What's Up Dad?! Podcast | Faith-Based Dad Talk: Leading Your Home, Real Marriage Support & Everyday Blessings

Welcome back to the What’s Up Dad Podcast — after a few weeks away, Grayson and Ryan are back with a faster, more focused format and a faith-based conversation for men about what it looks like to lead your home in real life.

In this episode, we talk about biblical leadership in the household, how men can serve their wives in practical ways (like filling up the gas tank, carrying the mental load differently, and reducing stress), and why spiritual leadership isn’t a checklist — it’s stewardship, consistency, and showing up daily.

We also share a surprising “everyday blessing” moment from an Uber ride that turned into a genuine conversation and a reminder to stay open to what God is doing—even in normal, busy days. 

Plus, we bring back the fun with a snack review: Honey Bun Cowtails!

Topics in this episode

• Faith-based conversations for men and dads
• Spiritual leadership at home (beyond a checklist)
• Serving your wife in practical, everyday ways
• Gratitude-focused prayer and leading kids spiritually
• Being present and noticing God’s “small blessings”
• Food review: Honey Bun Cowtails

💬 Question for you: What’s one practical way you serve your spouse that reduces their stress?

👍 Like, subscribe, and share this with a dad who needs encouragement and real conversation.

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Disclaimer: This episode is for entertainment and general discussion, not professional advice.

Chapters

00:00 Reconnecting and Simplifying the Podcast
01:23 Faith-Based Conversations and Community Engagement
02:19 Encouraging Men to Share Their Stories
04:42 The Importance of Leadership in the Household
06:30 Balancing Responsibilities and Expectations
11:50 The Impact of Upbringing on Leadership
15:03 Spiritual Leadership and Family Dynamics
19:56 Defining Duties as a Spiritual Leader
25:09 Fostering Positivity and Spiritual Growth
30:00 Embracing Individual Gifts and Struggles
31:17 The Role of Responsibility in Family Dynamics
34:03 The Importance of Leading by Example
34:32 Authenticity in Passion and Communication
35:56 Finding Joy in Everyday Conversations
43:15 Recognizing Blessings in Unexpected Situations
50:46 6819494018787226152 (1).mp4

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Transcript

speaker-1 (00:19)
Alrighty now, what's up everybody? It's the What's Up Dad podcast. I'm Grayson, this is Rye. And here we go. Guys, I don't know if we're gonna be a little bit rusty or not. It has been ages. We saw a podcast that we've been recording for you guys and putting out there, but we've sat down and actually recorded a podcast. What do you think? Several weeks.

speaker-0 (00:24)
Ryan?

Yeah, several weeks.

But it's like kind of like riding a bicycle, right? We kind of jump right back into it.

speaker-1 (00:44)
Absolutely. Probably. ⁓ lot of changes coming in my opinion based on what you see here. And we talk about that every time, but you're going to notice we are simplifying stuff on our end. and so we're going to attempt to do some simplification on what we have here. And I do believe that we are going to get to the nitty gritty quicker. Like that's the, that's the general consensus. There's been feedback from people. So we're going to drop right into the nitty gritty. Still keep it fun. Still keep it lighthearted. Still talk about things.

but just maybe change it up a little bit and see what happens. So we can kind of fill out the market, right? And then go from there. what do we got on the table today?

speaker-0 (01:23)
I like it. Today we are talking about ⁓ faith based conversations, manly faith based conversations, manly. We still got some fun stuff. We're going to do a food review later in the podcast about halfway through. We haven't started the digital clock yet. We got to start the digital clock. We can do that right now. Where's that? It's right there. Yeah. Is that digital by the way? No, that's not. That's what do they call that analog?

speaker-1 (01:52)
30 minutes. ⁓

speaker-0 (01:53)
30

minutes. We'll see. We'll see. We might get a little deeper and maybe we'll go a little bit longer. But we've had some good, good guests, good podcasts, lots of good conversation lately. Absolutely. ⁓ We had a run there of guests and we took advantage of that. We still need guests though. It's good to continue to have ⁓ good guests, good conversations. So if you're interested, hit us up. We'd love to have you on.

speaker-1 (02:19)
Yeah, so my call out right now is going to be to the ladies. I'm going throw this out there. I'm going to the ladies because there's a bunch of men that we are close with, right? That we have relationships with, friendships with, right? And it's funny, we've talked about this before. It's like, we're not going to just beg these people to be on the podcast. You who we need to be talking to is the wives.

for more and more times. And I've heard it from ⁓ like Nick Sizemore, which I hope you watch this. I'm sure he'll watch it. Nick had a great podcast with him. He reached out to me probably two weeks ago and he was like, man, I've told so many guys and they're like, I don't have anything interesting. I'm not an interesting dude. have nothing interesting to talk about. And it's hard because that's not what this is about.

