EP76: What's It Mean To Be DadAwesome?

Interview with Jeff Zaugg / Advocate For Fathers And The Fatherless

HOSTED BY PAUL SULLIVAN

Jeff Zaugg is the founder of DadAwesome, a nonprofit that’s all about helping fathers embrace their role as dads and be more present. Why? Because kids are watching us and they know when we are loving being their dad - and when we're distracted. Jeff also started Fathers for the Fatherless – a nonprofit that stages a series of 100-mile bike rides to bring fathers together to raise money for children who don’t have fathers. Listen and be inspired.

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Transcript

00;00;05;13 - 00;00;27;14
Paul Sullivan
Welcome to the Company of Dads podcast, where we explore the sweet, silly, strange and sublime aspects of being a dad in a world where men who are the go to parent aren't always accepted at work, among their friends, or in the community for what they're doing. I'm your host, Paul Sullivan. Our podcast is just one of the many things we produced each week at the company dads.

00;00;27;15 - 00;00;57;20
Paul Sullivan
We have various features, including the lead dad of the week. We have our community both online and in person. We have a new resource library for all fathers. The one stop shop for all of this is our newsletter, The Dad. So sign up at the Company of dads.com backslash the dad. That's the company dads.com backslash., the dad. Today my guest is Jeff Zaugg founder of Dad Awesome, a nonprofit that's all about helping fathers embrace our role as dads.

00;00;57;24 - 00;01;29;21
Paul Sullivan
About being present. Why? Because kids are watching us and they know when we love being their dad. The organization is rooted in faith, but it's open to all. The Jeff says A dad. Awesome. We are about building a community of dads who are committed to showing up for their families, for those without families and for one another. Jeff has also started fathers for the fathers, a series of 100 mile bike rides to bring fathers out to raise money for children who don't have dads.

00;01;29;23 - 00;01;52;05
Paul Sullivan
Doing hard things physically and learning about doing hard things is a great way to help men move forward together, he says. Jeff is a husband and a father of four, all of whom are traveling the country right now in an RV. For fathers, for the fathers. Welcome, Jeff, to the company of Dads podcast.

00;01;52;08 - 00;01;59;12
Jeff Zaugg
Thanks, Paul. Excited to have this conversation and grateful for all the work that you're doing and all the dads that you're serving around the world.

00;01;59;14 - 00;02;08;27
Paul Sullivan
How did all of this how did all of this start? You, you you were a pastor before this. How did all of this come to be, dad? Awesome fathers for the fathers. Tell that story for us.

00;02;09;00 - 00;02;27;25
Jeff Zaugg
Sure. Yeah. Glad to. And, I was serving in a local church as a pastor, as you mentioned. And some churches do. Baby dedication moments. Either baby baptism or baby dedication. That moment that you pray over these young parents. You know, you pray for them and you encourage them in their in their faith and in this new chapter.

00;02;28;01 - 00;02;48;05
Jeff Zaugg
Well, I was doing that role at this church in Minnesota, and I realized, as a young dad myself, I was not giving those young couples, any tools to be specifically for the dad. There was nothing that our church was offered to help them be that awesome, as we put it. Be it intentional, dad who connects with their kid is involved.

00;02;48;05 - 00;03;11;17
Jeff Zaugg
And instead, a lot of the resources from our church and broadly were for the moms. So I started looking for curating, wondering, how can I, bring something to these young, young families in our church? And that led me to an experiment of ten weeks of doing that awesome gathering, ten resources that led to now, it's been 278 weeks of a weekly podcast called dad.

00;03;11;18 - 00;03;30;09
Jeff Zaugg
Awesome. So I just I started with a ten week trial, and it was helpful. It helped for my community, my, my friends, it helps for me personally. And I'm a golden retriever. So when I start something and it's helpful, I just stick with it. Five and a half years later, dad. Awesome continues. And then the second half of what We do, fathers for the fatherless, that simply was also an experiment.

