The 5-Second Pause: Why the Best Leaders Are the Slowest to React

What if the most powerful leadership move is doing nothing for five seconds?

Tonight Jason Hewlett breaks down the 5-Second Pause — the science, the scripture, and the real-life cost of reacting too fast. A 2024 Communications Psychology study found that a 5-second delay reduces aggression as effectively as 15 seconds. MIT research shows people who pause are perceived as more confident, more trustworthy, and more competent. Neuroscientist Wendi Zimmer confirms even 1-2 seconds activates the prefrontal cortex — without it, your amygdala runs the show. 

But this isn't just brain science. Jason unpacks Mel Robbins' 5 Second Rule — and flips it. She says don't think, move. He says don't move, think. Both are right.

Freedom of Speech: "The 5-Second Pause"

The Full Story: "Your Brain on Five Seconds— The Neuroscience of Not Reacting"

From the Newsfeed: The Resume That Arrived by Mail: Why the Best Career Move in 2026 Is Slowing Down

Faith & Hope: "Be Still and Know"

Father Time: "The Doorway Reset"

The Funny Factory: "Every Time You Didn't Pause"

Fitness Minute: "Rest-Pause: Your Body Already Knows"

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📖 Jason's book "The Promise to the One": https://www.amazon.com/Promise-One-Jason-Hewlett-ebook/dp/B0853ZMN5W?ref_=ast_author_mpb

🌐 Website: https://jasonhewlett.com/
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The Jason Hewlett Show — Where we use lots of F Words: Faith, Family, Fatherhood, Freedom, Fitness, Funny & Farce, as well as the Fulfillment of your Promises.

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Transcript

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Today we're gonna talk about that and why jumping to conclusions sometimes about a Delta flight and some of their warnings about inclement weather, might be best to just pause for a second. Calm down, little Jamaica Mon. Baby, don't worry about a thing, cause every little thing's gonna be alright. So I've spent 30 years almost commanding the stage, and today I'm talking about the five seconds that matter more than any spotlight. Welcome to the Jason Hewlett Show. Return the cart, keep the micro promise, load the truck, show up, get ridiculous, take care of the body you've been given. Because characters are habit, habits are built one part at a time. I'm Jason Hewlett. This is the Jason Hewlett Show. Yeah, welcome to the Jason Hewlett Show. We use lots of F words: faith, family, fatherhood, freedom, fitness, funny and farce, as well as the fulfillment of your promises. So today, five seconds. That's the whole episode. Not five seconds long, but talking about five seconds. And freedom of speech, we're gonna talk about the five-second pause, which is a little different from Mel Robin's five-second rule. This is the countdown to stop, not act. And then we're gonna talk about the full story amygdala versus prefrontal cortex. Yeah, coming from me, this might sound a little interesting, but a 2024 study that proves five seconds is the whole dose. And from the news feed, we're gonna talk about uh all kinds of uh strategic patience, if you will. Faith and hope. We're gonna talk about Saul, how he had to go blind before he became Paul. And Father Time, we'll talk about the doorway reset, five seconds that change everything your family feels. We're gonna hit the funny factory and catastrophic moments you where you didn't pause, as well as I'm probably gonna do a song. Fitness Minute, we'll get into rest pause training and Stanford Cyclic Sying and of course Cardio Miracle. Cardio Miracle is the sponsor of every show, Jason Hewlett Show. Yeah, that's right. This is the place for that. And so thank you to Cardio Miracle for making us healthy enough to do a show like this that requires stamina and thinking and and being healthy. So all of that is right now. Thank you for joining me. Freedom of speech. Let's talk about the five-second pause. I want to talk to you about five seconds, the space between what happens to you and what you do about it. The fastest leaders aren't the best leaders. We worship speed, yeah, but the person who responds first in a crisis is almost never the person who responds the best. Are you the person who reacts quickly with chaos and jumps to conclusions? Or are you the leader who is the calm in the storm? Who can handle the facts without firing off demands and orders before the team weighs in and has the whole story? I'm going to tell you about a quick experience that I had yesterday, actually, as I traveled and over this last weekend. It is Thursday, March 19th, 2026. And yes, we are on episode nine, which is amazing because most podcasts, broadcasts, and others that do something like this, they give up between episodes five and eight. So we've made it on the other side of that. By episode 10 next week, we'll be launching to uh to the world through my social media and other things as we've been trying to work out the kinks. I think we're pretty much there. And so we're excited because I said if I have to record at least and create at least 10 of these before I start telling everybody that I'm doing it because I just wanted to see if I was ready. But in the last couple of days, I've been traveling. I had events where I was the speaker. It was a wonderful time. I love getting the chance to speak. So if you know anybody that needs a speaker, I would love to be that guy. But here's what happened: I