Something Extra

Empowering Fatherhood and Driving Change w/ Roland Warren

• Technology Partners • Episode 269

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President and CEO of Care Net, Roland Warren is a prominent advocate for the importance of fatherhood in America. His unmatched dedication to empower men for this pivotal role is evident in both secular and faith-based groups. Check out his discussion with Lisa for tips on leveraging your vision, strategic abilities, and determination to bring about change.

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Credits: 

  • Host: Lisa Nichols
  • Executive Producer: Jenny Heal
  • Marketing Support: Landon Burke and Joe Szynkowski
  • Podcast Engineer: Portside Media

[00:00:00] Lisa Nichols: Chromosomes. Little strands of nucleic acids and proteins are the fundamental genetic instructions that tell us who we are at birth. Most people are born with 46 chromosomes, but each year in the United States, about 6,000 people are born with an extra chromosome, making them a person with Down syndrome.

If you've ever encountered someone with Down syndrome, you know that they are some of the kindest, most joyful people you will ever meet. They truly have something extra. My name is Lisa Nichols, and I have spent the last 24 years as both the CEO of Technology Partners and as the mother to Ally. Ally has something extra in every sense of the word.

I have been blessed to be by her side as she impacts everyone she meets. Through these two important roles as CEO and mother to Ally, I have witnessed countless life lessons that have fundamentally changed the way I look at the world. While you may not have an extra chromosome, every leader has something extra that defines who you are.

Join me as I explore the something extra and leaders from all walks of life and discover how that difference in each of them has made a difference in their companies, their families, their communities, and in themselves.

If you'd like this episode today, please go to Apple Podcasts or wherever you listen and leave us a five star rating. I'm delighted to have Roland Warren on the show today. Roland is the president and CEO at Care Net. 

Well, Roland, welcome to the Something Extra podcast. It's good to see you today. 

[00:01:47] Roland Warren: Great to be with you as well. Thank you very much for having me a part of it. 

[00:01:51] Lisa Nichols: Oh, I'm so excited. So excited for our listeners to get to know you and all the amazing thing that you're doing. I have to give a shout out, Jim Bechtold.

[00:02:00] Roland Warren: Yes. 

[00:02:02] Lisa Nichols: Connected us. 

[00:02:03] Roland Warren: The connector of all things. 

[00:02:05] Lisa Nichols: He is. Oh, I, I'm sure he's been that in your life and he certainly has in mine.

[00:02:10] Roland Warren: Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, he's, yeah, he's pretty amazing in that regard. 

[00:02:14] Lisa Nichols: Yes, he's, he's a force. 

[00:02:16] Roland Warren: Yes, he absolutely is. So yeah, blessings to him. 

[00:02:19] Lisa Nichols: Yes. Absolutely. Well, we have a lot to talk about. You know, I know that you've been married to the love of your life, Yvette, Dr. Yvette, for I think 40 years, right?

[00:02:33] Roland Warren: Yeah. 41. 

[00:02:35] Lisa Nichols: 41. We are celebrating our 39th, later this month. 

[00:02:40] Roland Warren: Oh, congrats. Wow. Congratulations. Good for you. 

[00:02:46] Lisa Nichols: Well, you too, you too, you got, you have two sons, is it Jamin and Justin, right? And then we've already talked about our grands cause we've got one grandson and I know you've got three grands and they're the best, aren't they?

[00:02:59] Roland Warren: Oh, so much fun. So much fun. 

[00:03:02] Lisa Nichols: So much fun. 

[00:03:03] Roland Warren: Worth the wait for sure. 

[00:03:04] Lisa Nichols: Absolutely. Absolutely. Absolutely. But we've got a lot to talk about. Yeah, I think you spent 20 years in corporate America. We're going to touch on that a bit, Roland, so our listeners can kind of understand your background. But then 11 years as a president of the national fatherhood initiative. And most recently this past decade, you've been the president and CEO of Care Net, and I really want to spend a lot of time talking about that. But just so our listeners know, I mean, you've got so many national media appearances here. It's crazy, Roland, people that are listening to the show may have seen you on some of these, but you've been on the Oprah Winfrey show, the Today Show, CNN, C SPAN, Dateline, Fox News.

I mean, it goes on and on and on. You, and you've been in a number of publications as well. Washington Post, Ebony, Sports Illustrated, Christianity Today. Lots of different things. So I can't wait to just dig in, but take me back. Cause I know a little bit of your story, but how you grew up. So did you, you were born in Toledo, Ohio. I know that. 

[00:04:11] Roland Warren: Yes. Yes. Born and born in Toledo, Ohio. And, yeah, most of my family, lives there. They frankly have to migrate it up from Arkansas on both sides of the family. It seems that it's from Arkansas, but yeah, it was born, born in Toledo. And, Toledo's kind of something else. I mean, people from the Midwest kind of know, you know, sort of what's happened, you know, after the auto industry got kind of whacked quite a bit.

