[00:00:00] Right now, the world needs great men who will stand up and lead with honor, serve with purpose and courageously fulfill their God given roles as husbands, fathers, leaders, and men. I'm your host, Franklin Swan, bringing you practical tools and powerful conversations you can use every day to build yourself into the man God is calling you to be.

This is The World Needs Men. Let's go. All right, welcome back to The World Needs Men podcast. Very, very privileged and honored today to introduce our guest, Dr. Megan Meeker. She is a leading authority on child and father relationships, has 35 years as a practicing pediatrician, author of several books, including Strong Fathers, Strong Daughters, which is one of my Absolute [00:01:00] favorites.

She's a podcast host, uh, TED Talk presenter, and just all around champion for dads to be the hero in their kids lives. So, uh, Dr. Meeker, it is sure a privilege and honor to have you on the show today, and welcome aboard, and excited to get into the conversation.

Oh, thanks so much for having me. This is what I love to talk about.

And you'll see that as we go. So I, I'm really grateful to have the opportunity to be with you.

Oh, thank you so much. Well, I guess, you know, we were chatting a little bit before I hit record. Why don't you just, uh, kind of carry on and just share what your mission is, what your passion is and what you're all about right now.

Well, I appreciate that. You know, I am a pediatrician, uh, took a right hand turn. God sort of threw a books and writing in my lap. I wrote a book, uh, wrote Strong Fathers, Strong Daughters. And I saw a groundswell of reaction, enthusiasm from dad saying, thank you. Thank you. We never realized. [00:02:00] who we are to our kids.

And as a pediatrician, my goal was to open dad's eyes to how their kids see them, because that's the game changer. And I wrote books and I did media and lecture, and all that kind of stuff. Right now, I want to talk to dads via zoom, however, and I'm doing that on a one to one basis. But what I'd love to do is get into coaching high performers in a business.

And here's why, because I think that what is really important for employers and employees, but employers to know is that you can help your employees with, you know, physical fitness and mental health and how to eat But if you don't address what really gets their juices going. What really puts them in a good mood or a bad mood for the day, which is the relationships with their kids, we're [00:03:00] missing the mark.

And so what I would love to do is come into businesses and say, dads and mothers, here's how you relate to your kids. Here's how you problem solve. Here's what they want. And guess what? Anyone of you can deliver. And I particularly like to focus on the dads because dads don't get enough attention. They don't get enough help.

You know, mothers have groups and we have, you know, all sorts of support groups and book clubs, but dads get locked into their work and also have a hard time figuring out, okay, how do I relate in a healthy positive way to my kids? And that's where I want to come in.

I think it's really profound and, uh, and it really jumped out and you're in a email exchange.

When we first started talking, you said, this is the most important work I can do right now. And I think that's really, that really caught my attention because you, with your background and experience, you could go [00:04:00] into so many different areas, right? And yet you're choosing to work with dads and to really kind of go down this path and even narrow it even further to look at the executives and.

And how can you help them? So why do you think it's such a challenge for, for dads or for executives, especially? And why do you think that working with them can have such a great impact?

Yeah, well, first of all, working with them can have a great impact because there's that huge trickle down effect. You know, once you affect change and encouragement and the leaders, it changes the whole company.

It changes the whole field. And obviously I'd love to affect everybody in there. But what I'd love to do is just sort of affect a lot of people at the same time. Dads get the shaft in our culture. Dads are, have been marketed for many reasons we can't get into as buffoons, people who orbit the family.

They're not really engaged and involved because they're not supposed to be there just to be there in the [00:05:00] background. And a lot of it's the fault of women like me, strong headed women who say, you know, I got this. Thanks. Just come home and help me with the dishes and do this and dah, dah, dah. So they have been marketed into buffoons and just stupid people.

Look at the media, look at movies and so forth. The other thing is Dad's. Really high performing dads, driven dads, spend so much time and energy and focus on their work and then they get home and they don't know how to transition. They know they're great at their work and they really do very well, but nobody teaches them how to, okay, now we leave work behind, now we go home.

I saw this in my own husband, my own, my husband and I have a medical practice we started in 1992. And I'm still in there some, but this is mostly what I do. And I found this out, I worked with the NFL for a while, and here's what I [00:06:00] found out. These men are fabulous at their jobs. They're paid millions of dollars to go on the field and perform.

And then they said, but we walk up off the field. We have no idea what to do. We go home and we don't know what to say to our wives. Cause we're not sure how to relate to women. Cause many of us didn't have debts. This isn't all of the NFL. This is just the, you know, population I was working with. So we don't know how to relate to women.

We have no idea how to relate to our kids because many of us didn't have dads. So we didn't know, how do you talk to a kid? What does your daughter want? And I go through some things and they, and one of them said, well, I have my kids this weekend. What should I do on Saturday? And I said, we'll talk this way.

And he said, no, no, no, no. Where do I take her? What do I do? You know, so really, and I found this was true with many men who are hyper focused on their jobs. [00:07:00] They know how to do that very well, but nobody's teaching them a, how do you transition from an intense job to being present at home? Everybody says be present with your kids, but nobody tells dads how to do that.

Also, dads know how to do that once they know what their kids want from them. And nobody's teaching them that. And when I wrote Strong Fathers, Strong Daughters, I did a trick on men. Not a trick. I decided I'm not going to write a book on telling what dads to do. Because dads are wired with everything they need to be great dads.

What dads need to know is how their daughters see them. And then once they understand what their daughter sees when she looks up at her dad, or how she feels when dad talks this way, or what she really wants dad to say to her, Once they know what their daughters want, they can go meet their needs. [00:08:00] And so I reversed it and it worked.

And that just went to, that just goes to show me dads have what it takes. You have, but many men don't believe that because who's encouraging them. So, so that's why at this point in my career, you're absolutely right. I could work in my practice more. I could write more books, but this is my calling. I really believe it this time in my life.

This is what God wants me to do. And one thing I've learned throughout the years is if God encourages you to do it, you do not say no. So I

just go ahead. Yeah. He'll turn up the, the heat if, uh, if you decide to put it on the back burner, he'll just move it to the front.

Oh, he will.

Oh, that's great. There's, there's a couple of things that really stand out to me as you talk through that.

And I'm a business owner. I know very well what it feels like to walk home with pressure on your shoulders. And I don't know about all dads, but I know for me, There's a big sense of, I don't want to come and bring home that [00:09:00] stress, and it took me a long time to figure out how to, how to leave work at work and then come home and be able to be present with my kids, so that is a real struggle that I've experienced firsthand, and then when you talk about men having what it takes, just that alone is so encouraging and so cool.

That gives men, I think, hope that, that they can get it that, you know, they can, uh, show up is the, the dad that they want to be deep down inside, but there's guilt and shame around that, not knowing what to do, but just starting with you got it, what it takes.

Exactly. And here's, see here, here's how I see you.

I see you as having all these electrical outlets throughout your body. And what you need is somebody to come along and zap it so that all the electricity throughout your mind and your body goes, okay, I got it. I know what to do now. So absolutely. When I've, frankly, I've worked with men who've just [00:10:00] gotten out of prison.

