Episode 45: Dad Accountability for Dads - Why Fathers Need to Own Their Wins Too

Why is it so easy for dads to name every mistake they have made but so difficult to admit when they are doing a good job?

In Episode 45 of The Dad Edit, Andrew, Ryan, and Jeff have a raw and honest conversation about accountability for fathers and why accountability should include more than owning our failures. Good dads also need to recognize their growth, effort, patience, consistency, and the quiet wins nobody else sees.

The guys explore why fathers often minimize their accomplishments, why pride can feel like arrogance, and how negative self-talk can affect men’s mental health. They discuss learning from mistakes without constantly tearing yourself down, celebrating small parenting wins, supporting other fathers, and teaching children to recognize their own progress.

Because being a good father is not about being perfect. It is about showing up, learning, adjusting, and trying again.

This episode also introduces the Dad Spotlight, an upcoming short-form interview series created to highlight real fathers from all walks of life. No perfect parenting. No polished highlight reels. Just honest conversations about fatherhood, family, personal growth, challenges, wins, lessons, and the everyday reality of being a dad.

If you are looking for one of the best podcasts for dads who want real, unfiltered conversations about parenting, fatherhood, marriage, identity, community, and men’s mental health, this episode is for you.

You should own the moments when you get it wrong but, you should also be honest enough to recognize when you are growing. 

You are doing better as a father than you think.

Follow The Dad Edit on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and wherever you listen to podcasts. Share this episode with a dad who needs to hear it, join the Dad Edit community, or message us to share your story through an upcoming Dad Spotlight.

Transcript

SPEAKER_02 0:00

Hey, before we jump in, I have a quick favorite ask. If you listen to this podcast and enjoy these conversations, please follow us wherever you listen. Spotify, Apple, wherever it is. It genuinely helps push the podcast out and reach more dads who might need to hear it. We really appreciate the support. We're also running a dad walk every third Saturday of the month at Kiwanas Park in London, Ontario. The walk starts at 11 a.m. sharp. Come out, walk, talk, and connect. There's no pressure, no speeches, just real conversations. All right, let's get into it. The dad at an episode 45. Dad accountability for dads. Why fathers need to own their wins as well. When people talk about accountability for fathers, the conversation usually focuses on our mistakes. What are dads doing wrong? Where are they falling short? What do we need to improve upon? And to be fair, accountability matters. But good fathers shouldn't just own their failures, their reactions, their shortcomings. There's another side to accountability that I think almost never gets talked about. Owning your growth, owning your effort, owning the good you're doing too. Because a lot of dads immediately admit where they're struggling, but they freeze when they're asked, what are you proud of? And maybe that imbalance matters more than we really realize. In this episode, I want to talk about why fathers struggle to acknowledge their wins, why so many dads minimize the good that they do, why accountability shouldn't only apply to failure. Let's get into it. I can say quickly where I feel I failed the most in the last 16 months with Lincoln. I can do that instantly. I don't know if I could explain quickly what my wins are with him. Aside from like he's still alive, he seems reasonably normal, he's not skinny, he's a thick boy. I I don't know what I could call a fatherhood win right now in this moment, right? Why do we do that? Why are we not just as proud at owning the successes in general in life, I think, as men, as we are the failures of it.

SPEAKER_01 2:43

I don't know the answer to that, but I can say this. We need to start normalizing, giving each other our flowers in every fucking aspect. I just think that um the way we were raised, it's the expectation it's a man's world. We're just supposed to show up and make it happen. But that's something that we as a society has we made normal. Now it's our turn as a community to start fucking making the little ones fucking the flower givers too. They it matters, man, but you know, self-recognition sometimes feels so uncomfortable. Same thing like self-talk is fucked up sometimes, but we train ourselves to be a positive outlook on it.

SPEAKER_02 3:28

And that's the thing, self-talk is primarily negative, yeah. Right? When I think about how I, you know, I look at myself in the mirror, it's not often I'm like, dang, bro, you are killing it. 100%. It's like shit, I'm a little porky, my shoulders are a little like fuck. I don't got abs or oh, my fucking face is weird. Yeah, it's never like, damn, bro, like you've been consistent, you're crushing.

SPEAKER_01 3:53

Something that's something you have to fucking consciously do, bro. Like, it's so easy to fucking be negative, but it when when you put in the work, you come with a plan and you consciously want to improve your self-talk, you'll fucking improve, man.

