Why Great Dads Stay Flexible: The Dad Hat Methodology

[00:00:00] A friend of mine, Ofir Dearie, is an artisan hot sauce company owner. Like he, he is, his recipe is his company, and I’ve watched him build it up from the ground up and it’s just an amazing hot sauce. It’s been fun watching him grow this amazing brand, and I’ve gotten help out some here and there, tasting batches, giving opinions on things, new recipes and such, so.

I absolutely love the habanero hot sauce that he makes. The brand is Guero Y Maria, and it’s very local to where I live, but he’s got. Major distribution at this point. Like it’s, he’s done really well and I’m very happy for him. But the flavor of his hot sauce is incredible and I put it on pretty much everything.

But I ran out one night and all I had in the house was this new beta test version of a new hot sauce that he was making with Ghost Pepper. Wasn’t available. I had a bottle. Two or three other people had a bottle, but like, didn’t even have like it, it just had like the [00:01:00] testing label on it Now. I’ve never been a hot sauce guy.

Like I didn’t actually fall in love with hot sauce till my friend started making his hot sauce because it always got too hot, too fast and didn’t have the flavor of the peppers. One of the amazing thing about his is the flavor of his hot sauce. It stays all the way through, right? So I was gonna test this new ghost pepper anyway, and I happened to run out of Habanera hot sauce that night, which I loved, and I thought, ah, whatever, right?

So I jumped up. Went over and grabbed the bottle and I never had ghost pepper. I didn’t know anything about it. I knew it was supposed to be really hot, but it’s like I, I doused everything in Ghost pepper or in habanero hot sauce, right? I’m thinking, habanero baby, right? No big deal. So I grabbed the ghost pepper bottle and just went to town, like all over my food, just like I would with the habanero.

Now. I like said, had no gauge between ghost pepper and habanero, but I ate it just like it was habanero. So you [00:02:00] know, it’s like all over my food, right? No big deal. And I started eating it. Well, what some people don’t know, if you’re not a pepper person, you may not be aware that the different peppers have like more heat on the front end or on the back end.

It might be hot up front and then not too bad in the back, or it might build over time and that’s what Ghost Pepper does, right? So it usually either has heat in the front or in the back, one or the other. And that’s just how Peppers work. Well, habanero is pretty hot up front and hot all the way down, but it, it is not real bad once you eat it.

Ghost Pepper, apparently it works a little differently. It’s got an amazing flavor up front, but not a whole lot. To worry about, right? No, not a whole lot of heat. So I was like, whew, okay. Right. So I am just ching down this ghost pepper hot sauce. Like I said, it’s in beta [00:03:00] format and all of a sudden it just starts building, right?

And I am, I’m getting warm just like I am now under these lights, but I’m getting warm and. I’m sitting there like it’s starting to become uncomfortable, a little bit painful because I’d just been gobbling down huge amounts of this, and I feel this little hand reach over and sat gently on my hand. I looked over at my little girl and she had the most compassionate look on her face, and she looked at me square in the eyes and said, it’s okay if you cry, daddy.

I said, baby, I’m not crying. And she looked at me stead pan in the face and said, your face is. That was several years ago guys, but it is still something we laugh about all the time because this adorable little girl is just looking up going, no, like you got problems man. I got up and went and looked in the mirror, like there was just sweat running down my head and I’m, I’m red all over like my vest is now.

[00:04:00] And, but she thought I was crying and you know, who knows? I might have actually been at that point, but we still laugh about this years later we thought so. In today’s episode, we’re gonna go past the three Ps. Provider, protector, presider. Most men are fairly common with those concepts, and they’re fairly normal concepts for both fathers and men in general.

You wanna be the very, very best dad. You came are, you wouldn’t be here, right? That’s, that’s why you clicked on the podcast. You’re already familiar with those three Ps, but you know, there’s more to being a dad than just a three Ps. Well upfront. There’s no perfect way to dad, but there is a perfect tool to make being a dad a great experience for you and for your children.

In this special edition of the podcast today, we’re diving into the dad hat methodology, the story behind the show, some dad jokes, of course, and a key to thriving relationship with [00:05:00] your kids. That last forever, by the way. ’cause it’s a dad show, right? What do you call it when Batman skips church? Christian Bale.

