Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Communicating To A Better ConnectionHi there! Belah here. Today is Part II of my interview with Larry Hagner of gooddadproject.com. After Larry shared such a moving story in his Part I, he shares why his marriage is strong in the midst of challenges. Communication is the foundation of a healthy marriage: communication with God and each other. But communication is more of a skill, but it isn’t hard. It just requires action and Larry walks us through how to do it.

Check out Part I at delightyourmarriage.com/78

You’ll Discover:

  • The 3 rules Larry and his wife live by to make the difficult times less difficult
  • The “non-negotiables” that keep the marriage fresh
  • Why seeing movies isn’t the best date night
  • Guidelines for the best connecting questions
  • How men and women are wired in communication
  • Imagine your marriage without sex
  • How connecting with God is not as hard as it sounds

When you cut off your husband physicallyBooks & Resources Mentioned:

 

Tweetables:

  • The quality of your life is based upon the quality of your questions.
  • Men are wired to problem solve.
  • Women mostly want to be heard, that you know how they feel.
  • When women cut off men physically, it feels the same as when your husband is not speaking to you.
  • Who better to be awkward with than the person who loves you and knows you for the rest of your life
  • What would your marriage look like without sexual intimacy?
  • I don’t have all the answers and that’s okay, but I’m going to go out and find these answers and grow.

 

Thanks for listening! I hope you are encouraged to live in wholehearted intimacy!

 

Love,

Belah

—

 

Episodes come out Tuesday & Thursday mornings. But, in case you forget…I love to subscribe with my phone so I never miss an episode. You can too:  

 

iPhone: Podcast App is on updated iPhones. Open DYM & subscribe! Android: Download Podbay.fm App. Open DYM & subscribe!

If you enjoyed this episode, would you add your review to iTunes (via your phone or computer)? It will encourage me & it will help others find the podcast easier. Find out how at delightyourmarriage.com/itunes Thank you!

 

Transcript

0:02
Welcome to the delight your marriage podcast. This show where you hear from amazing and inspiring wives sharing their struggles, triumphs, and advice for this journey called marriage. Here’s your host belah. Rose.

0:18
Hi there, and welcome. Thank you so much for listening in to the delight your marriage podcast, where we talk about marriage, we talk about intimacy, we talk about how to do marriage better, and get through the hard stuff and thrive in the areas of marriage. So it is the second time I’m talking to you in January of 2016. So I just want to encourage you, I don’t know if you are a goal setter, or not, I certainly am. So I really love the new year to get a chance to reflect and think about where I need to grow. And one area is my health. So I have I, if you’ve been listening to the podcast, you know, but my, my oldest son is two and a half of my youngest son is already a year, and I still have a lot of baby weight left to get off. So I am focused on that. That is my goal for this first couple months of the year, I have done lots of trial and error of New Year’s resolutions myself. And one thing that I’ve noticed and realize at least about myself is that I can’t successfully focus on more than one goal at a time, you know, you really need to focus to get one goal accomplished. So I just encourage you, if you haven’t yet set your goal for the year, there’s still time, I always think of January as like your trial and error month where you’re getting, you’re figuring out what your goal is, and you’re you know making strides in that area. And you’re maybe a couple steps forward, a couple steps back, but you’re moving in that direction. So feel free, you’ve got a couple more weeks to get things kind of in order for the next rest of this year. So what’s your first goal going to be of 2016, I just encourage you to pick that and start working towards it. So if you are focused on getting more connected with your spouse, communication is a big piece of that. And today, I have Larry Hagner on who is a great guy. He’s got a great podcast of his own about fatherhood. It’s phenomenal stuff, but he talks about communication in your marriage and how central that is for your connection. And I just want to dive into what he has to say. will tell us what your marriage looks like? Now? What is what is your marriage like? Now?

