My Dad Shaped Me in Ways I'm Still Figuring Out. This Episode Is for Him.

Eighteen episodes. Jason has talked about his wife, his kids, Ella in Alaska, the whale, the promises kept and broken. 

Tonight he finally talks about where all of it came from — his dad, John Hewlett. Who he is. What he built. What it cost. And what it's still giving.

In this episode, we cover...
— FREEDOM OF SPEECH  "The Percentage"
— The FULL STORY "My Dad Shaped Me in Ways I'm Still Figuring Out. This Episode Is for Him"
— FROM THE NEWSFEED  "Science Just Proved Your Dad's Attention Changed Your Heart. Literally."
—  FAITH & HOPE  "The Father Who Ran"
— FATHER TIME  "The Book"
— FUNNY FACTORY  "The Cool Dad Myth"
— FITNESS MINUTE  "He Built This"


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👉 A huge thank you to our sponsor, Cardio Miracle! The world’s best Nitric Oxide and Vitamin D3 supplement. Support your heart health and keep your promises to your body. Get yours here: https://cardiomiracle.com/ 

📖 Jason's book "The Promise to the One": https://www.amazon.com/Promise-One-Ja...

🌐 Website: https://jasonhewlett.com/

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.

Part of the MiTL Live Network.

#TheJasonHewlettShow #FathersDayEpisode #JohnHewlett #CardioMiracle #FatherhoodLegacy #DadContent2026 #LeadershipAtHome #KeepThePromise #FatherAndSon #FamilyLegacy