SPEAKER_02 4:07

Like, but I feel like like you know, uh if it's negative, then you're being uh you're demonstrating humility, right? And that's what we hide behind is like if I'm not if I'm proud of myself that I'm cocky, yeah. Right? And we're taught to be, you know, if I say I'm a phenomenal boss and employee, and I crush my job and I'm a great fucking dad and I'm a good friend and an amazing fucking partner, I'm cocky, I'm arrogant. What you're just perfect? No, I fuck up a lot. That's why I'm so good. You know how many times I fail and how quickly I fail at work. You know how quickly I fucking recover. That's what makes me good because I fucked up so many things at work, I'm very good. I make decisions like that. We've spoken about, you know, one of my biggest weaknesses as a boss is I'm too quick to solve things. Yeah, I don't allow other people to grow because I'm just solving the problems. I have to stop. Use that to teach them how to solve quickly, don't solve quickly for them. But that feels cocky to say. I feel like I'm being arrogant, I feel like that's too much ego. I feel like fuck, I'm my head's not gonna fit through the doorway. But why am I not proud of where I am? Or why does it feel so wrong to be proud of where I am? You know what I mean? I'm not playing any kind of race card, but as a male, as a white male, I'm privileged. That doesn't mean that I didn't fucking struggle to be where I'm at. And I will admit though, most of my struggle was self-caused. I did a lot of shit to myself that stopped me. But like as men, we're not allowed to be proud of where we are. Ryan, you're where you are because you're a male. That's why. And it it almost robs you of that. And you're like, you're right. I've I'm you know, I'm actually a piece of shit. I don't treat people the way I should. There's always this improvement, and you know, I maybe that's like a growth-minded person, yeah. Um, to always be striving for more. Or I feel like too easily we get told by society that if if you're proud of who you are, you're just cocky.

SPEAKER_01 6:23

Man, go against the grain. Fuck it. Go against the fucking grain. You are creating this, you are the the leader and not the tale. This is the your world that you've been blessed with. Normalize giving yourself flowers. Listen, beating yourself down, not acknowledging the the greatness that you are creating is to gonna deplete you. You're not gonna show up for your job the way you're supposed to. Normalize giving yourself the flowers. Fuck what society says, bro. And I'm keeping it real simple and I'm throwing that out there. Go against the grain. Yo, my wife does a great job with acknowledging the shit I do. So I'm not gonna be fearful, I'm not gonna be embarrassed or be selfish from taking away from my fucking comings. I worked hard for these fucking comings, bro. And I'm not gonna sabotage through self-talk, I'm not gonna sabotage through what society thinks. I'm gonna fucking take in my fucking flowers and I'm gonna normalize that. Sometimes let's not try to fucking figure out why, when, where. Let's create the fucking path that we want and why you know ride that fucking wave. Sorry for cussing so much, but I'm passionate about this, bro. Like, I'm not gonna fall into what you think I should be saying. I'm not gonna fall into that trap of what I what the world thinks I should be saying to myself. No, I'm gonna take this paintbrush and create my fucking wave, my safe space, and understand my shortcomings, but also give myself the flowers. I'll say it again for the little accomplishments because that's gonna keep me fucking going. When the noise stops and no one's there to see it, it's that self-talk that's gonna keep my me going. So I got to normalize it like my life counts on it to big myself up with the small little steps, bro. I did a fucking great job with that situation with that breakdown right there. Yeah, yo, that 10 temperature was wild.

SPEAKER_00 8:33

But yo, I did a fuck, I think I did a I think I did a good job, yo. Pat yourself on the back, bro.

SPEAKER_01 8:38

Normalize that shit. You don't need the cheerleaders neither.

SPEAKER_00 8:43

Fuck the cheerleaders say it out loud too. Maybe that's where you run into the ego versus uh um patting yourself on the back argument. It's like if your self-talk patting yourself on the back, being like, hey, that was difficult, but you did it, and look at how far you've come. Maybe that's the difference there. But uh you said it once before, too, though. Um if you just step back and look at where you were and and your younger self looking at where you are now, your younger self would be proud of how you've grown and improved. So they oh yeah, hell yeah.