I've worked with one of the wealthiest men in the United States. I've worked with And I see the exact same thing in them. They feel guilty. They feel ill equipped. They say, I just don't know. You're absolutely right. And I understand that transition issue as well, because my work is very intense medical school and all that kind of thing and coming home and you just took care of a dying child and so forth.

So I learned that as well. And we can teach dads how to do that. But one of the things I think that makes it a lot easier, easier for dads is to understand what's waiting for them on the other side of the door. You park your car, you open the door from the garage into the kitchen, and once you see that, say you're your child sitting at the table coloring, okay, even doing something as simple as put your phone down, make sure you look at that child, touch that child on the shoulders.

[00:11:00] Look at what they're coloring and say, Oh, that is so great. I'll be right down. I'm going to change my clothes. It's not only good for the child. It gets you in the home mode really fast. So simple things like that, that you can do. It's so easy. Once you understand the minute you walk in that door, your daughter is going to hone in on you and want to know.

What you're thinking, how you feel, particularly how you feel about her within 10 seconds, then it's easy to jump right into that. But trying to jump into an area where you feel you don't understand, it's like going into no man's land. It is intimidating. You feel very, very guilty. Dads have to get rid of all that.

Got to get rid of the guilt. Got to get rid of the intimidation. As I said, you have what it takes. You just need a little bit of tweaking and the guilt needs to go because you know what? Most dads are doing the very best they can.

What you just [00:12:00] described and gave men is kind of a, an example is very, very simple.

Sweetie, that painting is really pretty. How was your day? You, you know, pat her on the shoulder, maybe give her a hug. I'm going to go change real quick and then I'll be back down. When we're leading, especially, you know, relating to the executive stuff. I mean, when we're dealing with payroll and taxes and marketing and sales and fulfillment and the building and government stuff and the economy, those are big problems that a lot of times take.

Okay. Big thinking and high level strategy. Do you think sometimes we get in our own way by thinking that it's got to be this giant, big thing that we need to do when it, and it's just so simple, we almost Yes. Discounted because it's so simple.

Exactly. Because when you work at work and I do as well, you've got all of these different facets of your work and you pull them together and they have to work together in order [00:13:00] to move you forward.

And it is, it feels like an overwhelming big job, but going home and having a good relationship with your child is so simple. It's hard to move from the complex, um, to the simple, but you can, and it's so refreshing. Here's the counterpoint to what I was saying about walking in the kitchen. This is how most men and professional women walk home after a full day of work.

You walk in thinking about your last conversation at work or the last problem at work. Probably you're checking your texts, or maybe you're on your phone, finishing up a conversation. You're finishing up that conversation. Or trying to close that conflict, when you're in the kitchen, you walk right by your kid.

How many times do you walk right by your kid? What that says to your kid is, you're really not important to me. I'm trying to get out of my head from transitioning to work to [00:14:00] you. Give me a little while and I'll do it. That is very, very hard for your kids. But there are very simple ways you jump into that because it's so simple.

And also I learned even in my profession, I'm replaceable. You know, I have patients that say, Oh no, no, no, no. I can only see you. And I say, you can see other people. I'm not that important. And even though you feel like, you know, that if you're the CEO of a company, it can't run without you. You know what? It kind of can.

So we need to learn to accept that as well. But combining those two things, Understanding what's waiting for you at home is so rich that once dads kind of get in to sink into it, it's easier and easier and easier. Doesn't take a personality overhaul. It doesn't take a PhD in psychology. It doesn't even require you to have certain character qualities.

It just requires for you to be willing to [00:15:00] do it because dad's capability is extraordinary. They just don't know it.

If you've got the ability to run and be a company and be the CEO, then yes, you, you also have to be a dad and to, to run down that path of, well, no one can do my job or I'm irreplaceable.

Number one, if you're a good CEO, your company, can live without you for a little bit. And so if you feel that way, like you've got some work to do to maybe improve the company. And here's a good reason to do that. But you're replaceable at the office. You're not replaceable at home.

Exactly. Yep.

You know, and to really remember that.

And that's just so important.

Yeah, I, this really drove home when I was talking to this really prominent, very, very wealthy man. And I was talking about, he's probably about my age and we were talking about raising kids. And I will tell you, this is the truth. And I said, well, I, what I am trying to do is encourage dads how to, you know, transition to home and be engaged with their kids.

He goes, well, it's [00:16:00] way too late for me. And I said, well, why? He said, my kids can't stand me. I was a terrible dad. This man probably earned 40 million a year, and he will die alone. Who cares? And I wanted to say, it's not too late. It's not too late because here's one thing you need to know. If your kids are 30 every son and every daughter takes one man to their grave.

It's their dad. You either want more time healing, or you want more time with them to enjoy them. Period. So, you know, you want your kids to At your bedside when you're dying, you want your kids feeding you and helping you and helping to navigate life as you get older. It doesn't matter. You can hire as many people as you want.

Who cares? You know, and one of [00:17:00] the most beautiful things that I'm seeing now in younger fathers is sacrificing some hours at work. and a pay, a pay raise in order to be with their kids more. My son in law works for Accenture. He's worked for them for a long time. I was so proud of him because he got a promotion to work internationally and he turned it down because he said, I want to be with my boys and my wife, my daughter.

And I was so, and he's a great dad. And you know what? They don't need twice the income. They're fine. They don't need two houses. They don't need all this stuff. He's a great dad, and I see it in his kids. I see the fruits of it in his sons who are growing up under him. So I see it, and when I see the dad effect in kids, I am just so excited.

I am, and you can see the dad effect in any kid with an engaged dad.

It's interesting. I know [00:18:00] that as an employer, I When my team is struggling, it is usually not with business problems. It's with the problems outside of this business. And most of those are family related.

And they're kid related. Now, imagine you have to have your, your brain tumor remote and there's two neurosurgeons you could choose.

One neurosurgeon has a fight with his kids. His 15 year old daughter screams at him. I hate you on his way out to work. He goes into the OR and he's going to operate on you. Then there's another neurosurgeon has a great breakfast, talks to his 15 year old. They talk pretty well, good relationship. Hey, let's go out to breakfast on Saturday morning.

I'm really looking forward to it. She goes to school. He goes into the operating room. Who do you want operating on you? Yeah. Number two, because number one, no matter how good he is at his job or how skilled that child, the argument is still in his head. [00:19:00] And even though he's really good at what he does, he can't get it out of him and he hurts.

So his concentration is going to be off. And we have studies that show, you know, Dads who have relationship issues at home, the ROI on the work that they do isn't as good, they don't last at the job as long, so on and so forth. And my frustration, again, with businesses is they deal with all the more superficial stuff, but nobody gets to heart of the issue.

And the heart of the issue is the dad, son, or the dad, daughter. Because when a man feels Less than good. It takes them down. Like I said, you can be a great neurosurgeon and a great NFL player and make all this money. But if you go home and you feel insecure, that is so painful for men. And there's no reason they need to feel that pain.