There are things that we deal with and there again is that instance of a guy really, really struggling to talk and connect with what's going on in their life and connect with perspective. And that's what we're here to do because yeah, you might not have something interesting. Maybe you just work at ⁓ a regular place for a living, right? You know what I mean? Just pick What's that? Like you're just a normal Joe with a normal job, right? And that's perfectly fine. That doesn't mean...

speaker-0 (03:26)
Thank

speaker-1 (03:32)
that you don't deal with difficulties, that you don't have, and I don't want to jokingly say this, but you don't have marital problems, you don't have kid problems, you don't have friendship problems, you don't have biblical problems, you don't have like, we all have problems regardless of ⁓ our wealth, of our wellbeing, of our anything. There's stuff to be talked about. So I think that's the corner.

we're looking to turn here is to dive into that. And again, calling out to the ladies to say, Hey, if you think your man needs this, need it. ⁓ and not to steal all the thunder here, Ryan and the perspective, you know, I jokingly asked you a couple of weeks ago, how committed are you to the long run? Because we've done a lot and there's been a lot of changes. had to take a break due to, ⁓ like personally recording. Cause there's been a lot of stuff going on. Right. And, ⁓ and we're back at it and

I jokingly said that to you and I appreciate you being consistent. You're like, no, I'm committed to this because I'm committed to it. And when I actually said that to Beth, Beth was like, no, you're committed. Like she's like, I like what you're doing. And it just felt good to know that. And so I'm glad we're here. ⁓ and I'm excited about the future of all this.

speaker-0 (04:42)
Yeah, I just say too, the mission, you know, we're changing things up a little bit. We're getting into the conversation maybe a little bit faster, but none of the mission, none of the vision kind of changes. You know, we're still here to support other guys, families talk about, ⁓ you know, all the things that are going on because even more so, like we continue to see things that are happening all around the world. Right. And it it drives these divisions, it drives these nerves, it drives these feelings of isolation.

⁓ you know, et cetera. And I think that that's going to continue. That's going to continue to get worse. And I think that you're still seeing ⁓ men out there get into situations that they shouldn't be in. They're putting their families in situations they shouldn't put their families in. And part of it, not all of it, but part of it is not having outlets like this, not being able to talk to other men. ⁓

It's super important, and I think that we just have to continue to invest in those conversations and doing this. I'll say, there was a moment over, we kind of got lazy, so there was a moment over the last couple of weeks where it's kind of like, do we still want to do this? Is it still like, you kind of get off the bike and you're off the bike for a minute and you kind of get a little, like I said, little rusty. But I'll tell you, I'm glad that we're back doing this because.

Like the energy is that like the passion and the energy and the things that we can do and talk about, even when it's just us, I think it's impactful and I think that it helps other folks. So super excited.

speaker-1 (06:20)
Yeah, I sat down in this chair and it felt like home. Yeah. Right in the certain sense. wouldn't, I don't even know where my good chair went.

speaker-0 (06:27)
We didn't have good chairs last time. We don't have good chairs this time.

speaker-1 (06:30)
I

sat down in this wooden chair and I felt like home and I'm excited to get back into this. without further ado, a couple of things here that we're going to be looking at tonight is men being a leader of the household. I know we've talked about it so many different ways, but maybe we jump into it in a different way tonight. I don't know. Meeting people in Uber. Okay. Not being afraid to share, actually having conversations. I do have a question for you, two questions for you.

All right, or questions that we're going to be more the that if we had a guest, I think these would this would go. ⁓ Do you feel fill up your wife's car? Of gas.

speaker-0 (07:08)
That's a pretty random question. I would say the answer is yes when I'm driving the vehicle and it needs gas. Certainly I do. ⁓

speaker-1 (07:18)
Yeah. I have. ⁓ So we're in a we're in a season right now where my wife, ⁓ if the car, the car would just have to literally like.

blow up. She has no idea if there's gas in it. ⁓ If the if it's running or like any anything of that. And and I say like in the weird season of her coaching softball and and doing the things that she's doing right. And us being this is this is the busy, busy season for us. Yeah. And this is the time where I have to fill the tank for her or she'll literally be on the side of the road and I have to bring gas to her. And

what I, what I say this for is because I also try to do that on a regular rate. However, now it's like, I'm in like this gear of like, have to do it and not just have to, like, I don't want her to worry about that. I want her to literally be in the car, not worry about a thing, be able to turn the car on and go and not stress about that or worry about where, what part of town is she in? Does she have to get gas? Look down like, no, is she stuck in traffic?

because she's driving all over the place. She's got a lot of hats she wears during this period. this, the next 90 days or so is crazy for us. And so, ⁓ I just throw that out there, right? And it's, it's kind of funny cause most guys don't ever fill their wife's car with gas. Like I, I have made it a, ⁓ a thing where not only do I fill her car, but I clean it out for her.

like all the major trash and stuff and not that she's a slob. She probably could keep it a little cleaner, but not that she's a slob, but like, you know, in the midst of running everywhere and doing stuff and eating in the car and doing this and doing that, you know, it's like, okay, I'll go get that. So I was just go get the trash out of it, right? Clean it up, clean the kid's car seats up and just make sure to tidy up the stuff. Right. That's the other thing, because like I don't, again, the stress that I try to reduce from that.

speaker-0 (09:08)
McDonald's fries.

speaker-1 (09:22)
And I think to myself in so many ways, what does she do for me? Right? On all the other things. Like imagine, okay, my wife controls the calendar. She schedules the doctor's appointments for the kids, the dentist appointments for the kids, the disappointments. Like she is on it for so many other things. The least I can do is fill up her car. Clean it out a little bit.

speaker-0 (09:42)
Yeah, you should. I

think that's admirable. I appreciate you sharing that. I would say for me, that's not my. That's not my thing that I do, though, but I do something, but not clean out the car, give it or put in gas, if that makes sense. Like I'm big on like the house, keeping it clean. I do the dishes. I do the laundry like I do, you know, sweep the floors, take out the trash.

