Sober Motivation: Sharing Sobriety Stories - "Sobriety Was the Hardest Thing I’ve Ever Done" - The Tired Dad Returns

Episode Date: March 3, 2026

Jon (The Tired Dad) is back with a sobriety update — now 3+ years sober. We talk Dry January to kick things off and why the first year can be the hardest, why moderation didn’t work, parenting as the turning point, and how to build real tools instead of masking emotions. Plus, Jon shares the story behind his upcoming book 100 Reflections on Showing Up for What Matters Most. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Welcome back to another episode of the Sober Motivation podcast. I'm Brad, your host. And on this episode, we follow up with John. You may know him as the tired dad. When we first talked, John was newly sober. Now he's over three years, alcohol-free. And he comes back with the real story. The first year isn't always inspiring.

Sometimes it's brutal. We talk about quitting without a rock bottom, why moderation didn't work for him, and how fatherhood put up a mirror to his life. And what it actually takes to build sobriety that lasts. Now let's get to John's story. Welcome back to another update episode of the Sober Motivation podcast. Today we've got John, also known as the tired dad. Do people refer to you as the tired dad or still John? Both, you know, I think I've put my name out there now, so I get

John a little more. Yeah, good man. Well, thanks for making time to connect with us. And you had mentioned too, it was like two years ago. Yeah. That we jumped on and we shared your stuff. story kind of with everybody. What have things been like for you since? And before we even get there, for anybody that didn't listen to that episode or maybe needs a little bit of a refresh, like walk us through the Cliff Notes version of your story related to sobriety. Yeah.

I remember that podcast episode. I was, I was newly sober. I think it was, it was maybe right at a year, maybe even under that. And you reached out. And it was kind of a new thing. for me to talk about sobriety. I just kind of, it happened for me. You know, it was a dry January type deal.

I've been trying to get sober for years before that. I just, and here we were, like, nine months later, whatever it was. And I was talking to you and just kind of spilled it all out there, like my whole story. So it was an interesting time back then. So that's why I wanted to come back on to talk to you again. I know we've been talking through since then. But it, you know, there's just so much around sobriety nowadays. There's so much talk.

There's so much advice. There's so much how to recover. What's the right way with the wrong way and everything? There's a lot of noise. It's like I compare it to the fitness industry. Yeah. It's just, it's, yeah, there's a lot, a lot of stuff happening. And, you know, what it is with the fitness industry as well as what, and sobriety is find out what works for you.

Nobody can do your sobriety for you. You have to do it yourself. And I got sober through my decision to get sober. It wasn't an ultimatum from my wife. It wasn't anything. It was just me knowing that it was time, knowing what type of father I wanted to be, knowing my relationship with substances for decades before, knowing my personality, everything. Yeah.

Which is kind of, I feel like becoming more of a story you hear. Interesting, though, about coming to that decision. Were there moments or was it a collective decade of moments that sort of. of put you in that spot to like, okay, this is something I need to move towards or what was it? Oh, it was definitely decades of stuff. So, you know, when I was 13 years old, I had Adderall for the first time. And I, looking back, it's when I became a drug addict because I remember taking it and saying this, like I have to feel like this for the rest of my life. and I was in seventh grade. And they, and then I had my first beer, I think, also in seventh grade.

That was a little slower because beer tasted so bad back then. But I got a, I got the taste of alcohol I was already used to by ninth grade. And the first time I got really drunk or buzzed, I should say, That's when I became an alcoholic because again, I was like, oh, this helps with everything. And it just solved all of my problems. So for the next decades, for the next definitely solid five to close to 10 years, I use substances to completely mask everything, mask my problems, help me with my social skills, everything, help with my decisions, stress, everything.

Yeah. So after I became a dad, it just, I compare it to putting a mirror up to your life once you become a parent. And you're going, oh, I need to fix a lot of things about myself. Or it's going to get worse. So with drinking, long story short, but I did a lot of hardcore drugs in high school and in college years. I stopped all of that in my late 20s. and I, but alcohol never went away. Yeah.

And I knew there were periods of time, you know, periods of time, I'm not an alcoholic. I quit for a month. I didn't drink for a month. I didn't drink for two months. I'm not an alcoholic. There's no way. But you make up for lost time, right? When you come back to it, I knew I was never going to have a good relationship with

alcohol. It was never going to get better. I was never going to be casual drinker. I was never going to be the one drink guy. It was not going to happen. It wasn't a moment of I got arrested. I, you know, I almost killed myself. It wasn't any moment like that.