But, you know, I was growing up in a time when, you know, sort of the car was king and, you know, Toledo's, you know, two rock throws away from Detroit. And so, very much, you know, just a great place to grow up, a great environment in that regard. And, so I kind of love that. But you know, I, I think, you know, just from my standpoint.

You know, growing up for me, you know, it's kind of interesting. I grew up in a family that got broken pretty early on. But my dad kind of not being involved in the family, which really impacted a lot of what was going on with, with me and also what was going on with my mom. So by the time my mom was 23 or so, she had, you know, four kids under the age of eight and my dad was gone. 

So, so great environment in, in the context of kind of the city. But in a lot of ways, you know, there was, you know, just challenges that, you know, that single moms have related to that. And then kids who kind of come up from that environment and kind of experiencing a lot of that.

So, grace of God, you know, was able to, yeah, you know, a graduate from high school there, went to Princeton undergrad and, that's where I met my wife, Yvette, we both are Princeton grads and, and, joined the corporate world, you know, after that and, you know, kind of went into kind of nonprofit then ministry work, after that. So, but it all starts, it all starts in Toledo, Go Mud Hens. 

[00:05:57] Lisa Nichols: Well, God bless your mom. God bless your mom. You know, Roland. Cause I mean, that was, I know you have a heart for that too, for single moms, you know, and we'll talk a little bit about that, but, and I'll circle back because part of your story really is, kind of informed really what you're doing today, even for sure.

So I know you got your psychology degree from Princeton. And then 10 years later, I think you got your MBA from Wharton. Eventually you would go back to Princeton, though, right? As the associate director of development for them. But as you said, this is really, where you met the love of your life Yvette. And you guys just, have been married for 41 years. But tell me about that period in your life, Roland. 

[00:06:54] Roland Warren: Yeah. So we met, I'm a year ahead of her. So I was a sophomore and she was a freshman, when, when I met her and, you know, we, we met pretty early on her fresh, her freshman year. I played football, for my time at Princeton. She was in the band and so I sort of had kind of noticed her, in that regard. But, yeah, so it was, it was kind of one of those things that we were just sort of inseparable, after, after we met and, you know, dated, you know, for a year and then in our, my junior year, her sophomore year, we got pregnant.

And so that became sort of a defining moment, in terms of, you know, our, our relationship and even, you know, the work that I eventually got involved in and to some degree, kind of what she does, but, we, you know, we got pregnant and, you know, we're kind of there with, really no visible means of support in that regard.

And, and, you know, Yvette went to student health services, and got the pregnancy test and, you know, nurses says it’s positive and then without sort of taking an extra gulp of air says, well, now, of course, you're going to have an abortion and, you guys as well know, I don't want to have an abortion. I want to get married. I want to have my baby. And there's like, how are you going to graduate from Princeton with a baby? You know, how are you going to become what do you want to be? You know, and so I want to become a doctor. How you can become a doctor with a baby. So really was kind of confronted with that decision that, you know, many people have. And, you know, we, you know, we didn't make that decision. I always kind of joke, we say she came back to the dorm and we kind of sit on the edge of the bed, which is probably where we should have spent all of our time, obviously. And, and, you know, I kind of said to her, you know, we're going to move forward with the plan, you know, I'll be a husband to you and a father to our, you know, our child growing inside of you.

And so that's what we did. So we got married, I was 20, she was 19 and our oldest son, Jamin was, was born, in Princeton. So, she, took a year off. I continued and, and then went to work for IBM and then she started back to school again, finished her junior year and then in her senior year we had our second son, Justin.

So she actually carried our second son in, in her graduation. I carried my first son to some degree in my graduation and she carried our second son in hers. So we are both of our kids at Princeton. So that, you know, in many ways sort of defined a lot of it's certainly kind of sort of the nonprofit and ministry focus, but father and stuff, having grown up without a dad, becoming a father very early.

And then Care Net's, you know, full, very much focused on, you know, helping folks who are facing, facing pregnancy decisions, confronted with the same decision that, that Yvette was and that I was, you know, making a life affirming decision. So it's kind of funny how God sort of uses these things, you know, in your past, and redeems those things in a lot of way and gives you a perspective.

[00:09:50] Lisa Nichols: Absolutely.

[00:09:50] Roland Warren: You know, you get a burden around some of the things that you, you've gone through. So, yeah, so I did that and, you know, worked in the business world, IBM 

[00:09:59] Lisa Nichols: Right

[00:10:00] Roland Warren: And Pepsi and then Princeton and Goldman Sachs. And then God called me to National Fatherhood Initiative. And so a lot of stuff I learned, you know, from, from the, the corporate setting has been incredibly helpful for me in terms of doing the nonprofit and ministry work.

[00:10:15] Lisa Nichols: Right, Roland, I just want to say one thing. Yvette is a doctor. She is a doctor. 

