The First Day Is a Promise

The first day of school is a covenant moment we keep treating like a logistics moment. Here are the three promises the first day is actually making — and how to name them out loud this year.

Freedom of Speech: "The Handoff" 
Full Story: "The First Day Is a Promise" 
From the Newsfeed: "The Real Cost of Going Back" 
Faith & Hope: "First Fruits" 
Father Time: "The First Day Ritual"
Funny Factory: "Back-to-School Lies We Tell Ourselves"
Fitness Minute: "The Parent Body That Made It to September" 

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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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Oh, the first day of school is a promise nobody signs. Parents make it, kids make it, teachers make it. Even the bus drivers and lunch ladies make it. And most of us break it by Halloween. Not because we didn't mean it, but because we never named what we were actually promising. And this week the shopping starts, the lists get made, the shoes get bought, the backpacks get filled, and somewhere in the noise of all that logistics and the actual promise, the one the kid is watching for gets skipped. I want to talk about that promise today, because the first day is coming for all of us, whether we're the parent, the kid, the teacher, the grandparent in the front row of a first grade classroom in September, wondering where the years went. Yeah, coming up on the show, Jason Hewlett's show today, freedom of speech, the handoff, the unspoken august transition every family in every classroom makes, and why the households that thrive are the ones where somebody names it out loud. In the full story, we'll talk about the first day is a promise. That first walk to the bus, that first drop-off, the first bell. It's not a logistics moment, it's a covenant moment. And from the newsfeed, the real cost of going back, brand new 2026 data on what families are spending and what teachers are feeling walking into this fall. In Faith and Hope, we'll talk about first fruits. The Old Testament practice of giving the best of the harvest first, not the leftovers, apply to the first weeks of the school year. And in Father Time, I'll talk about some of our first day rituals. When we had back to school time with my children, some of the fun things that we have always done and we still plan to do for the one who's still at home. And funny factory, we're gonna do back to school lies that we tell ourselves. The lies parents tell themselves in August, the lies teachers tell themselves in the parking lot on the first day, and then in the fitness minute. The parent body that made it to September. Yeah. Brought to you by Cardiomiracle. Stay with me. This one is for every parent, every teacher, every kid, every grandparent about to walk into another August. Here we go. They were signing what they knew could be their own death warrant. We mutually pledged to each other our lives, our fortunes, and our sacred honor. Only 33% of us say they're extremely proud to be American. Promise that costs nothing was never a promise, it was a preference. In freedom of speech, there is a handoff that happens every August in every household in America, and almost nobody scripts it. It's a handoff between the summer parent and the school parent. Between the vacation kid and the student kid. Oh man. Wait, I have to go to bed before 5 a.m. Wait, now I have to wake up at 5 a.m. Yeah. Between the June teacher who is just recovering and the August teacher who's already rebuilding. Yeah, it happens without a meeting. I mean, this happens without an agenda. It just happens. And either everybody feels the same walking into August or everybody starts the year already misaligned. And so the households that thrive in the fall are the ones where somebody, a parent, a grandparent, an older sibling, named the handoff out loud before it happened. Yeah. The classrooms that thrive later on in September and October are the ones where the teacher named it out loud too, not with a speech, rather, with a promise. Summer parent is loose. You know this. I'm the same way. Let's bedtime slide because July. Oh, yeah, you can sleep over that kid's house. Don't know their parents. Can you find out if they have any? Let's find their number. You know, nobody has to be anywhere. Sure. I I'm constantly saying, sure, one more episode. Go ahead and watch Netflix all night or yeah, ice cream after dinner, go ahead, right? School parent is different. Up at 6 a.m., packing the lunch, signing the folder, checking the assignment portal, running a small logistics company for another human being, and has to be somebody by 7:30 a.m. every single day. Now, I'm also going to make fun of the fact that that doesn't always happen either. And the funny factory, but here's the problem: nobody flips a switch on August 15th. The same tired human being is to become the other version of themselves, usually in about 48 hours. It's a very hard transition, and usually without ever admission admitting the transition's happening. And that's the handoff. And when it isn't named, the kids feel the whiplash because the parent they had in July is not the parent they get in August and September and October. What the heck happened? And no one warned them the person was going to change. Teachers make the same handoff, it costs them even more. You know, the June teacher was running on empty already. The July teacher spent two weeks in a