If you’re still struggling as a dad, it ISN'T because you haven’t read the right book, taken the right class, or watched the right documentary. Have you ever looked at another dad who seemed to have it all together: happy wife, flourishing kids, successful life and wondered “What’s he got that’s so different than me?” Guy Kawasaki put it as “Ideas are easy. Implementation is hard.” The secret sauce that you’re missing? Implementation. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve had a good idea, failed to act on it, then months or years later seen someone else running with the same idea. When I see their success, I get jealous. But the truth is: they deserve that success because the took action. They implemented. I did not. And I got exactly what I deserved: nothing at all. A great illustration of this misconception is reading books. I see this on social media a lot. Guys sharing how many books they’ve read this year. Or challenging each other to read a book a week. Here’s a friendly reminder: the number of books you read doesn’t mean anything. What you implement is the only thing that matters. How many of those guys reading a book a week have actually implemented anything from what they’ve read? Naval Ravikant says, “The smarter you get, the slower you read.” That means: Read slower. Implement faster. I had a guy ask me recently: “When do you have time to read all these books?” I had just recommended a book that was life-changing for me (The Greatest Salesman in the World by Og Mandino, if you’re curious). I could sense his frustration at the fact that everyone is running around talking about how great this book is and how impactful that book is. It gets clicks. It grabs your attention. But it also gets so many to believe they need to spend MORE time reading MORE books to get to their goals. What if you’ve already read all the books you need and now you just need to implement your way to your goals? My position is: if it’s worth reading, it’s worth implementing. Reading a book just to get it done and move on to the next is intellectual masturbation. It’s fooling yourself into thinking you’re doing the real deal when you’re not. Without implementation, it’s all just entertainment. (Obviously, we’re talking about non-fiction here and not a fiction book, where the stated goal is actually entertainment.) What’s better: reading 100 books a year but implementing nothing, or reading 1 book and spending an entire year implementing it? Apply this to fatherhood: start implementing what you’ve learned. And if you struggle, the answer is not necessarily finding a new approach, book, or course. The answer is probably as simple as getting accountability in implementing. Apply this to your marriage. To your business or career. To your hobbies. It’s true in every area of your life. Implementation is a choice. And most people who struggle with implementation aren’t actually bad at implementation, they just have made the choice yet. You can choose to get distracted by the accomplishment of finishing the next “thing” or you can choose to slow down and actually implement what you’ve learned. What sets a “good dad” apart from average dads is the choice to implement. “But what if I do it wrong?” Doing nothing IS doing it wrong, especially when it comes to being a dad. Without implementation, you’ll fail as a dad. So here’s your permission, and your callout: P.S. When you're ready, there are 3 ways that I can help you:
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Lessons, advice & perspectives from my mistakes as a father to challenge you & hold you accountable to becoming the Hero in your family's story, not the Villain.
50% of marriages end in divorce. We’ve all heard this statistic so often that it’s easy to brush off. With repetition, it’s easy to tune it out and not consider the implications. And of those who do think about it, most don’t think it applies to them. I know that when I got married, it certainly didn’t feel like I was gambling on a coin flip… Let’s add some additional info into the mix and present the math a bit differently… Yes, 50% of marriages end in divorce. In the book You Can Be Right...
I just got sidetracked at the grocery store for 20 minutes… I went in for one thing, thinking I’d be in and out quickly. (If you care, I was buying my wife flowers. Want some extra marriage advice? Buy your wife flowers. Like, today. Even just cheap grocery store flowers. I didn’t realize how meaningful this was to my wife, but it makes her happy for days.) As I walked in, I was moving quick: a man on a mission. I was not expecting what I got… When I came to the flower section, there was an...
Can we borrow joy from our kids? The word borrow is a bit misleading… Kids naturally have so much joy in their lives that they wouldn’t notice if we did borrow some, but the reality is that it’s not a zero-sum game. When we gain joy from their joy, they lose nothing. It’s not a 1-for-1 trade like most of our adult world is. Just like how they seem to leave a mess in any room they walk through, they also leave energy, laughter & excitement… we just might not notice. Like dirty fingerprints on...