No reason at all. And a lot of good women due to their husbands, what I did years ago, they beat up on the [00:20:00] dads. Why don't you ever take the kids anywhere? You're never home to do this. You never help me around the house. Don't you know I work too? I mean a lot of men. And so men come in and they go, okay, okay, okay.

And they start this. And then we complain about how they do everything. So they go, okay, forget it. I'm not going to do it anymore. That's what my husband did. Forget it. I'm not going to even try. So even teaching mothers how to tweak their language to the fathers of their children completely changes the relationship of a dad to a child.

For instance, rather than saying that to my husband when we walk in the door, I got up from what I was doing. I walked towards him as he was coming in the door, gave him a hug and said, Oh, I'm so glad to see you. Bingo. His evening was great. We got along great. He got along with the kids. Great. Rather than chewing on him about what he didn't do and how I skipped lunch because I had to work [00:21:00] through lunch to get home to make dinner.

Women need to know that. So there's a lot that women can do to support the father of their kids. So we, we're guilty too.

We all have room for improvement. We all have things we can work on. And men struggle with their challenges and women struggle with their challenges. And when you can get them both improved, then everybody, you know, the kids win so that everybody wins.

And the whole thing, Franklin, is, You just need to tweak. Maybe you need a five degree shift or a seven degree shift. You don't need 180 degree shift unless you're an abusive dad and abusive dads aren't gonna be listening to me. Right. You know, so the people that I talk to are good dads who say, okay, just, just, I just need a little bit of help here.

You're right. You need a little bit of help. You need a little of this and a little of that to launch you into being a great dad. You're so close because, again, the dads who [00:22:00] show up to read my book or figure out how to be a little bit better dad, those are the dads that are going somewhere and they don't have to, you know, earn more money or talk a different way or be a different person, they just need to tweak in order to get all that wiring out.

Activated.

Yeah, they're hungry if they're listening to you reading your books, they're hungry for more. Exactly. They have that desire and the passion and all that in them, and I think for dads, it can feel daunting and like the gap between where you are and where you should be is just so far out there, but what I hear you say and, and, and, And taking and making just a slight adjustment, the gap's really not that far.

It's

not! It's Here's why. Your kids want it. All your kids Your kids want so much less from you than you think they do. In a father's mind, he has a list of things he needs to check off before he's a good dad. [00:23:00] Throw the list away. Throw the list away. Your dads want you to look at them. They want you to listen to them.

They want you to hug them. They want you to not interrupt them all the time. They want you to say, you know what? I'm going to go change the oil in the car on Saturday. I haven't seen you all week. Will you ride along with me? Do you know how great that makes a kid feel to know that their dad wants them?

See, one thing that dads need to realize is that a child perceives this as very important. Very un PC, but who cares? A child perceives their dad very differently than they perceive their mother. Okay. Mom is the one who has to love them. Mom is the one who, if your mom doesn't love you, give it up. Just, just walk away.

Life isn't even worth living because if your mom doesn't like you, you don't even have a starting point. Okay. But if your dad loves you, he's choosing to [00:24:00] love you. This is just a kid's mind. Okay. So if a dad says he wants to be with you, he has the option to say, I don't really want to be with you. If you're failing in a grade, your mom has to say, hang in there.

It's okay. You can do better. But if your dad comes in and says, why'd you get that D? Huh? You know, you can do better than that. You're smart. Bingo. One line. You're smart. Case in point. Do you mind if I tell a 30 second story?

This is your platform, so please.

Okay. When I was 16, I decided I was going to medical school.

Period. End of story. I just decided. So I went through high school. I went through all women's colleges. All I did was study. I mean, I never drank beer. I mean, I was Just a kind of person nobody would ever want to date. Okay. Cause so anyway, I, um, applied to 20 some medical schools and, uh, senior year, I got rejected every single one.

No plan [00:25:00] B. I was devastated, as devastated as a 21 year old can be. So I was spending the summer at home with my parents and my parents never, my dad was a physician. Never pushed me to go to med school. Just, you know, whatever you want to do, but extremely supportive of me. And one day I overheard my dad talking to a friend in his study and I stopped outside the door to listen.

And I heard him say a sentence, listen, man, listen, one sentence that my dad said changed my life. This is the tweaking, okay? He said to his friend, Yes, my daughter Meg will be going to medical school in the next year or two. And I almost fell on my face. I thought, What? What? In that moment, I knew that I knew that I knew I was going to medical school.

You know why? My dad said so. Now, my mother had said, Oh, honey, don't re, don't worry. You'll get in. You'll get in. Just study more. Don't worry. And I'm not dissing my [00:26:00] mother, but in my mind, it's like, you have to say that mom, you have to say that. My dad had the option. So when my dad spoke, it hit me deeply.

Every dad knows out there knows what I'm talking about. If your dad said you were good, and you were a man, not a boy anymore, and you could get far, you were gonna go. You know, in general, you know, most men, well, my mom had to say. One sentence. One sentence changed me, and it was a tweak, and sure enough, the next year I went, I reapplied.

When I started to write my first book, I don't know, in my 30s or whatever, I sat down and go, I have nothing to say, I can't do this. Sure enough, I wrote it. Go to write my second book. I have nothing to say. Because no matter what you do, no matter what profession, you feel you're not good enough. I mean, even after 33 years, I feel like, I'm not good enough, but I'm like, Oh, well, I'll just keep trying until somebody better comes along.

That's my philosophy. Move forward, [00:27:00] keep trying. And if somebody better comes along, let them take over. And so, you know, as you kind of move forward, I just realized at every stumbling block professionally that I hit, which was often, I heard my dad's voice say, you're going to do it. You can do it. You know, in the next year, you can do this.

It never left me. Here's the interesting part. After I wrote the father daughter book, I gave it to my dad to read and he was reading it. And I was so, so, so proud to have been, cause he died of Alzheimer's. He said, Meg, did I really say that? I said, Oh yes, you did. He goes, I don't even remember saying that.

So it was subconscious. His belief in me was so deep, it spilled out. He hadn't even thought about it.

There's two things that I'm taking away from this right now that I think are really important for men to realize. Number one, your words [00:28:00] have tremendous weight. Power. Power and power. And then from what I hear you saying, like, and I know this for me and I think every kid, they want to know that their dad believes in them.

And that belief in them or that, or the opposite of that, you know, has a, can have a huge downstream impact on how they approach life. Like would have you, would you have continued to push past those, those struggle points or the, you know, those times when you didn't feel like you had what it took and you kept going and you overcame the challenge and because you heard your dad's voice in the back of your mind.

that he believed in you, right? So that helped fuel you to keep going through your professional career. And now you're able to serve the world in such an impactful way. But if you didn't have that, where would that have taken you? Right?

Well, yeah, exactly. I can almost guarantee you and I would not be sitting here.

If I would have heard my dad talking to his friend and coming with me, it's like, wow, I don't [00:29:00] know. She's really struggling and, you know, her grades haven't been that good. I don't know if she's going to make it. I don't think I would have reapplied. Now, see, here's what dads need to realize too. How you feel about your child and what you believe about your child deep down, you can never fool your kids.