2:52
To be honest with you, I mean it, I can honestly say that it my marriage with my wife, it gets better every single year. And I think marriage is a constant learning process. Right? Yeah, and especially when you add more, more people in the family. You know, it tends to, it turns out, it can be more challenging at times. However, I think a lot of those things can be avoided. You know, a lot of the obstacles and a lot of the distance and a lot of the valleys can be avoided if you live by some rules. And those rules are, you know, our relationship and our foundation is based on God. And it’s based on prayer. And that is the foundation that we do everything through. So that’s number one. Number two is undistracted, very purposeful, present in the moment. Communication every single day. And I even write about this in my book, and my wife and I call this the non negotiable daily 10 minutes. And we do is every single night is we lay in bed, and we turn off all electronics. We hold hands, we face each other, and we talk and we ask each other good questions. And the quality of our life really depends on the quality of our questions, right and questions like, how was your day? Fine? How was yours? Fine. Those aren’t allowed. The questions more like, tell me the best part about your day. Why was it the best part? Now Chuck, tell me some what was the most challenging part of your day? Why was that the most challenging? What did you learn from it? What would you do different? So really pulling out more information and questions that you can’t answer or just yes or no to. That’s one of the things we do the other thing. Another thing we do is we have a non negotiable monthly date night no matter how chaotic our life is. We have set dates each month and we plan these out three months ahead. booked the babysitters and it’s non negotiable. Doesn’t matter if we’ve had a tough week or we’re tired or whatever. We don’t call in sick we go on that date night. And we connect. And the other thing we we don’t do is we don’t go see movies on that date night, because that’s not interacting. It’s not communicating, it’s not connecting, it’s not intimate. So that’s, that’s just a couple of ways that, that we keep our relationship alive. And the other way, I mean, you know, through through being in physical intimacy, you know, there, there isn’t a week that goes by, or we’re not intimate with each other, at least once or twice. And it’s because we both feel I think our desire level is literally on that we’re probably at that age or right at the same level. I’m 40. And she’s in her late 30s. So, you know, we’ve probably desire sex about the same amount of time now. But we noticed that if we don’t, if we’re not intimate, at least that much, that we tend to get a little bit irritable, we get a little bit moody, right and be distant. So it’s important. It’s very important to both of us that we that we’re intimate at least once or twice a week.

5:58
Mm hmm. Thanks so much for sharing that clearly. Because I think a lot of times we dance around like what that actually means being physically intimate. Like, how often what does that look like? But But yeah, I completely agree. The irritable, the Moody, the distant, I mean, intimacy is supposed to bring you together to be unified. And so I just love that, that that’s something that’s also it sounds like a non negotiable, like, this is something that happens in our marriage frequently,

6:26
which is right, which is the other caveat, I’ll say to that is even on night, it’s where we’re exhausted. You know, we feel like, you know, gosh, man, I don’t know if we can, and it’s really odd how that plays out where like, sometimes those are the best nights. You know, it’s really odd usually like, and afterwards, you’re like, wow, like, I really didn’t think I had the energy for that. And we did now you know, because then you feel close. Intimacy is there and you surprise yourself. So it’s, it’s, it’s a great thing about our marriage?

6:55
Yes, I think that’s so true. And especially for women, I would speak to like that, that thing where you know, that you, you should, but you don’t really want to, but then you do it. And then it’s, it’s it is it’s surprising, and you and you are so grateful that you did for the good of your marriage for the good of the both of you, which is great. The other thing I love that you talked about with communication, you said the quality of our life is often the quality of our questions. Which I think is really key. And I wonder how, you know, you talked about open ended questions, not just questions, you can say yes or no to but when someone’s trying to say, or trying to come up with questions, do you have any guidelines that they could use?

7:34
So I always think, open ended questions are the way to go. The questions who, what, when, why or how I even write about this in the book of how to connect, you know how to improve the connection with your spouse, so that there’s an entire chapter dedicated on that. And one of the things that I definitely recommend is don’t try to come up with these questions on the fly. Don’t try to come up with these questions. When you’re in the moment. Take literally a few minutes. You know, one of the things that my wife and I do is we talk like that every night before bed. So one of the things I’ll do when I brush my teeth at night, before I get in bed, is I’ll think about like, what do I really want to know about her day? You know, what’s something that I really want to hear about? You know, what’s something that maybe I’m sensing, she wants to talk about? Like, for instance, sometimes you don’t even have to be creative. Like if I know, something is stressing her out, you know, whether that be she’s having a tough time with a friendship, a family member, you know, or there’s something that happened with the kids that day, I’ll simply say, hey, you know, I, I noticed you were a bit stressed out today about such and such, you know, hey, don’t tell me about that. What happened? And, and then a lot of times, you don’t even have to really be prepped with a whole lot of questions, because the questions will come as she talks. So if she the information that she gives, it’s a back and forth isn’t like you’re interviewing her, you’re interviewing each other, those questions will come, you’ll be queued for the next question with but you know, she says, Well, you know, guy, my friend really upset me a day she said this, and sometimes be like, Wow, that’s really that’s kind of tough. You know, why do you think she would say something like that? You know, so then it’s like the next question where she can then not only is it me finding out about her day, but it’s her speaking aloud and trying to figure things out, too. So it’s, it’s a conversation, but we’re also a sounding board for each other.

