162 Becoming The Man My Family Needed

Ever feel like your day doesn’t match your values? That was my wake-up call after a year and a half away from my family. Distance exposed how distractions had taken the front seat while the roles that matter—husband, father, educator—sat in the back. I came home and rebuilt my life with a routine that survived busy days, sick days, and low-motivation days. The first results changed everything, and once the fruits showed up, the commitment became easy.

We break down a simple 8-8-8 framework: eight hours for sleep, eight for work or school, and eight that decide your future. Those last hours are where most people lose themselves to screens and noise. I share how I trimmed the waste, set non-negotiables, and treated communication like a craft, just like athletes treat practice. We talk compounding effort, patience, and the moment discipline stops feeling like punishment and starts feeling like freedom. The goal is not to chase hustle; it’s to align your actions with what—and who—you care about most.

Working in education turned every day into a live workshop. I show how feedback from students and families sharpened my words and timing, and why reflection after mistakes protects your time from repeat costs. For parents and mentors, we offer four daily pillars to teach kids early: communication, activity, diet, and emotional intelligence. Build these rhythms and you raise the standard at home without speeches or lectures. If you dislike your job, we outline how to use those final hours to build something with your name on it so your effort accrues to you, not just your employer.

If you’re ready to become “so good they can’t ignore you,” start with one non-negotiable tonight and keep it for a thousand days. Subscribe for more grounded tools on discipline, family, and purpose, share this with someone starting fresh, and leave a review with the first habit you’ll lock in.