So you can say, Oh, you're, you know, honey, you're very smart and you're very good at this, but if you don't believe it, don't even say it because your kid knows exactly how you feel. And here's why. A child's relationship with you is child to adult. Your child needs you. with a capital N to know how you feel about them, what you think about them, what you hope for them, what you believe for them, and they internalize it.

And that's the field that runs them all through school and all through college. And it creates who they are because the lessons that you learn as [00:30:00] a child from your mom and dad, They'd stay with you forever and ever and ever. An adult, however, when you had your kids, it's wonderful, it's lovely, but you don't need your kids.

You could have a happy life without kids, your child cannot have a happy life without healthy fathering, you know, or, or, you know, even if a kid doesn't have a dad at home, you know, you could have a dad substitute or so forth. So it's the neediness of that child wanting only you to believe in him or her that is going to really set you free.

sort of set the course of their lives. I mean, it really, really will. And if you think back to what shaped you as a boy, probably it wasn't anything great that your dad did. It was a look. It was a response. It was a saying. It was encouragement or comfort. It was a moment. [00:31:00] You know, when your dad either encouraged you or didn't, or your dad showed you he was proud of you, or your dad hugged you right when you needed it.

This is the tweaking of it all. You see, this is the tweaking of the deep belief. So, I hope what men are hearing is, it really is. isn't complicated. It's nowhere near as complicated as your work. Look, if you can do your work and hold all of those crazy things in your mind at once, you can have a great relationship with your kids and you're not that far away.

And incidentally, my dad was a very quiet man. I was kind of intimidated by my dad. You know, my dad wasn't a lovey, huggy kind of person. We used to run together back in the day. You don't remember Bill Rogers, but he was one of the first sort of marathon guys. And my dad and I used to long distance run together.

And during our runs, I would get so frustrated with my dad cause he, would think about his work, he'd ask me the same question over and over [00:32:00] and over. And I knew he wasn't 100 percent paying attention, but over, you know, a 15 mile run, he paid enough attention and he wanted me with him. He just wanted me to run with him on the road.

Sundays he'd go, Sunday afternoon, are you ready to go? I'm waiting for you. I mean, he didn't want anybody else. He wanted me.

And he just invited you along. Like that's it. He

wanted me running with him.

Breaking it down to the simple. Yeah.

That's it. He just wanted me running with him, even though he wasn't thinking about me or he wasn't thinking, okay, what do we talk about?

He was kind of out to lunch a little bit. He was really smart and he'd get in his head, but then he'd get out of his head and he'd ask me a couple questions and, and that's all good. So he didn't have to be. Paying attention to everything I was saying for two hours, he just had to tune in and out and tune in and out.

That was good enough for me.

A little goes a long way.

It goes a long way. [00:33:00] Yes. Yes. But, but to realize a dad's approach to his kids. is very different from your child's approach to you and what they want from you. I think dads believe what their kids want from them is far more complex and difficult to give than what it really is.

Circling back to the, uh, the executive who's running a company, whether he owns it or is the CEO or, or just a high level. I think of your personal and professional life in this way that your, your professional life ultimately fuel, uh, funds your personal life, but then your, your personal life fuels your professional life.

And so I'm going to just. Like, as a plug for this in your coaching and in this whole idea, one of the most profitable moves that you could possibly make for your business is to actually invest more time and connection time with your kids. [00:34:00] And when that relationship grows and flourishes and maybe heals, or maybe it just gets better.

But when that happens, you're going to show up in a different way in your business that is going to automatically create a shift That's going to be more profitable and better for, from a financial perspective. And so then you're funding your family better and then you can invest better into them and then the business gets better.

So they're, they're, they're not separate. They're very connected and sometimes it's, it's the counterintuitive move. that we need to make to really get what we want on, on the other side.

Exactly. It's a hard thing to do to dial back your work in some way in order to spend more time with your kids. But interestingly enough, I read a study that showed that men who delayed in their work, whatever, in order to spend, it's just what you're talking about in order to spend more time with their kids ended up at the same place by [00:35:00] retirement as the men who didn't sacrifice their work for their kids.

And I think the reason is if you have a solid foundation at home, uh, Good relationships with your kids. Great, decent relationships with your kids. You can go to work and get done in three hours, which might take you five or six, if you have a shaky relationship. You're a powerhouse when you go to work.

You just, you just, and everybody knows there are days you're on and there are days you're not. You're off and you can sit at your desk and feel like you didn't get anything done because you can't get out of your head. It's like the neurosurgeon that's going to take a lot longer, you know, operating on the brain tumor because he just can't focus on what he's doing.

Same thing is true with you, no matter what your job is. If something's off deep on the inside, which is that, you know, dad, connection with your kids. Everything takes longer and the quality of work you produce is not as good. It's going to take you longer. You're not [00:36:00] going to produce as much. You're not going to be profitable as much, but you're absolutely right.

You, you get, when you invest in your kids, the fuel gets stronger and better and, and, and it gets easier and easier as you get older. I will tell you, I've had, I trained back in the day, When 30 percent of my medical school class was women and 70 percent was men. So we got a lot, a lot of pushback. When I was started out working, we have four kids and my husband and I share a medical practice.

We started off, I said, I'm not going to work for two years. You start everything, get going. And my colleagues, particularly the women said, you're a fool. You're a fool. You will lose all your skills. You'll do this. I said, I don't care. That's what I'm going to do. And I didn't lose any of my skills. Of course, it's like riding a bike, but I will tell you every moment I invested with my kids came back, you know, five fold with me [00:37:00] because we have great relationships.

You know, my husband, I have great relationships with our kids and he and I, you know, we have nine partners now and he and I started just the two of us. And so we knew what it was like to build a business, but we never, I never. on saying, Nope, I'm not going to work right now or I'll work and my husband will say, Nope, I'm going to do here.

Now, we were fortunate. We had a family business, if you will, and we grew it and we grew it. But as we grew and we had more doctors and more employees, we didn't have to spend as much time there because guess what? They could stand in for us. Right? They could stand in for us, but your ego says, Oh no, no, no, no, no, only I can this, only I can that.

You feel invaluable. And then as, as a, you know, a high performer, whatever, you got to go, no, I can really take the afternoon off and it's going to be okay. The sky's not going to fall in because usually most [00:38:00] things don't need to get done in the next 10 minutes.

Well, there can be this other piece of running a company where there's a bit of an adrenaline rush when you're needed, right?

And so sometimes you can go create problems that really don't exist just because there's a piece of you that like wants to experience that, that validation or that significance. Right. And that's not a good thing. That's really unhealthy.

No, it isn't a good thing, but you're living in a world that fuels that because you come home.

And if you feel, if you don't feel a hundred percent validated at home, your kids won't talk to you. Your wife is mad at you, whatever that you, you grab onto that work identity. Even more strongly because that's who you are. And you're absolutely right. If you are a driven person and your type A personality, and you grow that business aspect of you and you love [00:39:00] being what you're doing, that can grow into a larger and larger and larger part of your identity and squash out the part of your identity as a dad.

