How to Lead Your Family When You Don't Feel Like a Leader

 Most men want to lead their families well, but too many believe they have to feel confident before they can step into that role. In this episode of the True Man Podcast, Mike Van Pelt exposes that lie, unpacks the biblical foundation of authentic leadership, and introduces the 9 Marks of a Restored Man, giving every husband and father a practical roadmap to lead his family with courage, character, and conviction. #truemanpodcast 

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mike@truemanlifecoaching.com 

https://www.americanfamilyrenaissance.org/ 

Order Mik’s New Book, True Man True Ways – A Roadmap of Discovery to the Masculine Heart 

https://www.americanfamilyrenaissance.org/truemanlifecoaching/books/true-man-true-ways/ 

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Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:01

Welcome to the True Man Podcast. This is an invitation to radical reconstruction of a man's masculine heart and soul in a place of safe community where we dare to ask questions deep-seated inside a man and explore ways to help you become a better man, a better son, a better dad, and a better spouse. How are you doing? Thank you for being here again this week on the True Man Podcast. What an honor to have you along for the ride right here in the middle of these hot days of summer. Man, I love the summer months, but you gotta admit, it's pretty smoking hot out there. We have uh tapped in around 100 degrees here in northwest Arkansas over the last couple of days. Looks like there are a few more days of it. And judging by the national maps, you're all experiencing a little heat. But you know, I want to encourage you. It's hot out there. Make sure you stay hydrated. If you want to know how you can stay better hydrated, reach out to me. Uh, I've got one of the most amazing uh nutrient-dense food drinks in the marketplace. More on that down the road, but I couldn't help but mention it there. But if you really want to know how to stay healthy and hydrated, um seriously, reach out to me. But uh, you know, stay hydrated while you're out there and go exploring God's uh out, get outside and explore what God's got for you outside. I think this is critically important to our health. We need to be taking better care of our temple. I was out walking around in a public place yesterday, and and it it's amazing to me uh the how many people are just flat out not taking a care of themselves. And really, listen, we have so many opportunities to do that now. There's really no excuse. Uh you you you don't want to be up at the hospital any sooner than you have to. And uh I if you're anything like me, I've got so many things I'm grateful for to live for. Um and we need to take care of our bodies, and we can we can do that. We can do that. So make sure you're taking care of your temple and enjoying the summer months at the same time. Well, welcome to podcast number 249, how to lead your family when you don't feel like a leader. I think this is an important topic to touch on uh because it's something that that uh uh comes up. And I think it's a I think it's more of a confidence issue, I think it's more of a knowledge issue. It's not something that we talk about often enough or really teach often enough. So we're heading towards uh episode 250. Well, uh what an important year. Wow, America celebrates 250, the true man podcast celebrates 250. So I'm looking forward to bringing you to that show. A lot of things we're gonna roll out on that show. Uh in fact, I'm going to touch on uh one specific thing here today. But let's dive into the podcast and talk about being a leader for your family. And as I begin, I want to tell you about a man that I sat down with not long ago. He's in his mid-40s, a good man, a provider. He shows up in life, which is half the battle most of the time. He did he does things right by most measures. And he looked across the table at me and he said something I've heard from a hundred different versions of, really, from a hundred different men. He said, Mike, uh, I want to lead my family. I know I'm supposed to, but half the time I don't even feel like I know what I'm doing. How I'm supposed to lead people when how am I supposed to do it when I can barely lead myself, get myself together. And uh I looked up at him, I said, brother, that feeling, that feeling you have, that's not disqualification. You just don't throw in the towel. In fact, that there's there's something to it, and that's the beginning of something. Because here's a lie that is keeping more men passive than about any other lie, and there are a lot of them. It's the lie that leadership is a feeling that real leaders feel confident or more confident than everybody else. They feel equipped, they feel ready. That the man who hesitates, who looks at his family and feels the weight of the responsibility, and honestly isn't sure he's up to it all, that man should step back and wait until he figures it all out. Now, you don't want to be that guy. That is actually not how leadership works, by the way. That is not how God calls men, and today we're going to dismantle that lie completely. How do you lead your family when you don't feel like a leader? That's what we're getting into right now. So let's go. So I want to talk about that feeling trapped and uh why waiting for ready is the real trap here in life. So let's talk about that with a real life situation. So the kid, your kids need direction, but the house is chaotic and you don't know where to start. So you default to your wife who's exhausted from carrying on more than she should have to carry around, and you tell yourself you'll step up when things settle down. But guess what? Things well, they never settle down, do they? Or the marriage is drifting, you can feel it, and you know something needs to change, but initiating the hard conversations feels a little risk. You're not sure that you're equipped to take it on, so you wait, and the drift continues. Or your son is struggling and you see it, you see the pain, and you see the confusion. It looks familiar, and and it's something in you know he needs his father to walk toward him right now. But you don't know what to say, you don't feel like you have the words, so you stay at the edge of it all, hoping he comes to you. This is the feeling trap, and it operates on a simple seductive logic. Wait until you feel ready, wait until you feel equipped, wait until you feel confident. Now, the problem is that the feeling never comes first. You see, feelings follow