It was an accumulation of my relationship with alcohol, knowing that as my kids get older, they're going to notice it. So I needed to deal with it. And going back to all the all the talks about sobriety, I think there's a lot of talk with, and this is positive, about how it changes your life in a positive way. The rebirth, right, of being sober.

That first year of being sober wasn't a great year for me because I was dealing with so much of that stuff that I haven't dealt with since I was 13 years old. I went through puberty. I went through high school. I went through my 20s. Masking everything. Emotions, relationships, everything.

Stress. How I deal with stress. How I deal with decision making. So I had to like relearn all that. And it was, it was, uh, had like my first panic attack. It was a weird time. It wasn't like I got sober in my life just, oh my God. I'm so glad I did this, you know.

Yeah. There were aspects where I, you know, not being hung over and everything. But mentally, it was hard, like really hard. Probably the hardest thing I've ever done. Yeah. And now being sober just over three years, it's still like a relearning experience. And raw dog in life now. Yeah.

And that's not like life comes at you, especially when you get sober in your mid 30s, late 30s, it's different now. The stakes are higher. There's a lot more to stress about. There's a lot of, it's just, it's just different. It's hard.

I think if people get sober and they go, well, I thought this is going to make my life better and it feels like my life is worse because I don't have this band-aid anymore. You know, they can get into kind of like, well, what's the point of me stopping?

But you are re-learning, you know, it takes a long time to relearn decades of stuff that you have been doing, masking. But as time goes on, and every year, and I can say from now until that first year, I have created, I have gained so many tools that I have never had before in my life. And I've learned so much about myself. And some days are really hard. And then some days are like, wow, this would have never happened if I didn't get sober.

I would have never learned this stuff. I would have just stuff about ego and just how you talk to people and how you deal with stress. And what are your triggers and also your childhood stuff and childhood issues that you never dealt with? All this stuff. So yeah. Yeah. Thanks for sharing that too. And I mean, that kind of goes to something I talk about a lot on the podcast that I think people find relatable is this is a lot less to do with just not drinking than it is with all of the other stuff. And then when you quit drinking, like what I'm picking up from what you're sharing is that was sort of your quote unquote coping strategy or the way you dealt with things.

You take that away. Everything else rises to the surface. And it's like, well, I wasn't prepared for all of this. It is a good point to make, though, because you can, I don't do a ton of scrolling on social media, but I know a lot of people do. And you can sort of compare what they're doing or how their sobriety looks to yours. And if it's not the same, it's like, oh, I must be doing something wrong. But that's not true either.

And it can be overwhelming sometimes seeing things maybe just explode. But I think with social media in general, we have to remind ourselves that these are highlight reels. You know, like these are highlight reels. of what people are going through. It doesn't tell the full story, but it is an easy thing to kind of fall into. So that's a great perspective. For sure.

And I like to also say about social media, it's not just a highlight reel. It's also an exaggerated reel. So there's definitely some dramatization involved sometimes. So that goes into just social media. You just sometimes it's just not. it's not real. It's not real life, right?

That's why the scrolling is so bad because if you scroll, you're taking way too much information into your brain. But then it's never going to make you feel good about yourself because, you know, oh, somebody has it worse than me or you saw something that's actually traumatic to watch on a phone. Or, you know, this person, gosh, it's sobriety looks so easy for, them like that they're they became say they started a six figure business there's seven figure business now and they oh my god they're from they were in prison and now they're like multi-millionaire this is man and that's not that's what i'm saying like that's not necessarily what sobriety is sure it can open pathways to do that but you can be an alcoholic and start a

seven figure business too you know some would say that's that's bet you have a better chance because so many business people take Adderall and other drugs to work these long hours, right? Yeah. That's not, to me, that's not what I view as the goal for sobriety is like success in business. My goal in sobriety was just to become a better dad, become a better person and to learn about myself and to grow as a human being and not stay stuck with all my past stuff. I had to figure out why were you running to these substances, substances and alcohol. Like why?