Transcript

SPEAKER_05 0:14

So coming up on the show, freedom of speech, the percentage, the moment my dad graded my effort, the wound it left, and how we inherit what we swear we'll never repeat. On the full story, we'll be talking about how my dad shaped me in ways I'm still figuring out and why I've avoided this conversation for 17 episodes, what my dad built and what it's still giving me. From the newsfeed, we're going to talk about how science just proved your dad's attention changed your heart. The research that puts a father's presence on the measurable physical level, then in faith and hope. The father who ran. Yeah, a picture of fatherhood that closes distance before anyone earns it. Then we'll go into Father Time, the book. The one gift my dad gave me that didn't land for years, but it changed everything. And then the funny factory. The cool dad myth and why being liked isn't the same as being good. What kids actually need from a dad. And then in the fitness minute, we'll be talking about Cardio Miracle, which is the sponsor of this show. This is the world's finest uh nitric oxide and vitamin D3 product and supplement. And my dad built this Cardio Miracle, the mission behind it and why it belongs in this episode and every episode. So stay with me. This one's personal. We're gonna have a great time. The window in your life is always smaller than you think. You don't lose the people you love in one dramatic moment, you lose them in small delays. Make the trip, make the call, get in the car. The window is open right now. Keep the promise, go through it. Yeah, he wasn't my teacher at school. He just gave me a grade one day all of a sudden. It wasn't a test. It was after something I did. It was a basketball game, a performance, a moment where I'd put myself out there, I tried hard and wanted more than anything to hear one word, which is good. What I got was a number, a percentage. I don't know, did your dad do something like this to you? He said to me, that was about a 77% effort. I I mean, this was actually following a basketball game, and I realized there was something wrong when we didn't go to 7-Eleven to get a slurpee because my dad was not pleased with my effort on the court that day. See, my dad was my coach in pretty much every sport I tried in my elementary and middle school years. And so whether it was soccer or basketball or golf or anything else I tried, uh I was not actually a good athlete. I didn't actually even put in much effort. I mean, I was trying, but I was mostly there for the slurpee after. And I remember when he said 77%, I didn't say anything because what what do you say? I mean, I nodded, I sulked, I probably went into my room. And what I heard, and what landed in me in the way that things land in 12-year-olds and don't move for decades was you are not enough. That's that's what I that's what I heard. And he felt like he was coaching. And I felt like I was being measured against a version of myself that didn't exist yet and might never. And somehow in the quiet of that, I decided I'd never do that to my kids until the day I heard myself do it. My son came home, he'd tried something, he'd he'd tried hard. He's looking at me the way kids look at their dads, that wide open, searching look that says, tell me how I did. And I opened my mouth and what came out was a number. Not 77, but same structure, same instinct, the same coaching disguise as critique that I had sworn off before I even had children to critique. I stopped mid-sentence because I recognized it, not as a failure, but as inheritance, as the thing that gets quietly passed from a father to a son without either of them signing for the package. And here's what I know now that I didn't know at twelve. My dad was not trying to tell me I wasn't enough. He was trying to close the gap between who I was and who he could already see I was capable of becoming. That is not cruelty. That is a kind of love that doesn't yet have the vocabulary for I believe in you. So it comes out as you can do more. And a lot of great men love this. Uh they push because they see, they critique because they care. The delivery is often wrong, the intention is not. And the proof for me is the fact that I became a man who cares deeply about the gap between 77 and 100, and because someone cared about me first, right? The wound and the gift are sometimes the same thing. And what your dad gave you that hurt and what your dad gave you that made you, you are sometimes delivered in the same sentence. The same look across a car on the way home from a game, same silence after performance where you wanted applause and got a note. The work is not to erase that, the work is to understand it, to hold it up in the light as an adult with the context you know have, and ask, what was he actually trying to give me? And then to decide what do I carry forward and what stops with me. So that's the whole project of fatherhood. Not to repeat your father, not to undo him, to become the bridge between what he gave you, what your kids need. We want to take the best parts. We want to make sure that we grab the signature moves that apply to us and utilize it in our being a dad. That bridge has to be built deliberately, and it starts by being honest about what you're carrying. So, let's ask some questions before I I I think I see some folks who joined us. It looks like Captain Kindman is here. Hey Randy, thanks for being here. Hey, my friend, excited to be here. You're the best. Thanks for joining us every week. What a guy. And thank you to anybody else who's watching, taking the time, and or listening on the podcast later. Let's ask this question: what did your dad do well that you have never said out loud? And who needs to hear you say it? If your dad's still around, it's probably nice to reach out to him and let him know. That's a big deal. And it's nice to share those examples with your kids. And then how about this one? If your children could describe your coaching style in one word, what would that word be? And is it the word you want? Because our coaching style may be inherited. And maybe it's something that we want to shift just a little bit because it we don't know if it works so much for us. I know for me, I like I liked having the measurement and the metric that my dad gave me. And equally, I I was appreciative that he would also give me other types of feedback that encouraged. It wasn't like he was just giving me a number and then saying, You're hosed, you're no good, you'll never be good. Instead, he gave me a path to get there. And so I hope that this is helpful. I hope that you begin to build that bridge within your family. And we're gonna go into the full story right after this. Alright, we're at episode number 18, 2026. We're doing this. This is amazing. We've been here every week. I've talked about almost everything. I've talked about my wife, my kids, my daughter packing her bags and going to Alaska. You you if you've tuned in, you know that I'm talking about my family all of the time. We talked about going to Cabo and seeing a whale off the coast. It was incredible. I a promise I kept, a promise I almost broke. I've talked about a lot of these things, and I've talked about character and presence and what it means to lead at home when no one's watching. And in 18 episodes, I've never once really told you who taught me any of it. And so today I want to talk about my dad. His name is John Hewlett. Let me find a photo here of my dad. Here we go, hopefully you can see that. There's a photo very recently that we took, and uh, I'm very grateful for him that he's still around. He is the formulator and founder of Cardiomiracle, a nitric oxide and vitamin D3 supplement that he's been building, testing, and refining, championing since before most people knew what nitric oxide was. You see, back in back in 2007 at a Joe Dispens event during a walking meditation to save him, he decided to set a goal to save a million lives with Cardio Miracle. What's amazing is that he's now reached a million people, and we're now going for a hundred million. And so he has been working toward that goal every single day. And he is he was featured this year in the Maha film series, the Make America Healthy Again documentary series. It was amazing and talking about what nitric oxide does for the body. He's been saying this for two decades. The world is finally catching up. What I thought would be important, because this is part of his story, to share with you what that cardio miracle looks like and the man behind it. I hope you enjoy. This is a little cardio miracle from John Hewlett.

