The People, Process, & Progress Podcast - Helping Fathers Live Legendary with The Dad Edge Founder Larry Hagner | KEV Talks Podcast #36

Episode Date: August 28, 2023

In this episode of the KEV Talks Podcast, meet Larry Hagner, the visionary behind The Dad Edge – a platform that inspires men to create and sustain strong relationships with their spouses and children, while also achieving overall wellness in various aspects of their lives.

The mission of the Dad Edge is to empower men to live and lead legendary lives. The Dad Edge empowers men to create legendary marriages, create epic connections with our kids, master our personal finances, optimize our health, physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual health, that is, and become a leader within their family. On this episode of the KevTalks podcast, you'll hear more from Larry Hagner, founder of the Dad Edge, about the hardships he experienced by growing up without a stable father figure, how he began to gather those lessons learned, and how in 2015, he realized he could use some work himself, like all of us, at being a better father and a better

husband and found the power of mentorship. Larry shares communication skills that can improve our relationship with our kids and with our spouse. And as he and I talk about in this episode, the shared experience of having teenage sons that are now driving, playing sports, and how we as men can better connect with them. Thank you for connecting with the KevTalks podcast. For more, go to KevTalksPod.com. For now, please stay tuned for this outstanding conversation and excellent guidance that Larry shares with us on this episode 36, Helping Fathers Live Legendary. To find out more, go to KevTalksPod.com and also visit TheDadEdge.com to connect with Larry and follow his podcast, his books, and everything else that the Dad Edge movement is doing for fathers all around the world.

Thank you for tuning into the KevTalks Podcast. This is the place where you'll hear people's compelling stories, you'll learn industry leading best practice processes, and you'll find ways to make progress in your personal and professional life. Now, let's get logged in and get locked on to this episode of the KevTalks podcast. Hey everybody, welcome to the KevTalks podcast. I am very fortunate today to be joined by Larry Hagner, who is the host creator of the Dad Edge, both podcast, mission, author. We've been trying to get together a few months. It's really good to connect. Glad following your work and reading

what you do and attending some of your courses to really get to meet you virtually. So Larry, thanks so much for being on the KevTalks podcast. Thank you for having me, man. This is super fun. I appreciate it. I'm honored to get the invite. Awesome. Kind of jumping into it, can you let us know that my challenge was the whole time difference thing. I'm East Coast and you're Central, and I don't know why that was so hard when I kept sending invites. But can you just tell us for folks that don't, you know, aren't familiar with you, which I know tons of folks are kind of where you're at, um, where you live and, and, and kind of how you, where you grew up.

Sure. Yeah. So I live in, I live in St. Louis. Uh, so I've been here, I would say like almost all my life. Um, I've been, um, I've been more in, in... I was born in San Francisco. I lived there for a couple of years when I was little. I don't remember it. And then I went to college and then I moved away for just a couple of years for a job and a career and then moved back. And I've been here in St. Louis now for the past 20 years back. And just actually 22 years. And then married,

we just celebrated, my wife and I celebrated 20 years this past year, actually just a couple of weeks ago. Awesome. And four boys, 17, 15, nine and seven. And yeah, I've been running the Dad Edge podcast since 2015. So eight years. And yeah, we put on our own summits and stuff like that. This year we're doing the Dad Edge Summit. It should be our fifth one. It's our fourth one. Thank you, COVID. And that's going on October 18th, 19th, and 20th. And been doing a lot of speaking, a lot of traveling lately as well. So just really just trying to help men optimize the relationships under their own roof, right? And the skills, most importantly, the skills to do that. So yeah, that's my shtick. There you go. That's a great elevator pitch. I just did a short... I do these Foundation Friday

episodes and it's like five minutes or less kind of quick tips. And one was the value of the elevator pitch, especially for project managers or something to be able to, to the C suite say, okay, here's this, here's the status. Here's this thing. Here's this decision we need very quick. So that's a very practiced, very good, uh, informative one. So yeah, thank you for that. And of course, man, the interesting parallels too, I have three boys, uh, married 21 years. Uh, and so, and I also do jujitsu. I just saw recently started rolling too. You're in your oldest. It's interesting and also awesome. I'd be interested to hear from you too, to have one oldest son that drives, opens a lot of gates for, Hey, can you run to the store and do this? Or can you take your

brothers to do that? Have you found that as well? Yeah. So my oldest does drive. My 15-year-old, he'll be driving here in a few months as well. And yeah, it's pretty cool. It's terrifying at the same time. I joke around because we're not car people. It's not part of our core values. Actually, possessions and things are not part of our core values and how we make decisions in our family. We base a lot of our decisions off of connection, memories, adventures, experiences, and that kind of thing. But I will say this just for context. My neighbor, it was the sales manager at the Jeep dealership that's here in town. And I've wanted a Wrangler since I was in high school. I've literally wanted it that long. And so I, you know, I leased it and so I didn't buy it cause they're way too expensive. I leased it and I, and the company's paying for it and all that.

But I finally like have a car after 48 years, you know, and now 30 years of driving, finally have a car that I've always wanted. But I will tell you this, driving that, that vehicle around, you know, 6,500 pounds, it's an absolute monster. And teaching my oldest son how to drive, I don't know if I ever yelled so loud as I did one time to tell him to stop the Jeep because he was about ready to plow into this Toyota Corolla that he didn't see it stopped in front of us. And I literally braced for impact that we were going to demolish this car. Cause we probably would have not only hit it, but probably would have ran over it. Cause my

jeeps left in small little car, but, uh, there's some terrifying moments, man, when these kids get behind the wheel and, uh, you're just like, Oh, you know? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I've been, I'm surprisingly the calmer one because I'm very much like a safety person coming from public safety and kind of my wife's similar to, you know, pumping the invisible brake, you know, hitting that and things like that. I think fortunately where I live in Southwest Virginia, it's not a crazy amount of traffic. Ours was, hey, these windy little country roads, which are terrifying enough, especially when it's dark and all the, all the deer, but yeah, for sure. It's a, it's both a blessing and not quite a

curse, but yeah, a stress increase or stress. Yeah, for sure, man, for sure. But that's helpful. That's cool. That's awesome. Yeah. And, um, you know, I've read a lot about you and followed you for a bit and for folks, you know, the, the catalyst for the dad edge was kind of you looking at you, right? Is that accurate? And looking around and saying, okay, how am I doing? And really, I guess saying I'm not doing well in some of these areas, you know, in marriage and maybe yourself. And I, you know, parallel that and relate to that as well. How, what was kind of the final straw, so to speak, to say, you know what, I'm going to start this movement via this podcast and other work and then write the book to get both what you learn from experts and then share that out into the world?