[00:10:24] Roland Warren: Yes. And she graduated from Princeton. Yeah. 

[00:10:26] Lisa Nichols: But she had people telling her, Oh, there's no way that you can do this. But you guys are living proof and I'm so grateful that you chose life. And I really, I love the way you put that. Some people may think that's a burden, but, it's really a blessing, you know, all kind of wrapped up together. But, you know, you went on and I'd love to talk about this. So you went on, I mean, you had a very successful career in corporate America for 20 years, but then, became the president of the National Fatherhood Initiative and tell us about the mission of the National Fatherhood Initiative. And I have a lot of questions around that. 

[00:11:09] Roland Warren: Yeah. So I, got involved with, with NFI as we call it National Fatherhood Initiative, NFI, in 1990, probably ‘96, ‘97. It was founded in ‘95 I think my memory serves me correct. And, you know, I got connected. Kind of in my mind was kind of serendipitously. I was doing some volunteer work with another organization and, they asked me to go and represent them at a, at a, event in Philadelphia called, calling all fathers or something like that, that the mayor was working together for Father's Day and said, why don't you go and just, you know, say a couple of things about being a dad and, and that'd be it. And so I did, it's like a little 3 minute little speech about being a dad. And then a guy walks up to me and hands me a card says, hey, you know, I'm with National Fatherhood Initiative, you might be interested in kind of what we do and it just started, actually I've kind of put the card away as you do it, you get cards a lot of times. I kind of brought it back to my attention months later called and the guy that gave me the card was gone and it was just one guy named Don Everly. He was working out of his basement in Lancaster, PA and, you know, just cast this vision for an organization that was really focused on, really, what's remained a significant issue, but certainly at that time was emerging as, as a significant social issue, which was at the time, it's like four out of 10 kids growing up in homes absent their biological, biological fathers.

And that was a new phenomenon. I mean, it wasn't something, you know, that kind of existed in terms of, you know, sort of a social issue and certainly a lot of folks were not focused on it, but, you know, there were researchers and different think tanks and some universities that were looking at, you know, the impact of father absence and the benefits of father involvement and seeing how those things were connected, to, you know, the well-being of children and particularly the absence of fathers connected to some of the most intractable of social issues, low academic performance, teen pregnancy, you know, crime, you know, poverty.

I mean, all these different factors, you know, psychosocial, economic and educational factors and that when you correlate and controlled for all these things like race or, you know, all these different things, you found that, you know, the consistent, one of the consistent variables in there was the presence or absence of an involved, responsible, committed father.

So I was just kind of blown away with that. I haven't grown up without my dad and then sort of looking at the environment that I grew up in and just seeing what I saw within some degree of my family to some degree, but also more in a, in a broader sense with some other stuff I was doing. And, you know, I wasn't looking at it as a social issue, just like I had lived it, an aspect of it, but I just was kind of blown away.

So we became fast friends and, you know, I went to work for Goldman and, thought that's where, you know, God was going to have me and, and he called me up, you know, some years later, like early 2000 or mid 2000 or something asked me if I'd leave Goldman Sachs for a National Fatherhood Initiative to come work there.And I was like, well, you know, you know, I met Goldman Sachs, they have gold, they carried it in sacks. 

[00:14:16] Lisa Nichols: Right.

[00:14:17] Roland Warren: So I'm thinking like, this has got to be God's plan for my life. Cause it's gold and sacks and I'm a Christian. And it was, you know, it was kind of a firm started by Jews. Jesus was a Jew. I mean, it's just all these things together just came together. And so this has got to be, got to be the plan. For me, but God made it pretty clear to me, that, you know, he, you know, he had all the gold he needed. 

[00:14:40] Lisa Nichols: I was just thinking, as you were saying that you're trading one kind of gold for another kind of gold, you know, and that is, to help families and to help fathers and children.

[00:14:51] Roland Warren: And yeah, so, so I did, so I left and I actually quit my job in nine days. And, went there and, and became President of National Fatherhood Initiative. And it kind of took me on this path. And I tell you just, you know, from a, you know, from a transparent perspective, I mean, honestly, it was more beneficial for me in the beginning than anything else, because God kind of put me on a couch for about 12 years, you know, working through, you know, my father wound, if you will, I had issues that affected me and were affecting me, in my marriage and my parenting and all of that, you know, to some degree is when I look back and that I just, yeah, I could just sort of stuffed away some of that stuff and God kind of used it to, you know, help heal me in many ways, but also to give me, you know, a burden for that, you know, I tell people all the time I'm blessed with a burden of connecting fathers to their children, heart to heart.

And, making sure that they have involved, responsible and committed fathers in their lives. And so, you know, it's a, it's a passion that I still have. And so it, yeah, so it, you know, God uses all of it. He doesn't waste any, you know. 

[00:15:52] Lisa Nichols: That's right. 

[00:15:53] Roland Warren: Yeah. So he does. So that's, yeah, that's, that's kind of the story of how I kind of got there and then to Care Net after that.