9:19
Hmm. I love this, especially Larry, that, that you’re coming at it from the perspective of the male because a lot of times wives want that communication. They want that connection that happens only through talking together with each other. But a lot of times, the husbands aren’t, aren’t really able to find questions that that matter that will help her to open up to help her to feel released to talk about what matters to her. And so I really love the queue to plan the questions to prepare. That’s key.

9:53
It is I mean, and like I said, you can do it several different ways. I mean, like I always know when I put my toothbrush in my mouth, I’m thinking what are we going to talk about, you know what I’m reflecting on my day, what have I heard from her some things that I’ve seen. And those are the things that we talked about. Here’s the other thing I want to, I want to talk about really quick with your female listeners and your male listeners. And I’m man. I’m no different when it comes to this. But what do most men want to automatically do when women start communicating? They want to give advice they want to problem solve, as we were wired, we want to problem solve. And I just want to get some feedback on that. And again, this is in my book and all that. But men are wired to problem solve, we just are and when when one man goes to another man, and we talk about things, in those rare moments, we actually open up about things. You’re in that we are in a state where we are wanting advice, we want a point of view, we don’t want to just be heard, we want to be like, This is what I’m going through. What do I need to do to make this better? You tell me, you know, so that’s, that’s how men communicate. What men a lot of times don’t understand is that’s not the way a woman is wired. I mean, sometimes they want advice, but mostly they just want to be heard. They just want empathy. They, and they want connection, they don’t want sympathy. And you tell me if I’m wrong, they want to know, you know, how they feel not Do you feel sorry for them, but that you are in the trenches, you get it, you understand? And, and that they are being heard. And that’s a lot of times, that’s what now in the back of my mind, when my wife is telling me, you know, she’s going through something our problem, man, my mind will be clicking like, Oh, I could just tell her this, and it will help, you know, but I have to shut that down. Because a lot of times that will just completely turn her off. You know, if I start automatically, saying we should do this, you should do this. You should do it that way. Because she’s like, are you not even listening to me? I just, I just want you to hear me.

11:50
Yeah. And and I really love again, that this is coming from a man just telling men, listen to your wife, that’s that. That’s what she wants. She wants to be heard. She wants to be known. And as you as a husband know her in all of who she is. That’s, that’s our hearts desire to be known to be cherished. That’s our heart’s desire. So I think that’s right on the money.

12:12
Yeah. And I just, I just think it’s something that we men were pretty good at, at simple direction, right? I mean, we are very good at like, just keep it simple for us. And we can usually follow suit. And if there’s one advice, one piece of advice I would give your, your male listeners as well as, yeah, as well as reminding myself because I always have to, I have to turn this off. Even though I feel like maybe I’m a little bit more than habit, but I always have to consciously turn it off is when she’s talking, be empathetic, but connect, and maybe you just don’t give advice and unless she openly indirectly asks for it.

12:47
Yeah, that’s right. Yep. Yeah. Because wives, I mean, we all can say, Honey, what should I do about rice? What do you think that’s, that’s the key to give advice. Really? Not before?

13:01
No, I totally agree.

13:03
So this non negotiable 10 minutes now, is there like a format to it? Or you just kind of set the timer or you just assume like, right around 10 minutes? How do you kind of do that?

