents, it’s, it’s, uh, the League of Extraordinary parents.

So that website is www L-X-T-R-A p.com, the league of extraordinary parents lx trap.com. And if you just wanted to see what, what I’m up to, and you know the, the ramblings of a crazy man, you can find me@nathanielaturner.com, N-A-T-H-A-N-I-E-L-A, as in apple. T-U-R-N-E r.com

guys. Of course, we’ll have all of Nate’s connections down in the show notes or the description wherever you’re joining us for this episode.

Nate, what is your best piece of advice for dads? Better than what we’ve already talked about? I, um, better than

that, but I would just ask, I would, I would ask Dad to just ask themselves, you know, who do you want to be when your time on this planet is up? Who do you want your children to say you were? And that that’s, that’s it.

I want them, I want fathers to think about that. Who do you want your children to say you were? Who do you want them to write that you were? Who do you want them to say that you were? What would you like them to say about you last three to five words that they’re gonna leave for you on the tomb? Or like, what do you, and if, if, if you know what those things are, if you then, then get to work, making sure that’s the reality.

And if you don’t get to work, thinking about what it is that matters to you.

I came across, across the quote the other day, and it was, you know, if your kid grew up and was just like you, how would you feel about that? Yeah, that’s, that’s a, I’m gonna have to ponder that, right? It’s like, uh, would I, Hmm.

That’s, that’s, you know, every example you set your health, your way, you treat people, everything’s like.

I’m

gonna have to sit with that for a while. And you are modeling, right?

Yes you are. You are modeling.

Yep. Nate, thanks for coming on the show and hanging out with us today guys. Be sure and check out what Nate’s got going on.

Um, I didn’t even scratch the surface. We had a deep dive in his technique of raising his son and the way him and his wife planned out. His son’s path early on in the way they work towards it. Uh, I will actually, if you go to the show page for this episode on my website, I’ll actually connect that episode as well so you guys can go even a step further into that discussion.

Uh, ’cause we did a real good deep dive on that and this whole idea of backwards engineering and what that actually looked like in execution. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

You

can check out that there, I’ll make sure that is linked to this video as well. Guys, thanks for joining us on the Dad Hat Shenanigans podcast.

We’re just community of dads navigating life’s challenges together. Until next time, laugh, learn and live the dad life.