had uh I had a scare, and the scare went like this. I was supposed to fly from Utah, which is normally snowy in March, all the way to South Carolina. Now, South Carolina is not usually snowy in March. However, Delta tried to scare me for 48 hours. They sent me a notification every three hours suggesting that my travel would be compromised due to inclement weather that they were predicting. Now, I appreciate that they would send that to me. It's part of their promise to overcommunicate. That's awesome. They said that all of the Northeast was going to be smashed by weather and Armageddon, essentially, and that nobody should travel at that time. And so it freaked me out. I started doing research to figure out okay, should I just, I mean, I went right away to look at rebooking a flight, either on Delta or somewhere else, because I thought, well, I'm going to get to my client. The event was on Wednesday, and I knew I had to get there. And it kept saying, hey, look, uh, Tuesday and Wednesday are going to be no travel days. Like, you don't want to do it. Don't come out here. And so instead of jumping on and buying something real quick and changing my flight, I decided to do some research, and it was a lot of research. I had to look up things that were difficult. I had to make phone calls. I had to look ahead. And what I found was that, yeah, there were predictions of bad weather across the Northeast, and it did hit some of it, but it absolutely missed where I was going. Like when I landed in Atlanta, because I just stuck to the plan, I did not change anything. I just decided after talking to Delta representatives and others that were like, yeah, we've been told there's a problem, but it probably more likely if you just stay in your original flight. I'm glad I didn't overreact. I'm glad I didn't just go buy something too quickly and instead paused and figured out the plan. Once I landed in Atlanta, I was stunned. There wasn't a drop of rain. Got to South Carolina, it was clear and beautiful as day. And I just find that interesting that I don't know if Delta was trying to help me or if they were trying to divert me so that they could put other people in my seat while they've had a lot of travel issues. I love Delta. I mean, I promote them all the time, but this also was a confusing thing for me. All I can say about that is pause matters, stopping, and trying to make it so that we can, you know, have a great decision without affecting too many other things. You see, it would have ruined my client's day if I wouldn't have made it. I had one of my favorite events I've had uh in a long time with this group, and so it was a wonderful thing. But that's the story about why it's important to pause. And sometimes we just have to relax and calm down, even if something seems like an emergency. Oh, I'm seeing my buddy right here, Captain Kindman. Randy's on watching. Thank you, Randy. He says, Key words, you didn't overreact. That's right. You know, and a lot of people are overreacting a lot in situations like that, rebooking a flight or canceling everything or whatever needs to be done. Now, sadly, that changes the game quite a bit. Here's what the science says a 2024 study in communication psychology put couples in conflict scenarios. So we're talking couples now. One group responded immediately, the other waited five seconds. Yeah. So this works whether it's in travel, in business, in your life, with your family. Aggression drops significantly in five seconds was just as effective as 15. So that's the whole intervention, if you will. Uh Wendy Zimmer says even a one to two second pause activates the prefrontal cortex. She's a neuroscientist, so she knows without it, your reactions come from the amygdala. The prefrontal cortex needs a runway. Five seconds is that runway. I like that, right? I mean, MIT found something that blew my mind. It said people who paused were perceived as more confident, more trustworthy, more competent. And Forbes in February 2026 said, a pause is not hesitation, it's discipline. That space is where judgment lives. So some of you know Mel Robbins. I've been friends with Mel for a long time. We had the same agent. Let's see, uh less than, well, a decade ago. We had the same agent. We were getting the same gigs, and now you know Mel Robbins is like a household name. Like she's now Times Person of the Year kind of a person. I mean, it's amazing to watch your friend explode to success. And she came up with the five-second rule, which you may have read her book. If you haven't, you need to check it out. It's incredible. It's one of the she's one of the great thinkers and speakers of our time. And she counts down and acts five, four, three, two, one, go, right. You've probably heard her. The rule works. I mean, she's made her career off it. Now she's got let them, which is an incredible philosophy and book as well. So check out Mel's stuff. But uh, I want to mirror the image of that if we can. It's not to disparage what she's teaching, it's just to say there's another variation on it. Mel says, Don't think, move. My my rule I'm talking about today is don't move, think. So both are true, right? Knowing which to use at which time. That's essentially eyes open, mouth closed. Like, when are you going to make sure that you're doing something at the right pace and right time? So I, as I'm thinking through all of this, I hope that you're thinking for yourself, okay, what was the last time I instantly regretted what I reacted