13:14
It’s usually never 10 minutes. We just can’t we just kind of call it that? We I mean, it’s not like, we definitely don’t hit the timer. We like, Okay, we’re done roll over. What it does is, is it we know that that 10 minutes is a sacred time, because as you know, if you have little kids, I mean, my wife and I were idiotic enough back in the day to think that we could have a good connecting conversation over dinner with kids, and that that’s impossible. And the more kids you have, the more impossible it is, you know, you can’t do that. So, you know, from the time we wake up to the time we go to bed, usually it’s it’s nonstop stuff, you know, craziness. But we always know that we’re going to come together at the end of the night. And that’s why we just call the state you know, it’s the non negotiable 10 minutes. What I can tell you about that 10 minutes is is it’s hardly ever 10 minutes, it’s 10 minutes, it’s 15 minutes, 20 minutes is 30 minutes. And a lot of times that connection, that communication will lead to sex and intimacy and connection because it’s, it’s there and to be honest, why shouldn’t it because if two people feel very, very connected, then that physical intimacy is going to happen. And I would I would tell your listeners, you know, male or female, if you want to have more physical intimacy in your marriage, carve out just that sacred 10 minutes of connection and it just automatically pretty much kind of happens. You know,

14:41
it’s really good. I mean, especially I love the quote that’s been on our podcast a couple times. Basically, it’s men feel loved through sex. Women need to feel loved in order to have sex, which the the communication the feeling known to feeling cherish is what she needs to feel to feel Like having sex. So that’s a really huge takeaway there.

15:03
No, yeah, I agree. I actually wrote about that in my book. So I mean, so ladies, if you’re listening, if you if you want to grab a copy of the book and hand it over to your husband, maybe those tidbits of information we’ll get to. But it’s very true. I mean, so in my book I write about that is how for women to have a high quality, physical, connected experience with their husband, that emotional connection, that communication, man, it’s got to be there, right? I mean, women can women can easily have have the physical aspect, right? I mean, you don’t necessarily have to have the emotional however, it’s the physical intimacy is amplified, when you have that emotional communication connection beforehand. You know, so it’s, it’s, and you’re right, men are physical is much as when women cut off men physically, it feels the same as if your husband is not speaking to you. And that’s, that’s one of the things that again, I talked about in my book, but it’s just, it’s nothing to call either gender out. It’s just a good understanding of what it feels like. So a woman feels she feels unheard. She feels uncharged. She feels unappreciated. If she doesn’t, if she doesn’t feel connected through communication, love. And a man feels the exact same way if I’m not getting, you know, my physical needs met. I don’t feel loved. And I don’t feel I don’t feel good enough for her.

16:32
Hmm. Yeah. Yeah, I think that’s it’s just so important for us to put ourselves in our spouse’s shoes and try to think, what are they going through? What how can I make their life better? How can I make them feel more loved? And, and yeah, for wives, it’s really to understand our husband physically. And for husbands, it’s to understand our wife emotionally, a lot of times, that’s really the key. So I love that I love that perspective. Again, having kids and having that in the mix, this is a really intentional thing you have to do every single day. It doesn’t just go away, because you’ve done it once or twice or whatever. It’s it’s a daily habit that you’ve really put in place. Is that

17:20
right? Is I mean, a lot of the things that that we’re talking about, in another quote for you, I know we said the quote earlier, which is, you know, the quality of your life depends on the quality of your questions, but a lot of the things that are in my book, and a lot of the things that we’re talking about today, it’s common sense, but it’s not common practice. So that that’s the other quote that I’ve heard, that always has kind of hit home. To me, it’s common sense. But it’s not common practice. It’s, it’s the discipline. It’s like, okay, I know, I need to communicate with my spouse every single day. But, you know, just kind of tell me, what does that look like? How does that? Do we sit in front of each other. And I don’t know what to say. But I think if you give each person, just some marching orders of, hey, just carve out 10 minutes, and come to the conversation prepared with what you reflected on during the day. And ask a question that that person can’t say yes or no to. And that’s really it, and then just let the conversation go, those three things will open up so much dialogue. And it will help things just tremendously. And it’s just a slight, slight tweak. It’s nothing earth shattering. You know, it’s no big secret. It’s just a tweak and the discipline of doing it.

18:26
Yeah, yeah, the discipline of doing it. Absolutely. And the thing is, it’ll be it really could be awkward at, first of getting these questions, you know, but who better to be awkward with then your own spouse that’s going to know you and love you for the rest of your life? First of all, and it’s not going to be awkward forever. Practice, practice, practice. It gets easier practice listening practice coming up with questions. I mean, even I mean, you and I both know, Larry interviewing questions. It comes it gets better with practice doesn’t know how he does. Absolutely. Yeah. Yeah, I love that. Okay. Well, let me let me make sure I asked these other questions I want to get to. We talked about intimacy a bit. But if you had some advice, or specific tip that you want to share, that would be awesome. Just on being intimate. Yeah, yeah. So maybe something that you learned, and that was helpful for you, or, like something that husbands can relate to something along those lines.