SPEAKER_06 9:20

Cardio Miracle and Healing the Hearts of Mankind, it's a mission to me. It's not a business. I want to help educate the world that there are answers that can be done through natural, high-quality supplementation that can give you a more energetic life, a better love life, a better public service life, a better career, and to not have to be dependent upon the 12 prescriptions that somebody my age should be on. Nitric oxide kind of has come on the scene in the last uh 25 years. It was awarded the Nobel Prize. It was later determined by Case Western University that nitric oxide was the third essential gas in the body: oxygen, carbon dioxide, and nitric oxide. Nitric oxide is produced by the lining of the artery as the body's great regulator, anti-inflammatory, and actually now tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands of articles showing it as the regulator of virtually all of the body's systems in so many ways and so valuable. But for many years people didn't have any idea what it was, even to the point that they call it the spark of life in the cell. And Science magazine referred to it as the miracle molecule. You can Google up almost any chronic illness, and you will find studies that say not enough nitric oxide and not enough vitamin D3. Without exception. I went back to Ohio and sat down with this genius. He says, I'll test it in my lab at the highest levels. And I said, Great, that's why I'm here. He goes, but what if it doesn't work? And I said, That's why I'm here. I want to know if it works. And 30 days later he called me up and he said, In the lab, in a petri dish, a single endothelial cell, bathed in your cardiomiracle uh compound, as he called it. He said, extended nitric oxide for 24 to 36 hours. He said he'd never seen that before. He said I'd never seen past four to five hours. Our research is showing significant benefits to all chronic illness because virtually all illness is based upon inflammation in the cell. And nitric oxide, properly distributed and sustained in the body, is the body's greatest natural anti-inflammatory. But I highly recommend people do your own research and just follow the science because I, in many ways, I believe the medicine has been flawed and has lost its way.