Like that is my thing in correlation to filling up the tank. So I think that...

speaker-1 (10:15)
So you

all that then. Great. Now I feel like, yeah. Hey, guys, I only do the.

speaker-0 (10:19)
Here's

why I do it though, because growing up, I don't know if I've shared this before, but growing up, my dad was a hoarder. Have I told you this story? So we won't get into it, but basically I can't stand, I just cannot stand a messy house. It eats at me and it gives me just, I just can't do it. So part of that benefit though, to my wife, is that I like things to be clean and organized. It doesn't mean it's not clean and organized all the time.

speaker-1 (10:27)
You've told me this,

speaker-0 (10:49)
because my wife and my son like to mess it up. But I try. Like if there's something that's put out like she lit candles tonight and I'll tell you, like I had to blow them out. I blew them out within like 10 minutes before I even left the house because I'm like, that's that's just something that's going to be like honored or, know. So I get I get a little ⁓ it's a little weird kind of nuance, but it is my contribution to like, hey, I will do this. I will manage this.

⁓ You know, you just sit there and don't touch anything or move anything.

speaker-1 (11:24)
I get that. get that. that and you know, I think that's funny, but not funny, but like how we are based on how we were as kids and growing up and where our families like, you know, most people don't realize like how that bleeds into your life today as you become an adult. And, know, and then like as we'll talk about being a leader of the household and how did that affect you and how like so many of those things. Right.

And it's funny because I saw how my dad was, if you watch the podcast, it is what it is. But I saw how my dad was and then my parents growing up in that perspective and then how I was brought up. Our house is, I look at this and there's a friend of mine that said this a long time ago and I'll come back to it, come back to where I was going. they have a beautiful home, gorgeous, a home that I could never afford.

Went over to the house for a party. The, the, the, the, you see looks great. Let's put in order. And he takes me to a studio because he, that's how nice his house is. He has a studio, right? He takes me to his studio. goes, first thing he goes, it's a little messy in here. It was messy in there. He goes, let me show you the rest of the house. I've never been there before. He goes, let me show you the rest of the house. We walk through and we hit like, it's like the door.

are all open in this section of the house. Mind you, big house, there's section, right? He goes, yeah, don't look in there. It's complete disaster. He goes, but he's like, he like walks in like, but don't look in here. And I'm like, well, why'd you walk in? I think I thought we were, have no idea where I'm at in the house, you know? And he goes, we live in this place. And it just hit home with me in the perspective. And they have multiple kids and like how we

you know, very connected and similar things on how we do business and stuff like that. But it was just funny. Like it hits home. Like we live in this house and I looking back, I don't feel like my house was lived in when I was a kid. And that happened in stages, you know, as I was a, as I was like zero to 13, that stage of my life pre divorce of my parents, 13 to 18.

that stage of my life and then 18 to pre-marriage at like 21 and then 21. like there's a little stages and I realized that and I just felt like it was never necessarily lived in and now having three kids living in it, not stressing about it. Now, do I stress? Yes. Do I try to clean things up? Absolutely. We're not slobs, right? By no means. mean, shoot, it would make it a whole lot easier if we didn't do Amazon influencing. We have

5,000 packages sitting on our dining room table. I'm glad you didn't go in there, but I have a heart attack right now looking at that room. It is filled to the brim with boxes that we haven't got to. I know you probably would. You get a heart like the amount of crap in there. Like, like you think is bad down here, right? Like I haven't been down here in like three weeks. I purposely, I know I purposely didn't come down here because I'm like, it stressed me out. And like, but anyways, but back to the, guess that's where I was coming back to is like how you were in your life.

speaker-0 (14:12)
Don't let me in there, I'll clean it.

the web's everywhere.

speaker-1 (14:34)
And in the stages of life that you were in kind of shape you to who you are, but then you get to make decisions and what that is. And when we get into the biblical side of the conversation tonight, talking about being a leader of the household and stuff, it's funny, you know, we can either take after how it was in our families as kids growing up and what we saw our dads to be and what we how that was and yada, yada, yada. Or we get a choice to change, to be different, to be the leaders of the household.

You know, you might not fill up your wife's car all the time or make that an epic priority like maybe I do, but you have things that you try to do in your house that that makes you a leader of the household and puts you in the scenario that you're in. So that's the thing. And I think sometimes, though, guys don't know where they fit in in any capacity of that. ⁓ We there's a level of expectation to the wives, right, that.

that is their duty and their job to control these things. no. Cause to be honest with you, my wife died tomorrow, I'd fall apart. Like she's like, it's not just her duty. She's doing that out of a service to our relationship. know what I mean? And that's like to her want and her way of serving, right? Like I gotta be thankful, but I also got to step up and help out anytime I possibly can and take that role. know, so it's again, I felt like I've been rambling, but that's the.

speaker-0 (15:59)
No, yeah, no sense.

speaker-1 (16:01)
So, I don't know, a lot of little stuff in there and it molds us too at the end of the day.

speaker-0 (16:08)
Yeah. Yeah, it's a big, it's a big picture idea. And I think you kind of you had a you had a good what you were saying is right. I mean, there's several different pieces to that conversation, how you are raised, your life circumstances, how you're managing that now, how you're adapting to it. And then you bring in the leadership piece and, you know, managing and being the leader of the household. And and from a biblical standpoint,

that doesn't necessarily correlate directly to like, I'm doing these things and here is my checklist as the quote unquote leader of the household. It's more, OK, how are you stewarding your family? How are you managing your spiritual growth, the family's spiritual growth? I think that that's a deeper and tougher conversation, right? Because in in a way, most folks or most men can probably say, all right, you know, I

I do this or I have this or I'm responsible for this. When you get into the spiritual piece of that conversation, it's one, it's much tougher because how does that look? Right? We've talked about this multiple times where the woman typically is better at connecting with other women or reading their Bible or in prayer. know, a woman can do that so much better. we've actually, think we've talked about this just a little bit where it's like,

man, we're supposed to be the spiritual leaders, but in many cases, the woman is the one leading. Our wives are the ones leading from a spiritual sense. I always I have even even to today, you know, I always am reflecting on that piece of it. ⁓ If she's doing it and I'm not, that's a problem, you know. And it's also a problem if she's leading it and I'm not. Yeah.