19:19
I heard so our pastor did and did a whole series on sex, not not too long ago. And it was it was a three part series. So it was three Sundays in a row that he talked about sex, I just thought was very, very interesting. And, you know, he definitely put you know, the, the biblical spin on intimacy. And while I was hearing this message, all three messages, I was like, it just kind of made my head kind of turn my eyebrows kind of go up. And I’m like, huh, and it’s one of those things that you kind of take away from and you’re like, in the moment when he was speaking, I’m not really sure I was picking up what he was putting down. But when I got back into my day to day life, I really caught Some of the things that were that rang true to me and has now made our sex life even better. And one of one of those things are, is, sex is truly a gift from God. That’s number one. And I never really got that. Until I really heard that and some reasoning behind that. I mean, but sex is really, to bring two people together on a physical level, an emotional level that no one else can, I mean, it’s what pretty much separates friendship from lovers, right. And one of the things that he said was, and it just, sex is such a part of our life. I mean, when it comes to just being whether you’re a single person, whether you’re a married person, I mean, sexuality is such a huge part of our life, all you have to do is get on the internet, or hear your radio or whatever. And there are every bit of marketing out there, you’ll find some sort of sexuality thing about it, the one thing that he really hit home with us as a married couples, you know, can you imagine your marriage without? What would your marriage look like, without sexual intimacy? And I’ve never thought of it. Never thought of it before. I was like, my gosh, that would I can’t imagine, you know, the amount of distance that I would feel from her. Yeah. And probably heard from me. So yeah, what that really made me do was really think about like, it might be too much information. But But no, when we, when we did, we’re after I heard that, and the time was that we were intimate. And even even now, when we are intimate, I feel like, I really, I need to be really into this, like, I really need to so so focused on her on us this, because what if we didn’t have this, and it’s just a different perspective on sex. Like, this is such a cool thing that I get to share with her, and she gets to share with me, and we don’t, we don’t have to do this. We don’t have to, we don’t do this with anyone else. And what I noticed that it brought about just this, just this feeling of freedom. And what I mean by that is, I was a little bit more open with her about like, hey, if this is the one person that I’m going to share this with, and I might as well be open about, what do I really want, you know, out of the out of what we’re doing? What do I really feel about her in this moment? And if I feel it, and I think I’m going to tell her? Yeah, it has made our sex life. So much more, I would say intense, and also purposeful, because, like, yeah, again, maybe TMI, but there’s a couple of things that I’ve done, that’s just a little bit different. Yeah. Like, when we’re having sex, I will look at her and her eyes. And, you know, I’ll either grab her by the arms, or like, I’ll just hold her shoulders, and I’ll look at her and be like, I just I love you so much. And I’m just, and I, I care about you more than anything. And it’s just something that I just won’t be like in this moment, right here. And now, I want you to know this. And yeah, it just seems like those feelings are amplified when that intimacy is there like that?

23:08
Yeah. Yeah, that’s powerful. I love I also love how practical that is for husbands to think about. But but but I think, especially even for wives, the being really into this is key, like thinking about that this, if, if this wasn’t in your marriage, if this wasn’t a part of the two of you, you would miss it, you wouldn’t feel the same way to your husband, you wouldn’t feel the same way to your wife. And I love that almost like almost like a greater sense of appreciation for it. Rather than oh, gosh, we got to do this, because it’s gonna help us and blah, blah, blah. You know, sometimes I know wives get in that rut of like, well, it’s for him, I just need to get this over with or whatever. But really recognize that this is God’s gift. So I just love that. I think those are brilliant tips.

24:01
Thank you. Yeah, I mean, no problem. I think I think you hit upon something really big there, which is, you know, I should I should do this, because I know he wants it. And, and, you know, I definitely think that, you know, perhaps there’s some there’s some give and take there. And what I mean by that is is maybe she feels that way, because she doesn’t feel that emotional connection that maybe we can provide that platform for and maybe that’s what that that that non negotiable. 10 minute daily connection can do. Because once you hit that 10 minute connection like that, or however many minutes it is not based on minutes, but when you hit that connection, yeah, suddenly a different perspective of like, well, I no longer feel like maybe I have to like maybe I want to know.