00;03;30;09 - 00;03;59;12
Jeff Zaugg
We said, what if we instead of talking about being intentional dads, what if we do something to help kids that don't have a dad? So we let's do something hard. That's like 126 dads that first year said, let's go for it. Now, over 700 have been a part of 100 mile bike ride. And what we find is when you do something hard, like sit at a bike seat for 6.5 hours and pedal, when you learn about fatherlessness globally, locally, your heart starts to break and it makes you return home a more intentional dad.

00;03;59;12 - 00;04;17;23
Jeff Zaugg
So that's where we do the two we do. I call it upstream work. Intentional dads wanting to be more intentional downstream. Sadly, the fatherlessness epidemic is is these kids are being raised without a dad, so likely they could repeat what they've experienced. So we want to do work upstream and downstream. That's what dad. Awesome. And fathers for the fatherless.

00;04;17;28 - 00;04;19;01
Jeff Zaugg
That's what we're all about.

00;04;19;03 - 00;04;35;09
Paul Sullivan
A lot to unpack there, but I want to start by saying I'm grateful that you told me that your your dog persona is a golden retriever. I'm a Labrador. That's my dog persona. But that also knows that you're loyal. You're kind. But I'll do my best not to throw a tennis ball in the background here, because you'll be wildly distracted.

00;04;35;09 - 00;04;37;07
Jeff Zaugg
I know God, yes.

00;04;37;07 - 00;04;39;20
Paul Sullivan
And and and don't shake because you'll shed everywhere.

00;04;39;20 - 00;04;58;04
Jeff Zaugg
So for the record, though, I have a bin of 400 tennis balls in my shed at home. This is back home in Minnesota because I live on the road right now in the RV. Yeah, you can play infinite, games with your kids when you have 400 tennis balls. You can make up everything you can imagine from gladiator style, where you try to peg your kids.

00;04;58;04 - 00;05;03;01
Jeff Zaugg
You put a hockey helmet on them to every other game. So tennis balls are a key tool for the dad life.

00;05;03;01 - 00;05;18;20
Paul Sullivan
That I love it. I talk about, oh, nearly 300 weeks, nearly 300 weeks of the Dad Awesome podcast. Who is your first guest and what did you hope to achieve when you know you started off with with that first person?

00;05;18;22 - 00;05;36;22
Jeff Zaugg
Yeah. So my first guest is lifelong friend Kevin Closs. He has now six kids. He started having kids a decade before I did. So he just had more, more years of dad life experience. It wasn't this far off. Mentors stage dad. It was just the guy who's, just down the road, you know, a little bit more experience.

00;05;36;22 - 00;05;51;13
Jeff Zaugg
And I just had so many questions for him as a young dad. I was like, man, I want to learn. And when I started dad, awesome, I had a four year old and a one year old. So at that phase, it's interesting. I don't know if I would start dad awesome today because I feel like I'm getting it wrong in so many areas of the dad life.

00;05;51;13 - 00;06;07;09
Jeff Zaugg
It's crazy to try to export create something to help in the area of intentional fatherhood. When you feel like you're getting it wrong in the home front, it's difficult. It's really difficult. Dad. Awful dad, average dad. Awesome. Often I feel like I'm in one of the first two categories. Like, I feel like.

00;06;07;12 - 00;06;14;08
Paul Sullivan
This first guy you went to, he sounds like dad abundant with six kids. Like, what is he showing off? Like he will dad out there.

00;06;14;10 - 00;06;29;25
Jeff Zaugg
He he is. I mean, he's a rock star, dad, but he also was really vulnerable that first guess. Like so Kevin, he like I said, this is where I went wrong. I mean, one of the stories he told he for a month actually had his daughter sit in his lap and just spent one on one time with her close to her.