SPEAKER_05 12:15

It's inspiring to me to see that my dad's going out there and sticking his neck out, saying things that a lot of people would be afraid to say, and I'm so proud of him. And uh equally, I hope you can just see whether you agree with what he was saying or not, I hope you can see the passion and hear the energy and excitement and almost urgency in his voice about how important it is to him. And I appreciate that so much. You know, he he communicates with words, obviously, but he communicates through standards as well, through expectations and through the gap between where you were and where you where he could see you were heading. And so I'm the president of Cardio Miracle. And as the president, that's an interesting place for me. And my brother is the VP and my dad's the founder, and my my mom, who has not been married to my dad for 20 plus years now, still drinks Cardio Miracle every single day. I I don't know if I can give you a more amazing testimonial than that, but the the supplement and this product works, and I'm proud of my dad for coming up with it, along with the scientists and the team he's built. You know, he gave me things I didn't ask for and I didn't understand. It was a standard I couldn't always meet, and a percentage of my effort that landed harder than he probably intended. But a book called As a Man Thinketh that I tucked away and and I uh I opened it eventually, but not as soon as he had hoped. And I'll tell you more about that in a little bit. But this is uh a belief that what you build matters. Legacy is not an accident, and that you know, you can set a goal, save a million lives, and wake up every day working toward it without knowing when or if it will be enough. So my dad shaped me in ways I'm still figuring out. I mean, I'm still figuring out the percentage, I'm still figuring out the book, I'm still figuring working out what it means to carry the mission of a man to decide to change how people's hearts function and their blood flow and all the great things that nitric oxide does and cardiomerical, and then spent his life building the thing that would do it. So now I get to do my best to assist him in that work. And here's what I know the conversation I'm having with this audience, you, every Thursday, about character leadership presence and what it means to keep your promises, it all traces back to him. To a man who handed me tools before I knew they were tools. And so this episode is for him. It's late and coming, but but it's here. I I see that my buddy uh Randy said something nice here. Let's see. Lots of food for thought, Jason. My dad and I didn't always get along well. I think that's a familiar sentiment, brother. Uh for for most people. And one thing he did do that I'm grateful for was teach me how to work hard and always be willing to help. Yeah, so let's look at the good. Because uh for some, there will be different relationship levels that they've had and experiences with their parents, right? And I just want you to know that my dad have had and I have had our ups and downs for sure. But absolutely, he when I was a when I was a kid, he was my hero, and uh we've had a reconciliation through the last few years that's been really wonderful, and now we work together and we're best buddies again. It's an amazing story, it's a story of redemption, of reconciliation, of Christ's true uh redemptive love for each of us, and I'm so thankful for that. And so thank you, Randy, for sharing. And I I hope that as you continue to share those stories with the people that matter, your children, grandchildren, and so forth, about your father, whether the relationship was excellent or not, what he taught you is important, and to share that with others is so essential. Thank you for sharing. My friends, let's go to the news feed right after this. And on Father's Day coming up in June. According to MNTN Research Father's Day report, Father's Day spending hit a record $24 billion in 2025. That's a lot of socks and ties. Up from 50% since 2019, outpacing inflation by a wide margin. And the fastest growing category, what would you think? I would think it's ties. Well, it's experiences. Special outings are now the single biggest Father's Day spending category at $4.8 billion. 53% of people are planning an experience with their dad. 30% are giving experience outright and nearly double the rate from two years prior. We are as a culture trying to buy our way into the moment. I mean, I I applaud you for creating the experience, but we're outsourcing presence to reservation and calling it a gift. I think presence is the most important piece here. If that's what you have to do to create the presence, then good for you. Go do that experience. But rather, um most dads, me being one in particular, I'd rather just be with my children in a special time in our home, or not anything necessarily that special of an experience. Which brings us to story two. Story two, science just measured what a dad's presence actually does to a child. And in February 2026, the New York Times covered a landmark Penn State study published in the journal Health Psychology. The researchers tracked 292 families from the time children were 10 months old to the age of seven. Here's what they found. Fathers who engaged more sensitively with their infants, warm, present, attuned, had children with measurably better cardiovascular health at age seven. I have never seen this study. That blows my mind. Lower inflammation markers, better blood sugar regulation, healthier hearts. Okay, that's pretty interesting. The researchers specifically noted that these benefits were unique to fathers, not duplicated by mothers, not replicated by other caregivers, not transferable, unique to the father. Now, we've spoken on multiple episodes about mothers and the wonderful women in my life. This is a very interesting piece to share with you today about dads. Which means the way your dad held you or didn't when you were 10 months old is still measurable in your body decades later. Wow, science didn't just confirm that fathers fathers matter. Science confirmed that fathers matter in ways that are written into your biology. So here's the flip. Here's what both stories are actually saying. We'll spend 24 billion this weekend trying or this this in in June for Father's Day, we'll spend 24 billion in June to try to honor our dads. Awesome. Go for it. But science just told us that what our dads did when we were 10 months old, warmth, attention, presence, uh changed the chemistry of our hearts before we were old enough to form a memory of it. So the gift on Father's Day Sunday, in a couple weeks from now, I hope, is the gi the gift on Sunday's not the point. The man who showed up on a normal Tuesday night when you were a baby. That's what this day is actually about. So celebrate that. And if you have a strained relationship in that sense, I hope that you'll figure out ways that you can be a father figure to somebody and help them to have that benefit in their life from a young age. I'll tell you, if you're a grandparent, there's there's a wonderful opportunity there. I know for a lot of fathers I've spoken with, they've said I missed the boat with my own kids. I'm trying to make up for it as a grandfather. And I love that. This is what today's episode's about. This is what the show's always been about. And so our presence is not a Father's Day gesture, it's the whole inheritance. Let's go into faith and hope and a Bible story right after this. I hope that