And I will say that those of us outside of you working with you don't help and we need to help say no, no, no, no, no, you're great at that. Okay, my husband's a great physician. He's really good. He is so cut out of this cloth. He'll never retire. Never, never, never, never. It's okay. The girls and our son and I learned as he got, as he got older, you have to validate dad.

You. So finally, you know, what my husband would do, he would take each of our kids every year on a two week medical mission to South America. He cut and left, he cut and left, and those times were so rich for our kids. We have three older daughters, our baby's a son, and he's not a baby anymore, he's married, [00:40:00] and he did not want to go on a mission trip.

And I overheard my youngest daughter saying to him, Walter, You have to go with dad. And he goes, I don't want to go with dad. They're too hard. It's hot. There's bugs, whatever. All the girls are fine. He's like, I don't want to do that. And my daughter said to him, you need to go because you need to see dad.

work. You needed to watch your dad help these people. He was high in the mountains in Peru one time. He and my daughter walked up, uh, where there was no electricity, tiny, tiny, tiny little village. And they saw the poorest of the poor. And my husband, took, it was freezing cold. My husband took off his coat and gave the coat to a gentleman and just stayed cold the rest of the time.

My daughter will never forget it. My other daughter, when they went on a mission trip, unbeknownst to me, I thought this was so cool. [00:41:00] She went through my closets and she took some of my best sweaters. And she took him on the trip and I never, she didn't ask, she just took him and you know, about a month later I was like, Hey, where did this go?

And she finally said, Mom, I took some of your nice sweaters because people down there need it. And I was kind of like, well, why not my other sweaters that aren't so nice? But she had been taught by her dad and me to, you give people your best, not your leftovers. I was so proud of her. Her dad was the one who dragged her along.

He didn't say anything. He didn't preach. He didn't anything. He just went and just did what he does very well in front of them. And that was two weeks out of a year. What dad can't take one week off and take your kid or kids somewhere and work alongside them? That's how you [00:42:00] change your relationship with your kids.

One week, one week.

Okay, where I want to go with this and what's really jumping out at me is, and we don't have to go down the masculinity road per se, but what, like one thing that I'm hearing that I want dads to think about with this too, I personally believe that in this world, we are, we are desperate for men to show the next generation, both our daughters and our sons, what healthy, honorable, godly masculinity looks like.

If you're only at work and you're never engaged and never connected and never spending time with your kids, they will not get, receive one of the greatest gifts that you have to offer, which is representing and demonstrating to them what it looks like to be a solid man. And, and when I hear, like, you talk about your daughters, like, saying to their brother, like, you've got to go with dad.

You've got to go see him in action. And he's demonstrating that, like, he was demonstrating for them, like, just what it looks [00:43:00] like. And I think that that's just so important. And, and. Such a, just a really meaningful thing to recognize outside of that too.

Absolutely. I'm a hundred percent with you. My husband has a very strong faith and studied scripture all, all, all, all the time.

He has all of the gospels memorized. He has most of the epistles memorized, but anyway, you're absolutely right. And again, we're living in a world, and I'm sure you feel it in the business world and everything, where If you show a part of your masculinity that is God given, that you're put down because you're, you know, there's little memes that go around and jokes on the internet, like women need a man like a fish needs a bicycle.

Okay, funny, funny, funny. No, it's not funny. Okay, from a child's perspective, and this is how I look at it. Okay, as a child, Who wants a strong relationship [00:44:00] with God? Who is Christ? What do we want from him? I don't think Jesus, I don't even know if he ever had ever had an income. We didn't want his money. We wanted his time, his attention.

We wanted to see his strength. Talk about strength. What man can be that strong? You can't, God didn't call. His mother to do his work. God called someone who had the mental and emotional and physical and spiritual fortitude to walk towards death. And I am so glad that's not something that I'm called to, God willing, I don't know.

From a child's perspective, and you're a child of God, That makes you feel inspired. It makes you want to mimic him. At minimum, Jesus was a good teacher. Of course, for us, that's just where he began. So if [00:45:00] you ever want to know how to be a good dad, just start mimicking him. You know, what did he do? He'd walk to you and he'd put his hands around your face and he'd look at them.

That's what I'm talking about. But from a child's perspective, This is what kids tell me. So I'm not, I'm not trying to do a feminist thing or a whatever. A kid wants their dad to protect them. Okay. Now they see that from their dad. They don't necessarily see that from their mom and there's good reason.

Dads have different muscles than moms. Dads are usually stronger than moms. What kid who, when they're bullied at school, doesn't want their dad to come in and beat up the bully's dad, right? That's just, you don't say, I want my mom to come beat up your mom. They want that protection. They want that authority that comes through a dad's voice.

[00:46:00] Like my dads did. I adored my mom, but she played a very different role. Those are masculine qualities that you need to grab onto and make no excuses for them. Use them because your kids want them. Now women around you may complain. Your employer may complain. Who cares? That's the wiring. And every dad knows his wiring.

Okay. It's instinctive. It's intuitive. Dads, you know, get a bad rap because a lot of dads take that authority to crush people. And I've seen this in churches. I've seen this in churches. I'm the authority. I'm the leader. You do what I say. And there are a lot of women that go, okay, that's not, Jesus never did that.

What woman did he beat over the head? None. He was the original feminist. Look at how he treated women. You know, look at Deborah as a judge in the Old Testament. She went to war when other men didn't want to. You know, and so the way, so it, [00:47:00] it, it is, that's, that's, masculinity that is beautiful and men need to be given permission or need to give themselves permission to act it out.

To, to, you know, you as dads share a name with God and that's father. I don't share that. That's a name bestowed to you, not me. I'm fine with it. Cause I don't, I don't want to be you. I, you know, I, I just don't. I'm scared to walk in downtown Chicago at 11 o'clock at night. I would not do it unless my husband was with me.

You know, I was going to go to Mexico for a wedding in a not very nice part of Mexico. And my son called me up and he said, you're not going alone, mom. And I said, I know, but dad can't go. I'm coming with you. Because he knew. It was good thing to be a six foot two man who could protect his mom. I said, go for it.

He came with me. I didn't go, Oh, I don't need you. Yeah, I did. [00:48:00] So I don't have pride, you know,

Men need purpose. When, uh, when you talk about a man who has the physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual fortitude to walk towards death. And then I would add in service to his family, There's like a, a spiritual piece of me that gets activated at a like profoundly deep level where it's like, I don't have to be able to explain it.

I just know it. Right. You

know it and you act on it.

A hundred percent. And it's like more men need to get to a place where they can connect to it. back to potentially or, or just embrace and engage with that piece that God put in them that lights up when they're able to step into what he created as their purpose.

Like I was, I was talking to someone the other, uh, on my team the other day and she's a, one of our team leaders and asked her about purpose. And it's like, you know, my purpose is, is my kids. It's like, well, men don't have that ability to have [00:49:00] kids. Like, so we have to find our purpose somewhere. If you take away men's purpose by saying you're not the protector, you're not the provider, we don't need you for anything.