[00:15:59] Lisa Nichols: Yeah. You know, you, you said, I read this where you said, you know, you personally set out to meet with as many pastors as you could and ask several questions of them. What did you discover through asking those questions. I know one of the things that you said, good Christian men does not equal a good Christian father. And yeah, but typically, sometimes we're not really taught how to do that. Right. So it's not, doesn’t, doesn't mean it's a clear path. So what were some of those discoveries that you made during that time. 

[00:16:41] Roland Warren: Yeah, that was really a significant one because, you know, National Father Initiative is not a Christian organization. I typically all the time is a kind of a secular organization with a sacred mission of connecting fathers to their kids heart to heart. So, you know, I'm a business guy by training and I'm, you know, kind of looked at that and I said, well. You know, how do you sort of, you know, change the world when you have only 12 people and you're not Jesus and I was like, partnerships.

So I, so I started looking at organizations and entities that were at the nexus of children and family. Where they should be concerned about the fatherhood issue because it's impacting their, their ability to accomplish their mission and vision. and so I started going to those different entities and kind of framing it to help them say, well, you want, you know, in the workplace, for example, I, you know, we, we talk a lot about, you know, work, family balance, that kind of a thing and say, well, okay, corporately, you want work, family balance. Great. Well, and you want women to be able to move forward in the workplace. Great. Okay. What do you think one of the barriers is to that happening? I mean, if, if she feels she has two jobs, one at work and one at home, and he feels he has one job, which is at work, then there's gonna be a problem that's gonna impact her ability to say yes to, you know, certain career opportunities or advancements because he's not carrying his share of responsibility in the parenting process. So by helping him be a better father, right? Not only does they have a benefit of, of improving the wellbeing of his children and connecting to them heart to heart, but also it improves the opportunities for, for women because they have that balance that's needed that allows them to kind of move forward in a, in a, in a, in a career construct, right?

So if you're a single mom and you've got kids in the workplace, well, it's super challenging for you to move up the ranks into certain, into certain positions. I remember we, we did work early on and I remember doing work with a Working Mother. It used to be a Working Mother Magazine and the whole deal and I was, I can't remember the name of the woman. I think her name was Carol Evans or whatever was the president of the Working Mothers and I met with her and I did stuff with her and did some panels and some other things. And, and she really understood this, this fatherhood factor. I remember talking to her one time and she said, you know, I, I talked to all these different women that were very high level executives and CEOs and she said, every single one of them had husbands who were supportive, every single one of them.

[00:19:00] Lisa Nichols: Right. 

[00:10:01] Roland Warren: And, and, you know, and so supportive of that process in particular, if they had children that they saw their role, the guy saw his role as one of also, yeah, being a good husband, but also a good father. 

[00:19:12] Lisa Nichols: An equal partner. 

[00:19:13] Roland Warren: An equal balance working family. Well, there's a father factor there. So I looked at, lots of different settings from that perspective and, and, and kind of, you know, we kind of framed, framed the issue, you know, through that lens. Did the same thing with the church where the church says, well, okay, we want, you know, strong families. We want, you know, certain kinds of things happening with children and all these kinds of things.

And, you know, but what I found was, although you know, the church and, and many in the church and pastors would, you know, sort of nod and say, yeah, fathers are important, you know, from an ideological perspective. And I said, what are you doing to help men be better fathers, in the church? And, and the answer was typically nothing.

And if there was a men's ministry program, it was typically, you know, you know, throwing axes or eating flapjacks or something. I don't know. It really wasn't something, you know, if you, if you like, you can't do a women's ministry program without talking about motherhood and parenting because moms are so connected to that.

But people will run a men's ministry program without really a connection to your role as a father and your role as a husband, like if you're gonna run a women's women's ministry, what we're gonna do about child care, what we're gonna do about like, they're like, you can't, you know, it's just a different construct.

And even, you know, most women when they're going through college, or whatever, they're thinking about, okay, when, when I have my children, how can I plan all of that men go right through? Like, how many guys are in college going? Okay, okay. This career that I'm going to pick, how is it going to impact my ability to be an involved, responsible, and committed father?

I had to make that choice because I became a father of 20, but most of my buddies never crossed their mind. But I've talked to any woman who's gone through it. I picked this career because I wanted to have children and I wanted to be able to. So anyway, so the church I found to be surprisingly one of the more, one of the tougher environments around this.

And that's what brought me to this, you know, perspective, that there's sort of this presumption. If a guy is just a good Christian guy, he'll automatically be a good father. And so then I said, well, let me go look in the Bible at guys who had a heart for God. Let me look at them through the lens of fatherhood. And so I did. 

[00:21:29] Lisa Nichols: I know. 

[00:21:30] Roland Warren: I looked at David and I looked.

