What a Billionaire Taught Me About Raising My Daughter | First Hero EP007

Are you raising a warrior or a parasite? Every dad needs to hear this.

Most fathers think they're protecting their daughter. But if you're removing every struggle, solving every problem, and making sure she never feels uncomfortable — you're not protecting her. You're weakening her. And you won't see the damage until it's too late.

In this episode of the First Hero Podcast, Rich shares the dinner conversation with one of the wealthiest men he's ever met — and the one quote that completely changed how he thinks about fatherhood, legacy, and what it really means to raise a strong daughter.

This is the episode for every girl dad who wants to raise resilient kids, build grit in children, and stop the generational cycle of comfort before it steals your daughter's strength.

In this episode we cover:
→ Why comfort is the silent killer of strong daughters
→ The warrior vs. parasite framework every girl dad needs
→ How princess culture is setting your daughter up to fail
→ The difference between protecting her and weakening her
→ How to raise a strong daughter without killing her femininity
→ Why stopping hard times create strong men starts with intentional fatherhood
→ The Four Rs framework: Resourcefulness, Resilience, Reflection, Regulation
→ Why the father daughter relationship is the most powerful force in her development

This one's for the dads who refuse to raise a parasite.

If you've been searching for real girl dad advice, practical parenting tips, and honest conversations about modern fatherhood — you're in the right place. The First Hero Podcast exists for the dad raising daughter who wants to do it right. Not perfectly. Right.
Whether you're deep into intentional fatherhood or just waking up to what conscious parenting actually looks like — this episode will challenge you, check you, and give you a framework you can use today.

Timestamps:
00:00 — The Quote That Haunts Me: A Warning From the Wealthiest Man I've Met
00:54 — How Rich & Corey Grew Up: Poor, Middle Class & Wealthy Friends
01:59 — The Dinner That Changed Everything: One-on-One With an Ultra-Wealthy Man
04:51 — The Camel Quote: My Grandfather Rode a Camel, His Son Will Too
06:55 — It's Not About Wealth — It's About Comfort & The Generational Cycle
08:35 — Why Comfort Is a Lie: The Slow Poison Killing Your Daughter's Strength
11:16 — Warrior vs. Parasite: The Exact Definition Every Girl Dad Needs
14:36 — "She's Not a Princess" — Rich's Story & The Princess Culture Problem
18:28 — Raise Her to Be a Warrior Who Knows the Power of Femininity
19:43 — Hot Take + The Four Rs: The Legacy You Leave In Her, Not For Her

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Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:00