Then you end up with men in chaos because they're so confused.

And they, they're throwaways. Yeah, look at all the men who are in prison. They're throwaways. People said we don't need you. We don't need you to have our, you know, you know, just give us our sperm then leave. Which is a lot of what, you know, some NFL men tell you horrible, horrible stories about that kind of stuff.

Again, not all of them. But when you strip a man of that, and you allow him or tell him your only great identity is your professional one, and then you complain that he's not. You know, pulling his weight at home. You can't have it both ways. You can't have it.

Or his career ends. Or, you know, then it's like, now what's my purpose?

Right?

Exactly. Exactly. And that's, I think, one of the cool positions that I'm in. And I would love for some [00:50:00] other women to enter this space. It's a little bit tricky. I can tell men's wives things men can't. Like, when your husband walks home, if you get home before he does, get up out of your chair, walk over and say hello, I'm so glad you're here.

It changes your evening, you know, show respect, show respect for him as a dad and a husband. You get all that respect at work, I hope, and then if you feel disrespected at home, you're done. Because if a man doesn't feel he has respect at home, he's not even going to try. You know, if, if we're not, if we don't teach our kids to respect their dads, necessarily be afraid, frayed, but to fear them in a, in a godly way, they can't have a good relationship.

And that's the part that women play. So often when I do my coaching, a lot of times the wives jump on and it's wonderful because I can tell the [00:51:00] dads, you know, what their kids want and need. And then I can help them tell the mothers, this is how you can encourage that. Because. Every mother wants the dad of her kids to be a better dad.

They don't know how to do that either. So that's where sort of working with a couple as parents comes in. I'm not a marriage counselor or anything like that, but, you know, just sort of helping that dynamic really helps because there are a lot of women that can do that, but. Nobody's necessarily teaching them.

Maybe in churches somewhere, I don't know, but the link, the link between a dad and good relationships with kids takes some work, it takes some fortitude, and it takes some courage. But men need to say, I'm going to have the courage to build an identity beyond my work. because it's good and I don't have to surrender my identity at work where I feel really good.

You can have [00:52:00] both. You can have a solid identity in both places. And then when you become a grandparent, my husband, we're now grandparents, our grandkids adore my husband, adore him. And it's all because, You know, he's learned through our mistakes with our kids, but that's what you pass on to your kids is you're getting, this is going to go on for the rest of your life.

That strong identity as a dad and a grandfather. It requires you to have courage and security to grab onto your masculine inherent qualities and release them. I toured with Dave Ramsey for a while, I don't know if you know who he is, but he's a financial guy and there I am on stage with him, I'm like, I don't do anything about finances.

But one of the things that I told our audiences, talking to men, because I did my dad talk, was this, mothers. Dads need to [00:53:00] weigh in on your teenage daughter's wardrobe. And here's why, because this is a typical scenario. You're 15 year olds walking out the door. She doesn't have a uniform. She's just wearing a very short skirt.

She's got a tight shirt on. She her midriff is showing and you see her going out the door and you go, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait a minute. I don't want my daughter dressed like that at school. And mom jumps in and says, no, she, you have to let her because that's what kids have. That's how kids dress like now.

And dad goes, okay. And I said, that's not okay. Dad is telling her no, for a really good reason. And you need to honor that because he knows something you and I aren't thinking about just stuff like that.

So my daughter's 10. And I would even say, you know, I mean, culturally, that's influencing our kids younger and younger and younger.

And if you wait till they're 15 to have to [00:54:00] interject, right, then it's going to be, I've got to imagine there's going to be a lot more pushback. Is this like, where did this come from? But if, and this is speaking to dads with younger daughters right now, but if, if you're in the habit of having that influence and opinion, And when they're 8 and 10 and 12, like by the time they get to 15, it's a normal thing that, hey, and it's going to influence how they come down those stairs to begin with, because they already know that dad has an opinion and he, and he, is he willing to draw the line and hold the line.

And girls will test their dads. And a lot of teenage girls can be kind of snarly towards their dads, but here's why. And dads take it personally. My daughter doesn't like me. I'll regroup with her when she's 18. No, no, no. The reason she's pushing back on you. The reason she's snarling is because she feels very insecure about who she is, what she looks like.

She's not, she, you know, she adores you, but you're not sure if she [00:55:00] should because you're not a boyfriend, you're her dad. And I'm, it's kind of like a man turning into a boy, turning into a man needs to push his mom away because he, Feeling like you need your mom and nobody else is a little creepy. And so that's why they push away.

But that's right the time when, when dads need, need to move into their daughter's lives. But here's another thing dads need to know. You can have great relationships with your kids during the teen years. They can be the most fun year. That's when our kids all went on mission trips with my husband, because early in life, he told, taught them, your bodies are wonderful.

They are, you're to protect them. You're to take care of them. You're not to be ashamed of them, but you don't wear clothes like that. Yeah, a lot of your friends wear clothes like that, but you don't. And here's why. Nobody in our family, you know, make it a family issue, wears clothes like that. And because you're absolutely right, when it comes down to it and your kids are in high school and you're having to [00:56:00] tell them stuff, you need them to listen.

The other thing that I'm seeing too is, you know, the whole transgender thing. What's popular in our area, it doesn't matter where your kids go When they're 11 or younger, hopefully not. They're going to hear about transgender. They're going to have a teacher look at them and say, you know, don't call, don't call Bobby, Bobby anymore.

Call him Betty. Okay. And the kids are like, what? That doesn't make sense. I see a girl. You're going to have to deal with that. Okay. And how are you going to navigate it? And is your kid going to listen to you? Because if you're not, if you don't have a good relationship, this is what your daughter will say.

You don't know what you're talking about, dad. My teacher knows what she's talking about, not you, dad. You have to know how you're going to weigh in on these things. You know, furries are very popular. No. I don't know if you know what a furry is. Do you know what a furry is?

I do. Maybe explain, yeah, explain it for the one who doesn't.

Okay. A furry is some [00:57:00] kind of animal that kids dress up as and go to school pretending they're a furry. And teachers are told they have to honor that. Okay. I mean, we've normalized crazy, normalized crazy. And they put a litter box in the classroom. I'm not kidding you. I'm not kidding you. First of all, transitioning a child is malpractice.

End of story. American Academy of Pediatrics said, no, no, no, no, no. You could lose your license for saying that. I could care less. You know what? You don't castrate 15 year old boys and you don't lop breaths off of 15 year old girls. End of story. God help you. Okay. So, you know, how are dads going to navigate this?

So if you've got a five year old, you will deal with this kind of stuff. You'll deal with kids, your teachers telling your 14 year olds, just be safe when you have sex, when you have sex with your 18 year old boyfriend. No, no, no, no, no. And I've done a ton of, ton of teaching on that [00:58:00] with Medical Institute for Sexual Health.