fog trying to remember what a full night's sleep feels like. If you're a teacher, you are relating to what I'm saying. And the August teacher is the same person who was empty six weeks ago, only now she's expected to be inspiring again. Nobody warns her the handoff is coming. She just shows up on a Monday, expected to be a fresh version of herself. Here's the whole point today. Name the handoff out loud. It's okay. You need to say it. At the dinner table this weekend at breakfast, Monday on the drive to school, supply shopping. Say it. Hey, we're switching modes. Summer is ending. School starts in a few weeks. Here's what our house is going to look like. Here's when we're going to bed. Here's what we do in the morning. Here's where we're going to protect our time. That's the whole speech. You don't need a family mission statement. You don't need a color-coded chart. You need one honest conversation where the adult in the room admits the transition is coming and invites everybody into it on purpose instead of by accident. So, what's the summer version of you like? What's the summer version or the September version of you? Because it's different than the summer one. You know? Do you do the two of them ever meet each other, or does one of them just get shoved onto the calendar without warning? And who in your house has been dreading the handoff and hasn't said so? I mean, I know I know I've heard a lot from my son who's still in school. He's starting ninth grade. Can't believe it. And yeah, he's like, do I have to do this? Yeah? Sorry. Who in your school has been faking readiness for two weeks is gonna burn out by October? If you're a teacher, look around. If you're a if you're a a kid, go into school, check out your, you know, look around and look at your friends and see how you can be helpful. What would change if you named the handoff out loud this weekend instead of letting August and then September ambush all of you? And who's your 99 this fall? And who's the one you need to leave the 99 to find? We've talked about this concept in many episodes, including last week. And when it comes to the 99, remember the one. In this case, it's your kid, or your niece or nephew, or your grandchild. How can you be focused on the one at this transitionary time? Let's jump into the full story right after this. Thank you to my team. They're amazing. They're from all over the world. And they are mornings in the lab with Keith, and I've got I've got Mildred and Melissa, and we've got Archie, and we've got all these incredible people all over the world who make this possible. I'm so thankful for this team. And you know, the in the full story, remember the first day is a promise. The first day of school is a covenant moment. It just doesn't get treated like one. We treat it like a logistics moment, truly, like backpack, lunchbox, shoes, mistakes, dump off, photo on the porch, post on Instagram, done. Yeah, but the kid is not experiencing a logistics moment. The kid is experiencing a whole lot, a before and after moment. Before the first bell rings, they're a summer kid. Free and loose, unmeasured, having a good time all the time. No rules, no curfew. We've tried, but whoa. After that first bell rings, they are a student with a teacher. We'll decide things about them by October. A hallway, they don't know yet how to walk down and navigate. A year of homework, grades, friendships, disappointments, accomplishments, quiet failures ahead of them that they cannot yet see. Possibly and hopefully some accomplishments that are awesome. That's not logistics. That's a covenant, that's a promise. And here's what the kid is actually asking on the first morning whether they know it or not. Are you going to be there this year or are you going to be busy? That's their main question. We talk about being present all the time on this podcast. Are we going to be present or are we going to be busy? They're not asking it out loud. Nope, they do not. They just watch your face at drop off. They're watching you whether you're on your phone in the pickup line or at the stoplight. They're watching whether you remember the teacher's name by October. Ask about them specifically. They'll get their answer over the next eight weeks without anyone ever having to say a word, really. The first day is promising three things, whether anybody names them or not. Promise one, I will pay attention to who you become this year. Not just your grades, not just your behavior report card, who you become. What friendships you build, what subjects light you up, what quiet fears you develop. You know, the parent who signs up to pay attention is signing a promise the kid will fill every week for nine months. So pay attention. Not just to the grades, but to the child and who they're becoming. Promise too. I will show up for the ordinary days, not just the big ones. Everybody shows up for the concert, the championship game, the award assembly, the big trip, right? All the big things. But the Tuesday afternoon soccer practice in the rain when nobody's watching? That's the promise the kid actually remembers. That's the one that says, You matter to me even when there's no audience. I'd also add into that, you matter to me even if it's not an Instagram post. Promise three. I will let this year change you without trying to keep you the same. Hmm. This is the hardest one. Every year they grow past a version of themselves you loved. Every parent has a choice on the first