When I figured out why, I realized, oh, my gosh. And then it's just a Band-Aid. You know, it's just a Band-Aid. So, sure, you can keep going, but you're losing all those tools that you need to be a human being. Yeah, 100%. I mean, I think when you're drinking, too, it sells itself at. as the ultimate like connection, right? I mean, even kind of with, you know,

sort of the big announcement recently of Dr. Oz of like having a couple of beers is like a couple of drinks is like helping people connect. And it's, and when I look back at my story, it was the ultimate disconnect. It was like the illusion of connection, the illusion of meaningful relationships. But when I got sober,

I looked around and I was just like, man, the only thing I have in common with these people is that we're drinking. And when I'm around them and I'm not drinking, and I'm so uncomfortable and feel like we don't have anything in common. So it's like peeling back the layers of sort of what got us here. Plus, I mean, just the marketing and the conditioning. I mean, you have to think about all of the conditioning.

It's probably way off topic here, but all of the conditioning we went through to get to a spot where we just overly normalize a cancer causing carcinogen that's in the same category as tobacco and asbestos. You know, and we just casually go around and like, hey, everything is kind of good, right? So those are kind of things that play. Interesting thing there too, right? Because, I mean, you are the tired dad. Connecting the dots, I mean, of like, you're drinking, you want to show up in all

these other ways of being a dad. I mean, how does that come about? How do you put those pieces of the puzzle? Are you kind of like foreshadowing? Like, if I continue this behavior, then maybe. I won't be able to show up in my kids' life the way I want to or the way I vision. Like, how did you connect those dots? Man, it was a big fear when my daughter was born back in 2016.

So I got sober in 2003. So I got sober in 23. Now, that was, it was after 2020 that I really was like, okay, like in 2020, I drink maybe more than I did in high school. It was starting to get before noon. And that was like, whoa, I'm 35 years old and I'm drinking before noon because, well, I'm not going to work today. And, you know, so that puts my daughter at she was four years old. That's when it started to be, huh, I, you know, I'm planning on not drinking tonight and I drink 12 white claws or whatever.

I'm losing control here of my decision making and I'm in my mid-30s. It was kind of a scary situation to where I feared I wasn't going to be able to make that choice anymore because I knew myself and I knew my personality and it was a stressful time in the world. I had my son was born in 2019 so now I have two children my grandpa on my mom's side died of alcoholism when he was sixty four years old never met him and I always ask my family like when did you see it and it always you know everybody always says started with some beers at night started with a six pack in his 50s he started drinking handles of vodka.

And I'm like, but no one can tell me kind of when, it's not like they just remember him as an alcoholic. They remember him as casually drinking. And then all of a sudden, is he drinking more? Yeah. I feared that was going to be me, that I wasn't going to be making my decisions anymore. And I was going to become so dependent that it would have been too,

late for me to even make that decision to stop drinking and it was going to something bad was going to happen right so i knew i had to start working on myself i thought geez there's no way i could go to like rehab there's no way because it's like i'm there's some people i'm hanging around with i'm just we're just hanging out you know kids birthday party whatever everybody's drinking right Like you're saying it's accepted. So I didn't feel that, what's the word? Like I didn't feel that judgment. And also I was really good at hiding it.

So I was good at, I had a high tolerance. I was good at just being the fun guy, right? Fun dad. So that's what really made me get serious with the honesty with myself. So it was five years of me stopping. You know, I got sober, I think for like six months, one of those years. And I was thinking that was going to be good. But in the back of my mind, I was like, I'm going to go back.

My idea was that I was going to quit long enough to like reset myself. And then I could go back to just having a couple drinks a night and be normal. Yeah. Like they say, a normie. I'm not a normie. Like I did six months. I did six months sober. And then without drinking sober completely.

and then the next six months made up for lost time. Yeah. So I was like, okay. Yeah, they always say the brain remembers. So even if you do take those breaks and you go back to it, it's still wired up that way. I don't understand all the science behind it, but I'm sure there is something out there.

It's interesting too because that area you're talking about those five years, I hear from a lot of people, it can be rather confusing because you can figure it out for six months without sort of an outside force saying, hey John, you have to do this, you have to do that. And then you go back to it, but it starts straight up. And then I think like what you shared earlier is like when you go further back in your story, I mean, you always drank with an edge of some sort, you know, even when you did

because it just checked a huge box for you. Relatable to me too, because I hung out with a lot of people early on and they were drinking, but like they were, I don't know, maybe they were struggling. I don't, we never talked about it. We never said anything. And I surrounded myself with other people that were drinking. So it was like, I. I thought everybody drank.