But anyway. So dads are the, dads are the linchpin. Dads are the key. And I, I don't mean to terrify dads, okay? I don't want to end on that note. But here's what they need to know. You're it. Your, your daughter would, needs to hear what you say. And really wants to, to hear what you say about this. And in her heart, she's going to believe you way before she's going to leave it to you.

believe a teacher. Now, she's going to pretend she believes the teacher because she doesn't want to get in trouble at school. So, you know what? I never had to deal with this and phones and social media and so on. That's a whole nother discussion. But again, that's where dads have to use their authority power.

And that, that relationship you have with your daughter or your son is the foundation. that allows you to have those conversations down the road that are, you know, at five years old, you're not having a tough conversation at 14, 15, 16. there's some, I mean, those are big critical decisions, [00:59:00] right? And so is there a foundation of trust in a relationship there that that that can sit on top of?

Because if there's not, then I mean, from a place of integrity, it's like you haven't earned the right to speak into my life. Right?

Exactly. And there are a lot of 16 year olds. I tell this to parents with a two or three or four year old having temper tantrums. If you don't learn how to navigate this now and establish yourself as the authority.

Now you can't stop a temper tantrum, but you can deal with it later. Your 16 year old is going to have temper tantrums true because that's what they do. They act just like toddlers. But if you have a 16 year old who doesn't respect you, who doesn't listen to you. And you tell him you cannot drive the car anywhere, and he's got a set of car keys in his hands.

You better be able to get through to that kid when you say, No, you don't drive. They listen. Because if he says, I don't care what you say, and goes off and drives. That could be life threatening. So that's how [01:00:00] important that father child relationship is, so that they really pay attention and listen to you and respect you.

And kids aren't gonna respect you if you act like a military sergeant and all you say is, no, no, no, no. Yeah, you gotta say no, and you gotta have the boundaries, but you've gotta balance it with the affection and some fun and some love.

How do you specifically when you're working with a dad that has a child that's kind of exiting those, uh, you know, single digit years and heading into teenage years, what are maybe a couple of tips you could give on how to navigate that transition?

Because I think, uh, you know, a lot of dads are not sure how to go from, from, especially with their daughter, like that eight, nine, 10 year old to a 13, 14, 15 year old.

Yeah. First of all, you're tempted to be even more intimidated than you were before. Don't be, because your 11, 12, 13 year old, 10 year old daughter needs you more than when she was five.

Okay. She [01:01:00] needs to know that you have her back. Now, she doesn't want you to maybe go full on bear hug, but she needs to know you have her back. Secondly, Don't take her personally. So many dads will have their daughters get snarky or they will not want to do this or they'll not want to do that or they only want to be with their mom and not their dad anymore and dads take it so personally their feelings get hurt and they withdraw.

It's not about you, it's all about her, and her behavior is telling you, I need help dad, I feel really insecure, I feel really stupid, no one's gonna like me, and this is why social media in those early years is so devastating for girls, because they're trying to figure out how If they're pretty, if they're, if they're fun, if they're nice, if they're smart, if they're whatever, and they grab onto things.

And that's where if you're there reinforcing, [01:02:00] you know what, honey, you are smart. You can do this. You know what, honey, you know, your friends will like you and the friends that are kind of mean, you don't want friends like that anyway. So you need to actually spend more time with your daughters. It doesn't need to be a lot of time.

It can be a car ride to a soccer game. It can be breakfast on a, you know, a Saturday morning for an hour, you know, go to McDonald's and sit down, you know, just whatever. And ask her questions and listen to her. Don't talk, talk less when she is a teenager. Because teenagers won't confide in somebody who talks too much.

Typically, this is what mothers like me do. We ask our daughters a question, wanting to find the answer that we want. Okay, so we'll ask a question, and as she's formulating an answer, we formulate our response to her answer. to make her move in the right direction. So we interrupt. Kids [01:03:00] won't talk to you if you're like that.

And dads are very good at just sitting still and sitting still. As a matter of fact, I tell parents, worst case scenario, your 16 year old, 15 year old daughter comes home and goes, dad, I'm pregnant. And I say, listen, don't say anything. Say, okay, this is a big deal and my job is to help you navigate this really, really hard time.

So I need to think on this. So I'm going to think on it for 24 hours and we're going to regroup in 24 hours or 12 hours. We're going to talk again. Then your daughter is going to listen to you. If you let it rip and you scream and you're terrified, now you don't know what to do. Um, she won't listen to you.

Girls, listen to dads who listen to them. Because they feel you have respected them. And if you respect them, they'll respect you. So that's the most important thing to do. It's not, it's not rocket science. It's very simple. [01:04:00] Ask a question, sit and listen. And then of course say, I'm boy, tell me more about that girl.

Tell me more about that boy and act interested. And a lot of stuff he's going to send say to you is going to be really boring and you're not going to be interested. It doesn't matter. Just stay with her there. It's easy. That's how you do it.

You know, all these things you're talking about, it just, like I said, it is simple and it just requires a different level of intentionality.

Exactly.

And dads could almost just look at, you know, every single day, how can I be intentional with my child today? And carry that out.

And there's this thing, just pick a course, say today, I'm going to make sure I touch my child five times tonight. On the top of the head, on the shoulders, give or squeeze, isn't that what you want?

Don't you come home and want whoever you love the most in your house to sit down and go, how was your day? And they give you a hug. Sit down. Tell me about your day. [01:05:00] What drove you crazy today? Who, who fought you today? How did you feel like you failed today? And they listened to you for half hour. It makes you feel so good.

And if it makes you feel good, it's going to make your child feel three times as good. So every day, what's your, what, what, what's your task today? You're going to hug or touch each of your kids five times that day. What's the next day? You're going to tell them something encouraging about themselves. You write them a note, you stick it in their lunchbox, you write them a note, stick it in their backpack.

You know, so simple, but those are things that change kids lives and character. To you, they're not a big deal. To you, you go, oh, what's the big difference? I don't want any, I don't want a note in my briefcase. No, but, but, well, it might not be bad, but that's what kids want. So just those little things and just a list of those kinds of things and do them over and over and over.

And that's what gets your kids paying attention to you.

I've, uh, the note thing I've shared on the [01:06:00] podcast. That's a part of my morning routine is I do a little note, actually print off a piece of paper with a little picture of like me and my daughter or me and my son and me and my wife. Three little strips and I write them a little note.

It's almost like a gratitude deal, partly for me. Like, I feel like I get more out of it than they do. And then I give it to them, you know, creatively sometimes, or maybe just in their, you know, hand it to them on the way to school. And what that does compounded over time, if you make that a habit. Oh. Like, I cannot even tell you.

It's so simple, but it is profound.

Well, see, and that's exactly what I do because I've seen your daughter at 25. I've seen kids. I had a little girl in my office who, when she was about 12 or 13, she was living in a halfway home. She would literally sit on my stool and spin and spin and spin. She wouldn't talk to me.

No mom, no dad at halfway home. And I thought, this isn't going to end well. And I said, do you want to leave? Do you want another doctor? Nope. And she kept spinning. She wouldn't talk to me. And I'd say, do you want to go? Nope. Do you want to leave early? Nope. I'm [01:07:00] like, please get out of my office because she wouldn't talk to me.