[00:21:32] Lisa Nichols: I know. You wrote this awesome book called Eight Dads of the Bible: Eight Mistakes Every Good Dad Can Avoid. I love this book. But Roland, let's do this. Let's take a quick break. And then when we come back, I want to dig into this. Cause I want to ask you some of these, there's, there's eight, I think at least eight, different men that you kind of look at and we'll, we'll touch on a few, and then I want to talk about Care Net. So, let's take a quick break and we'll be right back on the Something Extra Podcast with Roland Warren. 

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[00:22:33] Lisa Nichols: Welcome back everyone to the Something Extra Podcast with Roland Warren. So Roland, I love everything that we've been talking about, but I do know that you wrote the book, Eight Dads of the Bible: Eight Mistakes Every Good Dad Can Avoid. And I love this book. I love this book and we'll talk about some of the resources that you put out there. I am hoping people will go and follow you, that they'll get the book, that they'll really dig in. But what I love about this is Jamin, your son wrote the foreword and I loved it. And you had even asked him to write it. And he's like, dad, you know, so many famous people. Why don't you, why don't you ask one of them? You know, who am I? But, but no, you wanted him to write it. And I just thought that that was so sweet. 

But this whole idea of congruence, you know, that a man's public and private life. Really need to match one another. And, sometimes, you know, and, and Jamin said he was fortunate to have a dad like that and to have a dad who, you know, saw fathering as a trade that he could be learned that it could be learned and it could be improved on and just very grateful for you. 

[00:23:45] Roland Warren: And that's nice. He’s very sweet. Now he’s the dad himself. He wasn't at the time he wrote that. So now he's a dad. 

[00:23:51] Lisa Nichols: So now he's a dad and has that. 

[00:23:54] Roland Warren: And has that be cool to sit there and watch him as a father. You know, with his, with his daughter, Sibley, it's, it's pretty, it's a pretty cool thing to see that. 

[00:24:01] Lisa Nichols: It’s cool. And we'll talk about that a little bit, but you know, sometimes it's a generational thing, but, and I know for me, and of course you didn't have a dad, you know, in the home, Roland from very early age, but there's a lot of people that have not had that good father figure. And truly that's one of the things that's always broken my heart is to know that, but, you really wrote this book so that men could learn from the mistakes of others. And there's a quote, and I don't know who wrote this, but a wise man learns from his mistakes, but a wiser man learns from those mistakes of others. 

[00:24:37] Roland Warren: That was me. 

[00:24:38] Lisa Nichols: That's you. That was your quote. Well, I love it. I love it. 

[00:24:41] Roland Warren: Yes. Yes. Yes. That's one of the insights God gave me early on. And you know, and I, and the thing for me, I think, which is so just amazing about, you know, God in terms of, you know, like the stories are out there unvarnished, you know, and you know, if you think about like in the political season or whatever, whatever we, you know, we will try to varnish certain things or, you know, all these different things we try to, you know, we try and try to do, you know, and, and how, you know, God didn't do that.

He let these stories be out there so that we could learn from them, you know, that we could learn from some of these, these issues that these, these dads had. And, and either again, men who have had a heart, heart for God, like David was actually one of the first chapters that I wrote. I wrote it actually, because the insight for that one came when I was working at Goldman Sachs, and there was a guy was, that was, that he and I were kind of in training together and we just started talking about, you know, kids and stuff like that. And he had kids too and, and we had this conversation about drugs and he said, you know, I'm never going to tell my kids not to use drugs. I said, well, okay.

I said, well, why not? He said, well, you know, I did a lot of drugs, you know, when I was in college and high school and everything. And I feel like I'd be a hypocrite if I told them not to use drugs. And I was just like, are you serious? I mean, and so there's a kind of a principle there where he was kind of conflating hypocrisy and growth, those two things together.

And you got to pull those apart and say, there's a difference between hypocrisy and growth. Yes. If you are still getting high now you tell your kids not to do it. That's hypocrisy. Your kids should call you out on it. But if it's something that you did and you learned from it, that's growth. I mean, and the other thing that you do is that, you know, I told him, I said, like, you're projecting your reality, your consequences on their life.

Which is not the same. In other words, I took drugs, I did all this stuff and now I'm at Goldman. So you're going to like projecting that onto their outcome. But, you know, for every guy that's like you, there's probably 12 guys, even more that are sitting under a bridge in LA somewhere with no teeth and no hair who, you know, nobody ever said to them, Hey. Learn from this. 

So, so anyway, so I saw that same kind of thing when I looked at David and his fathering role and particularly, you know, kind of how he responded when one of his sons, you know, raped one of his daughters and the fact that he was silent and the Bible says he saw it. He was upset about it, but he never said anything.

And I just tried to add some humanity to that. So why would David say nothing? This is a guy who has a heart for God, you know, has a heart for justice. You know, all of that. Clearly loved his daughter cause he was, but yet he said nothing. And what came to me was this perspective is that he, he, he basically allowed his past, right, his past to basically stop him right from speaking into something that so he's paralyzed by his past in order to speak into his son's life. And because he didn't do that, then his son, Abnon and Absalom ended up in this amazing and it just basically destroyed his family totally. Because in that moment, he didn't step in.