24:45
Yeah, yeah, I think that’s really good. I think that’s really good. I think we each each side of the marriage can take some responsibility to take some action to make this better in our marriages. So I love that. Now I want to ask you due to the specific marriage that you’ve had, what opportunities have you had to serve or get to know God?

25:10
So to be honest with you, I, I felt like I never really had a good relationship with God before I knew my wife. And what I mean by that is, I prayed when I wanted something. You know, I prayed when I needed something. And I went to church on Sundays, because I felt that I had to. And that’s where I felt obligated. So I just kind of like I was more or less this practicing Christian that sort of was a box checker. Go to Sunday. Okay, I’ll pray. I’ll pray when I need something. Okay. I’m good, right? My wife, you know, again, I met her 20 years ago, she’s the one who really opened my eyes up to this because she grew up in a family that was very spiritual. And one of the things that she taught me, it was number one, she, she was a great teacher with how to pray. You know, she’s like, she’s like, I pray all the time. And I was like, would it mean you pray all the time, she’s like, I pray throughout the day, like, just kind of constantly, I just sort of have this conversation with God. And I’m like, Really, I was like, I never even I mean, my my view of it is you sit down for a few minutes, you fold your hands, you pray you close your eyes. She’s like, No, it doesn’t have to be like that. She’s like, a prayer can be conversation, a prayer can be, you know, something good just happened. And you’re like, Thank you, God, I just really appreciate you bring that into my life. And I was like, so she taught me prayer through gratitude, as well. So I got me out of this rut. Yeah. And sometimes I even feel bad, you know, when I pray to God, and I’m like, I’m sorry, all I did was ask you for things like the first 20 years of my life, I’ve never really thanked you know, so now I’m much more, much more intentional about it. So if something good happens, it can be something that could be 10 seconds long, you know, hey, thank you so much for bringing that opportunity to bring this person to bring this conversation into my life, you know, right here now. Or if there was a time where I was confronted with a very stressful situation, you know, where I would just say, you know, God, give me the words and guide me, you know, in this moment, it can no longer be me, it has to be you helped me. So it’s just little things like that, that I’ve learned from her, that have been just such an amazing education, and also, the most, one of most important things I’ve learned from her is making sure that we pray and that we are focused on God as a family, because a lot of times, you know, I always thought like, well, it has to just be me, or it has to be me and her but so important and so critical to bring the kids, you know, into that situation in and read, like, for instance, my seven year old, which just shocks me, because like he’s leaps and bounds from where I was, even when I was 20. You know, for Christmas, he wants to, he wants a kid Bible. I know. I’m just like, that’s what he asked for it. I’m like, I’m like, I’m not saying that to be like, Oh, our kids are great. And I need to take credit for that. I’m just like, wow, I mean, like, I’m still learning, like, what an amazing lesson like my seven year old. I’m sitting here thinking, like, what a cool thing that I can do, we can buy this Bible. I can read with him, I can learn with him. And he’s interested. So it’s like, she’s just done such a great job. I mean, I have to give like all the credit to her. She’s done such a great job of just educating our family on the right things to do when it comes to education and prayer. And it’s just been such a cool experience. And that’s one of the reasons I feel so honored to be with her.

28:38
Hmm, that’s awesome. That’s really cool to hear. And I want you to share again, a little bit to share about your book.