SPEAKER_02 9:16

I like that. I like that. I think um I think that's a big thing. I think that you can celebrate your successes, and if asked, you could bring those successes forward. You don't have to run around telling everyone about your successes, you don't have to scream them from a rooftop. Uh, I think that that's where ego starts to come in. Yeah, I think you being proud of what you are, and if someone asks, fucking say it. Do I need to go out and let everyone on the street know how good of a person I am? No, because I think that defeats the purpose, and you're seeking validation. I think that where this conversation goes is uh uh uh the difference between giving yourself the flowers and and the ego and cockiness is how you display it. Yeah, right. And it's important that we give ourselves those flowers that you're be proud of who you are because you are who you are. Fuck what everyone else says about why you feel that way. You're allowed to feel that way, but you still have to be acknowledge where you're at, be proud of where you've come from and where you are now. Um, I think I think it's super important. I think we can't just focus on the negatives. I think that there is a level of I think an individual who is on the right path to growth should feel guilty about things in their life because it means that you're reflecting, yeah, looking back. If you just walk forward thinking, like, yeah, I don't make any fucking mistakes, that's the biggest issue. I think that's where cockiness comes in. Yeah. What does healthy accountability look like? That's a tough one. Yeah, it is tough.

SPEAKER_00 11:01

Oh, knowing when you've you've maybe just look knowing when you might not know the answer to like like what we said in a previous episode is uh like dealing with a teenager and they push back on one of your rules, and you're like, then you gotta stop and think, like maybe, maybe he's right, maybe maybe I need to rethink this rule or something. I don't know.

SPEAKER_02 11:29

Um I think there needs to be uh this is the only area where you need a balance, right? Where you should be just as proud of your wins as you are at owning your losses. So if if we have a conversation about how my week went, I'll tell you first, like I'll fuck because I stopped at work. I fucking I was on my phone a bit too much, isn't really paying attention to my kid, and had an argument with my girl. I didn't I won't tell you any of my wins. Have to. How's your week, man? Bro, I crushed that work where I dealt with this fucking bullshit situation with with a customer. We came out on top, I explained our situation to them. I dug us out of a hole, I handled a quality concern with with some folks. Like it was a stressful week, man, but we came out good. Yeah, we came out real.

SPEAKER_00 12:15

Yeah, you do gotta you gotta remember to list the wins, right? Like as as humans, we're kind of predisposed to just focus in on the negative. Like it's summer, we're complaining about the heat, it's winter, we're complaining about the cold. Like, fuck, man. Like that's just what we do. So, yeah, to purposely um shout out the winds, even if they're small, like hey, I made a home, I I homemade chicken noodle soup that was really good. Fucking hat yourself on the back. Hell yeah. That's a lot of effort that you put in. You didn't just order McDonald's, like even as small as that is better than if you have a shit day, at least you can set focus on that one.

SPEAKER_01 12:55

Like I fucking killed it right there. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 12:59

Uh everything went to shit today, but at least I did like my personal best at the squat rack or whatever. Yeah, man.

SPEAKER_02 13:06

Yeah, I think we're I realize it. Negativity is so easy that you have to practice that. You have to practice, like, okay, he asked me how I'm doing. Let's say something positive first. Because it's just it's so easy, it's so natural. Even when I'm trying to give you examples of positivity, I say I started off with my my week as shit because of these customer complaints and all these problems that I dealt with. We came out on top. Hell yeah. Just start positive. It's so hard, it's so hard to do. Negative speak is just so easy. It's second nature. But to to look at the positive, oh, it's fucking hot out, it sucks. I mean, there ain't snow on the ground. I feel great because the sun's out. Maybe go get a tan. I can take my kid to the beach, I can go enjoy the outside. Or uh, it's so fucking hot out, it sucks. Balls, it's so fucking humid. Uh, it's what the sun's so bright. What do we do? That I think when we look at our wins, we have to ask ourselves what is the difference between pride and arrogance? And I think pride is what we need to do to drive uh uh uh uh giving ourselves the flowers, right? Don't look at it like you're competing or comparing yourself to the rest of everyone else. I feel like when I explain my wins that I'm showing that I'm better than you. Do you know what I mean? And I feel like that's the internal thing. I don't wanna I don't wanna say that I'm winning in this case. Man, I just got a fucking house, I just put a down payment on it, but you don't have a house.

SPEAKER_01 14:42

Why can't you be proud of what you fucking accomplished though, bro? Why can't you be proud of what you accomplished, man? You poured so much to get there. Now you want to sabotage yourself because you don't want to look prideful.