day of every year. Hold on to the version that was that was them, or make room for the version that's becoming. This is a beautiful transition. It's a wonderful thing. Teachers make a version of this same promise on the first day, and it costs them just as much. The teacher's promising 28 kids at once. She'll see them all as individuals, not as a class average. This is tough. She's promising to notice the quiet one in the back. She's promising to send the note home when something good happens, not just when something bad happens. And most teachers make that promise without anybody knowing and keep it without anybody thanking them. That's why teaching is a vocation, not a job. So this year, name the first promise out loud, not a speech, one sentence. That's it. Said to your kid at the breakfast table in the car on the walk to the bus, hey, this is going to be a big year for you. And I want you to know I'm gonna pay attention. I'm going to show up for the ordinary stuff, not just the big stuff. I'm gonna let you change without trying to keep you the same. That's my promise for you this year. Your child, they'll act like they didn't hear it. And yet they heard it. It'll land in a place you can't see, and it'll do work that you will never fully know about. I'd also like you to consider the teachers. Can you be similar in that sense for them as well? If you have to choose one, you know, focus on the kid. But if you can also be that kind of parent who supports and encourages the teacher and thanks them for thanking and sending the good things home, it's gonna make their year way better. The first day is a promise. Somebody in the room has to name it. That somebody is you from the newsfeed right after this. Alright, from the newsfeed. Oh, these are fun. Story one, the shopping number. You ready? According to the 2026 NRF Back to Class survey, yeah, they have those. With Prosper Insights and Analytics. The average K-12 household is spending between how much do you think? I I I would have thought it was I would have thought it was probably even more, but it's $864 and $875 on back to school this year. 62% of shoppers started early July. 47% are only buying essentials up front and replenishing through the year. I know we just put out a cot on the porch for the Amazon guy because he just pretty much needs to live here. He's delivering so many packages. I would imagine that of back to school stuff. I would imagine that we're just uh helping fund a small country at this point with Amazon purchases, but that's just part of back to school. Translation is this families are stretching, and I know we are. This isn't a celebratory consumer moment at all. This is a national household ritual. It costs almost a thousand dollars a kid, and half of American families are budgeting it out over the whole fall. Under the shopping is an emotional story. The pressure parents feel to make the first day look like the first day is supposed to look. You know what it feels like when your kid comes to you and says, I need the designer shoes that are four thousand dollars, like everybody has them, and the jeans and the hat, and the my gosh. Pressure's real, worth naming. So it doesn't run the household. It's okay to talk about it. Story two, the teacher number. Ready for this one, according to 2026 State of the American Teacher Survey from Rand Corporation, 55% of K-12 public school teachers reported frequent job-related stress this year. Down from 62% in 2025 is still 21 points higher than the 34% of comparable working adults. 55%, that's hard. Uh, I would I would think it's even higher. And the share of teachers naming classroom management as their top job stressor now exceeds those naming low pay. Read that again. The number one stressor teachers named in 2026 was not their paycheck. That's what I thought they would have said, but it's the daily reality of managing behavior in the room. That's a message for parents. Right? The single most powerful thing you can do to help a stretched, thin teacher this fall is not a gift or a card at Christmas or even sending money. It's teaching your kid before the first day how to be manageable, how to listen, how to raise a hand. That is a covenant a parent makes on behalf of a teacher who will never know you made it. And you know what? They'll be extremely grateful that you're sending a kid that's got respect on their mind, that's got a good word to say, the first one to be helpful. We talk about it in every car ride. I'm sure my son is sick of it. But that is expected when you are a Hewlett. What are you expecting? Story three, the teachers who are staying. The most hopeful number in this data set, the same 2026 RAN survey, nearly one in four teachers, and 30% of teachers in their first five years said they plan to stay in the classroom as long as they can. That's good news. An 18% plan to leave this school year, five points lower than the 23% plan to leave in 2022, 23. So they're sticking around better. That's great. Because I remember during COVID and 2020, 2021, teachers were leaving like in droves. And they had every reason to. Absolutely. New teachers, the ones nobody expected last more than three years, especially after what's been going on for the last, you know, six years in our world, are planting flags and saying, I'm gonna stay. That is the future of American education, deciding one classroom at a time that's still worth doing. Thank goodness. God bless those teachers. My