00;06;30;02 - 00;06;58;16
Jeff Zaugg
And it was it was crazy, the story, because he realized he wasn't connecting with her and she was starting to create patterns, rhythms, and that actually affected her physical health. She was feeling rejection from her father, and he tells a story. I'm crying, he's crying. And then everything turned around. When he spent that time, she was healed of this physical stuff that was she was dealing with was skin and rashes, just the presence of a father in him every single night after dinner, sitting with her in his lap, reading books, being close to her, in and through prayer.

00;06;58;16 - 00;07;09;19
Jeff Zaugg
He saw a complete turnaround in healing. So there's stories like that every I mean, so often that I'm hearing just, heart wrenching, but also beautiful stories that I'm discovering all along the way.

00;07;09;21 - 00;07;23;24
Paul Sullivan
Yeah, there's there's great research out there on a great there's this interesting research out there. It's obviously having, you know, two parents involved in your life, really involved in your life is the best way to go about things because you actually had to pick one. The research says you should pick the dad. Now. Nobody wants to hear this.

00;07;23;24 - 00;07;40;04
Paul Sullivan
Not great. You know, let's talk about we want to always support moms. And a lot of single moms out there. But it's really interesting just how important that that presence of the dad is and that leadership role the dad has, you know, you started off with, let's see if we can do ten, ten weeks of this to ten podcast.

00;07;40;07 - 00;08;06;25
Paul Sullivan
You know, you had this idea, you were inspired by what you were doing as a pastor with these young babies. And I get it. You know, this is why we started the company. Dads are tons of resources aimed at moms. Super important. Everything that says parenting is really aimed at moms. That's a little weird. But you know, for dads, there isn't, you know, so much out there to help us be in a better man, better husbands, better fathers, and none of that stuff about being a provider, but just being better as the human side of it.

00;08;06;27 - 00;08;21;02
Paul Sullivan
So you get to week ten, you only do ten weeks, and then you keep going, you know, what was it that you that you learned in those ten weeks? It made you think, you know what, I'm nowhere near done here. There's a lot more I gotta I got to do.

00;08;21;04 - 00;08;40;18
Jeff Zaugg
Yeah. I mean, part is what you're getting after, which is I think more moms have, for example, either their mom, an aunt, a friend, someone who they felt like got it right, really was doing it well, they learned from. And I feel like that's, that maybe nurturing side is more like, in the forefront of moms wanting to be this because they saw it modeled.

00;08;40;20 - 00;09;09;10
Jeff Zaugg
I think more of us dads, did not have it modeled in a way that like, we want to repeat what we saw. I think more of us actually carry some baggage, some hurts so bad I lacked that dad who connected with me emotionally. And I'm so grateful because I've seen and and for my research, for my, all these hundreds of podcast interviews, there's more of us today that are living in to intentionally what we want to as far as connecting with the hearts of our kids and being there and being present and not just being present physically, but actually emotionally.

00;09;09;10 - 00;09;25;16
Jeff Zaugg
And so so I think though more of a less of us dads had that modeled and less of us are actually saying, I'll be a champion for this, I'll, I'll help others. Because again, we feel on the home front like we're struggling or again where you got pain that came from our own relationship with our dads. So.

00;09;25;20 - 00;09;44;25
Jeff Zaugg
So I just noticed a lack. There was there's just not much out there, like you said. And I said, I can be. I can be a cheerleader. I can't be a topic subject matter expert. I can be a cheerleader. And that actually helped carry me forward into now these five and a half years is is I reframed what I was doing.

00;09;44;25 - 00;10;03;15
Jeff Zaugg
I'm not not sharing things that I've learned. It arrived. My goodness. And now, I mean, like I said, I feel like maybe I struggle more today than I did five years ago. But it's like I care deeply about being that cheerleader. And I'm hearing more and more stories of people who's, whose dad life has been affected by things they've heard from the podcast and or.