And I think he was thinking back to, well, I did the same kind of thing in a sense, with Bathsheba, I took a woman who didn't belong to me. I didn't take full responsibility for it. I covered it up, right. In a lot of ways. And of course he repented, which is the other piece, which, you know, but I was like, Why didn't he do that?

So that was one of the stories there. So my encouragement to dads and obviously moms to is that, you know, don't be paralyzed by your past. You know, God uses those situations. That's why God gives kids parents is because there are things that we're supposed to learn from our parents, but that only is going to happen if our parents are going to be able to communicate that stuff, to us and help us learn from the mistakes that they've made.

So anyway, that's one of the, one of the, one of the stories in there that kind of inspired me quite a bit. And I'll give you a, and part of the reason why that actually came together too was, and I'm remembering more is that, you know, we had to have a conversation with our older son when he was getting into like 12, 13 about sex.

And we were wanting to encourage him to save sex for marriage. And there was this temptation not to have that conversation because we didn't do that. And he was the consequence of that. And so we thought, Oh my gosh. I was like, if I say this to him, then he might as well, dad, did you do that? And I'm going to be saying, well, no, and then it's embarrassed, whatever.

So there's a temptation there to like, eh, not going to do that. But, you know, by grace of God, we went and we did that. And, and it was very funny with him because we were all prepared in this conversation and, you know, for him to kind of challenge with some things. How come you guys didn't then whatever, whatever we told him the whole story and what happened.

And he kind of looks at us. He, I think it was 12 or 13 at the time and he said, well, what did, did you want me? And it was so funny because it was the one question we were not prepared for. We're prepared for all these other, well, you know, and we know that we, and he didn't ask any of that. He just said, did you want me?

You know, of course, yes, of course we wanted you. And so it’s really talks about all the importance of wantedness that children have. And that was it. He Oh, okay and went running off and never brought it up again, everything. We had our whole list of how we're gonna handle this and handle that and whatever, you know so we were able to get that standard out there into the public square with him. And that was important for me you know, because my, my father, you know, was a teen dad, got my mother pregnant when he was when she was 16, 17, I think he was 18 or something like that.

And then here I replicated that. And so I said, I don't want that to happen for my son and imagine if I had not, if I had been paralyzed by my past and my past that I didn't say anything. I never spoke into that because I took the perspective like the guy that, you know, that was working at Goldman. I don't know what happened to his kids or whatever. We kind of lost touch. But, but imagine that. And my son went on, got married, no kids out of wedlock with either of my sons. And in one generation. You know, all, all of that, broke with what had happened for two generations, you know, with my father and with, with myself. So, you know, and that's why you have to, that's what God wants you to kind of use, you know, the sins of the past and he wants us to speak about, you know, some of that stuff in appropriate settings because, you know, he uses it. 

[00:31:16] Lisa Nichols: Absolutely, he does, and I just think to Roland with the amazing work that you're doing today and have been doing, you know, for the past, you know, with father's initiative, the, it may not have made as much sense or it may not have been as impactful and as powerful as it has been, right. If you had not gone through something similar. So I, we don't have time. I want our listeners to go get the book, go get the book. But you know, you talked about Laban, and then we go on to Jacob, but Laban, you know, had Leah and Rachel and really what he did, he used a lot of manipulation. I want the, our listeners to go read the story, but there was so much animosity between the girls and the jealousy and the manipulation.

And then I think about, you know, how, it passed on to the next generation because Rachel and Leah, had marriage Jacob. And then Leah was the favorite one and had, that's where the 12 tribes of Israel comes from. And the same thing happens. Everybody knows about Joseph and the technicolor dream code, that competition among the siblings and stuff just continues into the next generation.

[00:32:36] Roland Warren: He did exactly the same, did exactly the same thing. And it's very interesting too, because then if you, you look at the story, so you, so you got Joseph and this competition between his brothers and all of that, which was. Again, the same family seed. And then you see, it's very interesting because then when Jacob, is going to bless Joseph's sons, I think it's Manasseh. 

[00:33:01] Lisa Nichols: Manasseh and Ephraim. 

[00:33:03] Roland Warren: Ephraim, right. And it's interesting because when he's going to bless them, right. He crosses his hands and it looks like he's, you know, he's going to bless the younger and not the older and, and Joseph wants to correct him and say, no, no, no, no, no, because he has an insight. So he's gotten the insight of this competition that can happen, right?

In families, right? Because you have the Esau, Jacob, kind of that thing, and Jacob says, no, no, this is what God wants. So, instead of it being the deception that happened, right, with Isaac, right, which is what happened there, the deception, it was deception with Esau and, and, and Jacob. There was no deception about what was what happened there. It was clear, and it was like, this is what God wants. 