you'll come to Luke 15 with me. There's a story in Luke 15 that I love. Most people know is the story of the prodigal son. The prodigal son, I want to tell you the other story, though. We know the story, right? I mean, the one that happens on the same road, the same version to a different man. Let's talk about it from the father's perspective. So, what happened here? The son had already done essentially everything wrong. You know, if your parents gave you your inheritance today, that's a pretty unique thing. But back then it like never would happen. And so he had taken his inheritance early, the son, which in that culture was equivalent to saying to your father, I wish you were dead, or I you're you know, you're nothing to me anymore. He left for a far country and he wasted everything. He hit the bottom so completely he was eating with pigs and calling it a living. And then in Luke 15, 17 it says, And when he came to himself, he said, How many hired servants of my fathers have bread enough and to spare, and I perish with hunger? I'll arise and go to my father and will say unto him, Father, I have sinned against heaven and before thee. I am no more worthy to be called thy son, make me as one of thy hired servants. Wow. That's pretty powerful. He rehearsed his speech on the road home Make me one of your servants. I'm not your son, I'm not your family, I'm just I just need employment. He knew what he had forfeited, he was walking home to confess and ask for a job, and then Luke 15, 20, what does it say? And he arose and came to his father. But when he was yet a great way off, his father saw him and had compassion and ran and fell on his neck and kissed him. The son said unto him, Father, I have sinned against heaven and in thy sight, and am no more worthy to be called thy son. But the father said to his servants, Bring forth the best robe, and put it on him, and put a ring on his hand and shoes and his feet. Bring hither the fatted calf and kill it, and let us eat and be merry. For this my son was dead and is alive again. He was lost in his found, and they began to be merry. Whoa. Okay. Think about that. Father was watching down the road every day. Not angry, not resigned, not done, just watching. I know exactly what this dad was going through. You're waiting for your kids to come back. You're waiting, even when they're you know that they're somewhere safe, you're still checking on them and hoping and praying that they're in God's protection. And but he was looking towards the horizon for a silhouette he would know anywhere, at any distance and in any light. And when he saw him, his son, he ran. Not walk, not waiting at the door with his arms folded. He ran. In that culture in that time, a man of dignity did not run in public. It was beneath him, it was undignified. The father ran anyway, robe gathered up, full speed toward a son who hadn't yet said the words, who was still a great way off, who had done nothing yet to deserve the welcome. He didn't wait for the son to arrive and prove himself. He closed the distance himself before the speech, before the apology, before the son earned anything. That is the theology of fatherhood in one image. You do not wait for your children to earn the welcome. You close the distance as a dad. You run toward them. Sometimes before they deserve it. Sometimes especially because they don't. And because love's not a reward for good behavior, it's the condition that makes good behavior possible. And and so the son arrives with a rehearsed confession, the father interrupted it, bring the best robe, put a ring on his hand, kill the fatted calf. My son was lost and is found. Son came home ready to be a servant, the father reinstated him. I I love this story. If you're a father, your kid is on a road somewhere, maybe a great way off. Maybe just down the hall behind a closed door, farther from you than the physical distance suggests. I know for me, with my father, we were best buddies until about uh um I was about twenty something years old, and then some things happened in our worlds that collided, and we didn't agree on things, and it was a hard, hard situation. We did our best to balance being in each other's lives, but it don't it wasn't that great. It's only been in the last few years that we've had this great reconciliation. It felt like me coming back to him and saying, I want to be a part of your life, and he was ready, he was waiting, and I I believe that every father is. The question is not whether they've earned the run as a kid. The question is whether you're willing to make it. I hope that this wasn't too much, but I'll tell you, uh, this is a powerful story. How does it apply to your life? And uh I appreciate everybody who's watching. It looks like we've got uh a friend of mine, Ryan Riley, up here. He said, My dad gave me the example that I needed in order to be the father to my son and to be able to raise them to be the men who they are today. You know what? Ryan Riley is one of the great dads I've ever met. I mean, that's kind of if you ask somebody who's Ryan Riley, they'd say, Oh, he's like the best dad I've ever seen. So thanks for joining us, man. This is cool that you joined us on this episode, especially, because you know my dad. Ryan Riley runs a company called Stem Regen. It's incredible, it's a great uh it's a great benefit to your body and it regenerates your stem cells. So check that out. Thanks for joining us, Ryan. What a guy. Yeah, I I love this story. I love talking about the scriptures. Open your scriptures, read the good book. You know who taught me that? My dad. Father Time. Right after this. Okay. Father Time, I usually try to talk about being a dad and what that's like. I just want to tell you a story that I've told for many years about my dad. I'll bring up another picture of him. Here's he and I. Uh this is us singing at an event. And what's fun about my dad is he's he could have been a rock star. He could have gone on and become a famous performer, but instead he made a great living for us in the financial world, and eventually he created Cardio Miracle, which is this great health supplement company. Now, we perform all over the place, he and I, and any chance we get we sing God bless the USA together. You see, before that was the song I sing all the time, it was his. And how fun to share the stage with him. Uh, I thought it would be nice to be able to share a couple of photos about him and and our life. So here's a photo of he and I a couple years ago in in his beautiful cabin up in the mountains outside of Park City, Utah, which is called Woodland. Up in Woodland, it's a beautiful ranch he's got with his uh his cousins and all of our relatives. And then uh here's my here's my family. These are my brothers and sisters. Yeah, this is it's me on the left, and then you got Haley, Josh in the middle, Heather, Dad, and then Jared. These are some extremely important people in my life and in my dad's life. You see, each of these children have different signature moves, things that make them different and incredible. They all have their skill sets, they are all extremely successful. And uh one of the favorite memories I have as uh you know, as being uh a sibling is watching the way that my my brothers and sisters interact with when my dad is around. It's so fun. We're just trying to make him laugh. That's the whole goal, right? Make your dad laugh. That's the holy grail. As we've gotten older, uh I we've had some kids, um, Heather in the in the very middle there.