00;10;03;17 - 00;10;22;23
Paul Sullivan
Even you saying that you're struggling more now than you were five years ago. That's a huge admission, is a huge omission for any man, any dad, to say I'm not getting things right or or put it a more positive, it maybe I could do things better. That's a huge admission. And so many, you know, many. And we do talk about the man box.

00;10;22;23 - 00;10;44;16
Paul Sullivan
We talk about this link between, you know, masculinity and money making and it removes that that care component, which is so crucial. You're clearly on a mission here to change the conversation. But as I say in life, it's often easier to be pushed out of something. And then you have to figure out what to do than it is to jump into something new.

00;10;44;18 - 00;11;05;10
Paul Sullivan
I'd imagine. You know, being a, a pastor in Minnesota, you know, however many tennis balls you had at that point, maybe you weren't quite at 400 then, but that was probably pretty good. It probably pretty good. Life was supported by community. What makes you say okay, what's that? Mommy, you know what I got to dedicate every day did this, I got to we're going to get to fathers for the this in a second.

00;11;05;10 - 00;11;09;17
Paul Sullivan
But I got to dedicate everything to dad. Awesome. And that's what I'm got to do now.

00;11;09;19 - 00;11;27;21
Jeff Zaugg
Yeah, I never described it as a side hustle. Because it wasn't part of my role as a staff member of that church doing it. Dad. Awesome. I mean, the podcast, those two and a half years of kind of overlap, I was doing on my day off my mornings, my evenings. And it was a passion project, not a side hustle like I truly was passionate about it.

00;11;27;23 - 00;11;45;24
Jeff Zaugg
And it never, there is no monetization around the podcast. It was just I was doing it from, a love for my little girls and a love for these other dads I was serving. The the second component that you mentioned will get two fathers for the fatherless was the reason I needed to jump full time. I wanted to jump full time before that.

00;11;45;24 - 00;12;00;22
Jeff Zaugg
But the invitations around the country to lead these events and to grow that movement and the traction of it, tripling each year like that, that growth curve, the podcast didn't require more attention. That did. And so that was the reason that Johnson.

00;12;00;24 - 00;12;12;03
Paul Sullivan
Yeah. Yeah. And what was that like? What was that conversation like, in your own family with your wife, kids, you young, but with your wife or with the church where you were before? What was that conversation like when you said, I'm jumping to do this new thing?

00;12;12;05 - 00;12;30;08
Jeff Zaugg
Yeah, there was about a year that I knew a change was coming that I wanted to change to come figuring out the financial side of of jumping with at that point, three three daughters. Then we added another daughters. We were pregnant, actually, when I stepped into this full time, we were pregnant with our fourth daughter. I was actually walking through a season of my dad passing away.

00;12;30;08 - 00;12;51;12
Jeff Zaugg
So my, my dad three years ago, went home to heaven and and actually, this is a crazy episode. One of Dad Awesome launched five and a half years ago. The next day, my dad rushed to the hospital with brain cancer. Lung cancer is what was discovered. He was in the hospital ten days turned into a journey of trying to this seek, you know, medical help and all kinds of different things to.

00;12;51;12 - 00;13;10;21
Jeff Zaugg
We tried, but it was 100 weeks later. Episode 100 of the podcast launched. The next day, my dad passed away and went home to have it. So it was a 100 week journey of of me launching this this movement. Dad. Awesome. Thinking a lot about intentional fatherhood in those same 100 weeks were my dad's last 100 weeks here.

00;13;10;26 - 00;13;28;15
Jeff Zaugg
And so it was a gift. It really was. It was a beautiful season. My dad was a champion, a cheerleader for what I was doing. He's an entrepreneur. He's like, let's go. He he does. Like he was a little bit nervous for me making the jump to full time. So we waited. Actually, I stayed in my role at the church till my dad passed away and six months later was the right timing for me to jump in.

