In this episode, Jeff Hittner shares his journey into fatherhood, the challenges modern dads face, and how redefining masculinity and emotional intelligence can lead to more fulfilling relationships with their children.

keywords: fatherhood, emotional intelligence, masculinity, dad's role, parenting challenges, legacy, vulnerability, co-parenting, modern fatherhood

key topics

• Redefining masculinity and fatherhood
• The importance of emotional intelligence in dads
• Challenges faced by modern fathers
• The role of vulnerability in parenting
• Co-parenting and communication strategies
• Legacy and the impact of fatherhood
• Overcoming societal stereotypes about dads
• The importance of self-awareness and growth for dads

takeaways

• Dads need to redefine what masculinity means in today's world.
• Emotional intelligence is crucial for effective parenting.
• Many fathers struggle with societal expectations and role models.
• Vulnerability and openness can strengthen father-child relationships.
• Co-parenting requires communication and shared values.
• Legacy is about the values and emotional connections we leave behind.
• Dads should invest in their own emotional growth to be better fathers.

guest nameJeff Hittner

titles

• Redefining Fatherhood: Embracing Vulnerability and Emotional Intelligence
• The Modern Dad's Guide to Building Legacy and Connection

Sound Bites

• "Fatherhood is about redefining traditional roles."
• "Emotional intelligence is the key to better parenting."
• "Legacy is what you leave in your children's hearts."

Chapters

00:00Navigating the World of Fatherhood

00:37Redefining Fatherhood: A Personal Journey

04:41The Emotional Landscape of Modern Dads

10:19Integrating Work and Fatherhood

14:10Legacy and Intentional Parenting

16:32Recognizing Struggles: Triggers and Self-Awareness

18:42The Burden of Traditional Masculinity

20:37Navigating Co-Parenting Challenges

23:00Understanding Parenting Styles and Backgrounds

24:56Flexibility in Parenting Approaches

26:32Building Confidence in Parenting

29:39Evolving Definitions of Fatherhood

33:29Creating Safe Spaces for Dads

34:55The Legacy of Fatherhood

Resources

• Ambitious Dad Podcast
• Jeff Hittner - LinkedIn
• Building a StoryBrand by Donald Miller
• The Power of Vulnerability by Brené Brown

Guest links

• LinkedIn
• Website

Host website: https://specialedrising.com/

Ray's Respite Care: https://www.gofundme.com/f/join-rays-respite-care-mission

Hey, Jeff, how are you?

thanks for being flexible.

Yeah, that's all good. You know this business, man. You gotta be flexible, right?

Yes.

And I think

absolutely.

I'm excited to talk to you today because this is such a mysterious world, this whole dad thing, in many ways when it comes to people's perceptions and even just dad's perceptions of themselves and what a dad is supposed to mean, So I'm excited to get your perspective and hear about the work you've done and the inroads you've made in this area. So it's pretty cool.

Well great. I'm excited

to talk about it.

awesome. So why don't you just give us a little bit of your background as you know the routine with the podcast, and then we'll jump right into, Ambitious Dads and how it started.

Okay, yeah, I'll I'll give a quick background. nice to to be here. Thank you so much. my story is is a little different. I mean everyone's is as a father, but ⁓ I've wanted to be a dad my whole life.

hear.

And about twelve years ago now, I found out that I couldn't be a biological dad. And ⁓ as you would imagine, it was ⁓ a really difficult period that I went through with my wife. And I always knew that someday I would be a father. And I realized in in that moment in discovering that I couldn't be one biologically, that I would need to change this fundamental.

Definition that I had in my head of what fatherhood was, which was obviously, you know, very traditional, just fatherhood is blood, to ⁓ really thinking about it differently and more intentionally. And and when I got to that place where I was able to do it, it opened up so many amazing things for me. So on the one hand, it really spurred

The type of coaching work that I do globally with leaders, because I felt if I could change my definition of something as foundational as fatherhood, that I could help people ⁓ transform their mindsets about anything. But secondly, what it did was it made me in a sharp way feel like I had already failed ⁓ as a dad and it got this like need to be perfect out of the way before my fatherhood even began. So

I write about sitting on a beach crying, just thinking about like my kids are gonna be thirteen and they're gonna be all messed up because they're gonna have this huge identity crisis because of you know the way they are going to come into the world, which is not this very traditional way. And

In that experience, what it also did was it freed me to realize like we are all gonna be imperfect in raising the kids that we love more than anything in the world. And I feel like that was like ⁓ I got that so early that it it made fatherhood a different experience for me. and you know, about three years ago, I was doing my

regular work, which so I have my own business. I'm a leadership expert and an executive coach. And I was just started getting really curious about fatherhood, as you would imagine. ⁓ and by the way, my boys now, they're they're six and nine years old. And ⁓ but I was getting curious cause all the executives that I work with, and I work with male and female executives, but all the executives that were men, if I asked them like what their goals were for their career or their business, they would give me an answer in two seconds.