gosh. Story four: the household ritual underneath back to school is not a shopping season. It it is the second largest household ritual in American life behind only the winter holidays. And when tens of millions of families do the same thing at the same time, it's not commerce, it is ritual. Yeah, ritual only works if you name what it is for. If back to school is just $875 of target trips, it feels like a burden. But if it's a covenant renewal, it feels like something worth doing. Numbers are the numbers, and the meaning is up to us. Keep the promise with your kids, with the teachers. Send the kids to school ready to learn, to listen, to be kind, and to show love. Faith and hope right after this. And the phrase is first fruits. Yeah, the idea is old and simple. In Exodus and Leviticus, and Deuteronomy and Proverbs, God's people were told, When you harvest, what? Don't give the leftovers to God. Give the first of the harvest to God. The best of the crop. Proverbs 3 9 says it directly. Honor the Lord with thy substance and with the first fruits of all thine increase. That's hard to do. It's like paying your tithing first before you pay your bills. Most people read that as a stewardship passage about money, tithing, giving. But there is a version of that that hits harder in August than in any other month of the year, and that version is about attention. The first day of school is the first fruits of a nine-month season. Yeah. You ever thought about it like that? Most of us give our kids and our teachers the leftovers instead. We give the leftovers because we're still tired from summer. We give the leftovers because work exploded the same week school started. This is what happens. Everybody's coming back to the office, you know, quote unquote. Even though we've been working, we've still been disconnected, we've still not had the meetings, and now it's like it's almost like a new year. We give the leftovers, though, because the first few weeks feel like a soft landing where we can coast until things get serious in October. And we give the leftovers to our family, our our children, because we tell ourselves the real conversations will happen later once the schedule settles. The schedule never settles. I'm sorry to break it to you. I've been through this now. We had three kids that have graduated every year for the last three years. We've had one and the schedule never settles. That is a hundred percent true. But the first fruits principle says the exact opposite. The first days are the ones that set the shape of the whole harvest. If you give the first days your best attention, your best presence, your best patience, your best listening, you are consecrating the whole nine months to something bigger than logistics. If you get the first days your leftovers, you're teaching your kid and yourself that this year isn't a covenant, it's just a calendar. Man. Practically, what does it look like to give the first fruits of the school year? How do we do this? It looks like the the parent who takes the first day off work because presence of the Beginning is worth more than presence in the middle. That might be hard for some people, but I'd encourage it. It looks like the first Tuesday night dinner where the phone is in a drawer and the kids get asked uh more than one question about their day. It looks like the first parent-teacher conference where you actually go, take notes, thank the teacher by name for a specific thing he or she did. It looks like the first week's homework being sat with, not supervised, not corrected, just witnessed. So give the first weeks intentionally and the harvest will taste different in April. I I promise you, this is a true principle. Here's the part that gets me. God does not ask for first fruits because he needs them. He asks for them because we need to give them. He knows that whoever gets the first slice of anything gets to define its meaning. If our kids get the first slice of our attention, they know they're the meaning of our fall. If our work gets the first slice, our work becomes the meaning of our fall. And our kids become the residue. So whoever gets the first fruits gets the harvest. So this year, before the first bell rings, decide who gets the first fruits of your fall. The kid, the classroom you teach, the spouse you have been meaning to reconnect with all summer? Give the first of the harvest to the promise that matters most. Everything else can eat the residue. Father Time, right after this. Oh yeah, here we are. There's George Washington, ladies and gentlemen, just so you know, and there's a picture of my bride that I found from her parents' house that we just moved them from. And as we talk about Father Time, let's talk about the first day of school ritual. Or the back to school ritual. Because at this point, first day of school is a is a rarity for us, but what's your ritual? What what uh what did you do even when you were a kid? Because I know that for m our family, the back to school or the first day of school has always been really special. Uh my wife is so good at making memories and making things special. And one of the things that she does is makes this incredible dinner. And we all sit together and we we have no phones and we just laugh and talk, and we actually look through pictures of the la of the summer to see how wonderful it was, and to remind the kids that, yeah, we did a lot of fun stuff, and now it's time to get back to work. And then we have this