Sorry, I was waiting for the Bazinga guys. We’re gonna jump to our sponsor and we’ll be right back with the dad hat methodology. As you know, our friend Mike Lindell, has a passion to help everyone get the best night’s sleep of their life. He didn’t stop simply by creating some of the best pillows in the world.

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Welcome to the Dad Shenanigans podcast, [00:07:00] the unfiltered truth about being a dad. Real dads real stories, unfiltered, candid conversations about fatherhood. I’m your host, Brent Dowlen, and today we’re having special edition of the show. This is an interview based show, 99.999% of the time. However, as the show is still fairly young, I wanted to spend a little bit of time and just tell you guys where the dad hat methodology is, what the dad hat, dad hat methodology is, where we’re coming from and why we’re doing this show.

So you understand what this is really about. Now I have two girls. I have a 13-year-old and a 10-year-old. But I have worked with kids for over 20 years in youth ministry and as volunteer coach and other things. And I a significant portion working around young people and I am passionate about helping dads be better dads because I am on a journey as a dad just like you are to be the very best dad I can.[00:08:00]

All my guests on the show have to wear a hat, thus the Dad Hat podcast. And if you normally listen to the audio version of the show, I highly recommend you jump onto the video today on YouTube or Rumble for this episode to make this even more relevant for you because there’s some visuals that help this make even more sense, but you will be able to get it out of this.

I just, it’s a lot more entertaining on the visual today. Now, growing up I moved a lot because. My dad was a domestic missionary, and we moved every couple years, but because we moved a lot, I learned to be a little bit of a chameleon socially. I learned to adapt really, really quickly to fit in easily. So that way when I got to a new place, I didn’t stick out like a sore thumb ’cause I didn’t want to be the new kid.

The new kid. It was really frustrating and a bit difficult and awkward socially to be the new kid over and over and over again. And we didn’t move like towns like we moved opposite sides of the country. And if you [00:09:00] ever lived around the country, you’re gonna find out that cultures from one area of the country to another.

You might as well be in a different country, even in the US life in Missouri and Texas and that area of the country is very different than life out here in Washington state. I found that from Norfolk all the way out to California. It doesn’t change. Everywhere is very different. Cultures are very different, and so I learned to adapt very, very quickly.

I always looked at it kinda like a joker in a deck of cards. I learned that the Joker is actually one of the most powerful cards because it fills whatever the role is based on the hand that is dealt. So a joker can be an ace or a two, A joker can be a 10 or a king. It doesn’t matter. It fills whatever role you need to in your based on whatever hand is played.

And so I learned to adjust somewhat like that. I kept who I was, but I learned to change the outside around and the habits [00:10:00] and the way I talked, to the point where my accent actually changes just talking to somebody because my accent is so fluid. So the first time I. I ever saw the painting the son of Man, I was absolutely enthralled.

Now, you might not be familiar with this painting, or you might better know it as the faceless man in the bowler hat. If you’re watching, I’ll have it up on the screen so you guys can see it. It is a copyrighted work of art, but it’s the man in a gray suit with a gray bowler hat with a green apple in his face.

If you watch the movies, you’ve definitely seen it before. It was featured heavily in the Thomas Crown Affair, but it’s been seen in several shows over the years. I was always taken with this particular piece of art when I became a father. I instantly identified with a painting even more as I realized that there are so many hats or roles that a dad has to fill in his life.

Traditionally, we hear about the three or four Ps of. Men, right, which [00:11:00] is provider protector. Presider are in some cases procreator, if you include the fourth one. And we talked about that at the very beginning. But this is a really broad stroke to fatherhood and being a man. And I don’t necessarily think it covers everything.

Dads wear a lot of hats. Dad plays all the roles like playmate. Tea party host, wrestling partner, boxing partner, cook, caregiver, cuddle master, teacher, instructor, pony expert, dance partner, karaoke king, and so, so, so, so, so many more. So I got this hat that I wear for the show as an homage to the incredible variety of roles that dads fill over the course of their lifetime as you go with a kid from newborn.

Until the time they’re an adult themselves and at the same time it’s bright red, which my wife thought was kind of ridiculous. And let’s face it, if you’ve seen a picture of me, it’s kind of ridiculous, the top. But that’s okay. Because I also [00:12:00] wanted to be hard to hide. It stands out because I want dads to know that here in this community, they’re seen, there’s no apple.