And if I asked them what their goals were as a dad or with their family, they had this expression like no one's ever asked me that before. And it got me really curious. And so I decided, in my sort of dorky, nerdy way, I'm gonna plead my ignorance and investigate and I'm gonna interview fifty ambitious dads. and to me, ambitious dads were people that ⁓ were driven to

Yeah.

Still have a career, but also be amazing dads. And I got to maybe interview number four and I was like, holy crap, I am learning so much. I need to start writing about this stuff. And it was totally selfish. I was learning so many things that were helping me as a dad. So fast forward to the to today, ⁓ which is almost three years later, I've interviewed over 200 dads. I have like a entity called Ambitious Dad, so ambitiousdad.com.

I have a podcast, the Ambitious Dads Podcast. and I work with dads that you know, we struggle in so many ways, as I'm sure you know and ⁓ I'm happy to talk about. And the journey for me has been not just discovering all the things that have helped me be a better dad, but discovering all the things that are challenging us as modern fathers, that are trying to do fatherhood differently than our parents, and there we are running into so many gaps.

And and that's really where I draw my passion and energy.

It's such a wonderful project in a sense to start with and then to grow, and you say selfish, but really, I mean, we have to develop ourselves before we can really help others. I mean, that was just practice in a sense. You know, you're getting you're getting to do. But like that emotion, there's so many ways to go with this from here. But the emotional availability of, people from our generation and beyond that, you know, men were not necessarily taught to be emotionally available or they didn't

A hundred percent. Yeah.

and have a model to them many years ago, what do you see as the difference between those times and now? What is changing? What is more the practice or the reality now

Well, I I think we still don't have good models. We don't have one of the gaps I talk about is this role model gap. we want to be co parents in a way that ⁓ never really ⁓ existed or at least on paper existed back when we were children. We don't have a lot of fathers to look to to see like how to do this well. and

beyond that or connected deeply to that in fact is this idea that we are learning about our own emotional regulation almost always when we become dads, right? And and not so much before that. And so we have this huge learning curve. Like we're in it to win it. We're in it to be like, I really I don't wanna provide anymore just at a financial level. I want to provide at an emotional level. And my God, I s

Mm-hmm.

Okay.

First, need to figure out how to provide for myself at an emotional level. And I also don't have any role models to figure out how to do that. And I also don't even understand what these triggers are. Like why am I getting so overly upset when my son or daughter does X, Y, Z? And and learning all these things from scratch is really hard for a lot of dads. And not enough people are talking about it. ⁓ and not enough people are there supporting it. And so that's one of the things that that I'm trying to do.

do when I talk about at the very least is to make people aware of it.

Yeah, it's a great point because really in so many regards, just as human beings, we're not prepared for so many things that we have to deal with in life emotionally because we're not taught foundational lessons and we're not guided

as what it's like to be a stronger person with an openness to learning and an availability to recognize where weaknesses are and the confidence to then pursue those weaknesses and try to improve upon them. for you, did you have beliefs about what fatherhood was gonna be like and that completely reality blew them out of the water?

I think the biggest

one a hundred percent I did, and the biggest one was that ⁓ it comes naturally. And I think actually moms also might think that, but they c they quickly adapt to the reality that they need to keep learning really quickly and and I think they get that in part biologically in part just like the experience that they have because everything is changing for them in a different way.

Right.

I think

too many dads think that like this isn't coming as naturally as I should, and and then they they get frustrated at themselves with it and in the worst case scenario they withdraw from it because they don't know what to do with something that they're not good at. And what we need to be doing is the opposite, which we do in our work life, which is to say, I need to learn this and I need to keep growing. And also there is no one for which

Right.