action, confidence follows commitment, and clarity follows movement. The man who waits to feel like a leader before he leads will spend his life waiting, and his family will spend their life with a man who's almost there, but never quite present. Now, I want you to hear this clearly. The most important leadership decisions you will ever make will almost always be made in the absence of full confidence, full clarity, full readiness. Did you hear that? In the absence of full confidence, full clarity, and full readiness. Now, you see, this is not a flaw in the system. Oh no. This is the system. Let me give me an example, a biblical one. You see, Joshua didn't feel ready when to lead the Israelites when Moses died. He was terrified. And God's response was not, well, get your confidence together, brother. It was be strong and courageous. In fact, he said it to him four times. Don't be do not be afraid, do not be discouraged, for the Lord your God will be with you wherever you go. Yes. Be strong and courageous. Move. I'll be with you on the way. That friend is the model. That is how God equips leaders, not before the step, but through it. So here's the question I want you to sit with. Where in your family right now are you waiting to feel ready before you lead? Name the specific situation because that is exactly where you need to move into first. So you may be asking yourself, what does real family leadership look like? Well, let me start with this. I'll tell you what family leadership is not. It is not having all the answers. It is not being the loudest voice in the room. How's that working for you? It is not dominating every decision or running the household like a command center. You won't pull it off. I've seen that version of leadership up close. Men who controlled everything, demanded compliance, projected authority, and what it produced in their children was not respect. It was fear and distance and eventually rebellion. I think we've all seen that, if not in our own house, somebody else's. Real family leadership is something quite different. It's quieter, more costly, and far more powerful. Here's the definition I keep coming back to. One I believe is rooted in the standard God actually calls men to be. A leader is the person whose presence makes the people around him more of who they're supposed to be. Let me read that one more time. A leader is the person whose presence makes the people around him more of who they're supposed to be. Not whose presence controls people, whose presence releases them. A father whose presence makes his kids more confident, more honest, more secure, more themselves. A husband whose presence makes his wife feel known, valued, covered, and free to be who God made her to be. Friends, that's a happier place. That is the mark of real leadership. Not the performance of authority, it is the fruit of it. And I want to connect this to something because over the years of working with men, I've come to believe that real family leadership is not built on personality type or natural gifting. It's built on character. And character, real tested, consistent character, is built one decision at a time in the ordinary moments of the ordinary days. It's built when you lead with sacrifice instead of self-interest, and when you stand firm in hard circumstances instead of folding under pressure. When you bring calm into chaos instead of adding to it, when you control your reactions instead of weaponizing them against the people you love, you're gaining momentum. These are not personality traits, these they are uh disciplines, they are marks, they are things a man builds deliberately, repeatedly over time until they become who he is. And here's what I want you to understand. These marks are available to every man in this conversation, not just the naturally strong ones, whatever that is, not just the ones who had a great father model, every man who is willing to do the honest daily work of becoming who his family needs him to be. So let me ask you something. If the people in your home were asked to describe the kind of leader you are today, not the leader you intend to be, not the leader you were five years ago, what would they say? And is there a gap between that answer and the man you know you're called to be? So I want to introduce something to you today, not as an advertisement, as a resource, something that I believe in deeply and have poured a significant part of my time and life into building over the last few weeks and months. In fact, I next week, we, as I mentioned earlier, we're gonna roll out the 250th podcast. And um, I'm gonna speak directly into what's coming um uh in next week, but here's a taste. I like to call this the standard of a restored man. And before I tell you what it is, let me tell you why it exists. Because one of the things I hear most consistently from men who want to lead their families better is this I don't know what the standard is. Nobody ever gave me the code. I want to lead well, but lead by what? According to what? With what as my measuring stick, a lot of what's in there. So I believe that question deserves a real answer. Not a motivational poster. You don't read those anymore anyway, not a list of productive productivity hacks, or plenty of those online, a real biblically grounded, practical practical, applicable standard that a man can hold himself to, and that his family can feel. So here's what we built the standard of a restored man is organized, what we call the nine marks of a restored man. And each mark is anchored not in a man code, but in the fruit of the spirit from Galatians chapter 5, verses 22 and 23. God's design for man expressed through the lens of masculine leadership. So, what I want to do today is I want to walk you through all nine. And as I name them, I want you to do something. I want you to put down everything you're doing right now, and I just want you to focus on me, focus on my voice, and I want you to listen for the one mark that lands the hardest, the one where you feel the most resistance or the most conviction. Because that one is probably where the most important work is waiting for you. So, Mark One is a man he leads with sacrifice. This is anchored in love. The man who does not ask what he gets, but what they need. Sacrificial leadership is love and action, not a feeling, but a decision made daily. Mark two, he stands firm. This is anchored in joy. His strength is rooted deeper than how things are going. He is the anchor when the family needs steadiness, not because he has all the answers, but because he refuses to