unknown 28:29

Uh-huh.

SPEAKER_05 28:30

And here's here's one of my favorite pictures of all time. This is my dad in the pool with the grandkids. Guess what? All of those kids are either gone from the nest or leaving in the next two or three months. Okay. All of those kids. Okay. That's how fast time goes. Three of those are mine and uh three of those are Heathers. The uh it's so fun to see these kids because they're all growing up doing great things, but they'll always remember Papa, which is what they call him, Papa, by getting them in the water and having a good time swimming. So when it comes to father time, I want you to think about how you spend your time as a dad. How you're, you know, hopefully the grandfather is around the grandchildren having that influence. I'm so glad my dad's still alive to make that happen. And and I thought I'd share a video that we did for his birthday last year because he just turned 74 the other day, and we're so thankful he's now in what he calls his 75th year of life. But we made this video recently, and uh this was a celebration where we held uh a family party, and some of the um uh folks that work with Cardio Miracle came to the warehouse. Here's a video about my dad. For the entirety of my life, I've been told that my dad will be dead by the age of 62 or 3. And so it was like we had a ticking time bomb. The fact that here we are, 10 years after that timeline, it's pretty amazing.

SPEAKER_01 30:01

Before Cardio Miracle, he actually had a couple health scares. So we were actually worried that he was going to pass, and that was really stressful. But we are just grateful he's here with us, and honestly, Cardio Miracle has kept him here with us.

SPEAKER_03 30:16

It's an important day for me and for him, obviously, because in our family history I never thought that we'd get to this point, him being 73, and I talk about it all the time, and so happy that my dad is still around.

SPEAKER_01 30:34

My dad is a great performer. He's just so great with people, charismatic, darling. And I say this to everyone you'll just love him if you meet him.

SPEAKER_00 30:43

I think a lot of our energy comes from my dad. He's so charismatic, he's the best. I love his love for music, tonight hearing him seeing.

SPEAKER_05 30:51

Spreading joy is a John Hewler trick. I mean, he just wherever he goes, people feel better about themselves.

SPEAKER_08 30:57

One thing that everyone will remember if they knew John, when he had a passion, he went with it like to the next degree, the highest degree.

SPEAKER_07 31:05

John is absolutely the most loyal friend one could ever have. He's completely dedicated to the welfare of the people he's trying to serve.

SPEAKER_02 31:16

Every single time, like anything big happens in my life, he's the first person to text me and congratulate me.