You’re not faceless. We see you out there doing your best to be very great dad, and we absolutely love you for it. So this hat, this podcast is for you. And that’s my dad hat story. Another dad joke for you guys. What’s a Shark’s favorite saying? Man overboard.

Yes. The dad jokes will just get worse the longer you’re on this. Now the secret weapon of great dads is about having an open mind. Imagine walking into a hat shop and there are literally thousands of hats and none of them are exactly the same. Well, this is your life as a dad because you’re gonna wear a thousand plus dad [00:13:00] hats over the course of your life.

Now, there’s a shop in a little tourist town that I live near called Leavenworth Washington, and it is a hot sauce shop, which for me has an obvious appeal, right? I don’t like going to tourist places very often, but I’ve probably walked through that shop. 15 times, dozen times, something like that. In my life, I’ve never bought a thing there.

I always wanna look and check out all the labels and they have all these scary labels and all these different hat on all these different hot sauce bottles. And some of ’em you can’t see on air and some of ’em are just, you read it and you’re like, I’m gonna die if I eat this. But in all the times I walk through that store, I’ve never bought a thing.

I just look. I have an issue with overwhelm. I can’t focus and pick. There’s actually well-documented issues with [00:14:00] online sales that make this make a little more sense. You see, if you have more than four color options on say a t-shirt, on a website, you actually reduce cells per option. You add now the number one.

T-shirt colors, black, followed by white. If you add two more variants, that’s about as much as you can get away with because it does for every color you add, you actually reduce the number you sell, and it’s overwhelm. Buyers with too many choices. Too many options. Too many, too many, too many. They don’t buy things.

And for a lot of dads, this is kind of the issue with becoming a dad. There is so much to being a dad that it creates this huge overwhelm for a lot of men. I mean, you get great dads out there reading books and talking to other dads and trying to learn to be the best dad they can. But when they start to look [00:15:00] at what is absolutely required of a father, a good father.

Then it’s absolutely overwhelming. So we grab the utterly, absolutely necessary essential hats and that’s it. We grab the provider hat, the security hat, right? I’m the, I’m the guy taking care of everything. The rule setter. ’cause you gotta have discipline and sometimes the coach, right? Because there are a lot of sports dads and they think that coaching their kids will be fun the first time.

And some of ’em do and some of ’em don’t. It, we kind of fall back into that three p mentality. Well, that’s, that’s, that’s the bare minimal, that’s the utterly essential, but it’s not a key to being a great dad to be a great dad. You’ll always have to embrace having an open mind. This is for dads that want to be.

Spectacular to fathers. If [00:16:00] you just wanna phone it in, then you probably wanna turn off the episode. But if you enjoy being a father, if you wanna engage with your children, if you wanna have deep bonds that last a lifetime, if you’re the best dad ever, well then this is for you. This is, this is your show.

This is difficult because we have a built in belief that the way we do things. Like it’s part of our identity. This is what we do. This is why we do things. Rules and boundaries are how we organize our lives and how we feel like we’ve protected our kids. We have to stop saying no instantly and start saying, let me think about it, and I’m being a little more open-minded.

Now, I’m not telling you to let your kids run loose, by all means no. But you have to start saying, let me think about it because we’re gonna jump into the Boundary ballet. [00:17:00] Why? Because I’m a girl dad and I get to make up the names on my own show. So we’re gonna call it the Boundary Ballet because it is like a symphony with a lot more action.

As fathers, we tend to strike that balance between firm limits and trusted freedom as their needs grow, evolve, and shift, and as they get older, knowing. When to hold on tight, when to let go. But we also have to explore why we have our rules and boundaries because they don’t always hold up to scrutiny.

But let me explain. Hels mayonnaise, you’ve probably heard of it, are seen hels mayonnaise at the grocery store. You may even use it yourself in your own household, but I buy Hels mayonnaise. I’m 45 years old and my whole life, my whole adult life as I’ve had to buy groceries, I bought Helman’s mayonnaise.

Why? Well, because my grandmother bought Helman’s mayonnaise and my mom bought [00:18:00] Helman MAs mayonnaise and because they’ve always bought Helman’s mayonnaise, and that’s what I ate my whole life because they, these people I absolutely trust bought Helms mayonnaise. I buy Helman’s mayonnaise. I have no idea why they bought it, but why?