to? What would have changed with five seconds of just being calm and every little thing is gonna be alright? Hey, you know, once in a while we have to just slow it down. Maybe it's in your marriage, your team, or your parenting, but the leader you most admire, they are known for being the fastest to speak or the most deliberate. It's uh it's up to you, right? But what one relationship would change if you committed to a daily five-second pause? And what's stopping you from starting today? Um, Captain Kindman, he's he's commenting, so we're gonna talk about him. It says, when people don't exercise self-awareness is to respond quickly without pausing. Yeah, there you go, self-awareness. Ah, we're probably gonna talk about that more. When we take the time to pause, even in five seconds, we can turn the temperature down. I love that. Turning the temperature down. That's what we're talking about today. And so, as you're thinking about why we're doing this show, one of the reasons I do this show is to bring you good news, to give you a new light, a new way of looking at things. Everybody's talking about go, go, go. I'm talking about pulling back today. And so let's transition out of this to the next segment. Five second changes react uh reactor or leader. We've talked about the principle of that. Now let's open the hood. The science behind the pause right after this. So let's talk about the full story. Your brain on five seconds, the neuroscience of not reacting. It starts with the amygdala, it's about the size of an almond, it's deep in your temporal lobe, and and threat detection changed since the savannah, and your spouse uses it that one tone. Amydala, same alarm, threat, react now. The prefrontal cortex is the other part, logic, empathy, moral reasoning. You guys know that I don't like know this as a scientist. I'm just reading what I have researched, and so I hope you understand. I'm just coming from this uh as a person reporting what I'm learning as well. But someone named Adele Diamond said the ability to resist temptations, stay focused, take the time to think. That's the prefrontal cortex. So the amygdala fires in 12 milliseconds. The prefrontal cortex needs seconds and uh respond before they elapse. You're running software that makes your wife asking about the schedule for a bear charging the campsite. So sometimes we do need to choose the amygdala response. But let's just talk about why uh it matters in the sense of all of this. There's a promise. The promise of the people who pause are perceived as more confident, they're more trustworthy, they're more competent. And when you pause, I respect you enough to get this right, is essentially what you're saying to me. So the promise is as follows uh the team you're leading causes a major issue. The pause matters. I mean, you could very well truly damage the good you've done as a leader if you overreact, if you send that fast email or mandate on Slack. Equally, don't wait too long either, right? Because this is the fine balance, it's the tight rope. Sometimes it's five seconds and jump, and other times five seconds and breathe. As a parent, this is something I get to deal with every day, truly. I receive notice from school that someone is failing, and I flip out. Have you had that happen? I got that email the other day. Your child is failing, and I'm like, ah. Or I can do some research instead of confronting my child who's just having a nice day, and realize, oh, well, this is an automated message going to all the parents in the school about kids who are failing. Log in to see if it's your kid. That's not very nice, but that's how they send it out, I guess. That's a big difference. The pause matters in this instance, but we also can't allow the taking of the pause to keep us from the doing. For example, I want to play the piano for you today. And what's interesting is I've been having some challenges with audio equipment in this office. You see, last week the microphone had an issue. I didn't even know about it. But around minute 17, the audio changed on me, and I didn't know. And I did a whole almost hour-long episode. When I went back and watched it, I was so sad because it was such good material that we've had to work really hard to recapture that. So, this is a new mic. I have a new setup with my piano right next to me. I'll show you a little shot of what that looks like. You'll see me over there in a minute, and you'll hear me. And if you're watching this later or listening on the podcast, but I want to play the piano for you guys, and I'm hoping the equipment works. I'm trying to talk myself out of it all day. But if the promise of this podcast and broadcast is to try new things and to push myself to do new stories and try new songs, then I can pause and learn how to use the equipment better and gather my thoughts. I even tested it out quite a bit and sit down and play the piano and sing for you. Whether you want a singer right now or not, I'm that's part of what I do. I do music, so we're gonna do that. I mean, we'll get there further in the episode, but that's how we must go from throwing the idea away and giving it a full pause hard stop and saying, never, I'm gonna never do it, to thoughtfully working our way through self-doubts, challenges, and concerns of acting too quickly as well. So don't let the pause stop you completely. But when it comes to doing something, it's okay to just go for it. So what uh yeah, Captain Kyman says, I love that statement. People