In college, I thought, man, this is what everybody does. And now I know that that's, you know, that's not true. So that was kind of the thing, 2020 is like leaning into it, which a lot of people, I mean, for better or for worse, I don't know where it lands. A lot of people's drinking sped up in 2020. And I think, you know, that goes two ways, right? Obviously, there's people who haven't gotten off the train yet and are still riding it. And that sucks.

But there's a lot of people, too, I think, woke up to the idea of like, hey, maybe I've been struggling with this in plain sight. Like, this has really sped up, surprised me. I heard something one time, too, that was kind of making me think about your grandfather's story there about one day a cucumber is walking down the street and it turns into a pickle. And nobody knows the exact moment it turned into a pickle. As in, things can shift at any moment, it seems, with this.

Like one minute, it's okay. It's manageable. I don't know if we're fully in control. But the consequences are. are not big where like things are okay it sucks a little bit and then for some people they keep going and then it's like whoa you know the bottom falls out and nobody really knows like they can't say it was on this date because of this it's just the way it goes yeah for sure and when i got serious about sobriety and then i you know put it out there for everybody to see and kind of shared my

story because I felt I always felt this poll that if I did get sober, you know, I could I could talk to people because I knew I was wired differently. And yeah, like you said, back in the day, kids, I mean, my group of friends, we were maniacs. We were absolute maniac. So yeah, we didn't talk about it, but yeah, we all had severe problems. I lost friends to it. So we were dark, you know, but again, you can kind of yeah college party here you know everybody even the good kids are are getting absolutely hammered so you can kind of mix in but when i started doing like hardcore drugs by myself i knew i was just wired differently and then i got to a point where i'd rather drink and do drugs by myself because that's how much i loved them you know that's how much they

fixed me per se but you know when i did get sober family friends, even family, I didn't know you had a problem. You know, they were like, I didn't, I thought you were fine. I'm like, you never know what somebody's going through internally that I knew my relationship with alcohol and my relationship with substances

were never going to get better. They were never going to, I've tried it. I've tried to be normal. I'm not. And that's the, honesty that you need to have with yourself is to know that about yourself. And also, back to the comparison thing about sobriety, not everybody has to be a full-blown heroin addict or go to jail, get a DUI, get a, you know, it doesn't have to be this crazy story

that why you got sober. It could literally be, I drink. too much wine every night and I'm using it to run away from my problems, but I do only drink two glasses a night or whatever. It's a personal decision, right? And you've got to be honest with yourself why you're doing it and who you are as a person and where this is going to lead to because most likely your drinking's not just suddenly going to get better on its own. It's just not how it works. It's usually the other way around. And I've seen it. I've seen it. I've seeing people who never drank in their younger years and start drinking in their 40s. And by the time they're 50 or 60, they're a full-blown alcoholic.

I'm like, that's backwards. But it's a personal thing. There's no one way to do it. And there's no one way of, oh, well, you have a problem and you don't. It's you got to be honest with yourself about that. Yeah. it's definitely that individual decision because we're the ones who are going to have to do the work. So, I mean, other people can tell us what we need to do or what we should do.

But I mean, it doesn't work very well. So you have to come to that. But you're right, though, there doesn't have to be sort of this big rock bottom incident. I mean, I think what you're talking about is so relatable for so many people, especially people I have on the podcast. On the outside, things look pretty decent. But on the inside, there's like this battle going on. And there usually has, it has been going on for a long time for a lot of people of like this tug of war, you know, and this sort of confused place of where, where do they fit into all of this, right? And then we can easily convince ourselves like, well, I'm not like so and so down the street or like, look at the people on the TV.

Like, I'm not, I haven't had any of that happen. But I think what we talked about too with the pickle and the cucumber, the longer you keep this around, you open yourself up. for that scenario to play out in our lives, you know? And it sounds like you were kind of there, right? Like looking over the edge of the cliff is like, if I keep this going, that's where I'm headed. Yeah. I got to do something different here.