Yeah. I mean, a lot of it just came from absolute struggle, to be honest. Dad Edge got started in a really dark moment, to be honest. And looking back on it, it probably really started with my childhood. It goes all the way back. It wasn't like a profound moment just at fatherhood. That was more of the tipping point. But I grew up in a very unique environment where... So my mom and biological father were married. They were married really young, like 1971. They were 21 years old and they were together for four years. And then they had me. And then right after they had me, my mom and dad went through a really bad divorce.

And my dad left, exited the pretty much situation. And, you know, apparently he did visit me and pick me up. I just don't remember it. I was too little. And, but what I do remember is that, you know, right around being four years old. So I think that's, that's kind of like when the video camera gets turned on and you start, you know, having memories and recordings and that kind of thing. But I remember being in preschool and I remember dads coming to pick their kids up from school. And my interpretation was, is that moms go out and find dads. So kids miraculously appear by the stork probably. And that moms go out and find dads. So kids miraculously appear by

the stork probably. And then moms go out and find dads eventually. And my mom hadn't found my dad yet, which I was fine with it. I didn't know any, any different. So I'll never forget being four. And my mom pulls me aside on like a Friday, Friday afternoon after I got home from school. And she's like, Hey, um, so I'm having a friend over for dinner tonight. He's a very special friend. Um, and I want you to meet him. And I thought to myself, I was like, he, I was like special friend. Wow. She must've found the dad, right? This must be the guy. Right. And so like, he comes walking in my house and literally like, I thought this guy was my dad. Like, and I literally asked him as he walked in, the first thing I said to this guy, as this guy walks in, he walks in this three piece suit,

double Windsor tie, hair feathered mustache, like 1979 carrying a briefcase, right? He was a data soft, white, white collar data software engineer. Gotcha. And I literally asked him, I was like, are you going to be my dad? And I just remember like the reaction, like he just looked at me like in shock. And I think my mom like actually, actually gasped, you know? And, but you know, that my mom, my mom ended up marrying the guy like six months later. I think she, and I don't really know if she ever really loved him. I think she more or less loved the idea and felt like maybe it was a sign. I don't know. But they were together for about six years and it started off really cool. I didn't see him that much because

he traveled a lot for work, but I did see him on the weekends and it started off really good. But then every year they were together, it just got progressively just really bad. He drank a lot. My mom drank a lot. They fought a lot physically, emotionally, verbally. They fought a lot. My mom drank a lot. They fought a lot physically, emotionally, verbally. They fought a lot. There were cops called to my house. There was a lot of drinking, a lot of abuse happening. And it was just a really bad situation. And then when I was 10, they got divorced and I've never seen him since. And I started asking a lot of questions with my mom. I was like, where did I come from? I know he's not my dad. This guy came around when I was four. My mom dropped it on me when I was about 10, 11 years old. She's like, yeah, I actually have another father out there. I was married before. And I'm like,

what? I had no idea. She's like, yeah. I was like, well, where is he? She showed me like the wedding album. She's like, I don't know. I don't know where he's at. She's like, but this is a wedding album. This is what it looks like. And so a couple of years go by and I won't go into it for the sake of just time, but I accidentally met him at 12. And that serendipitous moment turned into a six month relationship. He only lived three miles from us. I had no idea. He was remarried, had a two year old son that went on the way. And dude, I was just overjoyed. I was so happy. My dad, my real dad was in the picture. And we did spend some time together. He would come to my little league games. I'd see him just about every week. And then suddenly, right around month five, it just felt different. Something was off. He just was colder, a little bit more distant, not really a whole lot to talk about even, even around him. Like I couldn't really pinpoint it, but something was off. And then when I was about, I called him one day and I'm like, Hey, you know what, what's going on? Is everything okay? And he just basically said, yeah, it's me. It's not you. It

just, you know, can't really do this. And I was like, wait, what? And he left again. And I think for him at that moment, it was too much, you know, for trying to start a business, trying to start his life over and, you know, another kid on the way and all that other stuff. So a few years go by, my mom continued to date all these ridiculous, crazy men who were same guys, different name, different face, like partier. It became like this revolving door of just toxic men. My mom got remarried one more time when I was 19. But it was chaotic. It wasn't until I was out of college and I was in medical device sales and I was 30 years old,

so I'm fast forwarding a lot. But this is where the story kind of culminates. I was in a coffee shop for a business meeting at 30 years old. I had been married, been married for two years. I had my first son on the way and sitting there sipping coffee at a business meeting and who came walking in for his coffee, but my father. I had never, had not seen him since I was 10. So I'm sorry, 12. So it'd been 18 years. And that serendipitous moment turned into a relationship that we have had now for the past 18 years. So I'm still married to the same woman. I have two younger half brothers. We get along fine. But here's what I'll tell you about how Dad Edge got started. All those experiences of abandonment, all those experiences of just being abused. I was like, man, there's

going to be two things in my life I'm going to get right. And that's marriage and fatherhood. And I wasn't doing either one right. I was falling on my face left and right. I just, and basically looking back on it, I didn't know what I didn't know then, but I had a laundry list of things of what not to do, but I had no clue what good looked like. It's kind of like you go to Home Depot, you buy your barbecue pit and it gives you the instruction manual and says, here's 100 ways not to put this thing together. Otherwise you're on your own. That would suck. Right. But that's the way I felt. But dad edge really got started because my 15 year old was four at the time. My 17 year old was six at the time. And my four, I had a really bad day at the office and I always