delicious dinner that mommy makes, and she puts together a essentially a basket of things that would be whether it's uh journals or pencils or or the electronics that they're gonna need, it's a special time for us. I then do something that uh maybe you've heard of this before. I give I give father's blessings. I put my hands on their head one at a time, and they sit in a chair, and everybody listens, and I give each child a specific blessing, regardless of your faith, as a dad, as a mom, do your thing. I would encourage the dads out there to consider doing a father's blessing before school starts, because this gives them purpose, meaning, understanding that we're taking it serious. Uh, these are a chance for me to be able to establish some of the promises I'm going to make to be fully present during the school year with them, and and that's made a lot of difference for us. We then, you know, regardless of the age, like I said, we just had a kid a year graduate for the last three years, and so we even when they were seniors made them stand in front of the door in the front of the house and uh take a picture outside. We now have, you know, a lot of years of them growing up in this very house. We've been here for over 20 years now, so that's a special thing to us. And we get to say, hey, you went to all your school years from this one house, and then we take pictures. You know, now that they're well when they're in their high school, you don't really go to the high school, but when they were little, yeah, you would go to the school and make sure they got in and knew their way around and found some friends. That's a neat thing. I wish you well with the first day of school and the back-to-school transition. But the promise of the parent and the father in this case is to um establish the pattern of seriousness and equally your commitment to your child in this case. It's going to be a special school year for them if you make it special, if you make it a big deal, if we celebrate the wins, if we put the report card on the on the fridge and say, Hey, great job. And the next thing you know, but the positive reinforcement, our child starts to do a little bit better each each and every year. It's a special thing. We've seen it in our lives, even when the kids were having some struggles when they were a little bit younger. They're all they're all you know, they all come into their own, it seems, as they head into these uh these older years. It's been crazy to watch in their older teen years. So I I hope that you uh I hope that you understand how powerful your role as a father, as a mother, as a grandparent is in making it so that your children and grandchildren understand how important school is, how important learning is, how to learn to love learning, equally that this is a once-in-a lifetime chance to make a difference for somebody, and that you can you can really develop some great leaders if you just give your children the vision of what you expect them to be and do your best to do it as well. That's Father Time. Should we jump into the funny factory? Let's do it right after this. You know, I have to say something. I uh uh as I'm sitting here, there is a crazy storm outside of my house. And when the storms come, I'm worried about the internet connection. So I hope that you can see me. I hope that it's still working. I'm imagining it is, but I also can say that there is electricity in the air. There are I can tell that there's a thunderstorm, a lightning storm, and there's hail. And that's that's obviously means like the summer monsoon season is coming through Utah. Okay. And equally, it makes my nose and face so itchy. So I apologize for doing that on camera. If you're to watch a real professional, they would not touch their face. I touch my face the whole time because I'm always adjusting my glasses. I just do all these uh moves and ticks or whatever they are, but I have a really itchy face today, so thanks for suffering through that with me. I thought I may as well mention it in the funny factory. Let's talk about the back to school lies we tell ourselves. You ready? Every August, every parent and teacher tells themselves the same set of lies. We tell them anyway, because hope is free even when it's unfounded. Here are the top back to school lies of 2026. You'll recognize probably everyone. Parent lie number one. This year we'll get the lunches ready the night before. Yeah, right. Sure you will. You said this last year. You've said this every year since back to when Obama was president. Every August, you buy the cute little bento boxes with the compartments and think, this is the year I become the parent in the Instagram reel that I watch over and over. And hey, by September 12th, you're jamming a granola bar and a worm cheese stick into a paper bag at 6 47 a.m. while your kid stands in the kitchen wearing one sock. Parent lied to. This year I won't cry at drop off. Oh yeah. No matter the age, you you will. You said the same thing at every drop-off in your entire life. Bring the tissues, wear the mascara that survives. It's not weakness, it's the price of the promise. Parent lie number three. This year we'll stay on top of the paperwork. Hmm. There's a folder. There's always a folder. You know, 47 pages, seven forms. You start to fill it out with a pen by page four, you lose the pen by page seven, three grocery store receipts are stuck to it with jelly. Yeah. Two weeks later, the teacher sends a