But they did. So I buy Helman’s mayonnaise. Likewise. I ate Jif Creamy peanut butter. My mom bought it even though she didn’t like it. Turns out she liked chunky Skippy or something like that. But my dad, my dad preferred Jif Creamy peanut butter. You don’t know why. My dad preferred Jif Creamy peanut butter, and my mom didn’t care enough to actually fight with him, so she bought.

Jif creamy peanut butter. So I grew up eating Jif creamy peanut butter sandwiches all the time. In fact, it’s pretty much what I ate from about fourth grade till I graduated high school for lunch every single day. Peanut butter and bread, I didn’t want the jelly, it made it soggy. I just wanted jif creamy peanut butter on two slices of white wonder bread.

Why? That’s what I’ve [00:19:00] always had and what I always ate. You see, it’s not the best peanut butter. I know that ’cause I’ve experimented with other peanut butters since I got older and I don’t like all the crap they put in gif. I think it’s not healthy, but I always bought it up until I decided it was unhealthy for me, even though it wasn’t the best peanut butter.

But now I know that. I don’t know if Helmanns is the best mayonnaise. But it’s still what I buy because I’ve always bought it. I’ve experimented with this idea for years and years, guys. It’s not something that’s a new concept for me. In fact, I have been playing with this and doing experiments with this in my own life for years, and I’ve done it with my friends as well.

You do a lot of things in your life and you have no idea why you actually do it. But why the majority of people, not just you, not just me, the majority of people, I can say that very safely. I know generalizations are usually bad, but I can say [00:20:00] very safely the majority of people, and likely you as well do many things in your life on autopilot without actually knowing why you do it.

You do it because you’ve always done it. You do it because someone of great significance to you with great influence on your life has always done it. So when you’re raising your kids in their constantly evolving needs, you identify, these are the way I do things, and I just do it because that’s what I’ve always done.

That’s safe, that works. It worked for me. Right? These are beliefs we have about raising our kids and about doing things based on our own experiences, but it doesn’t mean that they’re correct. We have to start being more open-minded about a lot of these things that we do on autopilot. When raising your kids in this constantly evolving life of theirs, you need to identify the absolute non-negotiables in your life.

Now, [00:21:00] these are deep, deep beliefs. These are moral, ethical. Beliefs and principles based in foundational firm beliefs in your life. These are core tenets of what you actually believe and who you are. Right? Uh, we believe that murder is wrong. Why? Well, the Bible says so. The law says so ethically and morally, we believe so that it’s wrong.

The police say it’s wrong, right? Ed? A foundational belief, I believe that murder is wrong, so. We don’t murder people, right? That’s very simple, but that’s what we’re talking about. We’re talking about deep, moral, ethical beliefs and principles. After that, the rest is all up in the air when you’re open-minded.

Now, what’s funny is a lot of people have a lot of things that they are completely inflexible on, including myself. I have found out as I became an adult, as I became a father that. [00:22:00] We stick our to our guns on ’em, but they actually have no bearing on any moral ethical value that I hold. Our principle that I believe in.

Like if you actually dig down to those things, you’ll find out that there’s not actually a lot of those things. I never expected that I would wear a tiara. I don’t have one for this episode. Sorry. I didn’t think I would drink tea with stuffed animals with my finger out or that I would paint my toenails.

It didn’t hurt me. It didn’t violate any moral or ethical beliefs. It didn’t cross any of my principles, and I wouldn’t trade those tea parties with my daughters for anything in the world. Honestly, you could try and hand me Bitcoin tomorrow to trade those memories, and I would tell you to go bite me because really, truly, I would not give up those memories with my daughters.

For anything, those are so incredibly value valuable. [00:23:00] One of the best things about being a dad is those incredible moments when your child wants nothing more than the curl up in your safe, loving arms and know they are protected and loved and cared for. Guys, I can sit in one place for hours and hours, like I will sit there and try not to pee myself.

Because I don’t wanna break those precious moments, so I’ll sit there for hours when one of my daughters actually wants to cuddle up with me because as they get older, that happens less and less. And I don’t want to move because they’re in their safe space. Not the other kind of safe space. That’s stupid, but not that one.

Your child is in their safe space and it’s one of the best things about being a dad is being that safe space. They come. That comes with moments like tea parties and making mud pies in the backyard and building those deep connections by having these open-minded adventures with your child. Why does your [00:24:00] kid have to be clean?