made, I had a really bad day that day. I lost my number one customer in medical device sales, which was going to impact our income for the next 18 months to two years. And it really sucked. And there's a lot of other things going on. Like our marriage wasn't really great at the time. And I was really beating myself up pretty poorly. And I made one promise to myself as a father, I'm never going to strike my kids out of anger. And the night that Dad Edge got started, I broke that promise to myself. I'm not here to fight the fight of whether it's right or wrong to spank your kids. I just want to tell you, I didn't want to do it. And my four-year-old stepped out of line as any four-year-old would. I lost my cool and I spanked him on the bottom. And unfortunately I spanked him and he lost his

footing and he fell. And I was like, oh my God, what did I just do? And I immediately recalibrated and I went to go pick him up. And this is what really was the turning point. He looked at me and put his hands up and shuddered. Like he was terrified of me. And I was like, that hit me so deep in the heart because that's how I was when I was a kid. Please don't hit me again. Right. You know, to these guys who were like this. And I was like, that's it. That's it. I don't know what I'm doing. And I just admitted to myself, I don't know what I'm doing. No clue what I'm doing. I'm so tired of not knowing what I'm doing. What would it be like if I learned what to do? What if I actually just

treated this like anything else? You mentioned jujitsu. If someone's trying to attack you, you can either go primal and wing it, right? And hopefully you'll know what to do, but you'll make it up as you go along. Or you can go to the dojo and learn how to roll and defend yourself. So when danger does strike, you're like, I know exactly what to do. I know exactly what to do that's going to give me a better chance or a fighting chance. You're more relaxed. You're prepared. You're ready. What did I do to prepare for fatherhood and marriage? Nothing. I wasn't doing anything to sharpen that skill whatsoever. So I just surrendered. I'm like, I'm going to go out and learn something new every single day. And out of that came the blog, came the podcast,

came to everything we're doing. I wish I could tell you it came out of this beautiful, divine moment, but it was dark. It was horrible. Right. Which seems to strengthen for a lot of folks, for you in particular, like the resolve to then do better, to learn from those things, to also then want to share that knowledge. Because you can, thinking about some of the episodes you've done and things of what's it like to be probably on both sides, you've, you've got dads in the group of, to be the man coming into that situation where the father has left the biological father's left and then vice versa, you know, the biological father that has left. And I would imagine as you gathered these in, you know, in your head,

just like the, the grill instructions, the barbecue instructions that, that helped you set up, you know, these are areas, not just for me that I can focus on, but then build out and say, Hey, everyone, here's, here's a guide you can use whichever side of this thing you're on. Cause you know, it was a lot of great points that you had and that you have in the, in the programs. But I think also like, I don't know many men that have a manual, right. That's like, Hey, here's how you can be a good father. Even if they have a really good father, it's different when you're that person. And then same thing for a husband. Um, you know, here's what a husband should do. We can get some

of that. And certainly, you know, some folks probably get more, you know, um, handoff and discussion, uh, you know, from their parents, uh, than, than possible or than, you or than you did, it sounds like, and a lot of folks do. But yeah, it seems that that hardship really helped to drive kind of the passion with what you do. And you can kind of hear the lessons or the focus of those that could build, oh, you know what? I have this library that isn't awesome that I don't want, but that I can take and spin. And it sounds like that's when you... Because you've talked about mentorship and the value of that a lot.

Sounds like that's when that kicked in for you to say, hey, we need mentors and don't think you can just do it on your own. Oh, 100%. I mean, I think I was told this and it's so true. I mean, you mentioned jujitsu, right? Or you mentioned martial arts. And I think this same rules apply for every single thing that we do in life. So one of the guys that work with, for me, he is also just an incredible mentor of mine as well. So his

name is Jake Herbert. He's like an American wrestling legend. He won the silver in 2012, was shooting for the gold. He was America's gold medal in 2016. Like, like he's an American wrestling absolute legend. He's been doing it his whole life. And unfortunately he had a horrible upset in 2016, the very last match at the Olympic trials and did not make the Olympic team in 2016. It was gut wrenching for him. So he retired at 31.

Like he was an older guy, but he was going for the gold. But, but he told me, I was like, you know, we we've had so many conversations because to get to that elite level, like he was a nine time national champion, you know, and, and wrestled ever since he was like six. And I was like, what were some of the best lessons I asked him? I was like, Jake, what would have been some of the best lessons you've learned just about life? And he's like, Oh, he's like, I had so many things. He's like, well, one thing in particular, he was like, if you want to be successful, you have to have three people in your life at all times in every area that you want to. He's like in your wealth,

your fitness, marriage, parenting, business, all of it. Like you have to have three people in each one of those areas. I was like, who are the three people? He goes, someone who's mentoring you, someone teaching you, someone who's ahead of you. So he's like, if you think about it, he's like, I'll go to wrestling. I have my coaches. Or I had somebody who had been wrestling longer than me that would teach me how to do things better, more effectively, more efficiently. So I had someone teaching me. There's the mentor. He goes, the second person you need in your life are the people that you go to battle with, the people you're learning with, the community that you are learning this skill with. He's like, we have this in other areas and some we don't. He's

like, think about it. Church, we listen to the pastor. We're a part of a congregation. And then if we do service for that church, we're to the pastor, we're a part of a congregation. And then if we do service for that church, we're probably teaching something or we're leading something or we're doing something, right? And that comes to the third person. The third person in our life is we need to be teaching it to the people who are behind us. He's like, because when we teach it, we truly master it. He goes to somebody teaching you, somebody doing it with you and someone you're teaching. You have those three people in your life and marriage, finances, fitness, you know, your business, all of these things, parenting, you're going to do really darn well. You're going to do a lot better than people

trying to do it on their own, which that doesn't usually work out very well for most. Which is a great point. And that's one of my Achilles heels is thinking, oh, I don't have time to put the extra to go to these mentor sessions or to, you know, to your point of jujitsu, it just happens. Like that's the, that's the byproduct of, you know, being there because of all those folks you mentioned, you know, an instructor and your classmates and the new folks that come in. But in other areas, like how do I get better as a professional, as a husband, as a father? I think it's easy. And I'm probably not alone in thinking, oh, either don't have time because I've got to give that time to somebody else or think maybe, oh, I'm good. I don't need that help. I can just read this thing real quick and not actually go through those motions. I know that's something that I've found. And then in the past few years few years realized that's totally not true. You can get so far and you have to take the initiative, it feels like. I have to go sign up for something,