friendly reminder email, and you stare at the phone like it has personally betrayed you. Good luck keeping up with the folder. The paperwork. How about the teacher lie? This is number one. The teacher lie is this year I'll leave by 4 p.m. Every teacher walks into August with the same delusion. This year I will leave when the contract says I leave. Boundaries, balance, rest. That's cute. Really cute. If you're a teacher, you know that I'm I'm essentially telling you something you already know. Because by I don't know, August what, 18th, 19th, you'll be laminating something at 6 45 p.m. And by November you'll be at Target on a Sunday buying whiteboard markers with your own money. This is the way. God bless you. Teacher lie number two. The room will stay organized. Oh man. The room is beautiful for 11 days, right? There is a labeled bin for everything. Then a five-year-old touched something, and now the pattern blocks are living in the beanbag chair, the crowns of stage decoup, and the classroom pet has developed opinions about lesson planning. You know when the hamster is looking at you off, that the room is disorganized. The organization's not coming back till June. Hey, accept it. Teach anyway. It's gonna be fine. How about the parent-teacher lie of the year? We'll make sure the kid does their reading every night. Yeah, right. There will be a reading log. It will require initials. Some nights the reading will happen, some nights it won't. Some nights the log will get filled out on a Friday morning while your kid eats cereal retroactively covering the entire week in one panic burst of parental fiction. We're all doing our best. And our best includes some strategic reading log embellishment. Nobody's calling the police, but do our best. I know I've never kept up on the reading. I mean, I need to do that myself. The one that isn't a lie, here's the one back to school promise that is not a lie if you're willing to keep it. This year I will be there. Okay. So you can't promise to nail the lunches, you can't promise not to cry, you can't promise the paperwork or the reading log, but you can promise to be there to be fully present. And not multitasking, not scrolling. That is the promise the kid is watching for, and it is the only one that actually matters. Fitness minute right after this. Yeah. Nobody talks about the physical toll of the back to school launch, but every parent and every teacher who's ever done it knows exactly what I'm talking about. You know, the first two weeks are body shock. You go from summers, um, I don't know, eight or nine or ten a.m. wake-up calls and wake up alarms to six a.m. alarms. You go from unscheduled evenings to soccer practice, homework, dinner, bath, bedtime every night, no break for nine months. Yeah. Welcome to life. You go from vacation brain to logistics brain, the body notices before the brain does. Yeah. Oh man, the August headaches, September sniffles, you start to get sick, low back tension, Sunday night dread in your stomach for another week of doing all this. It's not weakness, that's your body registering a real transition. And I just have to say that you know, two weeks before school starts, do three things for your body. One, try to reset your sleep. Uh, that's a hard thing to do, especially when your kids want to stay up late and you want to talk and be hang out. I get that, but reset the sleep if you can. Move the bedtime back 15 minutes every three days. Like just try something. Uh, August crashes on you if you try to make the whole shift on a Sunday before the first day of school. Two, uh, move something every morning. Not like a workout. It doesn't have to be. I mean, a workout's awesome in the morning if you can get it in, but maybe it's just a walk or a stretch or your circulation's about to be asked to power a very long fall. And then three, uh, I just have to say it. You need to take cardiomerical every single day, especially in these next two weeks as school begins. You know why? Because Cardiomerical, all you do is you tear this open, you pour it in your drink. You do that twice a day, your body's going to start thanking you very much for giving it such wonderful nutrients. Cardiomiracle is the world world's finest nitric oxide and vitamin D3 supplement. It's got 58 natural ingredients, nitric oxide. If you don't know what nitric oxide is, it's a miracle molecule that's coined by science. They call it the miracle molecule. That's why this company is called Cardiom Miracle. It's a miracle for your cardiovascular, as well as it's the miracle molecule that happens inside your body. So nitric oxide is a gas molecule that goes into your bloodstream and it actually it actually dilates the blood vessels, makes it so that your blood flows better. It repairs the endothelial lining, which is within every single cell, and that creates better um better ability for your body to function properly with the nutrients you're flooding it with all the time if you're eating healthy and well. Now imagine if you are drinking a ton of caffeine every single day to try to get through the day, or you're you're you know fasting all day, and then you're eating a huge meal here and there. I mean, there's all kinds of variations to making life work and bodies work, and I hope that you've found what works for you. I know for me, I like to do intermittent fasting and so forth, but what happens to my body, because I usually eat around noon or one or two in the afternoon