I grew up coming home dirty and filthy, right? I’ve spent years encouraging my kids to play in the dirt, in the mud. Why? Because it’s good for them. Why? Because it’s fun. Why? Because why not? Why do they have to be clean? Why do their clothes have to be clean? Why can’t they play in the mud? Why can’t they run around barefoot?

Why we did, we lived through it. We have all these crazy beliefs that have nothing to do with moral, ethical, or principled foundations that we impose. Somehow we got rigid on, somehow we got uptight about, and I don’t understand because those things are where some of the best memories are made. So how do we actually do this?

Well, it starts with reflecting and reinventing, building in regular self-check points like journal through journaling or [00:25:00] feedback from your kids. Honest partner conversations with your spouse, talking, taking time to actually reflect and think. Maybe you meditate, maybe you just brainstorm, maybe you just sit quietly, whatever you wanna call it.

I don’t care. It doesn’t really matter. But taking time to reflect and possibly reinvent. To spot where your outgrown old parenting habits came from. Exist in where they live, where they’re at, and figuring out how to pivot is important. Like I said, you’ll find if you actually examine your core beliefs, moral, ethical principles, right?

Those core foundational belief, you’ll find that you don’t really actually need to say no. When your kid wants to go play in the rain, why do you say no? I’ve done it. I’ve said, no. My kids love to play in the rain. I’m like, oh my God, they’re gonna catch a cold and die. Right? [00:26:00] Because I worry about things.

There’s nothing wrong with them playing in the rain. Am I gonna let them stand out there all day? No. That would be I irresponsible. But does it hurt for them to go do it, to get wet and have to change? No. You have to look at your ideas I about raising kids, about raising your children, and ask yourself, does this idea still serve a purpose or have standing?

Is, is this a good idea? Does it still bring value? Does it still. Make life better, make them safer, or make it a better way to be. If it doesn’t and it doesn’t cross those other boundaries, you may not say yes, but you have to at least give it some thought. Now, all of my life, I felt like I should let my daughters completely go on their own way, right?

As far as their interests and their hobbies, we’ve never pushed things on them. We’ve encouraged [00:27:00] them to try things. It’s try it. If you like it, great, you can keep doing it. If you don’t like it, well you’ve tried it now, you know, and you don’t have to keep doing it. But all of their lives, we’ve tried to let them become their own.

We don’t want to influence them. We want them to find what they love, how they spend their downtime very often is their choice. And for a while that worked completely flawlessly. My kids played really hard outside. They also did a lot of inside stuff. My children are both bookworms, which we’ve highly encouraged and enabled, but now getting them outside is becoming more difficult as they’ve become more bookworms.

They wanna read, they wanna watch television. They’re both into art, and I love the fact that they’re an art into art, and I love the fact that they’re reading. Now as a parent, I’m also continuing with them, with getting them to move as much as I know they should as an adult, right? I have a background in personal training and health, and I know that they’re not as active as [00:28:00] they should be.

So now I’m having to look at this idea of just letting my children kind of find what they’re interested in. Actually parenting because I have principles that say I want them to be healthy and I need to do everything I can to make sure they stay healthy. So as life evolves, you have to reflect and sometimes reinvent our just pivot.

I have been exploring, reinventing my beliefs on them just doing their own thing. And it’s because I have this principle of I believe in health and that. Standing of the idea of letting them totally control their own downtime at this point is now starting to have to be pivoted, at least, if not reinvented, because we have to explore that they need to be moving more than they’re moving.

Because as an adult, I know that’s important, that’s foundational, that’s pivotal in their lives for their later life. Right? As an [00:29:00] adult, as a parent, I’m always questioning and reinventing. Now I’ve had some things I really struggle with reinventing on, right? And I’ve had some things where I’m just like, no.

And we do that as dads because our first impulse is to protect our child. And kudos to you, dad. Please protect your children, but you have to weigh. Am I protecting them? Am I being overprotective is actually healthy for them? I’ve been seeing a trend online where people are starting to let their kids at younger ages go in and order fast food by themselves and come back out and bring it out for the family, right, or run into the store.

Things I did as a child or as a young person, my dad sent me in to pay for gas all the time, or to run in the store and to get this or right. At my daughter’s ages, I was doing all kinds of things like that, and I started realizing I wasn’t having my kids do that. Why overprotective, overprotective. [00:30:00] Are they capable?