who pause garner more trust. I think that's right. They absolutely do. And thank you for thank you for being here. What a guy. So questions for you. When was the last time your amygdala ran the show and it cost you something? Um, think of a recurring argument, let's say. What shifts if you commit to a five-second pause every time that trigger appears? Or where have you been rushing to respond because you thought speed equaled competence? Now, if emotions, if emotions have a six-second lifespan, every reaction you've regretted was born in a window. You had the power to outlast. So, what emotion would you stop feeding? And and who in your life would benefit most from the gift of your paws? I know a lot of people would for me, and that's why I'm committing to that today. I'm making the promise to do that. That's what we that's the overarching theme of this entire uh broadcast and podcast is to say, what is my promise to myself to make things a little bit easier and a little better in my life? The brain is clear. All right, we've gotten through all this good stuff. So now, as we transition to the next portion of this episode, we're we're gonna look outside at the world stage from the newsfeed right after this. The newsfeed. Yeah, well, from the newsfeed we have to talk about the resume that arrived by mail and why the best career move in 2026 is probably slowing down. Yeah, how to get a job in the market today, they say stand out, be different. Well, I know that I've talked to a lot of people recently that have said I'm trying to find a job through LinkedIn andor my network and resources. And I can't even tell you how frustrated all of my peers are that are absolutely overqualified and cannot find the gigs or opportunities they want. And so the question is if you stand out and you're different, how do you do that? Especially in an electronic, you know, capacity and world. Because you know, don't go to LinkedIn, don't send an email. So maybe you need to send an actual letter. This story came from Sarah Jackson in CNBC, and this came across yesterday. It says this a 25-year-old got a job by mailing in a resume and a cringy note. Camille K. Manaus got a job by mailing her resume. You heard the word mailing, right? We're talking stamp letter, actually driving to a mailbox. And she mailed her resume to company she wanted to work for with an envelope and a stamp in 2025. That is a humongous thing. At a time when many job seekers likened the search to hurling application to a black hole, going old school helped her get hers in front of an actual person. So she tried to do all the traditional things this article continues to say. It says she went to LinkedIn, she paid for a premium account, she applied to popular job boards, she went to companies' websites, she did all the right things, and she wasn't getting any traction. Four months into her search, she decided to try something old. School. She turned a snail mail. And she thought, she this is what she said. If I mailed it, it would get to someone. It's not like an email that will just land in the spam folder. You receive mail on your desk and you're like, Well, I'm gonna open it. It's addressed to me. How about you? Have you noticed that? When you get mail, you open it. It's different than it felt about a decade ago when we're like, Why is everybody mailing me? So I think about that when I'm looking at this going, yeah, you know what? That's actually a great choice. So this is what she did. She sent envelopes to six prospective employers. Each note had a short, uh each letter had a short note in it, with along with her resume and a cover letter and letter of recommendation from a coworker. And in the note, she introduced herself, what she was applying for, and she said, Some applicants rely on algorithms. I'd rather rely on a more reliable route. Your desk. Thank you for your time in reading my materials. She said it felt really cringy and kind of embarrassing. Uh, but she knew it won it was going to stand out. So here's the result of the six, four employers responded, and they were all via email. And yeah, some were rejections, but one response led to her current role, and it's not the one that she imagined. She got an even better job. She's thrilled with it. And I they said that they brought her in because everyone was impressed with her thinking outside the box. So then they offered her a different type of job. So, how are you going to stand out in a world where digital emails and digital messaging may not be opened as much? Maybe the traditional way of doing things isn't going to be working in terms of what we mean as traditional in the last five years. And maybe we go back in time to mailing a letter, sending something in the mail to somebody who will open it up and go, Oh my gosh, that person actually wrote me something. Today, I read a great article by my friend uh uh Captain uh oh my goodness, I'm spacing on her name, but she uh she wrote a great article this morning, and I'm I'm so impressed because she was talking about making uh letters and or thank you notes to clients. And when I think about thank you notes, I think, you know, that's that's a tricky thing to do because when uh when I spend the time writing a note, I usually get a response back. If I write a letter to somebody and a thank you note especially, it's uh it's it's pretty interesting. To watch that people are grateful for me writing the thank you note. And so, yeah, that was something I read on