Daddying comes naturally when we ha go through 18, 25 years of stages of our kids' life. There are some aspects of our children's lives that will be a little easier, and some forms of connection that will feel a little easier, and there will be many more that feel extremely unnatural and difficult. And we need to learn all of them. And you know, when I when I'm you know sucked into a ⁓

in in an Instagram moment and just reading through all that stuff, it's far too many ⁓ are there talking about it from a mom's perspective. And and it and it's not necessarily very different from a dad's perspective. But the point is I don't think many dads are looking at those same Instagram reels and learning about those things or picking out the books and learning about those things. And so there's a lot of work for us to do not just to recognize that

It's okay if it doesn't come naturally. If you love this being more than anything, you need to invest in getting good at taking care of them through all their different stages. And that means asking questions and more people than just your partner.

Yeah, have you come across the idea of maybe the maternal side is a little bit more drawn to the investigation and the paternal is a little less likely or struggles more?

I mean the short answer is that is what I definitely see. I don't think there's anything natural about it. I think it's a mindset. ⁓ and and that's what needs to change. It's Yes, culturally in trans society because as I as I'm saying, like we do this automatically at work.

Okay. Like societally entrenched sort of thing.

We know we need to keep learning. And if a and if anyone who's listening is involved in any way in a job that touches technology, they're probably learning constantly about AI and all these new things. And they don't think twice about that.

They don't think, man, I'm I'm not like cut out to be in the work world because I have to learn something new because technology is changing. Well, technology is changing and our kids are changing. So it's the same thing. but it's a different mindset too often for us. And we we just need to use that same hat. Like we're always learning. That's it.

Yeah, so how do you help the fathers redefine success so that they're feeling like they're not constantly having to choose between being the provider and then also being present

you for asking

that. through all of my research, I do a lot of research through my interviews and you know I have come to believe that this idea of work-life balance is is the wrong question. It's because it's sort of the symptom. Like we are not two different people. We are not a work self and a home self. We are one engine. And we need to feel more integrated.

And it's not a question of time management so much as the capacity, like who am I when I'm at home? Well, if I am the same person at home as I am at work, I will have more energy to be present. I will have more capacity to connect with my family. And so the work that I do with dads is around like really understanding how to build this intentional fatherhood philosophy.

And this integrated set of values that work beyond in all aspects of their lives so that they feel like the same values that they're leading with at work they're also leading with at home. Except the distinction is they are very much aware of what those values are instead of sort of magically just feeling like, this connects to who I am and and this doesn't. And so we work on getting intentional. We we work on

defining values, we work on redefining success. We work on defining what our role is ⁓ as a father ⁓ in any given moment. there's a lot of stuff we do and and then then on top of that, ⁓ most importantly, we share with each other because too many dads, yeah, we don't we don't share what's scaring us and what's keeping us up at night.

I was going to ask about the emotional connection with ourselves as men, you know, and dads feeling having to be that strong person and not wanting to look inside themselves so much, But.

Have you found a common thread through these interactions, these conversations that make it difficult for the parents, for the dads to be able to bridge the two worlds? Have you found something that's kind of that comes up oftentimes that you're able to focus on or is really a variety of things?

Well,

I I think it it goes back to that same comment w we had around like this cultural identity of like I shouldn't research around fatherhood, right? This identity that I am supposed to be two different people. I'm supposed to be this one person at work and I'm supposed to leave work at work and come home and be this other person. That's emotionally exhausting. And what it really is is I'm supposed to be one human being.

That carries ⁓ you know my integrity, my heart, my beliefs in everything I do. and and I think so I think that is a big blocker that we have. ⁓ and I think that's a cultural blocker in in many respects. And I think it's also a blocker because we aren't defining success for ourselves, right? So if we're not defining success for ourselves, our boss is or our the industry is or what have you.

But one of the things that resonates so much with the dads I work with is like, how do we want our kids to grow up thinking about what success is? Do we want them to think about it in terms of money, in terms of a job, or do we want them to think about it in terms of, you know, how we connect and how we share our love and how we communicate and all these things. And when we expand this idea of what success is,

it really changes how we interact at work and at home. And so it's all intertwined. and and it becomes a really wonderful way to kind of reposition our mindset around a lot of things.

And I also, when I speak with dads, in my area of special education, there's some extra challenges that I would like to talk to you about that too, and any of your experiences with it. But just the idea of how do you wanna be remembered by your kids, comes up for me, having lost my dad and having had a very, difficult relationship at times.