And I think there's a lot of people that are on that, you know, on that slippery slope of this could go another way. Look, people who don't have a drinking problem, quote unquote, shape it up however you want out there, people listening. They don't wrestle with this. They don't wonder, they don't go to the store and, only buy two because they only want to buy two or go back again or wonder how many they're going to have tonight or try to moderate or try to limit. And I think if you're already heading

down that path of trying to control something, I think once that starts, like I feel pretty comfortable saying like, we've already lost control at that point. Yeah. A hundred percent. And my wife is anormy. She, she like, her drinking went way down because of my. mind, but she could, it just went down because of mine and she just turned it off like that. And now it's, she doesn't even really like to even have a drink anymore because it affects her sleep now and more. So, but she, she was always the type to have one drink or to be one to be hung over and not want to drink to make the hangover better. And I try to explain this to her about how my brain works and she said that, you know, if she tried something, even a medication

or any substance that made her feel like good or better made things like a lot better, it would freak her out and she wouldn't want to do it. And I tell her, okay, so you know that feeling where it made it better and it feels good? Okay, now obsess with that and how how you're going to make yourself feel even better than you do now, and then how you're going to continue that on. And then there's this whole game plan about, okay, tomorrow morning I'm going to do this. And it's this obsessive game plan of how I can feel like this all the time.

That's not normal. That's not normal behavior. So like you're saying, so many times that I would like game plan, like my wife knows all this stuff. So there were times back in 2020 or maybe it was before that. And I don't think I've admitted this publicly. No, I don't think I have even on my podcast.

But my wife knows this story. And I actually told her not about six months ago or something. But after our firstborn daughter, she, they prescribe Vicodin or whatever, right? she had a C-section. And because I was drinking a lot at that time, and I had a problem with that stuff in my younger years, that I started sneaking those pills because she wasn't even, she didn't like them.

She didn't like how they felt. So I knew there was a lot of extra. So I was, I took one. And of course, I'm like, right back to where I was like 10 years prior to the last time I did it. This is an amazing. And then I would like game plan how to have some or maybe have two this night. And it got to a really scary place to where one night I drank a lot and it was like hard liquor.

And I took like three of those pills. And I don't even remember falling asleep. And I woke up the next day like, shit. That's a scary moment. I didn't mean to do that. And that's where it's, man, this is dangerous. Like, I am not, I have a lot to lose. And my daughter was just born.

And this isn't good. You know, and I kept it all to myself. But that's one of those moments that you're talking about. You don't know the problems of somebody sometimes. because addicts they they lie. They hide everything because no one's going to understand. Everybody's just going to, if I told my wife that at that moment, which I should have, but she would have freaked out.

And I, at the time, if she freaked out on me, I would run and sabotage myself. You know, so that was like a scary situation. That's what people don't understand. It's not just like I'm a horrible person. lying to my wife and doing these terrible things as a drug addict, as a father. It's, I don't know what's going on here. I am, I am, I guess, rock bottom or whatever. Yeah. And now this is a life or death situation. And I wrote a bunch of stuff down at the time,

some dark stuff. I just had to write what I was going through at that time. Yeah. And there was also another time I went, I went back to visit some old friends. And those old friends had a cocaine problem still. And I wasn't at a point in my life, in my life to say no to that. And I saw it and it was just, I couldn't resist it. So those kind of things were happening that really, really made me realize how dangerous it can be and how no matter just because you're older,

you got a lot more to lose, those things are still inside you, that personality, whatever you want to call it, my addict tendencies. Yeah, I was like, I need to figure this out. And it was hard, man. It was really hard to get sober finally. But it was enough. And like you said, if you're going down that road, it's not going to get easier later. And I was like, I don't want to have to get sober when my kids are teenagers.

Oh, dad's a drunk and whatever. And they remember this stuff, right? Like, fortunately, I got sober where my kids will never know. I have never seen it, at least. Yeah. But, you know, for me, that's, that was my motivation. That was my why. And, but ultimately it was because I did it for myself so I could be at peace, you know, and deal with my stuff finally.

And yeah, here I am 40 years old. So, you know, it's, it's not a, any moment in your life that it gets out of control, you can do it. Yeah, thanks for sharing that too. I mean, I think that kind of weighs into the shame that we, you know, a lot of people talk about experiencing too about, maybe those questioning ourselves, like, am I actually a bad person or is it just the choices that I'm making are reinforced by this, that this stuff feels good?

Like, I mean, I think you would agree, like a majority of this stuff, the stuff that I did, I can only speak for me, but it was out of character. It wasn't the way I was brought up. It wasn't any of that sort of stuff. And I knew it was wrong, but then you feel like led to do, it and what you talk about like that obsession and it just loops and you're looking for an escape and you don't know how to feel and you don't have the coping strategies.