00;13;28;15 - 00;13;45;19
Jeff Zaugg
The church actually helped send me out. Partly was because it was six months into, the Covid shutdown and we were overstaffed in part of the department. So I could actually tell we had more staff than needed, in that moment. And I said, well, I'm willing to go. And they said, actually, that's great, why don't you go?

00;13;45;24 - 00;13;55;03
Jeff Zaugg
So they actually gave you the nudge in that season where I never want to leave during a crisis. I would never want to leave a team. But it was actually the right move for me to jump to a full time.

00;13;55;05 - 00;13;59;26
Paul Sullivan
Tell the truth, Jeff, as they told you to jump, they gave you a bicycle. And that's how a 100 mile ride is.

00;13;59;26 - 00;14;03;01
Jeff Zaugg
That the easiest job? They give a shove at a bicycle.

00;14;03;04 - 00;14;07;04
Paul Sullivan
You go like, go, guys. Hey, I thought we're all friends here.

00;14;07;06 - 00;14;08;23
Jeff Zaugg
That's so good.

00;14;08;26 - 00;14;33;04
Paul Sullivan
But the idea of it. So, you know, for people, you could check on YouTube. There's a very short, powerful video where, Jeff sort of narrates and then sort of illustrates this, the, the sort of reasoning behind, you know, fathers for the fatherless and, you know, 100 miles. That is a long, time on a bike. It is not easy, even if you're going through, I don't know, southern Florida where it's flat.

00;14;33;04 - 00;15;01;14
Paul Sullivan
I mean, that is a long time of pedaling. And yet, you know, there is a link in, in our culture between doing something as a way to show support. There are there are cancer walks, there are walks for schools. It is sort of it is I want to say it's easier, but it's it's more accepted to do something and to get you to think about the thing that you're doing, that something for, than it is to just change your own behavior.

00;15;01;14 - 00;15;18;01
Paul Sullivan
And it was that part of the reason why you linked. I know you since moved beyond just the 100 mile, not just move beyond the hundred mile bike ride, but but what was it thinking between, you know, the so-called century and what you could do for kids who didn't have didn't have that?

00;15;18;04 - 00;15;42;12
Jeff Zaugg
Yeah. Part of it was I was paying attention to was dad awesome. The level of effectiveness of dad, also a podcast. And at that point we were doing a daily text message for about two years. I sent a daily text to hundreds of dads with encouragement, challenge, support, ideas to be dad. Awesome. So so those resources in the landscape that I could see, including my own family members who are dads, I felt like Dad Awesome was only impacted.

00;15;42;12 - 00;16;04;20
Jeff Zaugg
About half the dads I knew, half were not looking for a podcast, were not looking to be a part of a church small group. Were not looking for the daily text and I frame it. Who is like looking for self-help in the area of their all the areas I could grow in of dad life. A lot of us are looking to grow in the area of finance or business or entrepreneurship or leadership or, various things physical health, strength.

00;16;04;23 - 00;16;23;29
Jeff Zaugg
But the dad life who's looking to grow in that area, there's a lot of dads that aren't that that were not in that way. Now, when I invited those dads for various reasons, we're not interested in debt. Awesome. What? I said, would you come ride 100 miles on your bicycle for the fatherless, a large like the niche of guys who said yes, we're in that niche.

00;16;24;04 - 00;16;37;19
Jeff Zaugg
The same the guys who are not looking to grow sit like. I mean, Paul, the two of us can sit and have a beer, have a cup of coffee, talk for a couple of hours face to face, have a great conversation about dad life. But there's some dads that need the shoulder to shoulder. Need the side by side.

00;16;37;19 - 00;16;56;09
Jeff Zaugg
Let's do an activity for someone else. And what happened was father's for the father was reframed. It was accessible to the single dad, the divorced dad, the dad who's a part of church, the dad who's not a part of church. The dad who. It doesn't matter. We invite it. In fact, we invite all men. You don't have to be a biological or adoptive dad if you're a.

