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Don't Be the Hero—Be the Guide 0:00 Hey, dads. It's time for power principle number 4 in the dangerous dad series, don't be your kid's hero. Well, look. All movies follow a familiar pattern. There's a hero, there's a0:11 villain, and there's some sort of conflict that occurs with the hero typically emerging victorious. But amidst all that conflict, you've got a guy who leads the hero to success or helps that hero0:23 recover from failure. Now, I don't know about you, but I'm a huge fan of the Rocky movie series. If you look at the series, there's a hero and a villain in each chapter. Specifically in Rocky 4, you've got Rocky Balboa0:35 as the obvious hero, but you've got Ivan Drago, the infamous villain. There's the conflict of good versus evil, and in the background, you've got Apollo Creed's former trainer, Duke, who serves as Rocky's0:46 guide and trains him for the fight against the seemingly unbeatable Ivan Drago, the Russian. Well, in the movie Rocky Balboa from 2006, there's also a super powerful moment where Rocky0:58 becomes the guide and he speaks life into his son's life. Rocky says, let me tell you something you already know. The word world ain't all sunshine and rainbows. It's a very mean and nasty1:09 place. And I don't care how tough you are, it will beat you to your knees and keep you there permanently if you let it. You, me, or nobody is gonna hit as hard as life. But it1:21 ain't about how hard you hit. It's about how hard you can get hit and keep moving forward. How much you can take and keep moving forward. That's how winning is done. Now, if you know what you're worth, then go1:33 out and get what you're worth. But you got to be willing to take the hits and not pointing fingers and saying you ain't where you want to be because of him or her or anybody. Cowards do that and that ain't you. You're1:44 better than that. I'm always gonna love you no matter what. No matter what happens, you're my son and you're my blood. You're the best thing in my life. But until you start believing in yourself, you ain't gonna have a1:55 life. Man, those are powerful words from a father to a son. Too often as fathers, we try to make ourselves the hero of the story. We try to live our lives through our children and unintentionally or2:07 not, play the role of hero to serve our ego or as a means of overcoming our own insecurities. When we do this, we place ourselves in front of the 1 true hero, Jesus Christ.2:19 Instead of being the hero, we as fathers need to allow our children to be the hero of their own story by experiencing success and failure with us supporting them as the guide. Dangerous2:31 dads don't need to be the hero and recognize the long game by serving as their child's guide. Now, this is easier said than done though, as many of us have had hero parents. And so it's2:43 imprinted into our DNA to want to be the hero. The culture and the media also plays up the father as the hero role as do many so called fatherhood experts with books authored about being the2:55 hero dad. Look, it may be good on paper and it may sell copies of books, but the fact is the narrative doesn't play out in real life. How many times have you heard or even had your own kids fill out a worksheet from3:07 church or school with a list stating, dad is my hero because What if we flip the script as fathers? What if we created a hero avatar for each of our own children? Imagine reading your3:18 child's hero avatar out loud in front of their family, their friends, and other special people in their life. Listing the specifics about their character. Why you're proud of them and speaking life into the boy or3:30 girl that they are today and the men and women they will become in the future. What a powerful moment that would be between you and your child. And I'll bet there wouldn't be a dry eye in the place. Here's why this3:42 matters. If dad is the hero of the story, then it positions the child to never experience failure or achieve success on his or her own. As fathers, we clearly want our children to experienceEmbrace Failure Early in Life 3:54 success. We should also want them to experience failure, especially early on in life. We must be careful, however, not to paint failure as a negative outcome for our children because I would much rather let my4:06 kids fail when they're 8 than when they're 28. For failure at 8 is maybe something as simple as a bad grade on a test because they didn't like what they were studying so they didn't study. We can work4:18 through a bad grade at 8 years old and it's not life altering. There's a good lesson in that. But failure at 28 is I lost my job because I didn't like what I was doing. So I showed up late and underperformed, and now4:30 I can't pay my bills. I live in my parents' basement again. I play video games all day, and I've entered a downward spiral of depression and drinking and drugs, and even potentially suicide because I've never experienced4:40 significant failure before, and I've got no mechanism of dealing with it. Failure is not only much larger when you get older, but the ability to handle failure later in life is much more difficult if you haven't4:52 experienced it earlier on, and it can have far reaching repercussions. Failure is just part of life. If you're not experiencing failure in life, then you're not living life. Successful people are typically5:04 standing on top of a mountain of failure. As hard as it may be, letting your children experience failure now and helping them learn from failure has the opportunity to set them up for success later in life.5:16 If you're a Gen Y or a millennial father watching this, you're born between 19 81 and 19 96. May I speak into you for a minute? You need to know that you have the potential to5:28 be the greatest generation of parents