SPEAKER_00 14:55

There's also a tendency, like if you share a win that you'll hear three versions of like negativity come back, like, oh, you say, Hey, I'm going on vacation. Oh, must be nice. Oh, I wish I could do that. Well, you can't oh bro, I did that to you. You prioritized buying a house over here, I'm prioritizing going on a trip over here. And like yours is actually more expensive than mine, but it just looks different.

SPEAKER_02 15:25

Like, yeah, um, I think that's part of why you stopped sharing your wins, is it's a great fucking example because you said, Hey man, I'm I'm doing this. And I went, dang, bro, I'm jealous of that. Like, I wish I wish I was doing that, and it makes you kind of feel like, oh shit, I didn't mean to like make you feel bad because right away you went into like picking me up. You're like, oh, but you're crushing it as a dad, and you're going to the gym and you're doing all these things, and and you're in like you're in the early schools, old and yeah, yeah, yeah. Kids little and young ages, but that makes you not want to then share sometimes, maybe different with our circle.

SPEAKER_01 16:02

But I think that's self-afflicted because what is it to say that by you saying, Man, I wish I could do that. You look you're using Jeff as the example. He's a great fucking father. Now he has time to fucking travel with his kids. Why do we automatically assume that it's like a negative thing? Right? In the background, Andy sees that, he's he respects you for who you are, and plus, man, you're able to fucking go on trips with your kid and build memories. He could use that as self-motivation. Why do we automatically think in our head, like, uh, I don't want him to feel like I'm better than him by saying that I'm going on a trip with my family or whatever, because he's not able to do it right now. Maybe that there is the motivation for fucking Andy to be like, you know what? Hell yeah, I could start putting away a little bit of money for now. Maybe in two years I could be in the same situation as fucking Jeff, because I respect that man. And he used it as an example just to frighness.

SPEAKER_02 16:53

Because you don't frame it that way, right? You never think like Jeff doesn't think by him or centering you out of here, but by by doing something with your family, it is like Ryan saying, I'm like, dang, bro, like Jeff is busy, he's crushing it, the schedule is full, and he's still doing these great things. Like, that's fuck. I wish I was, I wish I was there. I need to step up, I need to get to that rather than you thinking, like, oh shit, I hope Andy doesn't feel like yeah, he's missing out. Yeah, that's a such a good point. Um, and you don't think about that, you don't think about sharing your wins as a way for other people to see, like, shit, I could do that too. How fucking Jeff's going here?

SPEAKER_00 17:29

I can go there. I think you learn who you who's receptive of hearing that stuff too. Like, I would share my wins with you guys before I would share them with say certain people like uh in the community that I'm not as close with who might not who might look at me like, I wish I could do that kind of thing, you know.

SPEAKER_01 17:50

Yeah, but then like Ryan said, fuck uh, you know, Blair's always gonna be the haters out there, but fuck that shit.

SPEAKER_02 17:55

If you're asking about my life, I'm gonna share the good parts of my life too. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Now, can you swing too far? Can you swing into just demonstrating the good parts? Can you fall into it into a trap? Social media.

SPEAKER_01 18:12

Why am I thinking that in my head? You mean you fall into that social media trap, right? Where everything's fucking shiny and awards. Only presentations blessed. You're just not only sabotaging yourself, but you could be sabotaging a close friend or something like that, you know, sabotaging a community by just talking about all the fucking pixie dust. No, the reality of the fact, bro, like there's some downtimes in life, bro, and we just have to train our minds, train our characters, train our spirits to drive through those difficult times with the smile on the face. Because listen, just because you're going through a fucked up time doesn't mean you have to frown through it. You can be going through the most fucked up time, but you by by you training yourself, self-thought, by you training to have a smile on your face through those situations, you're teaching your family, you're teaching your kids how to have, you know, how to be proud through a fucked up situation and how to get through that situation while still being fucking somewhat positive. It doesn't have to be fucking a rainy day for everybody because you're going through some shit. It doesn't mean because you're going through some shit at work that you gotta bring that shit home and they gotta feel shitty. No, we understand that okay, work life, home life. Shitty here doesn't mean it has to be shitty over here. Shitty at home. We as leaders, we understand this fully. You can understand this too, as okay, just because I'm stressed out at home doesn't mean I go to fucking work and make it harder for every individual that's under me.

SPEAKER_00 19:43

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 19:44

And no, you're good. Hello.

SPEAKER_02 19:50

Um we got a little little pause.