SPEAKER_05 31:22

So, this is a decade of him sticking around for the impossibility of him still here is a miracle. And that's why cardio miracle is the thing that we can't stop talking about. Cool video. Fun to see my siblings talk, some of our friends, and of course, my children. That's cool to hear them talk about their grandfather in such a way. When I was a kid, I did not do well in school. I've told this story all over the place, but maybe you've never heard it. When I was a kid, school didn't go well for me. I was essentially failing out of English and math and everything. And I remember one day my dad came and sat down on my bed. I was probably 11, and he set a stack of books on my bed. And uh one of the books was called As a Man Thinketh. Um, and it it was something I was confused about because it looks so simple. I I first read uh The Greatest Salesman in the World by Ogmandino, because that was the one he recommended I read first, and then I read How to Win Friends and Influence People uh by uh Carnegie and then uh Think and Grow Rich by Napoleon Hill. And and I really liked these types of books, even though I could hardly read uh C Spot Run, but I could chop through them and and ask him questions about them. It wasn't until though I read As a Man Thinketh that I realized that it's all about mindset and what we think about is what manifests and our words, our deeds, our our body and our lives. And I I'm so thankful for the things that he gave me, even though when I was that age, it didn't make sense why he would hand me these adult type, you know, self-help books, and yet it changed everything for me. And so I I'm so thankful for his uh belief that I wasn't a failure, and even though school wasn't going well and so years ago I wrote a song. I mean, I'm talking I bet I wrote this 12 years ago. Here's the here's here's what it is. I don't know if you can see that, but this is just like art meets chords, meets lyrics. It's just kind of a big mess mess. And I just found it today. And I thought, you know, I'd I'd I'm kind of nervous to even play this because I'm just still figuring out what it should sound like, even though it's been years since I wrote the chorus. And so it uh it's called The Legend. And I I like to ask the question, who are your heroes when you were a kid? I mean, for a lot of us it was like you know, Michael Jordan or or your scoutmaster or somebody. I remember my dad once introduced me to Muhammad Ali, and he said, Son, this is the greatest athlete that's ever lived. And and Muhammad Ali looked at me and was very kind. And uh I just remember thinking, yeah, Muhammad Ali is cool, but my dad's I think cooler. So I wrote this song about him. I I hope that I do it justice. We're gonna go to the piano and uh hopefully this works. Let's try it out. Like I say, here's an original about my dad. Hopefully that came through. I appreciate you listening. That's the song called The Legend. Never performed anywhere before. Hopefully, it came through. I appreciate you guys sticking around. All right, let's try. Oh man, Randy, your talent's truly amazing. Love this, Jace. Love you, brother. You're so kind and encouraging. What a guy. What a great tribute to your dad. Thanks, man. I I'm sure someday he'll see this and it'll be cool to have him watch. But you guys ready? Let's jump into the funny factory right after this. All right, let's talk about the cool dad. We all know him. Some of us tried very hard to beat him. The cool dad says yes to everything. You want an extra hour on your screen? Absolutely. Skip the vegetables? Oh yeah, on a school night you can. Live your life, buddy. Cool dad is the fun one. The cool dad gets the big smiles, the bear hugs, the you're the best dad ever that every father wants to hear. He has never once been the bad guy in his own house. Not one time. His children love him. Or so he thinks. I spend a significant portion of my fatherhood career trying to be the cool dad. I mean, you know, I would run around and do the raptor and and I mean I was fun and silly, and equally you know, I I opened my mouth wide and I popped my jaw, but I did the full Jurassic Park kitchen scene in my living room. I did the faces and and the funny voices and the nose thing, and I mean I was fully committed, right? My kids loved it. And they loved it for a time and a season. And then I realized, you know what, I need to be uh I need to maybe be serious when it's important to be serious, and then I went too far with that too. I became almost like the strict dad. So I went from trying to be the cool dad to being the strict dad. Uh and then I went too far on that end as well. I'm still trying to figure out the right balance between being the fun, cool dad, and the one who makes it so that they understand they're accountable to something. And so you know what I find fascinating is that there's the cool dad in me, the one who wanted to be like, you know, the one who wants the smiles and want to be the fun when the cool dad ha had not protected um my children from the maybe the more stern dad or the mean dad, as sometimes they called me when I got a little too stern with them. And so the cool myth, the cool dad myth is this that being loved by our children and being good for your children are the same thing. They're not always the same thing. The best dads I know were not the cool ones a lot of the time. They were the consistent ones. Be consistent. The ones who showed up for the hard conversation, the ones who said no when no was the right answer, even knowing that no meant a door slamming down the hall. Or the kids talking about you bad behind your back. The one whose kids 30 years later say, I always knew where I stood, I never had to guess. So there's no greater gift you can give your child than the certainty of where they stand with you. Not perfect, not cool, not just a certain, a present, a promise. Make a promise and keep it. Uh it's it's it's so important to do this. And as we come up on Father's Day in a few weeks, um every dad who, you know, let his kid go to bed mad at him last night because it was the right call. I applaud you. That's okay. Don't be too harsh. Find that right balance. I know I'm still working on it. And hopefully we can all find that right place. Because, you know, being the dad who does this, you know, you would think that's funny all the time. The kids don't think it's as fun when I'm older, right? So when they were little, that was cool. Now they're like, please don't do that in front of my friends. But now it's a matter of how can I be strict, make sure they know where they stand all the time that I love them no matter what. We close that gap. I run to them. I hope that you'll run to yours. You are not the cool dad. You are the real dad. And that is so much better. As we wrap up, let's jump into the fitness minute, and then we'll be done right after this. Okay, fitness