It's not that she can't. It's not that she can't be invested in doing it. And, you know, but if I'm not in the picture and I'm not at least halfway, you know, then I'm not really leading the spiritual piece or leading the household in that way. Now, I think we could get in several conversations here about what does that look like? Is it, we're going to church today. All right. ⁓ I think that that's more kind of, again, checklist type of stuff.

speaker-1 (18:32)
Absolutely. Whole another conversation. We're talking a holistic biblical lifestyle. Look at this. That's what makes it so much harder, right? Is there a difference? mean, to the point where somebody told us, and this was years ago, actually, I remember somebody telling us this thing and we had to flex this aspect today, believe it not, it happened today. But somebody told us years ago, like told Beth this, that, you know,

whatever your husband decides is that's what you should do. Like. Wait, what? What did you say? I should be making this, you know, and like I remember years ago, I wasn't in a spiritual spot that that hit home in the right way. That sounds almost boastful and male chauvinistic aspect. Like that didn't make sense to me how that is. But from a.

praying about it from a leading, from talking about it, from making the decision like in that capacity and where she was coming from, where that lady was coming from. Right. That's why it's, wasn't, it wasn't any, anything meant that Beth is not capable of making the decisions or anything. should be talking about it and discussing it. But at the end of the day, like we're

living and dying on that sword from a leader of this family, you know what I mean? We're carrying that family in that way. That's the burden that we're we take to the grave or to heaven, you know what mean?

speaker-0 (19:56)
Yeah, I have a question for you. What would you say is your one duty? It could just be one thing. One thing that you do as the man of the household, the leader of the spiritual ⁓ family, what is that thing that you feel like you do?

speaker-1 (20:17)
spiritually leader of the spiritual side I want to make sure I get the right context here yeah because I would say the other one is the question I was gonna lead with I drive my family everywhere I am the driver of the car okay if we crash if we crash it's because of me

speaker-0 (20:22)
Yes, that's what I'm talking about.

I'm not talking about

that, but I get it. get the gas, driving the car. I'm talking about what would you say, and you can ask me the same question. What would you say is your...

Like if I'm just looking at you and you're you are the head of the household and I say, Grayson, what do you do to lead your family spiritually? What would you say is the primary thing that you do?

speaker-1 (20:59)
That's a tough question. think there's a little bit of a checklist perspective to it that occurs. that would fall into what my kids would say. I think there's a little bit of habitual things that I like to integrate within our lifestyle. I think how I want to carry where we're at and circling it back. I think the gentleness I try to bring to my kids and understanding where each and every one of them are at in that level and praying with them individually in that capacity.

Right. ⁓ it's funny. And I do not, I have taken this role as in my opinion, the spiritual leader of the household, like Beth looks, it looks to me to pray for the family. She doesn't pray for the, she prays like over this house. Right. You know what I mean? Like I'm not saying Beth doesn't pray like Beth absolutely. Praise. But when it's prayer time, it's like dad, you know what I mean? Like taking that.

that burden, is, off the individuals, ⁓ provided a level of teaching to them on praying. I've absolutely taught my kids and right, wrong or indifferent, we pray as a as a thankful prayer to Jesus, to God. Right. It's never God, I need this and this and this and this. No, it's like I literally and this is how I taught myself. I didn't learn it from anybody. It's like, hey, thank you for waking me up today. Thank you for letting my feet hit the door for today.

Thank you for the opportunity to walk out the door today. Thank you for the opportunity to breathe today. Thank you for everything that went. I want you to find every little bit and piece and perspective in your life that's that, that God did something. Hey, it, there, there was a tornado. Thank you for allowing me to drive through the rain to get to where I was going, even though the weather was bad today. The understanding of finding that I want them to absolutely find that because I tell you what,

there will be times and I can tell you as my life to shifted, I've had crappy things happen in my life and my testimony is not like I'm a drug addict, but my brother was. My testimony is not that I'm, you know, I'm gone to prison or I do all these, you know, but I've known people and had that. And I can tell you the difference in dealing with all those things that happened elsewhere. I could be in each and every one of those pits. If I allowed myself to wallow in the

unhappiness and sickness and sadness of today's world. Sure. But I've chosen to separate that and to say, God, yes, all this crappy stuff has happened. Yes, all that has been there. But you know what? My feet hit the ground this morning. You allowed me to wake up today. Yeah. You give me a responsibility to do whatever you have in store for me today. And so I've instilled that in my children and how they pray and and thanking God like that is a blessing to me. Guys.

I'm not saying you don't ask God for things. I'm not saying you tell God what's on your heart. That's not the case. But what I am saying is, is that there's a level of being thankful for the smallest things in the world, which changes your whole perspective. And talking, we forget to tell God that. We forget to be thankful to God about those things. And so, I don't know. That's a big piece of my puzzle where I lead this family and...