SPEAKER_00 19:53

Oh yeah, but you know what? Um those back to the social media with the the the some accounts that I actually really like are the raw ones that don't show just pixie dust all the time, happy, happy, happy. There's a couple creators, especially these two travel creators separately. Um they show like, you know, they're they're traveling to like 60 different countries. It's not a vacation every time. Like they're probably the majority of that sucks. There's some some posts where they just show themselves like balling because it's such a mental like it's not it's an endurance day, man. Like it's needed. It's and it's nice to see that raw side of things, and that's kind of what we're we try to do here is to be raw and open and show like it's not all bubblegum, rainbows, and all that shit all the time. Um, social media, like this guy running 25k and holding down a job and doing the best job as a father, like he's not doing 25k, he's doing like five minutes of video b-roll kind of shit. Right. Like, that's not real. What we're doing is real, what those travel influences are real, and like what you're living is real because that's life, man. Ups, downs, it's raw, hell yeah, messy, hell yeah. Not curated. Sometimes it's okay to just delete your social media, man. I every every other month I've deleted my shit.

SPEAKER_01 21:22

Step away.

SPEAKER_00 21:22

It's not good. Go outside, barbecue something.

SPEAKER_01 21:25

Hell yeah, you gotta step away from all noise in life, man.

SPEAKER_00 21:28

Put your feet in the grass, man.

SPEAKER_02 21:30

I think I think the the key, or at least where the content that I resonate the most with isn't a highlight reel of someone's life. It's celebrating progress. Yes, you know, and if there's one thing this this podcast shows is progress, go back, listen to the first episodes, go to the dad archives, see the early episodes, see what we were trying to do. The vision's there, the mission is is stable throughout, but. I want to celebrate progress. I want to show fatherhood is progress. Fatherhood is watching your kids grow up and achieve milestones and growing with them and adapting to the new season that you're in or the new personality they have, the new friend group that they're with, whatever's coming up. Celebrate progress. I think that that's a massive part of accountability, that you don't need to solely focus on the negative and the wins, but celebrate that the progress. You're gonna have failings. Be accountable to those, learn from those, progress. When you hit a milestone, a win, celebrate your win. Celebrate the little wins that got you there. You know, when when we were all on our fitness journey in the early days of this podcast, we celebrated every time we went to uh a Friday Muay Thai class. Hell yeah. When I went on ran, I celebrated with you guys. When I go, I when I go to the gym now, I reach out, celebrate to you guys. It's to a certain group because I know you guys are you guys reflect that back. Like, hey, good job. Celebrate people that don't give me anything back. Keep that to myself, but you know, be proud, find your community. Like we've said before, man. If y'all want to celebrate wins, reach out to me. I'll celebrate everyone's win with it. Yeah, 100%.

SPEAKER_00 23:16

Let's start a little channel in the Discord just to post your wins for the we just no matter, no matter how small. Yeah, even if you're just like, I made this sick pumpkin pie, it was awesome. Tell us about it. If oh, I just finished an online course, it took me like six hours, and I'm proud of myself for fucking post it there. I'll clap, we'll all cheer, like our hell yeah, too, man. Just do it. It's safe.

SPEAKER_02 23:42

If there's one thing that I've seen in the local community for us, is you know, the barbers, the tattoo artists, the the barbecue boys, they all celebrate each other. Yeah, they are all growing off of each other, they become their own ecosystem of growth. We're tapping into those. Celebrate with your people, man. They will lift you out. We will be your people. Come to the Discord, drop in, uh drop in that you made it through your week. Yeah, man. Yo, men's mental health, making it through your week is a fucking win. And if that's the life that you're in right now, come celebrate with us. I got no problem celebrating the fact that you're still here at the end of the day. Hell yeah. Right? Let us know. Why are small moments so important?