There's an old quote that still haunts me to this day as a father. I heard it from one of the wealthiest men I've ever met, and the way he shared it with me wasn't advice. It was felt like a confession, a warning, even. A lesson he wished he had learned earlier, and it forced me to ask the question I didn't want to answer. Are you raising a warrior or are you raising a parasite? Welcome to the First Hero podcast. I'm Rich. And I'm Corey. Today we're going to be breaking down this quote, and I have an incredible story that I want to share with you as to where I heard it. Because, like I mentioned, this quote has stuck with me ever since I heard it. I believe I shared it with you the first time, and we both were like, damn, had you heard it the first time that I told you? Um, yes. You had? Yeah, that was the first time I heard it. Oh, it was the first time that I heard it. Well, I'll share with you the story about where I heard it. So I have some some friends that I grew up with, and Corey and I grew up, you know, being involved with a large group of friends, as most of us are. And as you can probably relate to, you know, all of us when we were younger had a bit of a different upbringing. And so some of us were maybe had a little bit more. Yeah. Let's just say it. We were poor. Some of us were poor, some of us were middle class, some of us were like freaking wealthy. Really wealthy. And so there was a clear delineation between, you know, where we were all at in this spectrum. But, you know, I it happens to be uh that that the parents of some of these friends that that we had or have are very, very well off and very, very successful, great people. We've spent a lot of time together and gotten to know them um over the years, you know, in my in my being introduced to them from a young age and growing up together. And so I had an opportunity as an adult. This was like, I don't know, this was before I was a kid, or before I, before I had kids. So it was probably six or seven years ago. I had an opportunity to have dinner with uh my friend's father. And he was a very established, successful man, probably um the first, the first really ultra wealthy person that I had an opportunity to meet and spend time with on at a one-on-one perspective. We had a dinner together, and you know, it was pretty informal, it was nice, but the whole point was um I really wanted to talk with him about real estate because I've been in real estate for so many years and he made a lot of his wealth in real estate. And so that was really my goal was to pick his brain on real estate. And so we go through the whole evening, we're having great conversation, enjoying everybody's company. And after dinner, I had some time to, to, to talk with him one-on-one. We're talking about real estate, how we got started, he's sharing this and that. And it, you know, if you've ever met, if you can remember that first time you met someone who was really, really, really successful, it's kind of like that celebrity feel, right? It's like, wow, like this is kind of this is kind of cool to have an opportunity to talk to this person instead of just, you know, be in the be in proximity to them. And so I remember we're we're running through all the questions about real estate, and I'm understanding, you know, his background and how he got to where he was, which was which was very impressive. But I knew that in my head also being being a father was something that was coming up very, very soon for me. And um, so I asked him, I said, you know, how do you have advice that you could give me on when you have so much wealth, how do you, how do you keep that work ethic? You know, how do you keep how do you keep your kids hungry if if they have everything? You know what I mean? And mind you, this was a question I think caught him off guard because we went from talking about real estate to talking about something that was that was not necessarily real estate related. But for me, it was very intertwined because, you know, we want to produce everything in real estate, and also I want to, I want to be able to, I want to show up in real estate, I want to show up as a father. And so it was interesting because his reaction wasn't what I expected. And this is where that quote came from. He didn't answer the question. He kind of paused for a second and he smiled at me and he said, uh, I want to show you something. And he grabbed his phone and he pulled his phone out, he picked, picked his email, and he starts scrolling through an email. He said, I want to show you this email that I got. Still hasn't answered my question. I'm thinking, what the, you know, what is this? We've been communicating and conversing this whole time, and all of a sudden, this, this, you know, he's he's he's speechless. He doesn't have anything to say. He wants to show me something. Okay, so it must be must be something profound, right? So he finally finds this email and he says, I want you to read this. So he gives me his phone and and I spend time reading it. And I'm gonna show you the, I'm gonna, it was a story. It was a story about a supposed uh Saudi Arabian sheik, um, if I remember correctly. And this this the sheik was asked about generational wealth on like, you know, some of the one of the wealthiest sheiks in this particular region or area. And he was asked about about how do you manage all of that wealth generationally? And so that was the context of the story, and this was the quote that was delivered. The sheik answered the question by saying this my grandfather rode a camel, my father rode a camel, I drive a Mercedes, my son drives a Land Rover, his son will drive a Land Rover, but his son will ride a camel. Hard times create eat strong men, strong men create easy times, easy times create weak men, and weak men create hard times. You have to create warriors, not parasites. That moment, that moment gave me absolute goosebumps as I'm reading this, and I'm thinking through the context of the question that I asked this gentleman, and I'm thinking through my future self, which is right, you know, which is the next step, the next season of my life that I'm so excited about, which is becoming a father. And it hit so hard for two reasons. The first is it was coming from the wealthiest person I had ever met and had dinner with, and and had a had an opportunity to really have some one-on-one time with. And then two, there was a sense that he was giving me advice he wished he had implemented earlier. And it was almost as if he wished somebody had told him this advice before his wealth exploded and before he took that road down down fatherhood. Now, I can't say, I can't confirm that, but this was just my sense. And that was, those were the two things that it was, it made it so powerful in that moment. I remember telling myself, this is the code, dude. I just, I just, I just learned a freaking uh a nugget. Like I just decoded something about being a father that that I will have to hold as an equation in my life moving forward. And that's exactly the way that I've looked at it because you have to raise warriors, not parasites. Now, Corey and I are both girl dads and proud to be girl dads. Yes. And so we're gonna break this down because there's a couple different aspects that I think are really important. Um, the first is we have to talk about comfort because that's exactly what's being displayed and talked about in this quote. The generational cycle, right? But it doesn't necessarily have to be about wealth, guys. It can be it can be anything in terms of comfort for your daughter. Now, it's not, it's not necessarily about, it's about easy, right? The cycle that is clear in the quotes from the sheik is that the cycle goes from strong to easy to weak, yep, to hard. Yep, right? Hard creates strong, strong creates easy, easy creates weak, weak create hard, and that goes over and over and over and over and over again. And I think what we have to break down is we have to break down how which of these categories we're creating, because it is a it is an equation, just like a mathematical equation. It is an equation to the future outcome of the people that you are raising, the little girls that you are raising. And we're gonna talk about some societal pressures and some societal societal norms, some cultural norms that we really have to get ahead of and be aware of because I think they're they're potent and they can be viral and they can be they can be not so great. But let's face it, comfort is one of the biggest lies that exists in our culture today. We are lied to in the sense that comfort is what we should seek, that comfort is protection, that comfort is the end all be all. It's the ultimate dopamine drug. It is the it is the thing that is the tip of the iceberg in terms of sensations.