You know, outside of that, I mean, we've talked about it before that the other thing my kids know, their love notes, their spiritual love notes that I give them every single day has been just a blessing. And I've done it since my oldest started school is a daily occurrence during school time. They get something. And now we're getting into the point as they're getting older, whether where they're wanting to know more dad, what's the daily Bible verse? What does it mean? Where does it come from? How does that impact? Why'd you choose that?

that should wake up a little bit earlier here. Maybe I should do it the night before. No, I write Post-It's. But I write three Post-It notes in the morning sitting in front of every single one of them. They see me literally write it. And so that's a blessing. And they pick up on every bit of that. So you, you got to answer your own question. What do you got?

speaker-0 (25:09)
What's the question?

speaker-1 (25:11)
If some, spiritually, where are you, if somebody saw you, where would you say, they say you.

speaker-0 (25:16)
Yeah, I mean, I would definitely say that I have struggles like everybody else as far as like getting into the word, praying. Do I do it? Yes. Do I do it often enough? No. ⁓ My strength, spiritual strength comes from ⁓

I don't know how to say this, but positively leading my family. work really hard to, every day when my family gets up, like, hey, it's a great day. We're doing this as a family. Maybe we're praying or maybe we're sharing stories or things. ⁓

I generally try to keep things fun, engaging, positive, because for me, my Christian walk ⁓ and my life that I have as a follower of Jesus ⁓ with my family, I want to share that with them as well. And I want to rub off on them. And in particular, I want to rub off on my son. And hey, this is how you should act. This is how you should treat other people. This is how you should...

be within a corporate family setting, you know? And it shouldn't be, yeah, do we have disagreements and issues and all those kinds of things? Absolutely. But a focus of mine is always to be positive, ⁓ be energetic, be a light, you know, sharing ⁓ Jesus's love with my family. And that's something that I try to do every day. ⁓

Again, and it's cliche almost, well, yeah, other people can be positive and blah, blah. I think that that's true, but I don't think that you can do it in a way that actually shows ⁓ Jesus' love for us ⁓ unless you truly have that, right? It's easy to fake it. And then there are, you know, us Christians who it should be natural in a way, but...

people do a bunch of different things. You you could be a Christian dealing with depression and, or you could be a Christian that has, you know, your blood works off. And so something is happening with your body. And so that day you're like down in the dumps or, know, all those things happen to everybody, right? Human, it's, it's across the spectrum. ⁓ And I think about that almost constantly, like, okay, what can I do?

differently, even if I'm down, even if I'm out, like how can I influence not only my family, but my friends and people close to me? Like, you know, how can I share God's love through the things that I'm doing day in and day out? And it's hard to be consistent in that, but that's something that I really focus on and that's something that I pray for. Hey, God, give me opportunity to to love on someone today, to share something with somebody today. ⁓

And that's kind of what I focus on.

speaker-1 (28:29)
Well, I can say this, right? So, A, ⁓ when I met you, right? ⁓

I can say that that that is absolutely something I felt through our friendship that's been created. You are unbelievably positive or look to find the positivity. So I can say, definitely vouch for what you're saying. You're not just over here being boastful with regards to that. I can, I can absolutely vouch for that because I get that in the text messages. I think they're real raw and authentic, right? In that perspective, what we talk about being on here, real raw and authentic and relevant. I'm going to use that little bit.

speaker-0 (29:01)
Yeah, I like authentic

speaker-1 (29:05)
But at the end of the day, it's always felt that way. so, and I, and I've also seen how you are around your wife and your son and too, and I can, I can, I, when your son, can, um, I can grasp and see that in him as well. Um, I can see the work being put in. I, you know, as men it's.

We don't always tell people great job. I'm not saying this is great. I'm not saying, Hey, great job, man. Like I'm not, cause like, I feel like that's really weird to say, but the reality of it is what I can tell you as the best compliment I can give you is that what you, those qualities that you have, you work really, really hard at. can see in the people that I know you're working hard to, uh, have those have as well. If that makes sense. know it's kind of hard to say, like I'm trying to put it in that person. Yeah. So, um, really.

speaker-0 (30:00)
Yeah.

speaker-1 (30:03)
You know, and that's the thing, right? Like we are all, God has given us so many different gifts. Your gifts are different than my gifts and your struggles are different than my struggles and our lives are different, right? Like, and so it's like nowhere is this the same. We don't know what each and every person's going through and that's what's really hard. And that's what makes it difficult. Especially being able to break down in these conversations because wildly enough we could spend

30 minutes just talking about Ryan and Ryan stuff that he has going on and me never being able to talk about it. But as a man, I need to be able to set back and say, well, Ryan's not being boastful. Ryan's opening up. Ryan is engaging in conversation and me just sitting here listening. That's all it might. That's all it needs to be. That's OK. And sometimes we feel like we have to carry these conversations or we have to be the one leading it or we got to be like the, you know, the manly man. You know what I mean? And that's that's not it at all. Right.

So I don't know, lots of good stuff there. We broke into something new and different. This is not just the leader of the household. is somewhere else. I love that question. So, um, but I am going to ask the other one. Do you drive your family everywhere? Ryan? Do you, is that, that, cause that is in my, in my

speaker-0 (31:17)
asked

me this like this was like hey I can only be friends with you I don't huh you drive your family everywhere like

speaker-1 (31:21)
Now so

now drive your friend everywhere I gotta know

speaker-0 (31:27)
I had to answer the affirmative. ⁓ Yeah, I I drive my family everywhere. My wife never drives. Since I met you, since I met you.

speaker-1 (31:34)
anymore.

Did I? I don't know. I just think that's funny.