I have to attend something. So even if I go halfway, it's something. But to then get into those three folks, those three types of folks, you have to, I think it sounds like give yourself permission to, to ask for help and get help. And then also realize like, I need to carve time out for me as much as I want to be there, you know, to your point as a great father and a great husband. Have you found a lot of folks in the, in the dadage groups that, you know, same thing, like they just didn't, it didn't finally like, okay, I did. And oh my gosh, it's, it's been so much better trying to do it on their own for so long. Yeah. It's, it's almost like the majority of the feedback that we hear all the time,

like someone, someone joins like our mastermind. Right. And they're like, where has this been all my life? Like this makes life way easier. It makes it way more fulfilling. And I know what to do, when to do it. Like that gives us an insane fight. I mean, it's, it's no different than, I want you to just think of everybody in your audience and for, for you and I just have this discussion to think about it like this, you're out somewhere, right? With your wife, right? Suddenly there's a guy that approaches you that, and maybe he's got a knife, maybe he's got a gun or whatever. Right. I know that sounds extreme, but this guy pulls something on you and he's like, give me whatever, whatever. I'm going

to kill your wife or I'm going to kill you or whatever. If you do not know what to do in that situation, that's a problem, right? That's a huge problem versus the guy who's taking training. Like I did Krav Maga for a while. So we learned how to disarm people and fight our way out of corners and that kind of thing. So, and I've done 15 years of martial arts on top of all that. And so like if someone were to happen, like I'm not saying like I'd come out of that unscathed, like there's a good possibility I might get hurt or killed, but it's actually less likely. It's the odds are more stacked in my favor that I can defend myself than if I hadn't learned anything at all. Where the violence just totally locks you up. Yeah. And here's, this is the tipping point for guys, right?

And you mentioned, which by the way, on the surface, it all makes sense, right? So like, well, I don't really have time for that. Or, you know, I can just do this, read this thing. Like if I read a book on how to disarm somebody, like, and I've never actually done it. Right. Well, good luck. You know, even if I just read this thing or listen to this thing, that's not going to help me. Usually what happens, and this is unfortunate,

is in our relationships, it usually shows up with the guy who's got a gun in our face saying, if you don't give me all your money, I'm going to kill your wife and you don't know what to do. But the way that shows up is your wife turns to you and says, I don't know if I love you anymore. And I don't know if I really want to be a part of this relationship anymore. And you're like, wait, what? What? Right. Talk about shocker. Shocker. Right. Or it's the teenager that doesn't want anything to do with you because you haven't put in the reps for conversational excellence, asking generative questions, creating an environment of psychological safety where your kid wants to tell you everything, even the things that they failed at, the things that weren't pretty and the things that were good. So we don't think about not going to

the dentist for years. Many of us go to the dentist once a year or twice a year, right? We don't think about going 25,000, 50,000 miles without an oil change and we're scratching our head, wire engine blew up. Right. Right. We will, we will do that in our relationships. It blows. Now that I'm on the other side of this, it blows my mind that people wait. Like it actually infuriates me to be quite honest. Right. Like, or if a guy, if a guy is starting to get breadcrumbs that his marriage is not going in the direction that he wants, but he's like, I'll just wait it out. I'm like, dude, you just went to the doctor and you got to check up your cholesterol sky high. Your blood pressure is out of control and you're 25 pounds overweight, but you're going to wait

until the heart attack hits you before you do anything about it. That's crazy to me. And this is where I really want to rattle the minds and hearts of men. It is so much easier, so much easier on us, on our families, on our relationships, on life in general. if we approach everything we possibly can with a proactive wellness mindset, not a reactive crisis situation. Cause the last thing I'll say about this too, is if you wait until a crisis emerges, and this is what we always tell guys, like the guys that come and do life with us and in the group, like I'll ask them, like, how are things at home? And a lot of times guys will be like, things are pretty good, man. But what I'm

really wanting, I don't want pretty good. I want freaking awesome, dude. And I'm willing to learn how to make it awesome. Right. I'm like, dude, you're in the right place. Right. Yeah. And in fact, it's those types of students that do the best versus the guy who then knocks on our door, wants to join our group and says, guys, my wife just moved out and I need to get her back. And we can help those guys and we have helped those guys, but here's the difference. You can't think logically or even rationally when you are in a state of absolute disparity. And I'll give you an example. If you flip on your light and a spark happens and you're

like oh shit i better call the electrician to take a look at that you call hey man can you come over look at this light switch something happened like i just need to make sure there's no fire that's going to happen yeah no problem comes over he fixes it everybody's calm right versus i'm just gonna it's not i'm just gonna wait on that right Flip it a few more times, a week goes by, a month goes by, all of a sudden house goes up in flames. Then you're frantically calling the fire department as you're trying to grab every single thing, every human being and every valuable possession that you possibly have so it doesn't burn down. And you're screaming at the fire department to get there as quickly as possible. That's the difference between those two scenarios.