SPEAKER_00 8:50

Yep.

SPEAKER_01 8:51

And I think we have to first establish that that's a fallacy. And any of you that have done hard physical exertion, workouts, marathons, half marathons, high rocks, whatever it is, dude, walk like just doing anything that's physically hard, difficult for you, difficult for you. You know that you know the drug that it gives you, man. You know that dopamine fire that it hits when you're done. And I would argue that if you've experienced that, you know that that trumps comfort. In fact, it might even do the opposite. Some of you might be listening and be like, yeah, man, I hate sitting on the couch. I hate being comfortable because it makes me feel uncomfortable because I'm not doing anything. Yeah. I get it. Corey and I are very similar with you in that. So, you know, I wanna I want to first highlight that comfort is a is a slow poison. It doesn't kill your daughter today, but by you displaying comfort and and teaching her that comfort is the ultimate, right? Coming home and and just sinking into comfort over everything, you are teaching her that it kills her ability to survive tomorrow. And the father who removes all struggle from her life is the father who removes all strength as well. And this is where it gets deep, guys. This is where this quote, specifically for us girl dads, our us girl dads who are committed to this, to this image of being a first hero for our girls and embodying everything that that is. This is so fucking powerful because we're gonna miss it if we don't get this, if we don't understand this, and we can't implement and and create and and break this cycle to create a new one. If any of this is landing for you, make sure you hit that plus button, especially if you're on a podcast. If you're watching from YouTube, make sure you hit that like and subscribe button. That helps us out a ton. And if you're asking yourself, am I raising a warrior? Am I raising a parasite? Go take our girl dad quiz. It's in the description. It'll show you exactly what type of father you are right now, your strengths, your blind spots, and it's gonna give you a custom roadmap on how to navigate the next steps. It takes five minutes, and the link is in the show notes. So grab that. It's dope. It's a good, it's a dope test.

SPEAKER_00 11:00

For sure. Yeah. You want to walk, do you want to move into warrior versus parasites? Let's talk about that.

SPEAKER_01 11:05

Yeah, let's let's let's talk about the distinction between those two because what creates parasites, or I'm sorry, what creates warriors, let's talk, let's talk about that first. You you you want to teach your daughter to earn, right? Not expect. You want to let them struggle and fail and be them to be there to support her. One of the things I always tell Ella, because I learned this from another creator telling a story about his father, but I always tell Ella that her job is to jump and jump as high as she can and then try as hard as she can. And daddy will always be there to catch her. Right. You know, I wanna, I wanna, you want to position yourself to to encourage the struggle, encourage the pursuit of failure while while encouraging her and and gaining her trust that you will always be there to have her back, right? You want to model resilience yourself. And we've talked about this in other episodes. Dude, how important is it to be a representation of this for our daughters instead of just telling it to them?