00;16;56;13 - 00;17;18;04
Jeff Zaugg
We invite all men to come join this mission. Because we just believe the heart of God is is to be a father for the fatherless. So all men can step into that fathering role of, be it be an uncle, be a your mentor, be you can step in and care. So so that's where it just like it took off from a place of it's a different, framing of, of the invite versus listen to and grow.

00;17;18;04 - 00;17;34;04
Jeff Zaugg
This is let's do something and the, the conversations you have side by side while cycling really do get after like I'm struggling with this or man, I could like this hit below the surface. When you actually suffer together and you're changing tires with mosquitoes biting you to side by side and all these things.

00;17;34;06 - 00;18;08;03
Paul Sullivan
You play that down. That's not good. That's not good marketing. The mosquitoes, the bike changing. Not that, you know, there's some things in this world that are a pure good. And I think they sort of rise above politics or even religion either having the same faith. And some people all get along and some people don't. But when you think of like how politically divided this country is, if you can get behind kids who don't have fathers, it's not the, you know, you may be angry at those guys who are not present with their their kids, but it's not the fault of the kid.

00;18;08;03 - 00;18;28;27
Paul Sullivan
The kid has no agency over whether or not he or she has a father. And when you think about the men that you've brought together to do these rides, to raise money, to raise awareness, you know, a whole bunch of, you know, old guys and bikes going 100 miles at that's certainly, you know, get people's attention. How is it changed?

00;18;29;00 - 00;18;32;12
Paul Sullivan
The people who participate in these rides.

00;18;32;14 - 00;18;58;02
Jeff Zaugg
Yeah. So we're so grateful for the guys who say yes. They say yes. Guys sometimes need a date, and they need the money to be put down. Having to register for this thing to stay committed to something, they need that guys also need be a little bit vulnerable with tell others that you're going to do this thing as soon as we've voiced it or shared on our Instagram or Facebook and we've said hey, or told some coworkers I'm doing this ride to help the fatherless, now we're committed because we don't want to fail.

00;18;58;03 - 00;19;15;21
Jeff Zaugg
Like, in fact, a lot of the dad life can feel like failing, so you don't see any short, quantifiable wins. A lot of the deadline if you don't see those. This in this case, we're giving a concrete we're going to help you train. In fact, half of our guys, some of the 700 ish guys that were half are not cyclists, half the longest bike ride was 30 miles.

00;19;15;21 - 00;19;32;18
Jeff Zaugg
And now they're getting a road bike and they're training and they're saying, I'm going to I'm going to put in these 10 to 12 weeks of training to be ready for a hundred mile ride. So what we find is, is that by guys saying, yes, they stick. It's powerful. When you stick with something that's hard, and your kids see you doing that.

00;19;32;18 - 00;19;49;12
Jeff Zaugg
It's power. It's powerful even without your kids seeing it. But it's really powerful to do something hard to stick with it for someone else. Not for yourself. Not for your own. Hey, I want to do this for my bucket list. I'm doing this ride for these kids without dads. Then we tell the stories. We show the pictures in the videos of the kids in the civil war in Myanmar right now that's happening.

00;19;49;12 - 00;20;06;12
Jeff Zaugg
We're like, we're this is what our dollars are going towards. It's not like it's all broken down. And Jeff Zog salaries coming from this money, it's all going out. None of it goes back to the nonprofit I lead. It's like we find locally there's kids that are wards of the state in foster care. They have no uncle, grandparent, parent to go back to.

00;20;06;15 - 00;20;25;08
Jeff Zaugg
We help these kids find forever homes. That's part of the money that we give to, an organization that helps the kids who are in foster care find in our adopted into forever homes. Like, there's it's powerful stuff were a part of, but it does change. It changes us in it. I think it, the most tangible story is, my buddy Sam.