Yes. Can they do it? Yes. Should I be having them do it? Yes. But I have to reconsider. Reflect, am I stopping them from doing these things out of my own fear and concern or because I’m actually protecting them? There is a difference, and it’s really hard as a dad sometimes, which moves us into open-minded, coupled with a growth mindset, because it really needs to, you gotta start with open-minded.

To be a great dad, and then you gotta move into that growth mindset to take that next step. You see, being open-minded means that you can question your beliefs and ideas and be open to doing and exploring other possibilities as the life evolves because you realize that it may not be perfect, you realize you may not have had it right.

You realize you may have need to reconsider some things. You also have to reconsider things at different ages and different [00:31:00] stages in their life, right? That’s open-minded. A lot of people confuse open-minded and growth mindset, dad. So guess what? It’s not the same thing, but you need both. Definitely need both, because being that open-minded opens you up to be able to have a growth mindset more effectively.

When you couple that growth mindset in, you’re open to the possibilities of endless hats. The hats in the store aren’t scary. They’re possibilities growing alongside your kids by picking up new skills together, like maybe your kids in the computer. So you take up coding or cooking. I love to cook. I love to cook with my kids.

I’ve always encouraged people to cook with their children. Maybe it’s sports, maybe it’s other things. My oldest daughter is in a drawing. I just have to stand there and go, Ooh, ah. And. Being marvel at her skill as it grows. ’cause I can’t draw worth anything. But you have to be [00:32:00] open to growing in your knowledge and skills so you can stay relevant to their world and model that life.

Learn long learning. That’s very important. I took my kids camping with my brother several years ago while we were camping. We took them fishing because my brother is Mr. Outdoors man, and he likes to do that crap. We had a great story to tell by the end of the camping trip, but my oldest daughter had actually fallen in love with fishing.

Well, I kinda hate fishing, always hated fishing. However, I came home and considered it doesn’t violate anything for me. Morally, ethically, I, I don’t think I’m, I’m not worried about the fish. Doesn’t violate any of my principles

and I love doing things with my daughter. The value far outweighs my personal feelings about [00:33:00] fishing. So I stopped an older man at Walmart, uh, in the fishing aisle. Like the guy had a white beard and was obviously like in his sixties at least, maybe older and. I told him, I was like, I know nothing about fishing, like absolutely nothing.

And I went fishing with my brother and my daughter this year, and my daughter absolutely fell in love with it. And it’s a small investment on my part to buy fishing gear and take my daughter fishing for a major win to get to do these things with my daughter. But I don’t know what I need to buy. I don’t know anything about this.

Would you take a minute and, and share with me so I can take my daughter fishing guys. He spent an hour with me in the store, Walmart. He may have had a lot of other important things to do, but I’m guessing he was a father and a grandfather because he saw the value and went, yes, I’m gonna take [00:34:00] the time. I learned what I need to know from that gentleman.

I don’t know his name. I never kept up, I didn’t keep up with him. We didn’t exchange any information. I am forever and ever indebted to that gentleman for taking the time to help me learn what I need to know Right there in the isle, Walmart and my daughter and I have been fishing together for years now.

I’m still a horrible fisherman, but we have a great amount of stories and experiences together. A lot of early mornings, laughing, talking, fishing, just being together and. It’s amazing. I am forever in that man’s debt. I hate fishing. I’m still not fond of it. I love going with her though. So open-minded.

Something I didn’t like, but guess what? Morally, ethically, my principles. Yeah. Didn’t cross any of those things. I had, instead of saying no, I had to stop and go, huh. Lemme [00:35:00] think about that. Let me think about that. And the value I see it. And so I learned what I needed to learn to least go fishing. I don’t have to be good at it, but I learned what I needed to learn to go fishing with her and have those experiences.

Now, I know fishing seems like a really simple example, but the important part is if you’re open to the possibility and embrace the fact that you’re capable of learning whatever you need to, as long as you’re willing to do the work. You’ll be able to keep changing hats to grow with your kids throughout their entire journey.

Dad joked for you. What do you call the security guards for Samsung Guardians of the Galaxy, right? Come on, that’s a good one. Come now. Gentlemen, over the course of the show, you’ve noticed I’ve been changing my hat [00:36:00] several times, and if you’re listening, you can catch it over on YouTube or Rumble. That’s why I encouraged you guys to check out this episode.