SPEAKER_01 24:34

Because they build up to fucking it's the foundation, bro. You just don't build a house in a day. If they laid a foundation, brick by fucking brick, and there's a struggle within that brick by brick, there's a mental struggle, there's a physical struggle. If one brick is off, bro, that whole foundation's shot. So it's important to celebrate the small things because the small things calculate to be big movements. You start off with just the audio in the kitchen, sitting down, it becomes meeting a community, it becomes supporting other people, it becomes small sponsors sponsorships, it becomes supporting others to be uplifted. The little things always add up. It's corny. We've heard it over and over and over again throughout our lives, but it's it's truth, it's facts. The little things fucking add up to big things. So acknowledge those accomplishments because people feed off of that too. People like to see the end result. Oh, but people want to see the struggle, people want to see the process, people want to know it's fucking real so they can relate to it and understand that they can do it too. The fucking little things, my dude. It's the little things, yeah. And you have to spit those out into the to the community so they can relate to because it's not just the one big move that made made us get here. It's the thousand small moves, it's the network, the networking, it's the creating content when we're fucking tired, it's lifting each other fucking up that gets us to that that milestone. You know, I'm so if you don't want to acknowledge those little things, sometimes it doesn't feel genuine, it doesn't feel real to the community, and it's like fuck, bro.

SPEAKER_02 26:18

Come on, yeah, yeah, you know, but but bro, forget all the the community side, man. Your kids remember this shit. Right? If you are accountable and you celebrate your wins, your kids will remember that. When you celebrate your kids' little wins, they remember that. Big time, right?

SPEAKER_01 26:35

My granddaughter just using the washroom on her own. How old is she? She is three.

SPEAKER_02 26:41

Jesus.

SPEAKER_01 26:42

Go into the washroom, grandpa, poo-poo, boom. While she's there, that's some dust smile. She looks up the smile and the the pride, and like, oh, I did it. Like, bro, that builds something so now. She wants to make sure that she doesn't take a doo-doo or a pee pee in her diaper no more. She wants to, bro. The when they came, like, I was like, okay, uh, she's like, uh, grandpa, uh, go outside. Okay, you want to take a walk? All right, go get your shoes. She goes and gets her shoes. She puts the shoe on the right foot with no fucking help. I bro, I wish someone celebrated me for putting my damn shoes on me.

SPEAKER_00 27:23

Good job, baby. Oh, you know, big deal.

SPEAKER_02 27:28

I had to be like, what? I'm like, yo, Antonio, yo, yo, yo. I'm like, yo, she just put her shoes on me. She's only three.

SPEAKER_01 27:35

Big deal. Good job, Ellie. Like, what? And that smile comes, she takes pride in those things, and now she's gonna understand the little things. I'm gonna acknowledge those things, what you pour in, what you pour in.

SPEAKER_02 27:48

Keep pouring in. Hell yeah. Don't lose that. I think that that's important. I think that we lose that. I think at some point you forget to celebrate the little things, especially with your kid. My kid loves to clean up. Why? Because we fucking celebrate it, unknowingly, right? I'm not doing it because I want him to clean more. I'm just, you know, I'm trying to encourage him. But like I squash a water bottle. When he hears that, he comes running into the room and goes, reaching for it, and I give it to him, and then he runs over to a recycling bin and whips the door open and fires it in there.

SPEAKER_01 28:21

Nice. You know what that turns into? Loves it. You know what that turns into when he's like 11, 12, and he automatically gets up on a Saturday, or he automatically gets up and washes the dishes or does his chores without having to be told he's going to take pride in that because you acknowledge it not the same way when he was young. Yay!

SPEAKER_02 28:40

Links respect, good looks, still give them their props. Hell yeah. That's what has to happen. Because I feel like at a point, and now I say this with a grain of salt, you don't always need to be fucking celebrated for doing normal things. Yeah. But with your family, celebrate them. Don't turn it into a problem so they go to work and they feel like they should get fucking kudos for everything they do at work. No, it's not also the case. Build up their own confidence so they don't need to seek that out. But those little things we stop celebrating. And you, I think that's what influences your mental. I think that's why you stop celebrating your wins, right? And it's those small wins. I feel like the small wins are bigger than or more impactful consistently being celebrated than one big win. Yes, sir. Right? Yes, sir. I want to celebrate you rather than my kid, you know, celebrate necessarily that he made it to the toilet. He told me, Thank you, buddy. Good job. We celebrate those 50, 60 times. Now it's second nature. He brings it to me. Bro, now I'm celebrating that you sat on the toilet. Maybe you're just bringing it to me so that we celebrate. Next celebration is that you're doing it. I think those little things are super important. I want to kind of um shift gears here, uh uh uh and focus on a new segment that we're gonna introduce. Um we want to, we're workshopping an idea that we're gonna be reaching out to the community for, which is introducing a dad spotlight. Um, this is helping us build community through recognition. Yes, we want to celebrate your wins. We want to talk to you, highlight real fathers, share stories, share lessons, create connections between dads and celebrate fatherhood wins. Honestly, we want to start to use our platform um on social media to give fathers a platform to celebrate. So uh Jeff Ryan and I are individually going to be pulling out fathers that we want to celebrate, and uh we want to hear from you. I want to ask you guys, most importantly, why you feel fatherhood stories matter? To me, that's the crux of this podcast. I couldn't find information on fatherhood that I really respected or wanted. I get it from you guys, and your stories matter. The experiences that you have influence me. Jeff in the beginning was like, he was pulling shit. Oh, Brian, you said this about father, and it's really sad with me. How your kids represent your name. And that like echoed in Jeff. Jeff, the same thing, the way that you you how structured you are, how fucking organized you are. It's beautiful, and you do it so well. I'm I'm logging it, man. It's it's going in. We got a calendar, we're we're gonna be using that in the future. Like fatherhood stories matter, yeah, so much. I want to give a spotlight to dad's. I want to get your your opinions on it.