Can't communicate. You can't ask for help, especially in your situation there where everybody, even when you did get sober, they're like, what? We had no idea that you had a problem. I mean, you've been, but all of that, like hiding everything, that takes such a toll on us to keep all of these secrets and, you know, kind of go against the grain in that sense. You know, later this year, you're coming out with. your book too. I wanted to touch on that a little bit. A hundred reflections on showing up for what

matters most. The tired dad. I mean, give me the story about this. I mean, you've had a lot of success on social media. I'm guessing that plays part into this, but what's the story here? Yeah. So my, you know, what I've been talking about when my daughter was born, our first born, it completely changed my life, put a mirror up to my life. And I just explained all the stuff I went through after she was born. And I felt so alone at that time, not only in my addictions, but just as my desires as a father and how to navigate it. And the only thing we have is like our childhood as our childhood experiences and not everybody's was great and my parents got divorced when I was 14 and and it was just a mess and my dad I love my dad and we have a great

relationship now and looking back it was my dad was going through his stuff so I don't blame him but there was a lot of stuff that was I was alone in And I felt the same way when I became a dad because when you grow up with a dad that doesn't express himself and just kind of, I don't know, it doesn't really know why he feels a certain way or whatever. So there wasn't, I was feeling such these deep emotions and these deep desires. And I had nowhere, no one to talk to. So I just, I wrote down my thoughts and I wrote down what I desired to be and kind of what I was going through.

My wife went through postpartum with our firstborn too, which was extremely confusing because on her side, the women would just be like, oh, it's just baby blues. They go away. It's no big deal. But it felt like a big deal. You know, she was in a weird place. And it was a weird place in our marriage. And we went through marital problems after kids. because we just didn't know how to navigate it.

So we felt so alone. Once the smoke settled and, you know, I did get sober and started thinking more clearly, but also all this stuff started flooding in with things I needed to deal with, that, you know, there's so much, there is a lot out there from moms. moms are always in that conversation of childbirth and parenting, and that is so necessary. There's just not a lot for dads, and dads are provider, protector, put your head down, deal with it yourself, and keep going. You're the foundation, so you can't mess up.

But as we can see with mental health problems and men and fathers and everything and addictions and what I went through, I really wanted there to. to be a real vulnerable resource for dads that I needed back then when I first became a dad. And I learned so much from people's stories, memoirs, and I learned way more from that than I do like instruction manuals or quote unquote expert advice. So I just wanted to create a book that was easily digestible. that was me, that was my stories, my vulnerability, and have dads be able to feel less alone in the journey of fatherhood. Because, yes, the social media platform was built on me

and the tired dad was birthed through me just doing one video about what I was going through mentally and like the stigmas behind fatherhood and millions and millions of fathers related and thought they were alone in those struggles because we're not allowed to talk about it or we're viewed a certain way if we do yeah this book is my reflections it's not an expert advice book you take it for what it is it's not a sobriety book either there's some of that in there but it is just my experience in the last almost 10 years as a father and stuff that I think is important to reflect on that I think will help raise the next generation

of good human beings, breaking the generational curses, dealing with the stuff that you need to deal with, healing yourself. And really, it's to make dads, and all parents, feel less alone in their struggles that I think I covered mostly everything I've been through. Yeah.

Well, great job, dude. I mean, I can't imagine it's any easy task to write a book. Interesting, too, I think it's eight chapter. Is that what do you have chapters here? I guess chapter 82. Just looking at it here, who will they be when they figure us out? It hits home, man. I saw a quote the other day too, and it might be in there kind of something followed up

too, but you always think about it, right? Like, I figured my folks out, and it sounds like in a way, you know, you kind of figured out what was going on in your situation and our kids are going to figure us out. And I think that it's so powerful, you know, I think when it comes specifically to alcohol, I think a lot of parents are going to say, you know, don't drink alcohol or whatever while they have a drink in their hand. And I wonder how that message translates. What were your thoughts behind sort of who will we be when they figure us out?

You know, I mean, that seems important to you, right? just with everything you've shared. Mm-hmm. Yeah. And, you know, my dad, I figured him out in a more empathetic way of what he was going through. And, you know, I acted out when I was younger and was viewing my dad as he didn't know what to do with me, send me away to a boot camp or I don't know. He just didn't know. And I was such an extra stressor for him with everything he was going through. And also I've learned about him and his relationship with his parents and childhood stuff.

