The Real Dad Role

Watch the episode here:

• Learn why Father’s Day is more than just a “me day.”
• Discover the impact of consistently showing up for your kids.
• Hear personal stories about the true essence of fatherhood.
• Understand the importance of positive reinforcement for your children.
• Get motivated to be the best dad you can be, every single day

Hey, what’s shakin, hey, I’m Rick Jordan today, we’re going all in. Today is Father’s Day. And I’m a dad. And I love being a dad. I absolutely love my kids. My kids are amazing kids. And I say this, you know because some people will call their kids monsters and even sometimes like little shits, and I can’t stand that, to be honest with you, I really can’t stand that. It’s like, why would you want to instill that and call that? People tend to take on identities that their parents give them through words. And I’ve never been a fan of that, right. So I’ve always just spoken extremely highly of my kids to my kids. I’ve never called them any kind of names, even like, people say that stuff’s endearing and all that. But I’ve never done that. Not one single time. And I encourage you not to do that, too. It’s okay. Because if you have, don’t worry about it, it’s in society, but now’s the time to shift. Now, it’s definitely a time to shift now that that is look up the psychology of it, if you want to because it’s it’s very intriguing to me how kids can take on those identities, right? Because if people tell you like, you’re never going to be good at something, you tend to start to believe that when you’ve heard it a lot of times why can’t you be more like your brother? Why can’t you be more like your sister? You know, that’s not that that’s not good parenting. I’m just straight up saying that that is not good parenting. It’s okay to be frustrated. Kids can be frustrating. 

Sometimes, it is not good parenting, to speak that way to your kids. And you know what, give yourself a break. You might not have known if that’s the case, up until this point. But you can shift moving forward. Now, on Father’s Day, I posted something, I posted something on my story about dads. And it got a lot of great responses. Actually, for one side, I thought it would be a little divisive, but it wasn’t divisive. So maybe I’ll expand here. And maybe this this talk right now will be a little bit more divisive, that when I posted this thing it was about it was about dads it was like Hey, guys, you know, Father’s Day is not a me day. Father’s Day is not a day to go out golfing with the guys to escape. And that’s where I started. So to really mean like escape your family escaped your kids, you know, get into a different night, it’s not that day, it’s not a day to have the women or the moms do all the work for you. Okay, to where you can just sit on a couch, sit your lazy ass on the on the couch with a drink, while everybody else does all the work. Right? That’s not what that day is. It’s not what it’s for. Because if you go in and what I was getting at with this is almost kind of like the obligation that I’ve seen, some men have around what this day is supposed to be in. And I’ve seen some have this around the birthday too, but more so on this day, you know where it’s at. And I want to contrast to women a little bit because women, it’s like being a mom, and moms are amazing. 

They really are because it’s like moms are pre-programmed with this thing in their mind that there’s not a day off, that you just don’t get a day off. Even when it comes to Mother’s Day. It’s like that’s not a thought going into it’s already like, I just don’t want to do anything today. And everyone needs to just serve me, I have not met a single mom in contrast to what I’m talking about with men who have felt that way about Mother’s Day as guys that I have seen feel about Father’s Day. Now what I have seen as on the good side of this is I’ve seen families you know, partners, kids, spouses actually offer that and be like, hey, I want to cook for you today. Hey, I want to do this way I want to make this a great relaxing day for you. I’ve been on the receiving end of this myself, you know, and there’s a reason behind that. And it’s because this was the second half of what I posted. The reason behind that is that you’re showing up that day with your intention just like mom pretty much every mom I’ve ever seen in my life, how they show up on Mother’s Day is the same way I’m talking about dad showing up this way on Father’s Day, is that you still are just straight up showing up. So I’m like here here’s to all the men, right cheers to you. You’re awesome because enjoy the day with your kids. And Happy Father’s Day Happy Father’s Day to all the men that consistently show up. It just gets me going when it’s like dudes will not help with the dishes or dudes will not do this or it’s like there’s this trade-off of stuff and almost like this. It’s really like an unspoken agreement.

Right this unspoken contract that I’ve seen men have and this is a call this this show this episode really is to all the men right and there are probably women that are listening right now watching right now that are like ready to go Go for it. You know, let them have it. But that’s not my intention either with this man Tension is to help you become aware. Because women I want you to understand this later is I want you to understand this is that and this is this part is for you too. It’s ignorance, right? It’s not necessarily an excuse. But awareness is something that’s required in order to make a change. So when you look back, it actually helps you have compassion and forgiveness a little more, because this might be a thing that actually repairs your frickin relationship. No joke right now might be the thing that could repair your relationship. If you’re like, you know what, maybe he didn’t know before, she didn’t know before. Now, as I said, ignorance is really no excuse. Like, that’s okay because that means forgiveness can be there, and there can be repair that happens and change that happens. Awareness is the thing though, right now, my intention is not to dog men, my intention is to bring awareness to this. Because if there’s other times of the year where you’re like, Man, my kids never want to be with me, or you know, as they start to grow, and they get into their teen years to where it’s like that typical teen thing, as people talked about, where, you know, they just want to go out, they want to be with their friends, they don’t want to hang around their mom and dad, you know, they go into the, to the mall or whatever, if there’s malls existing, I’m dating myself a little bit, right? 