Yeah, we got stuff that we got to eat these things here. But like I can tell you this. I feel there's something about the responsibility of a husband driving a car. is like instilled. Like I think the importance of a man driving a car, driving his wife around is so important, just like it's important for me to teach my daughters. I don't do it just for my wife. I do it to my daughter, see that I'm driving. I do it that my daughter, my daughter see that I'm taking charge of hailing us.

to where we need to go. Right? I don't want my daughters to see my wife deal with road rage and stress of traffic and all that stuff. Like I can comprehend that differently and work through that differently than my wife can. Yeah. Then a woman can. That's why there's something about that. Just like I walk on the right side of the road and my wife walks on the left side of the road up against the cars when we're walking in a parking lot or

My my children and my wife will never walk on the outside of the street. I will always open up the doors. My children will see me open up the doors for my kids. My my daughters are princesses. They go to the door. I actually have a rule that they're not allowed to open the door. Not well, they don't really realize I think they're going to rip the handle off and I want that. I want to deal with that. But in reality, it's because I want them to know that a man is supposed to do that for them.

not because they're incompetent or incapable. It's more of a self responsibility of showing, serving those women, making sure that it's okay. In the same way that when I go to a restaurant, my back is never to the door. Like we are the protectors, we are the leaders in so many different ways and we have to instill that little stuff. That's why I think it's important. And it's such a, that driving your family everywhere or like filling up your wife's car or like you think, which, which I, I love that. You know what I mean? Like

And it challenged me to try to do more around the house. You know what I mean? So I don't come away with this lighthearted thinking, man, I got things I can work on. If Ryan can do it and drive his family around and fill up his wife's car and all that, you know what I mean? It's like, that's the challenge I take away from this to say, you know what, I can be better too.

speaker-0 (34:03)
Yeah, so no, love them. Yeah. Can I give you a compliment then? Since you gave me a compliment? No, I won't give you a compliment then. Let me have it. the compliment? Yeah, sure. I just wanted to share, like, I appreciate that perspective. But I think one of the things that you have that you do really well, just your passion about your it's like the true vine, like your passion about the things that you speak about is not just in words alone and your

speaker-1 (34:09)
I'm open for.

speaker-0 (34:32)
you are always backing it up with ⁓ showing it, doing it, and you do it consistently. And not just about what we're talking about tonight, but I think like just even this podcast is a great example of that. just, it's easy to kind of do it for a little bit or say it for a little bit or be on this podcast and share something about that. But the ability to have passion, true passion about it.

and to do it and do it consistently, I think that's really good. And I think that you do that all the time. You don't communicate very well, but everything else, ⁓ I think that you do really well. And so I just want to compliment you on that, because I think that's good.

speaker-1 (35:19)
I am a terrible communicator. I know that. That's my only. Yeah, I'm to have a I have my question of God is like, hey, like, why did you make me so bad at this? Like I could have been a way better person if you would have given me a little more thing. But I think I'm able to show my passion. And I don't use this as like the escape of not being able to communicate because I really do try hard. It's like, you know, but but in reality, I do try hard. My wife talks about like we talk about all the time. Like I really do try hard. But like the reality of it is like it's just something that I'm not. It's it's

either the unclearity of it, but nonetheless, but I appreciate that. you. It's still working. be better. All right, good. We'll get there. All right,

speaker-0 (35:56)
ready for Caltails? So

tonight we got these new, I don't know that they're new, but they are ⁓ honey, what are they? Honey bun Caltails, ⁓ artificially flavored Caltails. If you don't know what a Caltail is, ⁓ then I don't know.

speaker-1 (36:14)
We

have not gone to like a really good gas station. And what I mean by that is like in the sticks because they're not always at the good gas stations like normal ones. They're just like the really nice speedways and sheets and stuff like that.

speaker-0 (36:29)
When I when I was a kid, one of my favorite things to get during Halloween was a cow tail. If you got a cow tail during Halloween, it was like that was the big thing as a kid. Yeah, I feel like now, like my son, this last Halloween, he got some cow tails and he's just like tossing them like, don't want that. But he used to be, I mean, a big thing. But this is not just your ordinary cow tail, Grayson. This is a honey bun cow tail. So we're going to do a review tonight. Cranking it open here. I think we should do it on like the smell.

and the taste because I feel like the smell.

speaker-1 (37:01)
This is it, too. This is pungent. When you like, did you get that? my goodness. ⁓ exactly. mean, bro, I love I love when items hit, you know what I'm saying? Like it's important. And if it doesn't stick to the wrapper, like it's going to stay on it, it's a bad cow.

speaker-0 (37:03)
Yeah, yeah.

Can I tell you too, the shelf life for this is about three years. So you can put this wherever you want for three years and he is.

speaker-1 (37:20)
That's fantastic.

Side quest of conversation. You know, it's funny is it does have real ingredients in it. We eat soy and there was something else in here, which we eat milk and soy, which I find funny that there is a shelf life on this of that long with milk in it. ⁓ Beth got a Beth got gifted an item that we have to review. And ⁓ jokingly, she's allergic to lemons and ⁓ and it's lemon electrolytes. I have no idea why they sent us lemons, lemon electrolyte. Well, I took a fit. I took a picture and on the picture.

on the picture, I went to send it and I sent it to her and she's like, I'm not drinking this. And I'm like, well, you are. It's lemon electrolytes and it says no artificial flavors, no natural flavors. I'm like, whoa. Like it says it on the front of the package. I'm thinking to myself, I'm like, what's in here? Do you have like, what did you make up to put in this? Like, so I can't wait to figure this item out.

rate. mean, this account has regular stuff in it, but that doesn't. Okay. All right.

speaker-0 (38:26)
Here we go.

speaker-1 (38:27)
I mean, smell is it smells exactly like a honey bun. I get honey bun essences. We're going to 9.7 out of 10 on this already. Yeah, we're gonna smell. Oh, I'm still going to eat it, though. Not a hair.

speaker-0 (38:30)
Yeah, I think so.