You can't think as clearly or as rationally when you are in a spot of disparity, even in your relationships. So if you want to do the right work and the good work, be proactive about it. Don't be reactive about it. That's a great point. Yeah. I mean, you can, your emotions are just rollercoaster. And when you're reacting and as we we know and as every human has been those

emotions will make you make some horrible decisions or you know ones that just don't make sense and then you look back and go why did i do that and you can't do that and you know you mentioned um relating not dealing with but relating and building relationships especially with a teenage son uh so this one hits too because i've i've listened to you talk about there's these generic that we all know, like, how was your day? What, you know, all those kinds of things when they come home and it's like, no, let's ask a different question that kind of makes them want to talk to us.

Cause that's just such an off the shelf question. So trying to get in there, you know, what was your favorite thing about this? Or just a really more kind of inquisitive question. What are a couple examples of those that you would suggest for folks, you know, with their teenage kids, but you know, sons, we both have sons in particular, but kind of for an example. So, you know, whether they're coming home from school, or I guess two examples, one kind of you seen when they get home from school, and then another, they've played a sport because I think as dads, and if you, anyone's ever been to a youth or high school football, you see the superstar dads

that were pro players, of course, yelling at the refs and the coaches. And I say that sarcastically right. Of how horrible they are and stuff. So I can't imagine what that feedback for their child is like. Um, but what do you suggest kind of, kind of one thing for the, you know, you see them after a day and then you see them after a sporting event. Yeah. So I'll give you, I'll give you three questions and the psychology behind them. And I'll share, I'll preface this with a kind of a funny story. So we have a team, you know, that takes a lot of our like small, tiny clips and puts them on social and that kind of thing. Well, my team grabbed this clip of me on a podcast, much like this. And I, and I stated to the guy and I was, I was in a very

foul mood when I was on this podcast. I was really direct and blunt and all that. And it was because my best friend and my business partner within dad edge, uh, six months ago, tragically lost his daughter in a car accident where like literally she I've known him for six years and his 19 year old daughter was killed. And I had this podcast the next day and he was, we were all just devastated. Yeah. So I was in this like very snarky kind of foul, upset, sad, angry, you know, type of mentality. And I, this guy asked, asked me a very similar question you did. And I told him, I said, if you're asking your kid how his day was or how her day was, that's the shittiest question on the planet. And here's why. It's a shitty question that's going to get you a shitty answer. Good, fine,

busy, crazy, boring. It requires zero thought of us to ask the question. It requires zero thought for us, for them to answer it. And it creates, it doesn't create what we truly want in that question. Here's what I'll tell you. It's a shitty question, but the intention, the intention behind the question is beautiful because guys really want to know, how was your day? And that's a way of us as men, like, talk to me, son. Talk to me, daughter. Talk to me, son. For you and I, it's talk to me, son.

I just want to talk to you. So the intention is there. The intention is like, man, I just want to talk to my kid. I just want my kid to talk to me. but that's not the question that's going to open up the, that lever. And I will tell you that video I think was viewed three, three million times and it had like 1900 comments. Right. And about 80% of them were good. Like, oh man, I haven't thought about it like that. I'm going to ask. And I explained in the real, like, these are the three questions you asked. And, but I had some people just completely like lash out.

They're just like, well, that's a genuine question. Like, come on, how was your day's genuine question? And it's not the shittiest question on the planet where I had some guys say, yeah, but I could ask that question and they'll roll their eyes at me. They won't talk to me. Well, it's be, and I preface, I preface all that because I'm going to give you these three questions and I want men to know, and I want people in your audience to know, as soon as you start using these questions, you might, the, the, the, the, the skies might open up and you might have a beautiful conversation right out of the gate, or you might have your kid look at you like, what, why are you asking me that? Like, are you on drugs, dad? Which is fine.

Either one is fine. But when guys get that response of like, wait, I thought he was supposed to open up to me. If you've been asking, how was your day for five years? And you suddenly vary it up. Your kid's going to look at you like you got two heads. Just be prepared for that. Take a little bit. Yeah. Yeah. So here are the three questions and here's the psychology behind each one. And I vary them up in very different ways. What was the best part of your day? Right. Or I'll say, tell me about a day that you're proud. Tell me about a part. Tell me something that happened today that you're proud of. Tell me something that happened today where you were

kind to somebody else. Tell me how you were helpful for somebody else. I'll vary that question up several different ways, but the psychology behind it is what I'm trying to do is get that kid into a state of a high point moment, something that they're happy about, something they're proud of, something they have gratitude for. And they want to share it with me because think about it. Like if somebody has good news to share with you or you have something like, yeah, dude, guess what? I got to tell you this.

And sometimes those things are not on front of mind unless we are prompted. So if I asked my nine-year-old or my teenager, like, dude, what was the best part of your day? Tell me what you did. And sometimes for my seven-year-old, my son was like, it was PE. Now, normally, us as parents would be like, well, of course it was. What else happened? I'd be like, no, dude, what happened in PE? Oh, you'll dig into it. Right. He's like, Dad, I did 12 push-ups.

I got third place. I got third place. And he was on cloud nine. I'm like, dude, you rock, man. Nice job. But that through that connect through that question, what I'm really looking for is I want him to tell me something he's proud of something he's excited to tell me, because what that's going to do is that's going to raise our connection. It's going to elevate his connection to me. Like how cool interested dads are interesting

interested dads in the day or like, and they're sharing in that energy. Suddenly dad is like the fricking coolest guy in the world to talk to because he's like, you can tell that dad's proud, he's happy and all these things. Right. Great point. Yeah. That's the first question. The second question, and a lot of parents will be afraid of this one, but I love this question. I actually love it for several reasons. There's two psychological reasons. What'd you fail at today? What'd you learn? Right now? I like that question or tell me something that was insanely challenging today. And how did you get through it? Now, what I want,

there's a couple of things going on that question. Number one, I want to get my kids used to the word failure, right? Most people don't want to try something new, do something new. And they certainly don't want to admit to their dad what they failed at. So the whole thing about failure is like, Hey, failure is a tool. Fail fast, learn fast. That's what we say in this family all the time. Be okay with sucking at something in the beginning, right? But what are you learning? Right. And then being able to be like, Hey, here's what I failed at. Cause the rest of us, our generation, we were terrified for anything failure. Right. And sometimes depending on the parent it's ingrained in us, you cannot fail. Failure is unacceptable. Well, failure is

unacceptable if you don't learn from it. Right. But if we learn from it, then we can evolve, grow, change, be better. So if my kid goes, Ooh, dad, I got a D on the science test. Now I want him to articulate that. Oh man, I bet that took some courage to tell me. So tell me more what happened. And here's what I want. That question and that welcome out of failure, I'm creating something that I want to get rep after rep after rep after rep. And that's creating an environment of psychological safety where my kids feel good about telling me the stuff that they're not so happy to tell me. But we need to get those reps in. And I'll explain why here in a minute.