Transcript

Why The Routine Finally Clicked

Practice, Mastery, And Professional Standards

Reordering Priorities After Time Abroad

Results, Non‑Negotiables, And Identity

The Three Blocks Of Eight Hours

Students, Self‑Belief, And Learning From Mistakes

Patience, Compounding Effort, And Mastery

Build Your Own Path Outside The Job

Teach Kids Communication, Activity, Diet, Emotion

Challenge To Start And Stay Consistent

Closing Mantras And Daily Focus

SPEAKER_00 0:12

What up, though? And welcome back to I'm Growin' Man. It's your man John D in the building. So today's uh Today's topic is me sharing what my wife helped me helped me uncover on how I got so I guess you could say disciplined on this path and I'm gonna try to break it down as the way she did it for me. And now, mind you, I've been telling you guys I've been on this journey and I've been sticking to this routine, which I have been, but people don't understand why did I continue to do it. So she helped me understand why I did it. And and you know, this is what I want everybody to know. If you know the why and you understand the why, it is a different understanding. Like I don't maybe that didn't make sense. This is what I'm like my wife, she understands math and she does not live in the world of math at all. She she works, she's a public servant uh in public health. Um so she doesn't deal with math on a regular basis, but she can do some math without too much help. And I'm and I'm not talking about basic arithmetic, I'm talking about real math. Uh and the reason why I know this is because my kids were in high school and my daughter's in college now, but the way that she helped them, and it was it was like without a refresher, I got a degree in math and I gotta look at things, and I'm like, but what we determined is that she understands the language of math. And I've been trying to figure out when did she when did it click? And because you know, that's that's awesome when you like she's just that cold in math. But anyways, um when did it click for me is because I saw the results. Like when my family came back uh to the United States, I was I was abroad for a year and a half. I came home during breaks, but I was gone separated from my family. At that point, I had to figure it out. Like, I needed a routine with my life where I'm working on something. If you look at NBA players, I think I talked about it in the last episode. They've been practicing for so long. All professional athletes have been practicing, they've been putting that work in. So that's the reason why it's so easy to pay them that much money because they're that good. But everybody could become that good in something if they put the work in like they did in a specific sport. And that's when it clicked for me. I was like, I used to be like, why couldn't I have this or that? I didn't work hard enough like they did. Like, like the comedians who get all of this money, they are cold at what they do. And to be that cold means they had to put work in. And it comes with a routine. Like, it's it's a blessing to do what I do to work on my routine because I get to work with students and I get to practice in real time on communication because my goal is to give them everything I got for them to realize they're that important due to the circumstances they may be in, you know, growing up in. So I know that I'm not there, but I'm planting seeds, and I'm gonna be there for them to always, you know, where they may need me. And I and I and I mean that sincerely because in order for a community to change, there has to be some type of trust that the information that they're getting is good enough for them to do whatever they want with it. But we have to get into the mindset that we have to grow together. So when I was abroad for a year and a half, I created this routine. Every time I went back home, you know, like the relationship with my wife and then my kids, it changed. It was starting to look differently because before my the things that distracted me was more important than what I thought was important. Like my family, my wife, my kids, they're supposed to be important to me, right? But they were on a back burner to going out, watching the game, uh, going to a house party, doing any and everything where I am living my best life while my family was being a family outside of me. But as a man, as a man, I'm thinking that they're happy. Everything is cool, and I'm having, I'm living my life. I didn't know what it looked like to like to grow with my family. I just I didn't know, I had no idea. So when I started to create this routine and to work on communication and try to figure out all the blind spots I got as a young man maturing into a man, I realized how immature I was in so many different areas. As a very seasoned adult man, by the age of 40, I was very immature still, you know. Um, but by the age of 41, I was I was blessed enough to have some reflections where I could get to this point where I'm telling you about this routine. And this routine, like I said, the routine gave me results that I was, I was really happy for. After I saw the results, I I kind of committed for the rest of my life that I would just do that because I was like, if I did that much in such a short period of time, what could I do for the rest of my life? So now, five years later, like I understand why having non-negotiables to have the motivation to say, I'm gonna be the best husband, the best father, the best communicator ever, because these three things nobody cares about. And I feel like every man should care about those titles. You know, not against me, but to yourself, because the better you become, the better your family becomes. Like, the way you move could determine if your family's gonna get to the next level. Like, we have we're following poor messages where, and this episode was not to be negative. We're not gonna do that. I'm just thinking about some things that's going on in the news, and as a man, we need to make better decisions. That's it. And the way that you could really make better decisions is isolating your eight hours that that's to you. Like, so eight hours of sleep, you have to put that away. That's with body maintenance, you know, you got to get your sleep. Eight hours at work, uh, or people that go to school. That's eight hours you got to give away to you're giving it away to a company or you're working for yourself. If you are working for yourself, that is the best eight hours you can really do because you're supposed to fail in so many areas to know how not to fail. So if you're doing that, I commend you. You have to truly believe in yourself to take that route because that is by far one of the most difficult routes to find what you want. But those who do find that, you deserve everything you get. So, students, the eight hours you're given to school is to learn as much as you can from those adults in that building. Those are the most intelligent adults at period, at one time in a building, just there to help you find ways to move through life. And if you if you can learn to focus and believe that you can learn the information, you're gonna open up doors that it's worth believing in yourself. I'm telling you, students, all over, if you don't think you're important, you won't do the right thing. If you believe you're important, you will learn to do the right thing. You know, you're gonna make mistakes. The key to making mistakes is learn. Why did you have the mistake? Did you not have enough information? Was it uh completely new? Somebody misled you, but it's gonna give you an experience to prevent that from happening again. If you do not think and reflect, the mistake could occur again and waste your time and next time have a different kind of consequence that you don't even want. So please be mindful of that. So my motivation through the last five years was to just find a really literally a better version of myself that my kids could appreciate, that my wife could say, like, this is the reason why I got married. That, like, you know, I like I said, I know people that are married that are not in place in the place that me and my wife are, but these podcasts is like a way for me to kind of just like give my thoughts on how I know we got here. Because I told, I told her, I told my friends too. It was if there's anything I could give to the world is the way that I'm thinking about the relationship with my wife now. Because I didn't know I could think like this and the way that I care about her, it I feel like every man will want to feel the way that I feel about my wife toward their partner. Because when you can feel the way that I feel toward my wife, you don't have time to make any mistakes from distractions. Making mistakes through distractions, you don't have enough time because working on yourself is a full-time job. And you don't even have eight hours to do it because eight hours, like I said, for work, school, and sleep. These last eight hours, what are you doing with it? I hear people playing video games, people, you