Everybody shoots on Amazon these days, but going to a public place, and they just don’t want to be around you, right, because your dad, your mom, you know, whatever that is, right? I’ve got to tell you. And this isn’t touting myself as this amazing person. But I’ve been a pretty good dad and my kids want to be around me. They also want their independence. But they want to be around me, my daughter still hugs me in public, and my son, 17 years old now still says Dad, I love you in public in front of his friends. And there’s the one big thing that I can trace this back to is that I know that I have consistently shown up for them throughout their entire lives. I’ve never brushed them off. Of course, I’ve had priorities with work and building a business and a public company, and speaking and all these other things. But I’ve always made a priority for that to have proximity priority for proximity. There was one time, the first time ever I was pitching TV producers. I was in Atlanta, okay. And my son got invited to this art show, he was only in sixth grade, right? And his art got selected to be in this high school art show something well well beyond his years, because they just really found it amazing and inspirational. And I found out about this, I was like, you know, it was possible to see and this is the limiting beliefs, right? That some guys have. Because as a dude, we can get wrapped up in this provider mentality. And don’t get me wrong, guys, it is a core value of mine to provide for family period, I believe it is the duty of a man to provide for his family. If you want to call me a traditionalist, I don’t care, I believe that’s in male DNA doesn’t mean that a female can doesn’t mean that a woman cannot provide for a family or there can’t be dual-income households, right? But to carry a dude, ladies be with me on this to carry a dude for like 20 years, if he’s producing no income, that’s a different story. 

Okay, noncontribution, so I believe firmly that it is within the male DNA to be a provider. So this self-limiting belief about Well, I gotta work, I gotta do these things. So if I’m pitching TV producers, this is my first shot. I can get at this stuff. And then I can continue to provide and create more opportunities for my kids. All I had to do is ask the question, I did not refrain from asking the question saying, Hey, can you schedule around this, please? I’m like, Well, what are you thinking? I’m like, if I fly out at 6 am, from Atlanta, I can land in Chicago, just in time to be at my son’s art show for an hour and a half, and then literally drive right back to the airport, and then go back to Atlanta to pitch TV producers. And that’s exactly what happened. I booked a flight and didn’t pack anything. It felt weird. Felt really, really weird. Like literally walking onto a plane with with nothing. Just walking out. The only other time I’ve done that was actually in Hawaii when I was going from Oahu to Maui and then back on the same day because I was in a Wahoo having a good time. And it’s like I want to see Maui. So it was like it was a little little hop over right. It was like a 40-minute flight, something like that. But the only purpose of going over there was just to have fun for the day and come back. It feels really weird when you walk into a plane with like nothing, not even a backpack, right? Like, like luggage. That’s what this day was and I made it a priority for my son. And I fucking showed up. And it’s still something that remember to this day. And this is just one example of so much of so much. And this is why on something like Father’s Day. Why something like Father’s Day is that they will want to celebrate you they will want to honor you is because you understand as a dad, just like moms I’m saying that dads are not as great at this generally speaking as moms are and there are no days off. There are no days off.

So when it comes to something like this, it doesn’t even have to be Father’s Day but we have this on the count calendar to kind of bring a top of mind. And so many are like Man, I feel obligated to do this today. I’ve seen that with kids. I’ve seen that with families where it’s like, I feel obligated to do this for this dude, that just does not show up the rest of the year. What the hell are we doing? All he wants to do? Like I said, like, go golf with the guys or something like that, or go to the bar and spend time with guys, you know, or do this other thing that thinking is like a date for quote, unquote, guy stuff. No, I want to be with my kids on Father’s Day, because those are the ones that made me a frickin dad to begin with. They’re celebrating me, and that’s awesome because I show up, but I want to spend my time with them. It’s a reminder for me that I have amazing kids in my life. And without them, I would not be dead without them, I wouldn’t have this enormous and amazing responsibility to show up for other human beings that have been given to me by God in this world to care after and raise and show them the ways and help them accomplish their own purpose. 

I hope that you’re following with me today. Because this is so important and why I feel that so many families are broken, because you forget to show up for your kids because of all this other stuff surrounding it’s such a frickin priority in my life, and I hope it becomes a priority in your life too. They will want to celebrate you not just on Father’s Day, not just on Mother’s Day, not just on Christmas. And by you an obligatory gift. I’ve talked about that before, too. But they want to hang out with you and hug you in public as a daughter dads, and say I love you in public mom’s from a son. That’s what they want to do. When you consistently show up for them and show you that you are available for them regardless of what’s going on. I want you to take this today because now this is your awareness. This is your opportunity to shift. I don’t care how old or how young your kids are, or even if they’re out or whatever, you can always continue to repair this because you know what you are dad for their life period doesn’t matter their age your mom for their life period, no matter what age you are. And there’s always an opportunity, even if you think that the chance has been lost because you’ve screwed up. Guess what, even with how good of a dad I believe that I’ve done and how I know that I’ve shown up I can say that in confidence. I’ve still made mistakes too. And I can go back and I can enumerate them, whatever. Because just like that relationships can be repaired. Your kids can also offer forgiveness when you actually have contrition towards any mistakes that you might have made. And it’s okay because regardless that you are a dad for life you are a mom for life, they are also son for life. They are also daughter for life. There’s no escaping that. You don’t get to choose who that is in your life. But you can have the opportunity to be grateful that that actually is who you are in life. Have an awesome week. Take this to heart and make that shift right now.