And then you think about and then my grandpa's childhood, you know. So it's like a trickle down and that's what we are. And of course, I think I even joke about in the book, especially when our kids become teenagers, they're going to view us a certain way, right? It's going to be different than they view us when they're eight years old. and I they will grow up and remember how they were parented remember their relationship with you remember how you treated people I always say children are horrible listeners but they're great imitators they're going to they are a sponge to you on what you do how you talk to them

how you supported them, how you believed in them. They're going to remember everything. And it's just something to be conscious of. It's not about stressing over it of, oh my gosh, I'm messing up in these so many areas. It's, you're going to mess up. It's okay. You know, an apology goes a long ways. You know, that brings you to a human form.

I talk a lot about in the book that we're not Superman. We want to be. We want to be super. But it's more important rather than to pretend that you're a superhero to your kids so they look up to you. It's better to show them that you're human because they're human too. And they're going to make mistakes. And how are we going to react to those mistakes? What are we going to do?

Not just tell them, but what are we going to do? And I want my kids to come to me no matter what. I want that communication to be there through their whole entire entire. life. I want to be their number one supporter and a safety net of support. So, yeah, it's, it's something to definitely, I think about it all the time. What will you leave behind for you, kids? You know, what's that, it's that whole legacy of, of you are, are shaping that now. And it's, it's, it's, it's, I say that over and over in the book. It's not about being perfect. It's not about being perfect. It's about being human and how we deal with our resilience to overcome our mistakes

and to teach them that. Yeah, the resilience aspect. And I think just being vulnerable. Like, I don't know when I look back. I don't know that that's maybe a thing that parents plugged into, like just that vulnerability aspect. I have three kids, an eight-year-old, a six-year-old, and a three-year-old. And our eight-year-old were struggling a little bit. And I remember my wife the other day mentioning to her that it's our first time being a parent too. And I just, they were in the whole way I kind of heard it. And I was like, that's really cool. You know, like I think that's really cool because it is the truth. Like we are first time parents. And I think that that was just paving the way that we're not going to always get it right. But we can

talk about it too and accept input in, you know, ideas, right? And improve the communication and create the safe place, much different than how I grew up. And not that my parents like did anything, I would say, wrong. But I think they did the best they could with what they had. But I think now we have a little bit more, you know, so that's really cool, man. What can, what next steps can people take? I mean, you got your pre-orders coming out, launching it a little bit. And then, this is exciting, man. Are you excited about this? I am. It is, yeah, it's been a, it's been a process. It's a long process to write a book. It's been two years in the making of production.

And writing 100 reflections, I, you know, I did have a lot of writings before, but still, there was so much I wanted to say. And then kind of organizing them and all that is the whole structure and process was a lot. And I wanted to just make sure that I had everything in there that and the message was there that people were going to get it. Yeah, it's, it's, it's been crazy and I'm super excited. I just hope I wrote it to help people. And man, if it changes one dad's life and somebody's life and it makes them a better parent,

like the job is done. Like, there's just not a lot out there for dads. And so I really hope it gets to that person. You know, that's the ultimate goal. but I do have pre-orders and I'm about to, for every pre-order, I'm going to have, I'm going to give five extra reflections that will never be in the book to them. I did. There's a lot of music references, not a lot, but I love music and it's shaped who I was.

It also was my only healthy outlet besides drugs that helped me through a lot of hard times in adulthood and continues to help me until this day. day. So I created a playlist that is kind of the soundtrack to my life and the soundtrack to the book, which was really cool for me. It was like, I don't know how to make music, but I love music. So that was like my kind of, oh, this is like a soundtrack to the movie or type deal. So that was fun. So I'm going to give all those incentives to people that do the pre-order just because pre-orders are a big deal in a book launch. It determines, it goes out into the wild.

And this is definitely a community. I'm so grateful for all the supporters because without them, I don't know if this book would have happened. And it's my way of giving back too. I think it's, you know, with social media, it's the attention spans and nothing's in a linear progression. So I'm happy, super excited to have a tangible thing that is just kind of everything wrapped up into one.

that is tangible and you can have forever and look at it when you need it the most. Yeah, beautiful, man. Anything else that you want to mention before we sign off? Yeah, I just, I love to help people. And I think it's just a message that is so needed for the world too. And showing up authentically into the world is something I want to show my kids. And I'm showing my kids out of help people. And, you know, they're picking up on it.

And that makes me feel just amazing when my nine-year-old, you know, has tears in her eyes about me doing good for the world. And that is the ultimate blessing, man. It feels good. Yeah, beautiful. Thank you again so much, John. Great to connect. Yeah, man. Thank you, Brad.

As always.