ever in this country. You have the opportunity to turn the tide of fatherlessness and end the perpetuation of many multi generational issues. You are5:40 also a vital generation for fatherhood because you've got generation z right behind you and they're watching your every move as young men and young dads. The challenge you will have is overcoming generational5:52 characteristics like what you've been called, like being a snowflake generation. Whether it's true or not, older generations perceive you as being less psychologically resilient, or you're6:04 more emotionally vulnerable. We can debate whether this is true or not. However, the majority of millennials were raised in an environment where they didn't have the opportunity to experience failure as children, making6:15 them more fragile as adults. It's a generation where everyone got a trophy for participation. When everyone succeeds, no 1 fails. There's a huge opportunity for millennial men to change the dynamic of6:27 fatherhood. If we are going to be successful as parents, if you're gonna be successful as parents and change the future generations, it's imperative that you as a millennial parent, as a millennial father, understand6:38 your potential and the possible pitfalls based on how you were raised. The most pressing pitfall I see in millennial parents today is the helicopter parent syndrome of trying to future proof6:50 by not allowing your children to overcome their fear or experience failure. Don't miss this. When you assume the role as guide, by dropping your ego, it opens up the opportunity for other guides to come intoBuild a Community of Guides 7:02 your children's lives, specifically in the areas that are not your strengths. So important if you're a millennial dad. Now I recently bought some Highland cows. I wanted to be like my guy I look up to Chip Gaines from7:14 the popular TV show Fixer Upper and the Magnolia Network. You know anything about Chip Gaines, you know he's an extremely handy guy. He's a master carpenter. He flips houses. Now me, I got very little carpenters skills.7:26 I think the closest thing that I could ever do to being like Chip is owning cows like his. My kids have asked me to build so many obstacle courses, bike ramps, tree forts, and it's just not my forte.7:38 However, I have a deep network of incredible men who have these skills, and I continuously bring them around my kids so they can provide experiences and knowledge that I don't have to give. I also grew up fishing7:50 on lakes and ponds in Northwest Ohio as a kid. We used to live on the Atlantic coast a couple of years ago, and I know nothing about deep sea fishing. My kids wanted to go so bad, so I sought out a friend and a8:02 mentor who has deep expertise in deep sea fishing, and he literally served as our fishing guide. He jumped at the chance to take my boys out on the boat for a day. We had an amazing and incredible day together, and8:14 it was an experience I would have never been able to give my children on my own. We would have been shipwrecked on an island somewhere with no fish. Don't miss this. 1 of my favorite parts of the day was sitting back and8:24 simply observing my children. Too often as fathers, we can be in it and not on it by stepping back and observing our kids. You can learn so much about your child's personality and gifting just by zooming out and8:36 being observant. I had the opportunity to notice things about my kids that I often miss because I'm engaged and caught up in the moment. By serving as the guide and allowing other guides into your kids' lives, you will8:47 help them identify their areas of gifting, provide experiences you could have never given them on your own. Fatherhood was never meant to be done in isolation. It was always meant to be done in community. Seek out other8:58 guides who can provide your kids with experiences and knowledge in areas where you don't have the expertise. Serve as a guide for other kids who don't have a father in their life. Or finally, becoming the guide to your9:09 children also positions you to serve them in their young adult life, facilitates you being a parent to an adult child. When your kids become teenagers, when they get into college, when they become newly married, when9:20 they become parents themselves, they don't need a hero. Their prefrontal cortex is fully developed. They're independent thinkers at that point, and they want someone who can provide wisdom. It's at this stage in life9:31 when they need a guide or a wise sage more than ever. In Nehemiah, our hero Nehemiah demonstrated the practice of working in community with other guides by partnering with Ezra to solidify the political9:43 and spiritual foundations of the people. As fathers, it's imperative we seek community with other fathers who share a similar ambition to be more than an average dad and who you can do life with. I told myself9:55 a story in my head that other dads were too busy, but they wouldn't wanna do what we were doing. I can tell you without a doubt, there are dads all over your community who would jump at the chance to team up with you and10:05 other dads and provide experiences for their kids. Here's your dangerous dad action step. Take this next step to be the guide instead of the hero to your kids. Establish failure Fridays at your home.10:17 Discuss what you all tried and failed at during the week and what you learned from it. If your kids are young, then discuss this with your wife and build that as a part of your family culture. I promise you, if you can10:27 focus on failure at a young age, you'll serve them well when they become adults. Remember, be your kid's guide and not their hero.In this video 0:00 Don't Be the Hero—Be the Guide3:43 Embrace Failure Early in Life6:56 Build a Community of Guides
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