And it seems that both of the boys, they, they acknowledged it, appreciated it, you know, and walked in it. And what you don't see in the scripture is the warring between those two brothers. You don't see any narrative of warring, even though what you had in that scenario was very similar to what you had with Esau and Jacob. Isn't that interesting? 

[00:34:15] Lisa Nichols: It is so interesting. 

[00:34:16] Roland Warren: So he had the insight. No, no, I don't want to create that same conflict, but, but it was blessed because he was, it wasn't deceptive. It was clear. And you know, God does what he does in terms of who he wants to elevate and who he doesn't. And that's right. You have to walk in what he's given you. That kind of thing. And it looks like those two brothers walked in what God gave them and, and they, and they knew it was from the Lord as opposed to some manipulation from my mother or some other kind of thing. And through scripture, you don't see any warring or battling or anything between those, those two brothers or their clan. Isn't that interesting? 

[00:34:49] Lisa Nichols: It is so interesting. So interesting. 

[00:34:51] Roland Warren: It's interesting. 

[00:34:52] Lisa Nichols: So some of the things, some of the things that you talk about there, you know, number one, don't compare your children to one another. I mean, each one has been designed uniquely, and I know I have been guilty of that at times, Roland. I'll just, you know, and it, 

[00:35:10] Roland Warren: You know, you can have your favorite, it's just temperament, you know, personality, all of that.

[00:35:18] Lisa Nichols: Personalities, right. But don't, but don't foster that competition. You say cultivate each child's uniqueness, teach your children to positively encourage one another. I love that one. And you talk about focusing on the three T's, the tongue, the temper and the tone.

[00:35:37] Roland Warren: Yes. 

[00:35:38] Lisa Nichols: And I think that that is, so wonderful, but you know, the promise is that you have men make, and I would say women too, moms too. I will not turn a blind eye to sibling rivalry. And inaction is a mistake. So it's so good. I mean, everything you've got there. And I just want to say too, I am, I was just looking in this particular book, there's an appendix, B, and what I love about this, Roland is there are so many resources.

[00:36:11] Roland Warren: Yes. 

[00:36:11] Lisa Nichols: You've got so many resources. There's a free, weekly dad email service. You've got goodness. Dad's pocket guide, new dad's pocket guide. When duct tape won't work. 

[00:36:27] Roland Warren: But yeah, yeah, no, there's lots of resources out there and stuff has grown quite a bit since I, since I wrote that book more and more, you know, organizations and entities and individuals have really spoken into the fatherhood space and you're starting to see more and more of those things out there and there's just more of an acknowledgement that, you know, that fathers, you know, matter to the well being of children and, but it's still a battle because we have a culture that really, you know, it's really doesn't necessarily celebrate that.

[00:36:59] Lisa Nichols: And elevate it as a worthy, noble pursuit, right? No, you know, it's, it's not a noble person, but it is. 

[00:37:09] Roland Warren: It is. So we want to encourage guys to step into that role and improves the well being of children. It's to the benefit of women. I mean, men have a decision to make. They will either be providers and protect. Protectors kinds of in terms of their contact or there'll be predators and perpetrators.

That's the path that is, you know, is, is set in front of you. And, you know, and I, and I think that, you know, and you see that narrative all through scripture. I mean, you see it in the, even in the birth of Christ, you know, I, one of the things in the work I do is, you know, it's kind of focused on, you know, unplanned pregnancies and all that kind of stuff.

And, you know, one of the things I've talked about quite a bit here is that, you know, what did God do to make sure that Mary's unplanned pregnancy wasn't a crisis pregnancy? I mean, it was unplanned from her perspective. Well, he called Joseph to be a husband to her and a father to the child growing inside of her, you know, so I kind of tapped, I kind of use that myself that what God called me to tap into my inner Joseph, you know, and he called Joseph to provide and to protect, but in the narrative of the birth of Christ, there are two paths that are taken.

There are two men in the narrative of the birth of Christ that were faced with an unplanned pregnancy, that unplanned pregnancy of Jesus. There was Joseph that we talk about, but there was also Herod. Both of them were faced with an unplanned pregnancy and they both responded in the way that men can respond, right? 

So Joseph initially was like, oh my gosh, my hope, my future, my plans, this is outside my plans, right. And he was going to divorce her quietly. In other words, put her away quietly, which is a cultural way that they did abortions back then because you couldn't put the baby away. So you put a woman, woman and the baby away. Right. And then the angel comes in and calls him to do what? Do not be afraid to take her as your wife. In other words, to step into the role as a husband and to this role as a father to provide and protect, right. 

Herod gets the same challenge when he gets the news. There's this unplanned pregnancy that's challenging his view of his greatness, his plan for the future. Yes. And what does he do? Well, he kills all the little ones. 

[00:39:10] Lisa Nichols: Sets out to kill every child under two. 