28:47
Sure. So the book is called the dad’s edge, you can find it on Amazon. I mean, I feel extremely blessed. I mean, when I first launched it on Amazon, like I was hoping like it would, you know, I was hoping it would do okay, you know, within 10 days, it became an Amazon bestseller in all my categories. Yeah, even in the that’s awesome motherhood category, which those are some audacious authors in that category. But you know, here we are, we’re eight weeks out, it’s got 40 to five star reviews. It has sold tons of copies. I never publicize how many copies we’ve sold, because I don’t feel like that’s what it’s about. It’s more the impact. But what I’ve seen is is the number of people that have bought it, and then the amount of emails that I get about it, but the book is really, it’s, believe it or not, it’s called the dad’s edge, but it has very little to do. It doesn’t have a whole lot to do with parenting. And what I mean by that is when I first got started on this journey with the good dad project, I mean, I’ve been a dad for 10 years. And the first five years of my journey. I was not good at this. And I’m still a student of it. I learned every day the thing that’s different. The thing that’s been the biggest shift for me is the awareness and then just some of the rules that I like to live by. And one of the several things about the book, so it goes over a lot of the things that just we as men struggle with, which is the connection with our kids, you know, what does that look like? How do I connect with a seven year old? How do I connect with a teenager? Like, how do I make sure I’m very purposeful in that connection, so I’m creating those positive, lasting memories, and very selfishly, from a man’s point of view, that’s going to help me enjoy this journey of fatherhood and not live a life of struggle and regret. And, and I didn’t take opportunities Connect. The other thing is, is the connection with your wife, which is what we hit upon a lot in this in this interview. Another one is work life balance. Another one is how to tap into unlimited more enduring patients in any situation, whether that’s your kids or talking back to their, you know, you’re yelling at them, you’re yelling, you are, you’ve got stress at work, or you have a stressful time in your relationship. How do you make better decisions? How do you change your perspective, and gain more patience in those times your life where you feel like you have none. So that’s another aspect of the book. The other aspect to the book is taking time to make sure that you are growing physically. So make sure making sure that you are taking care of your physical body. I know that sounds odd, right? I mean, especially in our culture, but it’s hard to show up, it’s really hard to show up big and intentional. If your body is in a condition where maybe you have chronic pain, or maybe you’re eating the wrong foods, or maybe you’re drinking way too much alcohol, you feel like you feel terrible. So it’s hard to show up bigger and better for the people around you if you feel bad. So that’s another important aspect. And how do you grow mentally? Spiritually, intuition, Lee. All that’s in the book.

32:01
That’s cool. Yeah, no, it’s, it’s very cool. I like how you said, you’re a student of fatherhood. And I think that I really wish more fathers would would take that upon themselves to be students of fatherhood, because we have so much brokenness in our world. And fathers are leading their family, the, you know, they have the ability to do so much good to their daughters. I mean, I’ve interviewed, specifically, Annie Loeber, who actually was a sex worker for years. And she says that she would like husbands and fathers to read her story, because she wants them to understand how to treat their daughters so that they won’t get into the kind of mess. That’s in our world today, Episode 22, through 24, she’s like I want, I want fathers to read my book, so that they understand what they the opportunity, they have to love their daughters into a writen understanding of what a father should love their daughters. And it’s just powerful. So I’m so grateful that you’re doing this work, Larry, it’s just really, really important. And I would just encourage husbands out there to get on to Larry’s podcast, the good dad project, it’s really easy to listen to really good information interviews, and buy this book and do that invest in your in your fatherhood. Now, my last question for you, Larry, is, if you could go back to year one of your marriage and sit yourself down? What is one piece of advice that you would give to you?