SPEAKER_00 31:53

Yeah, yeah. Everybody deserves a a chance to speak because a lot of the times we just keep it in, and and everybody's got some valuable pieces of there's some gems out there that has some valuable, valuable information that could help somebody else. So that would be great. And everybody deserves a spotlight, man.

SPEAKER_01 32:13

I feel like it it would do greatness for just mental health, too. You know, to be lifted up by a community. Sometimes you feel alone, sometimes you feel lost in what you're doing, but to get that encouragement in the little things, to get that spotlight, that platform, to have a chance to speak your truth and what you're proud of will help out mentally for self and people that with within the community. You know what I'm saying? It's like trusting the process and being able to see the process, the the the raw part of it is needed. I think it's also needed for mental health, bro, to know that we see you. I see you with big dog. No matter how big, how small I see you, that's encouragement. That is medicine for your your mental health, you know? I and I feel it's fucking important. Hell yeah. It's real important to to have a uh uh a good light on what we do as fathers. Yeah, man.

SPEAKER_02 33:20

So I'm excited. I think um I think we're gonna create a series and platform where dads can learn from each other. Um, we're still workshopping the idea a little bit, but I I believe this episode will be out the end of July. Um I'm gonna say the start of August. We'll start to release these interviews. Um if you're listening to this and we reach out to you, uh be you. Just speak your truth, speak honestly. Yeah, you know, uh uh it's not about perfection. We are not looking for any type of perfection. None talk about who you are, what you're doing, what's going on in your life. We're gonna blast you with some uh off-the-top questions, it's gonna be quick. We want immediate answers. There's no pre-planning, we ain't telling you what we're doing, we'll make sure it's respectful. Um, but we want rawness. I want fumbling, I want stumbling through it. Ums, ah's.

SPEAKER_00 34:33

Yeah, when I uh interviewed Andy, he was dealing with a meltdown live on camera with his little guy. We need that, man. We captured it on camera, man. Authenticity. Is that where it's authenticity? We need that seeing him in his fucking element just doing his like Batman. I'm fucking hey, I love it. Yeah, yeah, we were unscripted, we uh edited, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 35:00

It was it was crazy, it was fucked with chaos. Jeff and I went to kind of run this idea through, and my kid grabbed the stove, which she's never done before, a touch stove and it was on just the like the side. We have an old stove, so it was hot. It didn't burn, you didn't blister, but like he touched it. Mom felt like she let him down by letting him touch it. He was yelling, but it was it was just like that's almost what made that piece feel like we have something as long as we keep it real. I don't care, man, if we go to interview you and your kids are screaming in the background. I don't care. We're not here to knock anyone down. We're gonna get some some good interviews. We want to spotlight some fathers, some folks that we all respect. Just be raw, be you, be authentic. Um, I think we can state, you know, we're officially launching this dad spotlight as a short-form interview series where we sit down with real fathers and from all walks of life and talk honestly about fatherhood, challenges, wins, lessons, growth, and all the matters that matter the most. Done there. Um, no one has to be a perfect dad. But because there are great fathers everywhere quietly showing up every day, we think those stories deserve a platform. The goal is simple. We want to celebrate fathers honestly and learn from each other. Remind dads that y'all aren't doing this alone. Um, I'm gonna give you guys kind of a probably two questions each, a rapid fire. Let's go part of the interview uh style. So I'm putting the team on the spot. I don't think that they knew that this was let's go, man. We ready for it. But this is the the realness of what the interview is gonna be. So, Ryan, um, give me a funniest dad moment lately.