know, watching movies, watching videos. Like those are minutes in the day that you're wasting where you could be working on yourself just like those athletes was putting them hours to go professional so that they can make enough money to do what they want. But imagine you could do that at any age in something that you want to do it in. You just have to put the work in. Like there's a level of mastery of self that brings fruits that I don't even know if mankind knows about it for real. Because it would be more people there. So I'm telling you, if you believe in yourself, put the work in. The journey is necessary. The journey, you know what the journey is? It's how much more work can I put in myself to so I can see a different result. Because I'm already believing that I am important. Keep putting in the work. Where can I find some more time? But then after you get like use, like you start maximizing on your time, this is what happens. You just have to be patient and enjoy the process. Because there's a there's an interest rate I can't, where it does the exponential, like after a certain amount of time, it just separates you from people. Like with professional athletes, like there's just a certain amount of hours that people are committed that your average, no above average basketball player has no idea about. Even your excellent basketball player, it takes a different type of mindset to be able to perform on a professional level. People's like they pay all them, pay all that money because they've invested so much time into the sport that they're getting their just due. And, you know, I don't think they're getting enough anyway, because that's a lot of wear and tear on the body. You know, uh people say they're setting up for, you know, uh for generations to come. I don't know if people know how to do that yet, you know. Um, but I'm not gonna, this is not about being negative, this is about creating a routine that can create a different version of you that you are more than proud of because you did the work. You know what you did to get there. And then once you understand the work it takes, it's all about giving it to your kids. And I just pray uh that some of these students that I get to talk to on a daily basis that once this, once I guess I'm growing, man, takes off, like I'm gonna still work because I want my students to know that it's possible. And once that happens, there's going to be a different level of work that is gonna take to that can go to the next level, if that makes sense. Like the the the the standard is gonna be you have to put the work in. It's not like I don't know what it takes. If you don't put the work in, you won't ever know what it takes. And nobody's really gonna like be over you unless you have parents that's gonna push you at an early age. But think about this. Those of you that are adults and you work for people and you don't like your job, think about the eight hours you use when you get out of work. You don't like your job, so you want to escape. You you could be really working on yourself, working on something. So by the time you get done with your job, like when you're added up to whatever, you've already started working on something else. But it's yours. You put the work in, you could create your own everything, but you have to put the work in. Most times people are putting in work for another company to get better. Just imagine all that time you put into a company to get better, if you were putting it into you. And that's why I say it's a blessing that I'm in education because me working on communication, I get to practice with students and parents, colleagues, every single day. And at some point, I believe I'm gonna break the code. Like, and when I say the code, I mean like the right words that make a student say, I get it now. And and I think every kid wants that, you know, you don't wanna they say you're 18, you're an adult, but that's that's just legally. You're you're still immature. You know, I believe you probably you shouldn't be an adult until you're about 25, 26. And I was still immature at that point, but I'm just saying, like, you haven't lived enough life at 18 to say that you know what's going on. You can stay out of trouble, but at the end of the day, you're still a kid. And I just pray that w whenever, however old you are, when you get any of these messages, you can't get it if you don't put the work in. That's it. Like, I see that I used to watch these videos of how people are supposed to like get rich and just be like, they're gonna show you how to make money. And I'm like, at the end of the day, you have to put your you have to put a certain amount of hours in for you to get that type of reward. And you have it. Like your biggest reward is you're getting is the company you work for because you're putting all those hours into a company like that. And I'm not saying like you, it's it's cool to work for a company, but in your eight hours, you should be working on something that's yours so that you don't just continue to do that and wait for retirement. Because the sooner you start working on yourself, your own business, it will develop. But you have to put the routine in place and put the work in every single day, no matter what. You're sick, sleepy, tired, overwhelmed, non-negotiables need to be completed. And when I realized the eight hours, what I was doing, when I started to remove the things out of my eight hours and started to dedicate, like, I'm gonna put this time into this, I I noticed the results. Like, no, like I do believe people enjoyed working with me in my past. But now I feel like people really enjoy working with me. And the only uh credit has to be that I intentionally made that happen because I wanted to be a better admin, a better educator. Because I did come back as a teacher. But now at this point, like I want to be able to help a family change its trajectory from some words because they weren't gonna get it from anybody else. And and I'm not saying this to be arrogant or anything, but my goal is to give my life experiences to these kids through a few settlers that could potentially put their family at least in a place where they could be happier. Because I I've noticed from experience and watching that people could stay at a low place because they don't know that it's a low place. Like, they're they can shoot high, but if you don't, if you can tolerate the place that you're in, you won't get out of it. You have to want to get out of the place to get into a new place. And the only way you can do that is by believing you deserve it. And you know, they say life's not fair, but that's an opinion. You know, when I when I think about life, everybody's is has their own circumstances. And it's your job to figure your own out and not worry about others, because when you worry about others and what others are doing, you're wasting time that could be dedicated to you and your growth. As soon as people truly believe in putting in the work, when people get addicted to putting in the work, the world will change. And I don't, I don't, I think people will use their superpowers for good for sure. Uh I don't know why. They would use it for bad because I think once you put you work on yourself, you start to understand why people do what they do. So if people actually worked on themselves and not worried about, you know, other people or the things around them, they wouldn't have time to be worried about things that don't matter because they would be working on themselves. Even at a young age. Like if you could get your kids to believe in themselves and say, hey, okay, you can be a kid, but you got to do this, this, and this every single day for the rest of your life. And what I my my suggestions, communication, activity, diet, and emotional intelligence. Cade, if your kids could master that by the age of 25, I do believe that they would enjoy a journey that less than 0.00001% of mankind has experienced. That's the honesty guy truth. Because I just don't hear, I don't hear people talk like that. So I challenge you. Um if you're up for challenges, become so cold and something that people can't ignore you. I can't think of his name. Uh, because I don't I that that's not mine. Uh be so good that they can't ignore you. I think it's Cal Newport, I think, something like that. But like, you're not that good. So become that code where your job is no longer a choice. It's if I want to. Because when you when you put work into something that's yours, you hold it differently. But if you don't have anything to hold, you're gonna dedicate all of your time into something that's unnecessary for your growth process. So I challenge you, go get it. Today is the best day to start a series of consecutive thousands of days in a row that you work on yourself and watch your fruits come in ways that you can't imagine because you haven't done it yet. Y'all make today better than yesterday. Don't worry about anything you can't control. G A T A. Get after that action, or that action will get after you. Be great on purpose. Um