and end by six. Man, I'm hungry on either side of that. Here's what happens with nitric oxide it not only dilutes your blood vessels, but it gets oxygen to your brain, keeps your energy from crashing at 2 p.m. And it actually even satiates you during the fast if you're into intermittent fasting. And and what happens is when it's in your body long enough, I mean, this has been scientifically proven. You can go to cardiomerical.com forward slash studies if you want, and check this out because it vitamin D3 is released from your fat cells if it's in your body for 12 hours. That's what it is, it's amazing. So drink it, get it in your body, it will change the way that you feel. I mean, you know, vitamin D3 is what your body loses as sunlight decreases through the fall, and then you're gonna get sick, and then you're gonna get run down, and inflammation will take over, and you're not gonna feel great. I I promise you, with some cardiomerical, it's gonna be great. Here's a QR code if you want to check it out. I share this in every single show because I know it's so important, it's helped me so much. You know, what a parent or teacher is launching into a nine-month sprint needs the most is to move, to reset their sleep, try some cardiomerical. You know, I take it every day, and my wife Tammy takes it every day. My my dad is the formulator of it. Now, he's not a quote-unquote, you know, doctorate degree in science, but he's worked with enough smart people, and he's a smart guy himself, and they've come up with a formula that has changed lives left and right. It's and unbelievable. Whenever I share it with anybody, they go, a lot of people are like, Oh, yeah, I've heard of this, or yeah, it actually helped my my mom, or you know, my dad just had surgery on his hip, and it's and he's walking so fast that the the PT can't believe it. Like this stuff works, it's crazy because blood flow is everything, and my dad's still going strong, takes it every day. So if you want to try it, there's a QR code, you can check it out. You get a 60-day trial. If you don't like it or feel the difference, or don't like the taste, whatever, then send it back. The link is in the show notes as well. But here's the deeper thing um, if you're the parent, the teacher, the coach, the grandparent, walking into September this year, and uh into August, even. I mean, here we are in August, but I'm talking September, October, November, like it's coming. Somebody's depending on your body to last through all of that. This isn't vanity, this is stewardship. Take care of your vehicle. Hey, it's a long fall. You guys, thanks for being here. Let's bring it home. Well, we started tonight with a promise nobody signs. The first day of school as a covenant, not a logistics moment. You know, we talked about the handoff every August between the summer parent and the school parent, between the June teacher and the August teacher, and why the households and classrooms that thrive are the ones where somebody names it out loud. Please commit to doing that. Talk about it. You know, we told the full story of what the first day is actually promising. It's promising attention, uh, ordinary day presence, and the willingness to let your kid change without trying to keep them the same. We looked at the real 2026 numbers in the household spending, the teacher stressed out, and the whole full story of the teachers digging in and staying. Thank goodness. God bless our teachers. We opened the Old Testament and remembered first fruits that whoever gets the first slice of your attention becomes the meaning of your fall. So make it a priority. Give first and give of the best. In Father Time, we talked about some of our first day of back to school rituals. Those are fun. I hope you found some inspiration for yourself as to what you could perhaps apply. And in The Funny Factory, we talked about the August lies every parent and every teacher tells themselves, and the one promise that isn't a lie. And in the fitness minute, the pre-launch protocol, and cardio miracle, because the body has to make it to September and to April. So here's the whole show in one line. The first day is a promise. Name it out loud or it'll happen to you. Good luck on the back to school. Because somewhere in your house this weekend, there's a kid about to start a new grade, wondering if the version of you they're getting this fall is going to be there for them. Somewhere in your community, there's a teacher setting up a room right now, wondering if this is the year she gets to keep herself intact all the way to June. Both are watching the same handoff. Both are hoping somebody names the promise. Name it. It costs you nothing. Changes everything. I appreciate you being here. Please share and even if you want to like or subscribe, uh, if you want to comment. I don't we don't have that many comments and and quite yet, but here we are at episode 27. We've now done this for half a year. I'm I'm ecstatic at the consistency. I have to thank my team. They are the best. Morning's the lab. They make all the difference to making this show wonderful. And uh they put so much production and time behind it for helping with the scripting and making it so easy on me. I just can't thank them enough. I'm Jason Hewlett. This has been the Jason Hewlett Show with lots of F words. Faith, freedom, fitness, fatherhood, funny farts. You know, you name it. I'll see you next Thursday. Until then, hey, keep the promise.