collapse. Mark three, he brings calm into chaos. This is anchored in peace. When pressure rises, his presence brings peace, not fear. A father's nervous system regulates his families. He is a stabilizing force, not one that adds pressure. Mark four, he controls his reactions. This is anchored in patience. He listens, he thinks, then he responds with intention. The pause between trigger and response is where a leader is built. Mark five, he treats people with strength and care. Well, this is anchored in kindness. His presence makes people better, not smaller. A man's words either build or diminish his family over time. There is no neutral. Mark six, he does what is right, even when no one sees. This is anchored in goodness. Who he is in private matches, who he is in public. The integrity gap always surfaces eventually in this character or in his children. Mark seven, he is a man others can count on. This is anchored in faithfulness. He consistently builds trust, and trust builds legacy. Faithfulness is rare and therefore one of the most valuable things that a man can offer. Mark eight, he operates with strength under control. This is anchored in gentleness. You see, a real strength doesn't shout, it stands. Power and force are not the same. Meekness is not weakness, it is strength yielded in the right direction. And finally, Mark 9. He masters himself daily. This is anchored in self-control. If he cannot lead himself, he cannot lead his family. Self-discipline is the great multiplier of every other strength. There it is. Nine marks, nine disciplines rooted in the nine fruits of the spirit. And here's what I want you to feel right now this is not a standard design to condemn you. It is a standard design to call you forward, to give you a code, a real biblical, masculine code that you can hold yourself to every single day. So I ask you to listen for the one that hit the hardest. Which one was it? And what would it mean for your family if you moved toward that mark specifically starting this week? Now, I want to give you a heads up about something because for men who hear what I just described and feel something stir, something that says, I want that. I want that standard in my life. I want to walk through something like that with other men who are serious about becoming who their families need them to be. Well, I want you to know that something is coming. The American Family Renaissance is preparing something for men who are ready to stop drifting and start building. I can't give you all the details yet, but I want you to stay close because it's coming here within the next week, because we're putting together, what we're putting together is specifically designed for the man who is done with generic self-improvement content and ready for real, structured 12-week journey through the standard of a restored man with other men in a community with accountability and brotherhood built into every session. This is going to be a 12-week course, 11 weeks to build the man, a 12-week final week where we build the house. This is for the man who looked at those nine marks and felt the weight of them and the hope of them at the same time. So keep your eyes on the True Man podcast and American Family Renaissance.org because something is coming next week that I believe is going to change the trajectory of families. So stay right where you are. Tune in next week. We're going to roll this out, and you can go out to American Family Renaissance.org right now and get a pretty big taste of what's to come. So let me bring this home. You don't lead your family when you feel like a leader. You lead your family because they need you to. And because God has called you to. And because the alternative is just this aimless drift that's going on everywhere. And drift is not neutral. It is a direction and it's downstream. So here's what I want you to take away from today. Leadership is not a personality type. It's not reserved for naturally confident, the naturally articulate, the men who've had great fathers and great models. It is a daily decision to show up, to bring sacrifice instead of self-interest, steadiness instead of instability, integrity instead of performance, presence instead of instead of just running from your family. And that decision made day after day, in ordinary moments when nobody's watching and nothing feels particularly heroic. Well, that's that builds a family. That's what makes a family last. A marriage that holds children who grow up and carry something into the world worth carrying. You don't have to feel ready. You just have to move. Not the man who had it all together, the man who chose them every day, even on those days it cost him. That is what a restored man looks like. Friends, that is the standard. And it is available to you. It's available to you. We just gave it to you. And if you want more of it, you're welcome to reach out now. We're going to open this tool up here very, very soon, working on all the pieces and components of it. And uh I'm excited, really, really excited to roll this out this fall. And you're going to hear me talking about a lot about it in the coming weeks. So if this episode stirred something inside you, share it with a man who needs a standard to live by, wants to learn how they can raise the bar and have a standard in their life, in their family's life. You see, that man is closer than you think. Well, thank you for listening to the True Man Podcast today. I hope you enjoyed the 249th episode of the True Man podcast. I'm just amazed and blown away. It's just so grateful that God has given me this platform. And don't mistake this. I hear a lot of people tell me, Mike, you're doing a, you know, you do a great job. All of this, all of this, every bit of it comes through the Holy Spirit. Let there be no doubt. Let there be no doubt. Well, thank you for listening to the True Man Podcast. If you enjoyed this episode, please go out and leave me a great review on your favorite podcast channel. Go out and check out American Family Renaissance.org. If you want to hop on my calendar, feel free to do that. You can send me an email at Mike at TrueManLifeCoaching.com. I just love hearing from you guys and learning from you guys. This is what builds the content. You're helping build the content and creating the curation of the American Family Renaissance and helping to change lives everywhere and help men be the best that they can be. God bless you. Thank you for listening. Can't wait to see you next week on the 250th episode of the True Man Podcast. God bless. Go out and have your best day ever.