So he'll be like, hey, yeah, I got a deal on the science test. Oh, man. I bet that took some courage to tell me that, huh? Thanks for telling me that. So tell me what happened. And he'll be like, I don't say, what do you mean you got a D? Why did you get a D? I say, tell me more about that.

Because one is accusatory. You suck. The other one is like, let me in. What's happened? And they will usually tell in full ownership they'll be like yeah dad like i didn't really study as well as i should have well it's good to know right so let me ask you this if you were to do the whole thing over again and you had the opportunity to take the test again what would you do different

be like man i probably would have, especially chapters five and six, because I neglected those. And that's where most of the questions were. I probably would have prepared a few more days leading up to the test. I might even have actually taken time before the test, like gone off in the auditorium for lunch, not be at lunch with my friends and just review some things. I'd be like, dude, like that's, that's awesome. Like, when's your next test? And they'll be like, that's Friday. Okay. Well that's, that's next week. So, I mean, it sounds like you've learned a few things of how you'd be better prepared,

right? Like, well, yeah, I did. Well, great. You going to do that? Yeah, I think I will. I think you got a plan. I think you learned. Let's do that. Is there anything you need help from me on? Do you need support or accountability? Like, no, I think I got it. I'd be like, all right, well, here's what I'm going to do. A couple of days before the test, I'm just going to check in on you. Just make sure that you're doing what you basically articulated you said you're going to do. Is that cool? I was like, yeah, it's cool. And that's how we create the environment. Now, the reason I want to do that every single day is because Kevin, there's going to come a day where our kids are going to be at a party and it could be, they tried something, they drank too much. The person that drove them there drank too much. And now they're holding their phone and they're

like, I need to call my dad. Right. But he freaks out when I give him bad news. So I think I'll just drive myself home. I don't want that. Right. You're like, you know, the guy that I can always go to when things aren't so good is him. He'll come pick me up. We'll have a conversation about it. I'm sure, but it's better to be safe. So that's, that's that. And then the final question. So that's, what are you most, what were you most proud of for the day? Or what was the best part of your day? What was something you failed at? What'd you learn? Third question is this, what are you most excited about tomorrow? Now, if they say something along the lines of like, man, I've got my cultural geography presentation tomorrow in front of the class, I have gone over

that so much. I'm so prepared for it. I'm really excited to get it done. And I'm really excited to do it, man. It's awesome. So what do you think I'm going to ask him about as soon as I see him the very next day? Same, the first two questions. But I'm also going to be like, dude, I have the presentation go. Sure. Any time you can continue a conversation on, because if I don't, he just shared that with me about, it's a big thing. And if I don't continue and check in with that, it doesn't really show that I'm interested. It's, it just shows them checking the box and just

asking questions, but this is a, this is conversational excellence at its best. And there's a psychology behind each one of those questions. Sure. And it sounds like a, the whole approach is both you're empathetic, but you're also kind of objective and coaching more than you're consulting. So it's like, I'm not going to tell you what you should do. I'm going to ask inquisitive questions, which for kids, let alone, I mentioned the same psychology works with your spouse and it works at work. Like at work, I'll do that with team members instead of like why i did it this way and here's how that you know this should do and use this thing it's like well

how can i empower you to do these or what do you think you know with some some kind of suggestive question but but again not you should do it this way to your point not getting upset when something doesn't go right because that's life of know, setting someone up for giving them coaching and letting them figure it out kind of on their own, um, where we're, we're then the wall they can kind of break against if they get stuck, you know, and say, Oh, well, I don't know. And then, then I would imagine if, you know, they don't come up with that plan, then do you still try and kind of stick in that, you know, inquisitive, the questions that kind of lead them to their own answers as opposed to, again, unless they're totally stuck, then as

dads that are older than them just saying, look, I see you're stuck. Let me just give you the suggestion on how it happens and then let them figure out the rest of it. Oh man, 100%. I think, so I love asking questions. That's my number one leadership skill, right? Is being able to ask really deep questions so they can be the ones that articulate their plan and their solution and the things that they've learned. And I always have to like fight the urge to lecture because you see the answer as clear as day.

But here's the other thing. If they don't see the same answer that we do, chances are, and I've experienced this and I'm sure you have too, a lot of times they have a better one or one that's going to work. And if they're the ones articulating like whatever it is, they're more likely to learn it and stick to it and do it than me just talking to them. Now there are times where like, so my oldest son right now, he's in this program called CAPS, which is, so he's let off like every day, a half day of school. And he goes to like this organization where he learns how to run a business. It's awesome. It is like the coolest fricking thing. They are teaching him things in this program that they do not teach in school, which I love. So I could tell like last night, cause he's like, dad, he's

like, I really need some help. He's like, I've been tasked with starting my own business. I'm like, okay, cool. What do you got to do? He's like, here are the rules. I have 10 bucks to start. I can't take anything from you guys. I can't use any of the resources here or anything like that. I literally have $10 to get this business up and running. And I have until the end of September to make a hundred dollars out of this. That's a pretty cool challenge. It is. Dude. I was like, this is, you have no idea the goal that you're learning right now. Right. Right. So I asked him so many questions, right. To get him to a point. Right. And we talked for like probably 45 minutes and he was getting excited, but I could also tell like there was like the feeling of overwhelm that was looming, that was coming. And then we kind of got to the point about 45 minutes into him, it was just like, there's a lot to think about. Right. And then we got to think about