LinkedIn. They said, Hey, I'm I'm I'm writing notes again. And it's like, yeah, I understand that reason. And we've talked about it before on this podcast. So what I want you to ask yourself as we transition into the next piece is how are you going to stand out in a sea of sameness? So let's talk about faith and hope. Uh, this is part of what makes this podcast different, in my opinion, is that we really try to do bring God into it, into the conversation. And if you were to listen to an influencer, a podcast who's very famous, they probably don't have a segment like this, and that's why we do it. And so the uh before neuroscience and before Forbes coaches and LinkedIn and all of that, this idea is ancient that I'm about to talk to you about. It's from Psalm 46, 10, which is in the Bible. It says, Be still and know that I am God. Have you heard that before? Be still and know that I am God. So most people read that as a gentle encouragement, but remember, Psalm 46 is a war psalm. Nations were raging, kingdoms were falling in the middle of the storm, be still. The most counterintuitive command a leader can receive probably is to do that. And so when I think about what's going on in the world right now, and I I'm not going to touch on like things that are happening that are controversial and are happening in the world, but I can tell you think about what is going on around our world right now at this minute. Could a pause be helpful? Is action what's most important? That's part of the question today. Saul was on the road to Damascus. You know the story. He was furious and he was certain he was right. He's all amygdala. And guess what? God knocked him down, blinded him three days in darkness. Oh man, because the pause was the transformation. And and Saul couldn't become Paul until he stopped being Saul. And the pause comes before the purpose. So, what are some ways in which we can pause? One of the most sacred words is Gethsemane. The cross was only hours away, and every instinct screamed, run. When it comes to the Savior of the world, Jesus Christ, Gethsemane and the cross, he paused. I mean, he knelt in Gethsemane and said, Father, not my will, but yours. Act of trust, not resignation. It's the most courageous pause in the history of the world. And uh just remember that delay is not the same as denial, and silence is not the same as absence. And that was from leading saints. My friend Kurt Frankom write wrote that. If you're in a season where God seems quiet, the pause is not punishment. So, however feeble you feel, just wait in his presence. The amygdala says react, fix it, force it. The still small voice says wait. Trust. Let me just tell you about how you hear that still small voice. Because you may not know how to get there. I would ask you, what are you listening to? What are you taking the time to feed your soul? Are you taking the earbuds out and just letting God speak to you? Because when we have nothing else to distract us, whether it's a podcast or music or in the news feed, can we have God talk to us? And He does. When we ask and pray in our hearts as we walk around our day, looking for that still small voice to come into our lives and to change it, to give us courage, strength, understanding, patience. I know that as the world seems to be going in a direction where we're thinking, can anyone press the pause button? Well, you can, and God wants you to. He wants you to slow down and just be okay with being and listening and turning to scripture and coming back to him. And so as you do that, this is where trust is so important. Waiting, trusting, knowing God will speak to you. The pause is sacred, and it's been here long before the scientists gave it a name. But the importance of reading good books, I mean, any book at this point, in fact, I was watching a YouTube thing the other day, and this guy was like, Yeah, so I've read this many books this year, and I was like, Oh my gosh, how many books have I read? I've prided myself on being a reader, because leaders are readers. And I realized I haven't read a whole book this year. I couldn't believe it. And I started to think, Well, what have I what have I been doing if I haven't been reading? And Captain Kindman, he says something great here. Simple nudges in our hearts and minds, reminders that we matter to him, capitalized him. There you go. Love this message, Jason. Listening, waiting, patience. Thanks, brother. And I hope that as we listen to the spirit, as we pick up a good book. Do you want to know a good book? Scriptures are the best book. You probably already know that. Open up the Bible, it will change your life if you just give a a sentence or two a chance. I want to tell you about another book. I I opened it as soon as I realized I hadn't read a book this year, which I can't believe I'm saying that out loud because I've never had a year like that. Where usually I'm reading a book a week. I've just gotten too distracted by the world, I guess. And so I started reading another book called As a Man Thinketh by James Allen. This was the seminal book that changed my life when my dad gave it to me when I was a kid. And as I reopened those words, I realized, oh my goodness, it is about our mindset, it is what we think about, and it is about God speaking to us. So as a man thinketh, go check it out if you haven't. It's a classic, it's considered the very first self-help book outside of scripture. To me, it's it's holy writ. There's another one that you may not have