See, that's what I was trying not to do.

You had hair in your cowtow?

speaker-1 (38:47)
No, must be one of my hairs on the table.

All right. Off the rip. I didn't get the cinnamon like the like honey buns have like a little bit of cinnamon, like glaze flavor. I don't know, you know, and talk about like a very, very sweet. I didn't get it, but man, it kicked me right in the way out. And it was like, Hey, I'm here. And I'm like, that's it. ⁓

speaker-0 (39:06)
You didn't get that?

I'm not

your average Calto

All right, that's good. I mean, that's good.

speaker-1 (39:26)
This I mean, I'm surprised, bro. I'm going to be honest with you.

Where did you buy these? That's my thoughts. Like I, I love the chocolate. were talking about this before. I love the chocolate ones because it is like Oreos and the cream filling.

speaker-0 (39:44)
feel like

I've never had that. That's the thing.

speaker-1 (39:47)
Yeah, bro.

This is like a, if that's a 10 out of 10, this is a thousand out of 10. Yeah. This is really freaking good. Absolutely. Yeah. I'm giving, I'm giving it as close to a 10 as possible. I have a hard time giving something a full, I'm not giving it a full 10 for one reason. One reason only, you know why it's in a full size cow tail. That's That's the only, only fault I can find. They didn't give me the, the, the, the, is it? Half a foot, half a foot version. They give us the three inches of it.

speaker-0 (39:52)
Yeah, 9.910.

Yeah.

speaker-1 (40:16)
Yeah, right? You know what saying?

speaker-0 (40:17)
Yeah,

that's three inches. Okay. No, I'm just, I don't know.

speaker-1 (40:24)
I don't know. It was enough. It was. yeah, no, that was.

speaker-0 (40:29)
Alright, 9.910...

speaker-1 (40:31)
It's there. It's really there. mean, honestly, that's fantastic guys. If you have never had a CalTel A, start with this one if you can find it, but understand not all CalTels are made the same. If they're old, they're not as good. The cream filling is always epic. But you know, if you get the caramel on anyways, we could sidebar that conversation for days. We don't need to.

speaker-0 (40:52)
was good. All right, good. Yeah. What else we got? ⁓ by the way, Grayson's mom, who's probably listening, was supposed to be on the podcast tonight. We don't know where she's at. she was supposed to... Were we flying her in?

speaker-1 (41:06)
No, she's driving in, driving in.

speaker-0 (41:08)
She's

still driving or she's not driving. We don't know. You know, it's so funny. I got to tell you this quick story about my mom. This was like 10 years ago. She was coming to visit. She lived in Kentucky for like forever and so it's supposed to be like a three hour drive, you know, or three and a half hour. She left at eight a.m. and by it was like 10 p.m. that night, she still hadn't showed up and we couldn't get a hold of her. We finally called her. She had circled 270. She was on her sixth.

go around of 270, didn't know which exit to get off of. And instead of pulling over and maybe picking up the phone and calling, she just continued to drive 270. So maybe your mom is out there on 270 just trying to.

speaker-1 (41:51)
So two stories, one I'm gonna save, but I'm gonna kinda put it out there. One of these days I'll talk about my brother and his trip to Ohio. Okay, we'll leave it at that. ⁓ Preface, he was a Cav Scout General Draper Award winner in the US Army. ⁓ He knew how to read a map, just saying. I guess. ⁓

Other story, we'll talk about it now. You talk about circling 270, you didn't want to get off the exit. Best family, best parents told her when she was learning how to drive, if you miss your exit on 270, just keep going around, you'll hit it again. Wow. It's kind of awful. Randy, I told you for years, is the dumbest thing I've ever heard in my life. Lori, I'm sorry. Same thing. Now I have to live with that lady upstairs that still thinks, no, I'm just kidding. It's so funny.

speaker-0 (42:30)
horrible.

Well, she doesn't drive when you're with her, so you're okay.

speaker-1 (42:46)
Yeah.

So like, I'm always nervous. Like that's why she's has a GPS on 900 % of the time is because if she misses something, I guarantee she'd be like, well, I, I'm why am I in Cleveland? I couldn't figure out how I had to get to 71 come back. feel like this is more anyways. Yeah. Nonetheless, good stuff. Good stuff. All right. Do we have any other big topics? Any things we want to end on tonight? Because I feel like we've done a shift in this whole thing. We really talked about an update of the podcast and we've talked about some pretty heavy stuff immediately.

So that's where we're trying to figure out where do we take this? We used to back everything up. We're at 43 minutes. I think it's a solid amount of time. And we could have talked for a lot longer. Don't get me wrong. But I'm curious.

speaker-0 (43:27)
I I yeah, I think I mean, I would like we had talked pre podcast about your Uber.

speaker-1 (43:34)
⁓ mean, you want to talk about we talk about.

speaker-0 (43:36)
Just,

I'm moving into just for a few minutes. So you took, you had a, car needed to get worked on tonight. You, well not tonight, but today. And so you needed an Uber. You got a, you got a Conchairs Uber, it sounds like. Yeah. Where the dealer hooks you up.

speaker-1 (43:51)
us up with one instead of me having to... And where were we? And picked us up from home and took us back. Back. Cool. Took us back. So go ahead. Honestly, I never do this and it was absolutely a time. First Uber lady was unbelievably nice. So many questions. I mean, she, kept the conversation going. It's like, I'll tell you, I'm the guy that, um, if I go get a hair, like, so you understand me. If I go get a haircut, I don't say a word to the barber or the person.

speaker-0 (43:53)
Where you going? They'd see you home or they?

speaker-1 (44:19)
I like I don't talk at all. I'm quiet. It's like my peaceful quiet time. I hit the seat of this car. Boom. But not like, not like you want to tell somebody to be quiet. It was such a genuine conversation on the way home. That was great. Okay. We got into so many different things, but here's where the light just is there. So I took my truck and I came home alone. Beth went with me. So they took us both back.