minute as we wrap. You know I love fitness. I love getting in the gym. That's my my favorite place to go. I try to work out. Some people can tell. I want I'm gonna talk about this product of Cardiomerical Different today, if that's okay. Because you've heard me talk about Cardiomerical on every single episode of this show. We always focus on it in some way. I've told you about uh it's a nitric oxide supplement. I've told you it supports heart health and blood pressure and energy and uh and performance and all that is true, and I stand behind every word of it. But today I want to tell you who built it, because that story belongs in this episode. I'm talking about my dad as we as we kind of wrap this up. As the president of the company, I'm so thankful for the ability to hang out with my dad to travel, we do events together, my brothers there, sometimes my sisters show, sometimes my children come and help, and my wife, and it's a full family legacy business. And I'm so thankful for and proud of him because I'll tell you what, uh, through the years, I'm trying to find every advantage I can in the products that I put into my body, the things that I know that will help me the most. And Cardio Miracle has done that for me, and it's done that for so many people. In fact, uh we have we have people joining on board right now who are just flipping out there. They're worldwide celebrities who are excited to talk more about Cardio Miracle. I'm excited to share more about it. But when you mix this in your drink, all it does is it fills your body with goodness, it makes you feel better, and it flushes out the toxins, the inflammation, it then dilates the blood vessels so that you have greater blood flow. This works for so many reasons in our lives, and I hope that you'll share it with the people that are probably going through something really tough, maybe chronic pain, maybe they've just had surgery, maybe they're on blood pressure. Medications, things like that. Go go tell them about Cardiomerical. If you want, you can actually get it for a pretty nice discount from this QR code here. Just go to Cardiomeracle.com. You can get it as well. Or reach out to me, I'll send you a code so you can grab some and try it for yourself. Your family will thank you. The people in your life that you want around longer will thank you. Um, my dad, he's 74. He should have been dead in his 60s. We always were told that, but he even maybe could have died in his late 50s when he had a appendectomy went wrong and they nicked a vein on the way out and he almost bled internally. And so that's why he went on this mission to figure out how can we therapeutically fix ourselves without the uh without going under the knife and without going into the medical situation that he didn't want to be in. He's never had a quadruple bypass, even though they prescribed it to him. And I'm so thankful that he didn't have that, because how do you survive that? Hopefully you can. But I just want hope that you understand that I talk about Cardiomerical in every episode, not only because I know it's worked for me and I use it before every workout and after every workout, but also because my dad is the formulator, and I'm so proud of him. And uh my dad gave me a standard I couldn't always meet, and he gave me a book I didn't understand for years, and as a man thinketh, but now I do. And he gave me a product that is this product, Cardiomiracle, helping people's hearts around the world, and a mission to carry it forward. And and he built something, and I'm carrying it along. Uh, he's also got an incredible partner by his side. Her name is Janet. We love her. She came into his life in the last uh twelve years, I believe. It's been that long. It's amazing. We're so thankful for her, and she celebrates him in all the right ways, and and we're so thankful for her. This man needs to be out speaking, sharing, and being the uh evangelizing missionary and and truly he's a messenger. That's just what he is. He can't help himself. And you know what? My dad built something, and I'm trying to carry it. And that is the whole episode in one sentence here today. If you want to try a cardio miracle, you know what? The link is in the description, so you can go grab it there. And if your dad is still here with us, call him this week. Get ready for Father's Day, make sure that he feels special. If he's not still here, how can you honor his memory? And uh, you know, the product'll wait, but the call might not. And so, are we ready for the outro? I think we're ready to wrap this up. I usually try to shoot for 45 minutes, gone a little long today, but I appreciate everybody being here. In fact, we've even put in the comments if you want to go check out the blog post. I wrote one about my dad, the founder of Cardio Miracle, and that was for his birthday, a post for him. So, here's what I want to leave you with. Your dad shaped you. You know this. You've known it your whole life, you've felt it in how you react under pressure, and how you talk to your own kids when they disappoint you, and the standards you hold yourself to and no one is watching, and the voice inside your head that says, not good enough or keep going, and sounds if you listen carefully, exactly like your dad. The work, real work, is not to decide whether he did it right. The work is to understand what he was trying to give you. To separate the delivery from the intention, to carry forward what was love and to set down deliberately what was limitation, and to do that work before you pass the whole unexamined package to the next generation. So my dad handed me that book, as a man thinketh. Many other books that were incredible, including the scriptures. I was a kid. I didn't I probably didn't read it the way he hoped, but it eventually landed. And the fact that I can stand here today and talk to you about character, promise, presence, what it means to lead at home, a lot of that traces back to the man who believed when I was a little kid that the right book in the right hands was worth more than any percentage he could assign. He's now my best friend, he's been my best friend for so long. And he was right. This episode's for him, for my dad. I'm so thankful for him. If you have a dad who shaped you in ways you are still figuring out, in ways that are still settling in, well, in ways you could not have put words to until just now. This episode is your reminder. You are not too late to tell him. The window's still open. Make the call, drive over, say the thing out loud, post about him. I hope that in a couple of weeks, when it's Father's Day, you'll be able to do this, and hope that you know that I appreciate so much you joining me today as I talk about my my hero. I want to be like the legend. He was my life's launch pad. I want to be like my hero. I want to be like my dad, John B. Hewlett. God bless you. See you next week.