heard of, and I found it in my basement. Anthony DeMello, Awareness. We were talking about being aware, self-aware earlier. Awareness is one of the best books of all time. And uh, if you take a chance to read these types of books, the spirit will speak to you. I I guarantee you. I give you my promise. And I appreciate you letting me share that with you because this is a different type of segment that most people don't touch on this in their worldly, if you will, podcasts. And so here we are. As we transition out of faith and hope, I hope you felt the spirit of what I've said. And be still and know ancient wisdom, it applies to the most sacred space you'll enter, which is your own front door. Father time. Here we are. The doorway reset. Everything we've talked about tonight comes home literally. We're gonna talk about the doorway reset. I've talked about this other podcast. I'm gonna continue to talk about it. Even if you work at home and you're like, well, I don't really have a reset from coming through the threshold of my door. Yeah. Call it your office space, and then you're going into your house. They can be two separate things, but uh everything we've talked about is gonna literally come home to this because I travel a lot, and in fact, I travel so much that I've written songs about it, and you know what? I was thinking it'd be fun to play you my song. And I I wrote a song called The Travelin' Man, because that's what I do. I'm a traveling man, and it is an homage to Billy Joel. You'll hear the piano, the harmonica. I mean, I'm hopeful this comes through, okay, on a broadcast and recording, but the words go like this. And I'm very hesitant to even play this because most people only want to hear me do covers of songs or songs that are famous that they already know they can sing along to. I'm going to be introducing to you songs I've been writing my entire career, and I never had a platform to play them because at a lot of my shows I can't do that. Like, it just doesn't fit in the scope of what I'm presenting. And so I'm going to share with you some original pieces on these broadcasts. But the words of this song go like this: I am the traveling man. My unpacked suitcase says I am. Tomorrow I'll be gone. You'll forget my song because I am the traveling man. I wrote this nearly two decades ago as the way to open my shows. And I played it with a band, and it was awesome. Well, we we don't have the band today, it's just me at the piano. But if I were to play the intro of this of this show for you, you'll know that you've heard different types of music throughout it. But this is the actual song with the band. You ready to hear it for just one split second? I'm gonna switch the camera and then I'm gonna sit down and play this actual song. All right, so maybe you've heard that before. I've used it for almost two decades now as a song that really makes it makes things fun. Now, without a band, it's a little different, but we're gonna try it with just the piano and the harmonica and me. So let's try it out. Switching cameras. Switch the camera up. Hopefully this sounds right. Hopefully you can hear me and see me. I hope, I hope, I hope. We did a lot of work on this one. I hope that worked. I don't know if it did. I hope so. I hope you could hear it. I hope it was uh a fun song for you to hear. And I can tell you I love playing music, I love being a musician, and I hope that you understand that uh I wrote that nearly two decades ago because it was a way to open my show, and I wrote that song as a dad who comes home, as a traveling man who goes around. And I wrote that song for my family and for my audience. Uh and like I said, I travel a lot. And the hardest part isn't the leaving, it's the returning. When you've been on for your clients and you come home with residue, stress residue and mental fatigue and emotional drainage. What I'm always concerned about is that I give so much to the client and the audience that I have nothing left for the most important people in the world, which is my family. And that's this is the exact moment your family needs you the most. And that's when I started what I call the truth or what I call the doorway reset. When it comes to the doorway reset, it's just five seconds. Before I touch the handle, I stop and I take a breath and I let go of whatever's happened out there. Uh it's just one decision, it's one promise. It's a person walking through this door, is the best version of me, fully here. It's not setting a goal to be a better dad, it's to make a promise to be the kind of dad any kid would want to have. And my kids don't know about the bad flight unless I tell them. You know, they know dad's home, and kids are the world's best system one detectors, if you will. They feel whether you're present, they feel whether you're not. And I never want them to remember a dad who dropped the world's weight on theirs, and so the nights I stop, the hug is different, and the whole temperature of the house changes because I change first on the porch in five seconds. Hands on the door, breathe, let go, choose who walks in. And like I say, if you're a homebody and work from home, good for you, you're lucky. Make there be a place in your home that is that definitive boundary that you say, okay, I work in here. Obviously, if the kids want to come in, they can, and we turn and focus on them. And yet we close the door and go in and live life as a parent. That's a hard thing for us to do. It's getting harder, and