33:28
Probably like 10 things, but no, I think I could have saved myself a lot of a lot of time and distance from my wife just by that one simple tweak of when we’re having a conversation, be empathetic, and don’t be an advisor. You know, I did that for years. I did that for you. I still, you know, again, a student of this, you know, right? Yeah, it’s nothing, I don’t think you you can, I don’t think you ever master it, you can be more aware. And you can be more intentional, more purposeful, but you still make mistakes. But I think that’s one thing I would as a husband, make sure that that connection is is real. And it’s not from an advisory point of view. And it’s not from the man speaking down this, you should do this. And I don’t understand why you’re not doing that to fix this. And it’s more just connecting and being heard from a from a fatherhood standpoint. Again, for half my fatherhood journey. I walked in the shoes of a struggling father horribly, and I think a lot of that had to do with and I go into this in the book too is I grew up in a very chaotic childhood where I had my mom was married four times. I didn’t even meet my biological father until I was 30. Which which is a story in of itself. I won’t get into that. But I had this childhood, this frame of reference of I grew up half my childhood in a fatherless environment, which was pretty devastating, but the times I did have a male figure in my life, it was always an alcoholic, a toxic personality. So the times, I did have a father in my life, it was never a good one. And that showed up big time. Big, big, big time. And that’s part of the reason. That’s part of the reason why the good dad, if not, the reason the good dad project is here today is because I walked in those shoes of like, okay, I know, I’m not going to do this bad stuff that I grew up with. I don’t I’m not going to do that to my kids. But I was so stuck in this limbo of like, okay, I don’t I want to get over here where I can maybe get my hands around some of these skills. Because fatherhood is a skill, it’s an art. It is not a lot of men. And a lot of parents think like, I’m a mother, I’m a father, I should just innately know exactly what to do. And I feel terrible and guilty and shamed if I don’t, but that that’s the wrong perspective. The right perspective is like, okay, you know, what, I don’t have all the answers, and that’s okay. But I’m gonna go out and find these answers. And I’m gonna make myself better. And I’m going to grow. And I think one of the things that I did for five years of my fatherhood journey was, I felt that I had to have all the answers. And I felt that I was, I felt so guilty. So shame that why don’t I know this, I should be stronger than this, I should be better than this, like what’s wrong with me, I’m not a good dad. And I had just this horrible negative dialogue going on. And what it did was it, that negative dialogue, just ate away at how present I was with my kids, how purposeful I showed up with them. And it literally probably destroyed the first five years of, of my journey as a father. And finally, one night, I kind of call it my Jerry Maguire moment, I kind of hit rock bottom with this whole thing. And I was like, I’m done. I’m done. Living life like this, I didn’t have this growing up. I don’t know how to get it, but I am going to go find out how to do it. And for for the past five years, it’s been like, this immersion into self mastery, self development, being better. And that’s really all these things, being a better person knowing how to basically control a lot of my thoughts, my emotions my mentality has come through. And what I’m basically doing is I’m showing this through the lens of the Father. So a lot of these skills and one of the things I talked about my book, you can use these skills in every part of your life. I mean, literally work, family, friends, everything. What I’m showing it through the lens of a father, because that is where a lot of people don’t think those those two things can come can coexist, but they can. And that’s those are, those are a couple things, I would definitely go back and have a conversation with myself. 10 years.

37:46
Yeah, no, that’s really good. How can people connect with you online?

37:51
Yeah, so I am. Since we’ve launched this, I’m not choosy about who I really connect with on social media. I’ve had a lot of men and mothers to that will just, they’ll just go connect with me on my personal page on Facebook. And that is totally fine with me, because I use a lot of my personal Facebook things to, you know, promote our new blog or a new podcast or whatever, because Facebook has kind of changed the rules on I also have a good dad project page. Yeah. But you know, you have to pay, you know, an obscene amount of money for three people to see it. So I think they’re the people who see it, they see it, but I always get way more momentum out of my personal page. You can also find me on Twitter, good debt project on Twitter, good debt project on Facebook. Best way to find me is good. The Good, good dad project.com. Good dad project.com. Easiest way to connect with me there, you’ll find the book, I also have a ton of other free resources there. If you want to check those out which one resources how to have a better connection with your wife, I have another resource free resource on there, how to have a better connection with your kids. I even have a free preview of the book that you can check out you can subscribe to the podcast on that site as well. If you have an iPhone, you can find us on the podcast app on iTunes, the good dad project podcast. And then you can if you have an Android phone, you want to listen to our podcast, you can find us on Stitcher. And if you have none of those things and you live under a rock, you can simply just go to our site, good debt project slash podcasts. You’ll you’ll find all of our podcasts in our arsenal. And you can actually listen to the shows right there from the website.

39:26
Yeah, no, that’s great. Very cool. Well, Larry, this has been a brilliant interview. I thank you so much for your wisdom and sharing and, and yeah, I’m just excited. I’m excited for people to be inspired to be better fathers to be better husbands and for wives also to engage with their husbands in a new and meaningful way. So thank you so much.

39:46
honor, thank you for having me.

39:51
All right. Well, I hope that you are excited and encouraged to go and be intentional about communicating effectively with Your spouse. And I think there’s a lot of things, whether you’re a husband or a wife that each of us can do to make our marriages better. And I think Larry pointed out a lot of really great insights. So I just encourage you to live intentionally to accomplish what is on your heart that God’s laid on your heart to accomplish this year. And, yeah, I’m going to be talking to you again on Tuesday, and encouraging you in your marriage. God bless you. I love you. And thank you so much for your time today.

40:33
Thanks for listening. If you’ve been blessed by this, why not share it? Until next time, live with love, wisdom and passion

 

Subscribe On Itunes
Listen On Spotify