SPEAKER_00 12:02

100%, dude. So important. And I mean, I think what I think what we have to do is we have to define the difference between a warrior and a parasite here because we need to get on the same definition of terms, right? Because it's that's so important. And we're when Rich and I are talking about the term warrior, we're not talking about the metaphoric sense of like, my daughter's gonna get a sword and shield and go fight. No, we're talking about just the values and the ability and the skill sets that live inside of our daughter, a daughter who can think for herself, a daughter who's willing to fight for what she believes in, a daughter who won't sit quiet and stay quiet in the face of adversity or when something's wrong, just to make other people feel good at the cost of her emotional well-being. That's what a warrior is. A parasite is a taker. A taker, someone who takes someone who's not resilient, not resourceful, not self-aware and reflecting, right? I believe warriors have a servant's heart. Warriors serve, parasites do not. They take their takers.

SPEAKER_01 12:55

Yeah, and it might not be as it might not be as um it might that the taking could be also a version of just accepting. Accepting. Just accepting. Taking it in. Just taking in whatever, like just an expectation of accepting whatever is given. But there's an expectation that there's something given. Right. Right. Versus a warrior is there's an expectation of my action creates an outcome. Yep. Right. And that's what we're talking about. That's the delineation between a warrior and a and a parasite. A parasite has an expectation that I'm gonna find something and they're going to give me whatever they have, versus a warrior is saying, I'm going to determine what outcome I want and I'm going to attack that. I'm going to serve, right?

SPEAKER_00 13:36

I'm going to serve and I'm going to lead my way to that. Yep. So teaching her that hard work has meaning. It has meaning, letting her feel the weight of responsibility, letting her do dangerous things safely. Yep. Right? Letting teaching her that she's capable of doing hard things, that she's not some little princess that's, you know, to be doted on and all obstacles are to be eliminated, all challenges are to be eliminated. We need to build her confidence through competence. And you get competence through doing, right? So allow so creating this environment and the space for your daughter to grow and to learn and do hard things safely, right? And what creates parasites, the very opposite of that. Giving her everything without effort, removing all struggle and discomfort, rescuing her from consequences, right? Teaching her that comfort's the goal. I just want you to be happy. I want you to be comfortable, right? No, like we're men, we are supposed to do hard things. Do hard things, right? And it's okay for your daughter to get dirty and do hard things too, modeling and modeling that for her, right?