it's hard for me. That's why I call it the promise to be present for your family and this doorway rule. So, five seconds of the door. Let's transition out of the father time. We've been deep digging into all this all day. Scientific, biblical, emotional. I just played you a song. I hope you enjoyed it. Uh, we've learned we've earned something a little lighter, so let's go into the funny factory next. The funny factory. Hey, think about we I mean, we've been in the deep end, so let's have some fun. Most of us are living in a low light reel of moments where we did not pause. So today, the didn't pause Hall of Fame moments. Let's talk about the kitchen incident, you know. Last Thanksgiving, extended family. I'm carving the turkey. Who wants this turkey? Who likes dark meat? Who likes the light meat? You know what I'm saying. I'm ripping off the legs and I'm pulling out the wishbone. Who gets the wishbone? Right? My mother-in-law, you know, your father always carved it the other way. Yeah, correct response. Smile, move on. No, and then I say, Well, he's not here. This is how I do it. The turkey doesn't care. Yeah, that didn't work out. So, silence, right? The kind where you can hear the cranberry sauce judging you. Hmm. The amygdala had the knife, and I was the turkey. How about reply all? Yeah, have you ever done the old reply all? The the greatest argument for the five-second pause in the history of technology might be uh reply all. I know recently, uh or every single Monday, I get all these emails from missionaries serving around the world in different capacities and places, and I I said something very personal and very helpful to this one missionary, and I pressed reply, and I then realized it was reply all. I was like, Can I get that back? Hey, please come back reply all. I once replied to a group thread with a private observation about a colleague's presentation skills. Yeah, it was a colorful uh piece that I wrote, and the colleague was on the thread. That that's when the amygdala types fast and proofreads never, right? So think about the autocorrect text. You know, you text your wife, I'll be home soon, love ya. Autocorrect suggests a very different evening. Sometimes you're waiting and you're thinking, maybe I should just live in the parking lot from now on, or I'll make my own bed on the couch. The here, how about the meeting? Someone presented a clearly wrong chart. Uh instead of help me understand the methodology, instead, I said into a microphone, those numbers can't be right. Was I correct? Yeah. Did it matter? No, even a little. I mean, I could have paused, I could have just taken a moment. How about the parenting classic? My my seven-year-old back when he was seven, Dad, why is mom always right and you're always wrong? But I said, I'm not always wrong, I'm just strategically incorrect sometimes. My wife says, best thing you've ever said, my child. Yeah, and and you're still wrong. So I'm a meme in my own family. It's a five-second pause, it works, but only if you use it. And being a dad, there is nothing more important than having that pause moment, especially when you get the notification from the school. I I'll tell you one where I went kind of it was kind of wild. I got a phone call from my daughter hiding in a closet because they thought there was an active shooter in the school. This was the first day of school two years ago. Never forget it. Because she and her brother were hiding in one part of the school and their other brother was in the other opposite end and they couldn't find him. They have bad cell phone service in the school. And I remember I just jumped in my truck and drove to the school as fast as I could. It's the one of the largest schools in our state. And as I pulled up, uh I could hear the microphone and the intercom going from outside saying, Do not leave the building. You cannot leave the building. And I was like, you know, stay in place. And so I jumped out of my truck. I'm running in there to get my kids. This was amygdala on fire, right? I went to the front door and it was open. So I went in and I'm like, hey, the door's open. Like, and they're like, What are you doing here? At least they knew who I was, or they would have been freaking out. But I was like, guys, come on, right? So there's fast response with that type of thing. I asked them, what could I do? And they said, Hey, don't do that. Don't come here when we're having an active shooter uh potential threat. Turns out there was a kid in the uh ROTC or something that had opened his trunk at school and was going through all of his different rifles before he did the American flag salute for the football game. It was one of those, you know, misconstrued challenges. But when you think about that, amygdala on fire. As a dad, it's okay to pause once in a while and be like, okay, do they have it? Am I going to let them handle it? Or do I need to go and respond quickly? The response time, usually we need to make sure that we're we're not doing something that's drastic. And so I hope that you've laughed a little at my expense. But the pause, it doesn't just work in your brain and relationships, it works in your body. The fitness minute as we wrap right after this. This episode today, your body and fitness, let's talk about it because this is a promise of fitness. Your body figured out the pause a long time ago. Think about it. You need rest. Like a rest is a third of the exercise. Did you know that? Like with your body being able