00;20;25;08 - 00;20;42;00
Jeff Zaugg
He actually, because of friendships formed because of his. Heartbreaking for the fatherless. Can't imagine his own kids being fatherless. He actually went and started seeing a counselor because of what was formed in those miles and the bike. So it gave. It gives us courage to do the hard things, like seeing a counselor.

00;20;42;03 - 00;20;53;17
Paul Sullivan
Yeah. It's remarkable how often the guys come back. How often did they do, you know, one ride and then say, you know what not? Am I going to do it again next year? I'm going to bring a couple buddies along, bring a friend.

00;20;53;20 - 00;21;10;01
Jeff Zaugg
That's that's how it snowball. It's tripled a bit from word of mouth and, yeah. So guys do return. I get a lot of guys doing their fifth year. Minnesota. It'll be our fifth year this year. It's, we're we're, praying for the $1 million mark of raised for the fatherless that we crest that in our cumulative fundraising.

00;21;10;01 - 00;21;19;21
Jeff Zaugg
So it's, it's we've seen it grow, grow, grow. But this will be our year to push over $1 million, which we're so grateful, into the guys want to come back and be a part of that. They want to be on the team versus on the sidelines.

00;21;19;23 - 00;21;40;26
Paul Sullivan
That's one of what's your ultimate goal, though? You know, the podcast are approaching, you know, 300, you know, straight weeks. This is the fifth year for the ride. When you look at okay, you know, how long do I do this? How do I do this? What does it mean for my own family? What about, you know, is there an end goal to to what year you're doing here?

00;21;40;29 - 00;21;59;19
Jeff Zaugg
Yeah. The the the main, the central goal is not the individual. Dad's actually the central goal. I believe we can only do so much more region. Dad. Awesome to individual dads. I believe in the local church and I believe that, God uses local church communities, communities of faith. And he's using the like he's working through so many other aspects as well.

00;21;59;19 - 00;22;18;14
Jeff Zaugg
But I believe the church is not known right now. Local churches are not known for a place that if you have your first baby and you're a dad, man, is that where would I go for resources, help, encouragement? Cheerleading at my end goal is that the local church is known as a place that doesn't critique and tell you you're doing things wrong.

00;22;18;15 - 00;22;34;17
Jeff Zaugg
You got to do this or that, but it's a place that just cheers for dads. It says, way to go. Keep going. Keep loving your kids. Like that's my. My dream is the church is known for that. And secondly, the church is known for that is a place where the men in that church care about kids that don't have dads, and it's just known as a place that cares for dads.

00;22;34;17 - 00;22;40;27
Jeff Zaugg
And it does great things to help fatherless kids. So that's my that's my end goals. The church is known for those two things.

00;22;40;29 - 00;22;55;25
Paul Sullivan
So to take it out of that sort of the charitable couple, I take it out of the church. Is it fair to say that, to put it in a I was a business reporter for a long time, but in a business context, is it almost like it's kind of like a franchise model or is almost like a train?

00;22;55;25 - 00;23;10;23
Paul Sullivan
The trainer model where you hope that going town to town, city to city, when you leave, those guys who've done the ride will go to their local church and say, hey, this is wonderful, but how do we keep it going? Is that is that fair to say? Is that a goal?

00;23;10;26 - 00;23;28;06
Jeff Zaugg
It is. So the first couple of years have been the Zogg family in an RV present at each of these events from the the bike rides to the triathlons to the Spartan races, we just did our first Spartan and we got another one planned later this year. So you don't have to have a bike and you don't have to live where in spandex, to, to engage in the mission.

00;23;28;08 - 00;23;31;09
Paul Sullivan
You do have to like to run in the mud. If I understand Spartan.

00;23;31;12 - 00;23;50;06
Jeff Zaugg
Climb over walls and. Yeah, yeah, I get get bloody. So yes, you do hard things. That's the essence of what we do. It's 100 miles. The run that we did was a 100 mile run. It was a team run, though, so I only had to run 16 miles. We did a run once. We did? Yeah, we do hard things because, by us suffering to some extent, I mean, suffering is all relative, right?