Actually on video, you’ll absolutely wear a lot of hats as a dad trying to be the best dad you can be, but you don’t have to freeze when you walk into that hat shop when you see those thousands of hats, it’s okay. Instead of freezing up and going, oh my gosh, there’s so much I gotta learn and do be in awe like Mutant did when he saw Eric’s hat collection in Mr.

Manor’s Wonder Emporium. Just try not to get too overwhelmed. Got it.

Pretty neat, huh? Eric, when you said a lot, I was expecting like [00:37:00] 20. Oh no, I have more than that. You wear all these? Sure. How cool would they be if I didn’t wear ’em? Wow.

See all the wonders possibilities of how you get to serve and love your children. The hat collection will be massive. The tales and the connections with your children will span miles and years of your lifetime and theirs. Don’t limit yourself to three Ps. Open your mind to the possibilities and set boundaries that actually matter.

But don’t be rigid for insignificant reasons. We have a lot of snap reactions. You gotta let go of those and open up your mind to a different possibility if there’s not a legitimate reason. To say no, you at least have to consider it, and you’re still gonna say no to some things. Let me think about that.

No, but you at least have to be open-minded enough to give it a possible [00:38:00] thought, reflect and question your ideas and beliefs regularly, and embrace growth alongside your children. You’ll have a thriving relationship with your kids for the rest of their lives. I know a couple who recently bought a trampoline for Christmas for their kids.

They set it up in their living room because it was December, right? And so they set it up in the middle of their living room until it started getting warm outside. When I was asking the husband about it, he said, well, why not? What’s wrong with living in the living room? We can sit on it to watch television.

We, the kids can sleep on it and they think it’s great and. It’s a whole lot better than the kids losing their joy and enthusiasm over their great Christmas present over not being able to use it for months because no kid wants to stare at a box. It was a radical idea, like you should have seen some of the reactions on the Facebook.

A lot of parents were like, whoa, that’s a cool idea, and I guarantee [00:39:00] 99% of them never would’ve done it in their lives. It got a lot of feedback when they put it back on, but. What’s wrong with it? I had a two story castle in my living room for years. What’s wrong with it? What’s wrong with living in your living room?

Was it a bad idea? Was it a good idea? It doesn’t really matter. What mattered was we had memories. We had experiences. We had incredible connections because it was a different idea. My friend in his trampoline. Awe dude, if I have short ceilings, otherwise I would totally do that. You jump on a trampoline in my house, you’re gonna kill yourself because I have short ceilings.

But they have these giant 20 foot vaulted ceilings, so their boys are little, they can’t jump that high. And the experiences, those memories, those boys will love that for a lifetime. I promise that because they questioned. Did it violate [00:40:00] our morals, our ethics? Did it cross our principles? Maybe we should think about this.

So gentlemen, if you’re struggling with the connections in your life that matter, with those meaningful deep connections with people who truly matter in your life, then message me directly on Instagram. You can find me dad hat shenanigans at dad hat shenanigans. Yeah, sorry. Too many. Too many addresses. Or go to my website, which is even simpler, purpose-driven men.com.

There’s a bubble down in the corner of my website. I love this thing. It’s a video bubble. You click on it and guess what? You can send me a text message. You can send me an audio message. You can send me a video message. I’m very easy to reach guys. My relationship Titans coaching program may be perfect for your needs to help you connect with those people that matter in your life.

Again, whether that’s your wife or whether that’s your children, or whether that’s all of the above. Sometimes in [00:41:00] life we get too far ahead of ourselves trying to provide for our family, and we lose some of those valuable connections if it’s not right for you after our conversation, and it might not be.

Then I’ll point you towards one of the other coaches. I know. ’cause I know several that might be a good fit for you. If I know somebody in that network, I’ll try and find you the right way to go. I challenge you when your kids wanna do something different, like just totally different with them, right?

They’re like, they hit you with this totally off the eye, out of the normal idea and you’re like, dad, can we do this? Before you say no principles. Ethics morals, so actually detrimental is actually a problem, or it’s just outside of your comfort zone and outside of the norm. I challenge you to do this physically mime, changing your hat and putting on your dad hat and see how [00:42:00] fast your mind follows with it.

I’m curious to hear what you have to say about it. Be sure and send me comments. Send me a note. Let me know how that goes for you. Thanks for joining us today on the Dad Shenanigans podcast, A community of dads navigating life’s challenges together. Until next time, laugh, learn. I. And live the dad life.