⁓ We get into the car. This gentleman was amazing. We talked about him being a grandparent. We talked about our kids' school. We talked about his kids and how they have a almost two-year-old grandchild now. I mean, it was just an amazing conversation. And here's the deal. My wife is the butterfly of this situation. But in reality, like we had such a great conversation, all of us, like in general, and we were all able to talk. Like, and it just felt so...

authentic, right? And there was an opportunity today for Beth to come and drop me off or pick me up. And it was an opportunity for me to just take a regular Uber with somebody or to do something completely different. normally wouldn't have done this. And I thought it was just such a God. I truly think puts situations in your lap to be able to have conversation, do things that you're just not normally able to do. And we had some

Was it biblical? No, but it was such when you have an authentic conversation with someone, you're able to see God through them. That was it. And so, I don't know. Well, that was it. That was the story. It's not a crazy one or like nothing crazy happened. You know, they knew people we knew. The guy knew people that we knew, which was crazy. it was I mean, it's amazing. You just get into conversations that don't know this guy from Adam.

And all a sudden there's connections there of, yeah, all kinds of crazy stuff. So, but I don't know. I just, my call out to that is as somebody that is the quiet person and not in that way, I've learned through my wife to let, truly let Jesus take the wheel in so many of those situations. And it happened. And you know what happened? By, we get in the car.

speaker-0 (46:23)
Very cool.

speaker-1 (46:46)
And I'm thinking, this dude knows how to get back to the dealership. He's like, where do I drive? I'm like, dude, you're driving me, right? Like you're driving us. He didn't have the GPS on or anything. Do I take a right or left? And I'm like, that way. And I was like, and so it like, was so weird. And that's what started it all. That's exactly what started it all. And he like,

speaker-0 (46:57)
It's like where are we?

Yeah, that is weird.

He

never turned on a GPS.

speaker-1 (47:14)
Turned

on the GPS. literally until we got to the highway, like I told him every turn to make and he was like looking for me to tell him, you know, and I think to myself, like this is an older gentleman that is retired doing this two days, two days a week. I'm thinking to myself, like, that is not what an older gentleman would do. They're like, you know what I mean? I don't know. It's just weird.

speaker-0 (47:38)
Yeah,

and I want to say something too real quick. think, you know, we talked about like your week this week is a little bit rougher and some things going on and et cetera. think. In those moments, you find the blessings and and regardless of if it was a blessing for you and your family or blessing for this guy or both, like those are the things that, you know, God does. And I think that it's just so powerful and you miss them sometimes, right? Oh, like it's easy to be consumed by.

Okay, my car needs to get fixed. Okay, this happened at work. Okay, this is going on with, you know, this situation. And you have this conversation with this guy or this opportunity and you almost miss it because maybe you would have just sat there and just been complaining the whole time or thinking about whatever and you just completely miss it. ⁓ And so I think that that's, that's awesome. And those are the things that should keep us going, right? As faithful Christians, as faithful men, like

Those are the opportunities that you get. We had an opportunity like that several weeks ago when we had a couple of folks on and we were discussing these types of things. And where else do you get those? And when else do you get them except from blessing from God to be able to do that? But you have to take advantage of those situations. You have to take advantage of those opportunities. How many have we let die over the years? How many will we find out when we?

When we get to heaven, it's like, had this, you had this, had this, you missed on this, you missed on that. And I think that it's just great to hear the stories because regardless of what transpired or what the outcome ultimately is, it's cool.

speaker-1 (49:17)
Yeah, and it's funny and I look at the time, it's been 49 minutes we've been on here tonight and had this thought process of like, Hey, this is gonna be like a 30 ish minute podcast. Not because I wanted to keep it short or we wanted to keep it short. I'm like, let's test something out.

But God has truly been in this conversation and hopefully it's been a very consistent ride of just lots of good stuff. So hopefully if you're watching, you're catching all this stuff, you're feeling it, you're hearing it, because that's what we want. And we want every episode to filled that way. So hopefully we turn a corner and maybe how this is pitched, because we didn't spend, I mean, it was a couple of minutes of just shooting the breeze, right? But like now these are like the real conversations. And I hope that...

Each and every one moving forward, we get into this a little differently. Yep. Yep. Appreciate you. Appreciate you guys. All on socials. We still got the same thing. Still making it all happen. I promise we'll have bourbon back. just, we didn't have it tonight. It's been a long day. It's late. It's later than.

speaker-0 (50:03)
It was good. Good to be back.

It's late. If

you would have gave me bourbon, I would have been sleeping on your couch. ⁓

speaker-1 (50:20)
It's

a mess over there. He would have cleaned it up before. Super excited, you guys. This is not the St. Patty's Day episode. We're still going to do one of those. You guys got to peep the hat. Dad Gang coming in strong here with a sick hat. Had to get that. the... it cool, but always. But nonetheless, I'm just excited, man. I'm pumped about just the future, where this is going. Absolutely. All right. Check us out, guys. Thanks. it out. Have a good one.

speaker-0 (50:23)
I would have cleaned up, yeah.