SPEAKER_01 36:59

Funniest dad moment lately. My daughter was graduating. I was full of emotions, and I just had to get into it and I gave a twerk. I was just twerking because I was happy that she made it through. She's not pregnant, heart not broken, not rebelling, ready for fucking college. I just had to fucking get down for three seconds and start twerking. Guess who caught it on camera? My wife, and guess who was slapping me and throwing money? My daughter. So that was fucking awesome. I might post it on social media, we'll see. But yeah, that was a funny dad moment for me. I was just so overwhelmed and happy that I just had to start twerking.

SPEAKER_02 37:36

Amazing. Not where I thought that would go. That's so cool. I gotta see this video. I got you. Jeff, favorite thing your kid is obsessed with right now.

SPEAKER_00 37:46

My son, he's just obsessed with uh he got on the honor roll this year, graduated. He's obsessed with that. He's obsessed with how his work that he's been done. He says uh he's on summer vacation now, and he's says, While you're at work, I'm home working, working hard. He's on his laptop doing extracurricular stuff, so he's obsessed with that stuff. I'm yeah, he's up till 1 a.m. working on projects like that. You gotta be so proud. Oh man, it's amazing. My daughter just obsessed with enjoying the moment in life and creating and just just being, she's being very present. It's beautiful. Like, I love that.

SPEAKER_02 38:30

I love that.

SPEAKER_01 38:31

Hell yeah.

SPEAKER_02 38:32

Um, Ryan, yo, last questions did it. Give me one dad survival tip, one dad survival tip.

SPEAKER_01 38:39

You don't know everything, you don't know everything. So stop acting like you do, and admit when you're fucking around. Love it, love it.

SPEAKER_02 38:53

Jeff, you asked me a question during hours that I'm gonna use for you. What is one rule um that's come up in your fatherhood journey that you have stood on that you haven't wavered on?

SPEAKER_00 39:07

Oh boy, you're making me think now. Um, see, I was better at asking the questions than being. Hey, it's all good on the spot, on the spot. Uh one rule. Go easy on yourself, go easy on your family. You're everybody's just kind of experiencing life for the first time together. I don't know. Go easy on yourselves. Love it, love it. I got one for you though. Uh oh shit. I was gonna close out the uh podcast. Off the top of your head, uh, what's your favorite dad joke? If you can do it, if you got one.

SPEAKER_02 39:44

So right now, I don't have a joke, like a punny type of joke, just because my kid's not there yet. Yeah, yeah. But the other day, he goes into his little room and I picture myself in I'm not in like the stream outfit. And you know how he runs kind of goofy-like, I run past the door going, hello. He just fucking dives, and I do this eight, nine, ten times running by almost where I'm out of breath, and he's just pissing his pants, laughing, and it's like it's the greatest thing ever.

SPEAKER_00 40:22

What I'm picturing is like Looney Tune stud.

SPEAKER_02 40:25

Yeah, like Andy just like my knee, arms fucking whipping, just go running by him, and he thinks it's the funniest thing in the world. That's what we want to be doing. The podcast will have a segment where you guys get to introduce yourself, or the sorry, the the series will have a section where you guys get to introduce yourself. We're gonna chat, it's gonna be um just a regular conversation. Questions, yeah, it's gonna be fun. Loosen you up, and then we're gonna do you know, three to five questions, lightning round. It's not gonna be the same, so you can't study it. Um, where we just kind of rapid fire some stuff and get some you know authentic reactions out of it. So that's the plan. In closing, fatherhood comes with accountability, and it should. We should own our mistakes, we should learn from our failures, and we should try to grow. But fathers also deserve recognition, they're good doing what they're doing, the quiet consistency, the effort, the patience, the growth nobody else sees. Because good fatherhood isn't about perfection, it's about showing up, learning, adjusting, and trying again. And maybe part of becoming a better father is finally being honest about the fact that some of us are doing better than we think. If this has resonated with you, please share it with another dad who might need to hear it. And if you know a father doing a great job or you want to share your own story, message us about joining a dad spotlight. Come find us on Instagram at the dad at a podcast. Watch for the next dad walk announcement. Jump on our Discord. The link, I think, is in our Instagram description. Go check it out. We is all we got. Thank you.