advertising and all this other stuff. And then I was just like, okay, let's think about it this way. How many jobs do you have to do in order to cover your first $10 of expenses and all this other stuff? And you could tell we had gone through so much. He was just spent. Like we, we went for like 45 minutes to an hour creating like what we were gonna do and he just kind of looked at me he's like dad i don't know he's like i need to create like these basic these three bit i think what i need to do is create three basic level car washes of like this is the basic this is level one this level two and he's like and then i gotta figure out like who what? And like, you tell you just get in the weeds on it. Right. And I would ask him questions like,

okay, well, what's the right next thing we need to do? And you could just tell you just like, like just a deer in the headlights, like dad, I'm smoked. Right. And I'm like, why don't we do this? Why don't we just put some detail around what is the basic car wash entail? And he's like, it's the outside of the car. So, okay, great. What's level two? He's like, the outside, the inside, that's it. And I'm like, okay, what about level three? And he's like, outside, inside, tires, windows, dashboards. And I'm like, sounds like you got it. But could tell like he needed a little bit more prompting and a little bit more leadership so like the regular questions weren't really working he just needed some help and i think you kind of detect that in your kids when they're going through stuff like that help them break down to the smaller bits

the whole how do you how do you eat an elephant thing yeah that makes sense because it is the medium for adults to go let me solve this whole thing instead of like what's the immediate problem what's the ems term triage uh you know and what's the immediate need and things like that so you got it yeah um to compare and i know we're um you know coming up on time and and so all that discussion with a son with a child child, a teenager, what are a couple key differences? And there's way more than that, I know, with your spouse. But in the way that you can coach, because now it's another adult, right? It's not necessarily a new human that's learning these things as they grow.

What are the two kind of key differences or even three that you then translate? Maybe a similar core skill set of talking with someone and relating and, again, not telling them because you telling a spouse is very different than you telling a child with like your wife. So it's interesting you say that. So if you really look at the three basic needs of our wives when it comes to communication and connection and just feeling really fulfilled in the relationship, it's seen, it's heard, and it's safe. Luckily, our kids, boy or girl, they have the exact same needs, right? And I'm not talking about survival needs

of like food, shelter, clothing. I'm talking about the relationship needs, seen, heard, and safe. For a man, it's respected, appreciated, validated, right? So let's just get that out there. The, the skillset for communicating with your wife and your kids is somewhat similar, but obviously you're talking to an adult. So you're not talking to a kid and you definitely don't want to talk to your wife. Like she's a kid. You don't want to do that. But here's what I'll tell you. Some of the same rules do apply. So like, for instance, I'm a big proponent. If you ever, YouTubed It's Not About the Nail? I don't think I have now. I should do that. I'll write that down. Yeah.

It's one of the funniest one minute and 41 second videos on YouTube that really just paint the picture for how a conversation between a man and a woman usually goes. So it's hilarious. It's this man and woman, they're sitting on a couch and you really can't see the woman's face in the very beginning, but she taught, they open up the video with like, it's like this, this horrible pain. It's like right here in my head and it's throbbing all the time. And I don't know what to do about it. I just don't know what to do about it. Like, it's just driving me crazy. And like, like I can't sleep at night and it just, I don't know what to do about it. I just don't know what to do about it. It's just driving me crazy. And I can't sleep at night and I don't know what to do. And then all of a sudden, the camera turns to her and she's got a nail sticking out of her head. And you see the look on the guy's face and he's like,

well, you do have a nail sticking right out of your head. And she's like, it's not about the nail. And he's like, really? Is it? Because if you pull that thing out, you'll be fine. So she's like, it's not about the nail. You never listen to me. He's like, no, I think I am listening. And then they go back and forth and back and forth. But basically, if you really look at the theme, that is a very common conversation between a man and a woman because a woman will talk about her feelings, good or bad, right? Overwhelm or happiness or whatever, right? But let's just talk about overwhelm for a moment or being upset. What most of us do, and again, I want to go back to intention. When a woman communicates like she's overwhelmed, upset, angry, or sad, we immediately

want to start talking about solutions. Let's get through this problem. And here's why. We don't do it because we don't love her. We actually do it because we love her. We do it because we want to take her pain away. We love her so much. We don't want to see the nail on her head. So we're just going to tell her how to pull it out. But that's not the intent of a woman most, and I stress this, most of the time, not all the time, but most of the time. So what a woman really needs to feel is seen and heard. So there's a part in this conversation where the guy gets so frustrated and he finally looks at her and he goes, that sounds really hard. And she's like, and she melts and she's like, it is really hard.

And then she puts her hand on his and he's like looking like, is that all I had to say? Like, so anyway, when I, when I, when, when I'm talking to my wife, I use a skill that we teach called, you know, labeling her emotions, right? All of us as dads or I'm sorry, husbands, we want to be better listeners. We want better intimate conversations that feel connection. A lot of times for us, our interpretation of connection is, let me take away your pain. Let me solve this problem. In her world, it's, I just need you to hear me. And I need you to send the messages that you are hearing me. So when we say, so like, I'll give you an example. When I come home and I know this sounds systematic, but it absolutely is the thing that my

wife needs. So let's just say I come home and she's like, oh my God, today was horrible. Like the dog threw up everywhere. Colton has been a nightmare. He's been misbehaving all day. Like, and he even like dropped a glass of milk and it shattered all over our floor. It scratched our wooden floors. The milk like, you know, went everywhere. She's like, and I'm just, I feel like I've been cleaning up puke and milk all day. And the old me would have been like, it doesn't really sound like that big of a deal. Like I'm sure like we can sure we can buff out the scratches. I'll take the dog to the vet tomorrow.