to heal itself and to figure out everything throughout the day, you can go and go and go. But if you don't give your chance self a chance to rest and sleep, you're going to just crash and burn. How about the rest pause training? Lift to failure. Rest 10 seconds. Lift again. It's pretty tough to just lift and lift and never have that pause. And uh there have been plenty of studies about the uh the rest pause protocols producing greater strength and muscle thickness, and and those gains happen um than even traditional training because more growth. I've even seen bodybuilders, I've talked to them. They say I do like a 45-minute workout and then I rest for two days. And I'm like, really? Yeah, you just have to eat right and you have to do a lot of weight. Okay, that's interesting. Rest isn't the opposite of work, it's it's the completion of it. And so making sure that you're resting, you're breathing, you're putting the right things in your body. Uh, Stanford Medicine said uh cyclic sighing outperformed mindfulness meditation across five minutes a day for 30 days. Breathe in through your nose. Take a second sip of air, then exhale very slowly. Repeat that five minutes. That's good for you. Did you know that as you breathe in uh through your nostrils, I've I've read this in some other studies that breathing in through your nostrils, you get way more oxygen than breathing in your mouth. Even if your mouth is humongous compared to your nose, which mine is. But breathing in through your nose gives you more oxygen. That's why we should breathe in that way and breathe out our mouth. But also, did you know when you breathe in through your nose, you get nitric oxide? Nitric oxide is a miracle molecule that actually helps you to have a clearer uh ability to cognitively think, to be able to function, your cells will be regenerated quickly. And so nitric oxide is extremely important. So breath work is is part of what I like to talk about because breathing, pausing, resting, all of those things matter. And then there's cardiomerical. And I wrap every single one of these episodes with cardiomerical because it is a family business, and I'm very proud of my dad for having formulated this. He is the the premier and pioneer of nitric oxide, and obviously, scientists have proven that nitric oxide is something we all need. This does not have nitric oxide in it. However, when you pour it in your drink, because it's got arginine and citrulline and 58 plus natural ingredients that are going to help you and completely give you the nutrients you need. Well, when you pour that in your water and you drink it down, guess what happens? It goes into your bloodstream, and the next thing you know, your vascularity is improved because the blood flow is ignited by nitric oxide. It's a miracle molecule. You should look it up. Look up the importance of nitric oxide for your health and for your life, for your brain, for your body, for your recovery. If you will take nitric oxide supplementation, and whether you take cardiomerical or not, it's up to you. But I can tell you this cardiomerical for me has been an absolute game changer. And if you want to get some, here's the QR code, or just go to cardiomerical.com. And I can tell you this when I don't take it before a workout, my workout's not as good. When I forget to take it after workout, it takes me longer to recover. Because when nitric oxide's in our body, we are able to regenerate and we're able to get our cells to a better space, they're elasticized. It's just such a powerful uh supplement. And a lot of people don't like supplements. I think supplements are important, especially if you know you're lacking in certain things. Did you know you might be lacking in vitamin D3? Vitamin D3, how do you get that? You go out in the sun. It's been kind of a dark winter for some. Get some sunshine. If you can't get it, guess what? Drink cardiomerical. Guess what happens when you drink it? It releases vitamin D3 from your fat cells. That is a scientific proven statement. Now, if you want to have that, that's that's something that's wonderful. Muscles grow in the pause between sets, and the nervous system calms in the pause between breaths. So the pause isn't the interruption of growth, it's the condition for it. So try cyclic breathing and sighing tonight. Your body already knows how to do it. And I hope that as you continue to do this and give yourself the promise of fitness, of making your body that much better, you're gonna have a great and happy life. I appreciate you joining me on this episode. We've come to the conclusion of number nine. I I am just so ecstatic that you're here and thank you for taking the time to watch and listen. Thank you to my man Randy, the Captain Kind Man. What a wonderful guy. He oh, even says, I can vouch for Cardio Miracle's game changer. Thank you, brother. We love Cardiomerical and we thank them for sponsoring. So, rest pause for your muscles, cyclic sighing for your lungs, nitric oxide for your blood through cardio miracle. Hey, five seconds for your soul. Let's bring it home. Thank you for being here with me today. God bless you. Lots of F words here. We've talked about faith, family, fatherhood, fitness, freedom. Funny. Hopefully, you've laughed. Hopefully, we can talk more about how you keep the promise every day. Thanks for joining me. Here's that song again. But this is when we recorded it the first time I ever played it on a stage as we wrap the show. Have a great week.