SPEAKER_01 14:34

Yeah, and we gotta, I want to tell you a story, but I I think this is gonna lead perfectly into this. So when Ella, my daughter, well, who's four now, when she was a little girl, she was like six months, 12 months, something like that. We had her out, and somebody had said, Oh, what a little princess. And I remember that that triggering something in me. I had a I had a reaction, an internal reaction to it. I didn't like it. And I had some pushback to it. And I remember correcting them. I said, She's not a princess. We're raising warriors in this house, we're not raising princesses. And I remember um thinking about that reaction, and and the truth is that I think there's there's culture, there's this cultural norm that that, you know, first of all, if you're a dad listening or and you you've got a daughter and you refer to them as a princess or something like that, we got to define princess. But how I define princess is if you're raising a princess, this is what I don't want. I don't want to raise a princess in the sense that I'm raising a daughter who is is constantly being doted on, who is who is constantly being like, oh, no, no, no, no challenge for her, no struggle for her, you know. Oh, I can do it for her, I can do it for her. Like, let's let's not upset her. Think of a princess. Think of like a like a princess you see in a in a book or you know, in a movie or something, right? Everyone is doing everything at their beck and call. Everything is do everyone is doing things for them. They're being doted on 24-7, you know, they they have all the challenges and stuff pulled out from from from them. They're not they're they're not perceived as generally, they're not perceived as as strong, independent, primary, you know, where they resourceful. That's just the way it's portrayed. And that's the that was the image that pushed back on the on the on the word princess. Right now, we've talked about warrior princess. Now there's some blend in that, but I just want to be clear there is this balance between femininity and masculinity. And I'm certainly not suggesting that we overwhelm and try to manipulate femininity because, dude, femininity has just as much strength as masculinity and they complement each other. That's it. There's tons of stuff masculinity can't do that femininity can, and then vice versa. That's just the that's just biology. But this cultural norm that I see is that women tend to be seen as more support than a primary role. And I think that this princess idea is exactly what this quote is talking about in terms of if you're if you you have to in order to raise warriors, a girl and a and being a father who's raising girls who are willing to go in and attack, right? Not not physically, maybe physically. I mean, shit. I wouldn't mind my daughter knowing how to choke someone out if she needs to. That's why she's in jujitsu at three years old. But that in addition to that, it's also I'm talking about mentally attacking, attacking goals, pursuing relationships, pursuing things that they want, pursuing spirituality, right? With tenacity and force, tenacity and force and resourcefulness and grittiness, right? And so all of that are warrior traits. That is not necessarily princess traits, the way that I've defined princess. And so I want to make this really, really clear that I we want to push back on this whole, this whole cultural norm of, oh, she's what a sweet little princess. Oh, the princess can have whatever she wants. She can do whatever she wants. Oh, just give her this, give her that, give her, oh, I'll help her. She's so sweet, so cute. She's listen, there's a fine line between between helping and loving and showing support for your little girl, and then creating a pattern and a system of expectation for your little girl where she never has to do something hard on her own. She is not self-sufficient, and you are stealing her strength by doting on her and pulling out all of the stops.

SPEAKER_00 18:34

I couldn't agree more.

SPEAKER_01 18:37

So let's talk about waking up because it's never too late. And you know, this is this is your opportunity to take the first step in this process. And strong femininity and strong masculinity complement each other. We both have critical roles to play. And you, as a father, you need to protect the femininity that your daughter has, and you need to teach her the balance between the two because we've all met strong women and we've all met women who fall more into that cultural norm of a support role. And there's nothing wrong with either, but there certainly is a good balance between both, right? And so we want to be able to position ourselves to do that. And without compliment, without a complimenting counterpart, both are gonna be incomplete. So raise your daughter to be a warrior who knows the power of femininity, not be one in spite of it. Love it. Let's move into the hot take. Let's do the hot take. You ready? Yeah. So the hot take, if you don't know, first time listening, this is where I give whoever's hosting. Corey's gonna be answering this time. He's never seen this quote. He's gonna give me his honest thoughts about it. So here we go. You ready? Let's do it. The greatest gift you can give your children is not wealth, it's your work ethic.

SPEAKER_00 19:54

Oh, yeah. I mean, does there need to be a hot take on this?

SPEAKER_01 19:57

Let's do it.

SPEAKER_00 19:58

The people want to know. Yeah. I mean, that that that boils down. That's a legacy thing. So I automatically classify that as legacy. It's like, what do you want to leave for your children? Not for your children, but what do you want to leave inside of your children? What do you want to leave in them? I wanna I wanna I call it the four uh the the four Rs, and I'm gonna butcher this, right? Resourcefulness, resilience, reflective, and uh regulation, right? Those are the four R's that I wanna I want to teach, uh teach these, teach my daughter, essentially. And those are the skills I want to leave in her. I don't care about the wealth. Hopefully I'm leave I'm teaching her skills in order to make money, and she doesn't have to, she doesn't have to worry about my inheriting my money, right? That's that's what it that's what it means to me. Love it.

SPEAKER_01 20:37

I love it. Well, if this if if this episode hit you, it's because you're one of us. You're a cycle breaker, a man waking up, a father who's refusing to raise a parasite. And if you want to know exactly where to start, where you're starting from, you've got to take the father type quiz. Go right now and and fill out our father type quiz. It'll show you your strengths, your blind spots. It's gonna give you the roadmap to raise the warrior that she's meant to be. And you're not too late, you're right on time.