We'll be fine. Why are you so upset? And my wife would probably look at me like, what the hell is your problem? Instead, I normalize, I globalize, normalize, ask for more. And I'll show you what that looks like. That sounds overwhelming. So I globalize it. I don't say you sound overwhelmed. I say that sounds overwhelming. So I say the situation is overwhelming, not you, because people get ashamed if they feel anger or sadness or overwhelmed. They don't really like being seen in that way, but the situation,

that's okay. So I'll be like, that sounds overwhelming. And then I'll normalize it by saying, man, who wouldn't be overwhelmed? If I was in your shoes, holy crap, I probably would have lost my damn mind. Right. Tell me more. The invite, the third step is tell me more. I don't say why are you so upset? Cause then everything I just did, like, man, that sounds overwhelming. Who wouldn't be overwhelmed, but why are you so upset? That doesn't land well. But if I say, tell me more about what's going on. And then I invite her just to talk. That's when she's like, Oh, like, I just love you. Right. I just, and even if she's venting and even if I could be like, I know exactly how we could solve this really quickly. It's not my job at that moment. My job is just to hear her, but that's what,

that's, that's how we do that. Yeah. That's a great point. There's, um, my wife and I do similar, you know, do you want me to solve this or just listen? Um, and then, and then I apparently wasn't listening because it was a third option too, but I can't remember what it is, but yeah, similar. And it is such a game changer because yeah, my mind goes right to boom. Okay. Here's solutions and here's that. And, um, um yeah the value you get back just from um opening your ears and closing your mouth sometimes is is huge um which i would imagine is you know a challenge i know it's been a challenge for me and challenge for other folks

especially if you're in the the type of person in the business where you solve problems all the time you're like oh this is snap zap zap boom and your example um i'll still look up um it's not about the nail that's pretty oh it's pretty awesome yeah hilarious i'm not sure that that's cool um great tips i mean discussion and and and everything i appreciate your time folks can get way more than this by going to thedadedge.com, right? And that's the hub for everything. You've got the podcast, three books, right? The Dad Edge book and a couple more. Daddy will always be here to protect you and screen time, the good, the bad, the ugly, man, that's so relevant these days, right? That's the battle that, especially coming off summer into the school year, we did our, you know, drills the week before, like, OK, we're going to get off a little earlier each day and then we're going to go to bed closer to your school time and get up early.

And it's paid off a bit. But that that screen time piece is huge. I imagine there's been a lot of response to that one in the past two years or, you know, as long as smartphones have come along is, is there kind of, you know, an overarching message that you want to leave folks that are listening, particularly the dads, right. You know, not just to find you, but, but some good, good direction for them. Yeah. You know, I would just say, I just kind of doubled down on what we were talking about here in the beginning, which is, you know, this proactive approach to keeping these skills very sharp, right? We have, and this

sounds very self-serving, but I believe in it a hundred percent. You know, we we've got our mastermind program, which helps men in those areas. So we help them with marriage, you know, what we call conversation, communication, excellence, connection, excellence, elevating the intimacy with your wife. You do that by, you know, having better excellence, connection, excellence, elevating the intimacy with your wife. You do that by, you know, having better conversations with her, knowing how to communicate with her, knowing her needs. And we teach guys how to do that. Also being a more patient and resilient and a better leader as a father, right? For, for boys and daughters. So leadership and parenting is a big one as well as being a better fit financially.

So we help men even with personal finances, creating a vision for their families and also just health in general. So physical, mental, emotional, spiritual health, it's a big hub for us as well. These are the, these are the areas, quite frankly, as men, we, we neglect these. We just sort of leave these. It's really unfortunate. We leave these to chance, right? And we don't, we don't even, we don't even go and get, you know, we don't learn communication skills,

but we'll go get our teeth cleaned. And what I want to tell men is if you don't know exactly what to do in those areas, you know, is it like, man, I just want to connect better with my wife. Well, chances are you haven't sat in the dentist chair for a while, right? And you don't know what those skills are. Be proactive about it. Go learn and implement. Life becomes exponentially easier when you know what to do, when to do it versus the other way around when you just walk around clueless and you don't know what to do. And we see this all the time, unfortunately. It's like five years go by and a guy will get an urgent message from a guy be like, I should have, I should have joined a year ago. My wife just told me she's leaving me. And I'm like, Oh my God, dude, we could have like really got in front of this. Right. But be proactive with, with yourivity beats reactivity. And whether you're a man or a woman, listen, ladies, if you're listening, send your husband to thedadage.com maybe before it gets to that point that Larry just mentioned. Thank you again for taking the time.

I really appreciate it. Great to learn from you. Excuse me. Look forward to following more, learning it, and myself taking more of the initiative to get deeper involved so I can make myself better as a husband, a father and an individual. So Larry, thanks so much for the connection and for being on the Kevin Talks podcast. Hey, you bet. Thank you for having me. Absolutely.

Hey, everybody. This is your host, Kevin Pinnell again. I hope you enjoyed that interview and discussion that I had with Larry Hagner, founder of The Dad Edge. He puts out some great stuff. I've attended some of his online trainings. I highly recommend it. So again, go to thedadedge.com. There you can connect on all the socials. You can apply for a couple Accelerator Mastermind programs or Mastermind programs.

You can be a member of the Dad Edge Alliance. There's also training courses, just great resources that Larry's involved in. He's built a lot of good things that help all of us. Really, they help us ask better questions of our kids. They help us be more present with our wives and take care of ourselves, and we deserve that, dads. So thank you for making this podcast deserving of your time.

To hear more great interviews that I've had with folks, please go to KevTalksPod.com and just search for whatever topics. Primarily, we do public safety project management, but I've talked about wellness. I, like Larry, realized I needed to align my physical, mental, spiritual, and emotional well-being after going through some hardship and hard times. And I'm sure some of you have too. So go to keftalkspod.com, go to thedadge.com, be proactive, make a difference in your life, in the lives of your family. Please like, subscribe, all that good stuff that helps the show grow. And I'll get more stories out there and share more of my life experience.

And hopefully it can help some of you as well. Godspeed, y'all.