But she kept coming back and coming back. And I really thought, and I'm very hopeful with all of my patients. And I was sitting in a restaurant and all of a sudden this girl, cute girl at 22 looked down to me and he said, hi, Dr. Meek. I didn't know who it was. She said, do you remember me? And I said, I'm sorry, honey.

I don't. I'm Emily. Boom. I had this image of this little girl spinning and spinning and spinning. And she said, you know, one of the things that you did for me most, Oh, it's humbling. That really helped me. You were one of the few people that was there year after year after year. And I, how many times I see her a year, five times a year.

Knowing there was some adult who wasn't going to go away. I can have that kind of impact. Just me, seeing a kid for an hour, five times a year. What can you do? [01:08:00] As a father, she didn't have a father. She didn't have a mother, but she was, she had her act together at 22. See, I've seen so much of that. That's why I know I'm telling you.

Every single listener, the truth, because I've seen the end of the story and you haven't. And I know the story can turn out incredibly well, even if your daughter is a pill today. I've seen her at 25.

That gives me chills. Just, I mean, for you to say that, it just, oh my gosh, hits me so hard thinking like, Like, you just know what, how this plays out, right?

I do. I do. And I see parents who are so beside themselves and so despondent. And just, I'm, this is going to be terrible. This is going to be terrible. I said, no, your daughter's 16. You have nine more years to help with her. brain development and what you say and what you do and the faces you make and [01:09:00] where you take her are going to, there's that neuroplasticity and it's going to shape her mind.

So why are you giving up at 16? I mean this transgender stuff, what? A 16 doesn't know anything. You know, they don't have full brain development. So that's, you know, earlier in the interview, you said, why do you do what you do? That's why for the rest of my life, I don't want to write books. I want to talk to you.

I want to talk directly to dads and I want to say, this is what you can do. Trust me, I've seen the end of the story. And I've been doing it long enough that now that I see a lot of my patients kids, And I see some of those patients that were hard kids when they were younger, I see them in their kids. It just makes me want to cry.

I mean, it really, really does. And so that's why I have so much hope, so much hope.

One more little connection on the, uh, on the executive thing. You go to work [01:10:00] and based on whether it's sales or KPIs or profits or whatever, it's very easy to know what the scoreboard is. Are you winning and lose or losing, right?

You go home, there's no scoreboard and you're working towards an outcome that you might not even ever see, right? And so you're, you're investing yourself every single day into a unknown outcome that's years in the future. for dads to just know that you may not see it and it, you know, and all that, but it's so worth it.

So worth it. It is so worth it.

And there may be a time, particularly if you're a divorced dad, particularly if you have an ex wife who's Pitting your kids against you. Hold on, hold on. Because even girls who sort of go away from their dads, if you live in truth and you do what's right, and you take the high road, [01:11:00] she'll come back because kids know truth.

If you genuinely love that girl and you genuinely have her back and you just, Pursue her, pursue her, and you never, ever, ever give up on her, she'll come back. And that's one thing I do know. And I also am so confident in what I'm saying, because this is what kids have taught me over the years about their dads.

Kids tell me everything about their dads. I know dads, because kids have told me. what they want. And dads have told me how they feel and the angst and the hurt they feel from their dads. So I just know I'm standing on truth and that's why I do what I do. If I didn't know 100 percent that what I'm telling dads to do doesn't work, I'm not going to waste your time.

Certainly not waste my time. I have a lot of fun things to do, but this is my heart. And again, if God sort of puts you in that path and doesn't let you off that path, [01:12:00] you stay there. So

Well, I'm so grateful for what you do and for your willingness to follow that path and follow that calling and just take, you know, your, your lifetime's worth of, of experience and boil it all down into some really simple, uh, messages and lessons and, and coaching that, that men are desperate for right now.

And kids are even more desperate for it.

They are. If there was ever, ever, ever a time kids need their dads, it is right, right now, this moment. There's so much stuff that they're trying to, so many questions they need answered, and if, and dads don't feel they can answer them because they feel intimidated, insecure, answer them.

Like I said, even if you don't answer them right, Try, give it a go, because all your kids want to know is you're trying, you know, and you're going to say things that are wrong and upside down and backwards. All right, apologize, but figure out what's right. Apologize. Kids love it [01:13:00] when you want your kid to stick with you over the years.

If you mess up, apologize. That your daughter is the most forgiving person you'll ever know in your life because she needs you. Your wife doesn't need you. This kid needs you. So when you say you're sorry, boy, oh boy, she'll come running back to you. Maybe not in a day or two or three, but she will if she's a teenager.

So I just would encourage men if, you know, if you need help or you need encouragement or you have a business or, you know, please, I'd love to help. I just started this, you know, three or four months ago and it's really, really busy, but I love it. Just go to my website, Meeker Parenting, and You know, if, if, if coaching people in your business is something want, or, or one on one, just take a look, see what you need or want.

I'll second that. And, you know, we'll certainly put links to your website, social media, your books on, uh, on the show notes for men listening to this. I [01:14:00] don't care if, if you're listening in a month or in five years, like you should send this to every other dad that you know, uh, and just spread like this kind of a message so that more kids have the dads they deserve.

And man, if, if you're looking for a resource on how do you start winning, as a dad, uh, that there is just no better place that you could start with than with Dr. Meeker and all her resources. And so could not, uh, recommend it more. And as I said at the beginning of this show, I have given away more of, uh, uh, Strong Fathers, Strong Daughters than every other business book combined.

And so it's just, I believe in it that, that strongly. So Dr. Meeker, this was just an absolute joy. This is my favorite podcast I've done so far. Oh, bless your heart. Well, Yeah,

it's so fun for me and it's so humbling to be invited into, you know, dad's lives. I take it very, very seriously and I'm just really honored.

And one more thing, I believe [01:15:00] if one or two percent of the dads out there really kicked into gear, we'd live in a different country. If we could get one dad to live on every block in South Side Chicago, drugs would grow away. They got their moms there, and their grandmas, but they don't have their dads or their grandfathers there.

They need some men.

Isn't it, that, that tells you the real difference between moms and dads.

Thank you so much for your time. Such an honor and privilege. And, uh, and I hope that you get a ton of clients out of this. Thank

you so

much.

And thank you, you know, uh, obviously I have lots to talk about. I'm a little long winded.

I apologize for taking so much, but I told you at the beginning of the show, I, you know, I wrote a whole book on it and then some, and so I'm grateful to be here.

Well, maybe in the future, we'll do a second one. And so hit a few more topics.

Perfect. All right. I'd love it. Thanks, Franklin.

Thank you, Dr. Meeker.

So appreciate it.

[01:16:00] You bet. Bye bye. Bye

bye.

If you enjoyed today's episode, please subscribe to the podcast, give us a rating and review, and share this episode with one man you know needs to hear this message. We want to encourage as many men as possible to show up as the strong leaders, loving husbands, and intentional fathers they're proud to be.

family deserves. And until next time, be the man the world needs.