00;23;50;06 - 00;24;12;11
Jeff Zaugg
But by men pushing themselves physically, it be connected deeper to the mission. So so to answer the question, yes, we've traveled, but now we do have we've, there's a spark now around the country in different, pockets. And we're, we're seeing that spark grow and that's, that's the that's the prayer, that's our mission is that we see, through the local church, but also, you know, again, men's who are men or who are adjacent.

00;24;12;11 - 00;24;22;10
Jeff Zaugg
They know someone at a local church. They heard the rise up. They're all welcome to join this mission. It's, the mission is way bigger. But but it's it's it's it's anchored in local churches.

00;24;22;12 - 00;24;35;06
Paul Sullivan
Are, you know, at the end of the day, though, you know, do some of your salary go to ultimately buying you like one of those really plush La-Z-Boy recliner? So when you get back to Minnesota, you can just, you know, get slightly out of shape like the rest of us dads.

00;24;35;09 - 00;24;54;25
Jeff Zaugg
It's it is funny because, like having even a bath tub accessible after a 100 mile ride to put like, you know, to do a salt that like, that's not accessible. Like I left the Philadelphia ride and drove directly to the Statue of Liberty in New York for it was my daughter's birthday. So we did a hundred mile ride right into driving an RV to a birthday moment at sunset or a statue.

00;24;55;01 - 00;25;09;13
Jeff Zaugg
So, like, we, we truly, I don't have a La-Z-Boy, but I'm getting older. I'm 41 now, and I'm going to need it. I'm more more accessible. Cold water or hot baths after these rides.

00;25;09;16 - 00;25;24;15
Paul Sullivan
Jeff Zogg, thank you for being my guest and the company of dads podcast, dad. Awesome. And fathers for the fatherless. Jeff. Last question how do people find you and how do people participate in all the great things that you're doing?

00;25;24;18 - 00;25;42;15
Jeff Zaugg
Yeah, we would love to welcome any from your community. And just love what you're doing, Paul. And in the community that you're spread out. In fact, I called my brother, who is north of Brisbane, Australia. He lives on the Sunshine Coast in Australia. After we chatted last about a month ago and I was like, John, you are a leader dad.

00;25;42;20 - 00;25;55;04
Jeff Zaugg
Way to go. I see this in you that you're taking the lead role with your kids, and your wife has an amazing job. He has a job as well, but he still plays the lead role for a lot of that. And I was like, way to go. I'd never be able to frame it that way. And he actually like, if you really received that.

00;25;55;04 - 00;26;15;21
Jeff Zaugg
So so I just you have reframed for me cheering on lead dad. So the ways that guys can connect is fathers for the fatherless is s a number four letter f dot bike. It's a weird one f for bike. Or on Instagram at fathers, for the fatherless and then dad. Awesome. His dad awesome.org and at dad also on Instagram.

00;26;15;24 - 00;26;18;20
Paul Sullivan
Jeff thank you again. I thoroughly enjoyed our talk today.

00;26;18;23 - 00;26;21;14
Jeff Zaugg
Thanks, Paul.

00;26;21;16 - 00;26;46;25
Paul Sullivan
Thank you for listening to the Company of Dads podcast. I also want to thank the people who make this podcast and everything else that we do. The company dads possible Helder Moura, who is our audio producer Lindsay Decker and is all of our social media, Terry Brennan, who's helping us with the newsletter and audience acquisition, Emily Servin, who is our web maestro, and of course, Evan Roosevelt, who is working side by side with me.

00;26;46;25 - 00;27;04;18
Paul Sullivan
And many of the things that we do here at The Company of Dads. It's a great team. And we're we're just trying to bring you the best in fatherhood. Remember, the one stop shop for everything is our newsletter, the dad sign up at the Company of dads.com backslash. The dad. Thank you again for listening.