[00:39:13] Roland Warren: Every child under two. You know, you know, so, so you, so you have that in front of you. Every man has a decision to make the way of Joseph or the way of Herod, one who sacrifices himself for the vulnerable and one who sacrifices the vulnerable for himself.

Every man is faced with that decision and it's always framed in the pursuit of greatness, right? No one aborts their child to make their life worse, right? Herod wasn't killing all the two year olds to make his life worse. His demented mind, it was like, no, no, no. I'm Herod the Great. And that this child is a threat to my greatness, and so I'm going to sacrifice all these children to my greatness because this is what's going to make me great and this is a challenge to my greatest. Do you see? So you have that Herod and that Joseph decision in front of you. One says, let me sacrifice the vulnerable for myself, Herod, and the other says, let me sacrifice myself for the vulnerable, Joseph.

And I always tell people, I ask this question every time, say, do you know a person named Joseph? Yeah. Raise your hand. Everybody knows someone is named Joseph or knows someone. I said, okay, do you know anybody named Herod?

[00:40:39] Lisa Nichols: No one raises their hand. 

[00:40:41] Roland Warren: I never had that one. Yeah, my cousin Herod. No one knows anyone named Herod. 

[00:40:47] Lisa Nichols: So do you tell me who's great? 

[00:40:51] Roland Warren: That's what I'm saying. And all that Herod was doing, he killed his own, he kept telling me of his own kids, built all these monuments and all this to his greatness. And yet, he's just remembered as a footnote now. Joseph did none of that stuff. Appears in one little, and what do you, people named Joseph say, I mean, the whole, whole thing. The way of Joseph, like the whole, perspective from a man who understood, understood that. I know that, when, when they, you reached out to me, you had that one question or one thing that, you know, 

[00:41:26] Lisa Nichols: Something extra.

[00:41:28] Roland Warren: The thing extra. 'cause I know we're getting to the quotes here. 

[00:41:30] Lisa Nichols: What is the something extra?

[00:41:31] Roland Warren: And the, and the thing extra, you know, that God's really put on my heart is humility. That, that's that extra thing. It's always the extra. It's always the extra thing. It's the only way that you can approach God humbly. And you see that reflected in the story of Joseph and the story of Herod. The difference between those two people in pursuit of greatness was humility. 

Joseph, like Mary's essentially said, let it be onto me as you have said, or is he humbled himself? Right? And he realized also when the angel told him, told him that the child that she's carrying will save his people from their sins. He knew that that included him. That's why when the angel first calls him, he says, Joseph, son of David, why he's connecting Joseph to his people. So when he, when, when the angel says he will save his people from their sins, who are those people? The son of David people. In other words, me, in other words, Joseph, acknowledging that I'm in need of a savior.That's the clarity. Herod never did that. And just to the button, the whole thing up and you see the whole thing. Joseph obviously is of, Joseph, is of the line of David. 

[00:42:52] Lisa Nichols: Yes. 

[00:42:52] Roland Warren: Herod is of the line of Esau. 

[00:42:56] Lisa Nichols: There you go. Jacob, those two brothers. 

[00:43:02] Roland Warren: And what do you see with, with the line of Esau, what was Esau's problem? It was, it was basically him thinking about things temporarily, not thinking about things eternally. So that he traded his, he traded his birthright for a bowl of soup in the moment, which a guy can do on the abortion decision, trade his birthright, right? Like I went to the car, I want this, whatever, whatever his legacy, it's this, it's the same thing.

So it's, it's just what you see there, but that's the challenge that, that every man faces. We, every day, every man is faced with the way of Joseph or the way of Herod. It’s like wash, rinse, repeat. And the only thing that keeps you in a perspective where you choose the way of Joseph is humility. And you see that modeled in Christ, where he died for us, he humbled himself and died for us. The way of Joseph. 

[00:44:02] Lisa Nichols: Beautiful, Roland. Beautiful, beautiful, beautiful. I'm going to read this one statement with Care Net. You were on a, I want our listeners just to go follow you, but you said, Care Net, you said you help people understand, and you've already said it, but I want to just repeat it. Cause I think it's so powerful. Understand that the life growing inside of them is not a life worth sacrificing, but a life worth sacrificing for. And what a powerful statement. So I hope our listeners go and check it all out. Roland Warren, you are amazing. Thank you, thank you brother for what you're doing. You're doing important things. So I just appreciate you so much making the time to be on today. 

[00:44:48] Roland Warren: Thank you very much. Blessings to all of you. 

[00:44:50] Lisa Nichols: You too. 

[00:44:52] Announcer: Thank you for listening to today's show. Something Extra with Lisa Nichols is a Technology Partners production. Copyright Technology Partners, Inc. 2019. For show notes or to reach Lisa, visit tpi.co/podcast. Don't forget to leave a review on Apple Podcasts, Google Play, or wherever you listen.

*Please note, the preceding transcription has been automatically generated and should be used for informational purposes only.