We connected on certain things, but there was a lot of conflict. And I felt like I had a better handle on things as I got older and as you get more sicker and once you pass away. But I still find myself...

trying to define what that relationship really is and trying to come to a place of understanding and acceptance because he was a human being. there were things that were the kind of things that you're just like, I don't know that I can get past that as a child. So it's like, if your dad really, like if he were able to listen to me more,

that would have been helpful. So do you find that's part of your message at all ever just about you like as a dad like your dad's expressed that they want to be remembered well by their kids

⁓ I talk a lot about this idea of legacy. So we we wanna move from being reactive to intentional. And to do that, ⁓ there are lots of different ways to think about it. But one of them is like, how do I look I'm going through a tough moment with my child, right? And I imagine in in in the world that that that you work in in particular, there are a lot more tough moments that go on with your child.

And you're going through this tough moment on your child, but if you if you imagine being eighty years old and your child is all grown up, your children are all grown up, and you can look back at that moment, like how would you perceive it differently, right? And so we do a lot of that where we we do a lot of like thinking of ourselves, you know, sixty years in the future, how would we want to look back at this moment when our child is having a temper tantrum or ⁓ you know

There's an explosive diaper experience, right? And like in that moment you're this is horrible, but looking back on eighty years, like, I missed that stuff. This is the stuff that like made parenthood special, right? Even even the temper tantrum. So, ⁓ yeah, from from that perspective of legacy, we we spend a lot of time thinking about that to provide perspective.

How do you find

dads that are struggling, are there kind of like any kind of subtle warning signs that dads are succeeding maybe in the professional realm, but not so much relationally with their kids? Are there things that you talk about that things for them to look out for?

Yeah, I think generally I was running a session on triggers. and I was and by the way, so a trigger is an overreaction and an an emotional overreaction we have to a situation. And in the context of our children, an an emotional overreaction to a situation with our kids. So that our reaction to what they do or what happens seems way out of proportion. And I was talking to

⁓ twenty five dads and only about twenty percent even knew what a trigger was. so I think one of my big challenges that I see ⁓ well not my challenge but a challenge of so many dads is just they they don't have the language yet of like and and therefore if they don't have the language they're they're probably not ⁓ all really self aware of like w what this big reaction is.

And that it's not about the child in front of them, right? It's about something much deeper, in in all likelihood connected back to their experiences when they were younger. so that is a big one when I start to have a conversation with the dad and and I'm you know, I'm just kind of feeling around for where they are in their own emotional intelligence journey. that's kind of a poignant one to see like, okay, there there's a lot going on there. And then the other is, are they talking to anybody?

Right, are they talking to anyone else ⁓ about these struggles? You know, I ⁓ in my in that same big group, there was a dad that was like, Guys, I had the worst. I failed as a dad. And we're like, What happened? What happened? He was like, My son was s on the couch, he was maybe eight months old, and he's like, he fell off the couch. Like he just started, moving. He was at that age, and I was in charge of him, and I went to do something and I didn't know, and he like he fell off the couch and he, you know, landed on the ground.

And and and he was so hard on himself. And I go, Wait, wait, wait, wait, everyone in this room, raise your hand if you have dropped your kid, right? And two thirds of the dads raise their hands. And I was like, Welcome to the club. Okay. This is this is part of being a dad. We make mistakes and we keep going. And I think the a big problem is is when we're not talking to other dads, we make mistakes and we carry it like shame.

Hahaha

Yeah, it's life.

And shame is definitely an unhealthy thing for dad to carry around. So yeah.

Sure.

As we talked about earlier with the cultural thing, the man not having to be strong and all that kind of stuff and these old myths about what it means to be a man, it means to be a dad, the protector and the knower of all and things like that, so, and to that, that's also work that needs to be done to get beyond that. So.

have you come to a place where you've recognized, we're like, you know what you need more than me. You a therapist like you just suggested somebody to talk to. That's what I just real quick when I speak to some dads, it's like, I can help you to the degree to the degree that we work on how to manage your home with your child. Something gives suggestions, but you need to do some more personal work to get past like this strong belief that this is the way it has to be. And this is what I know and all that kind of stuff. So how is it for you to be able to

Yeah, I

suggest that beyond your work.

I

try to incorporate all the time into my work that and I'll say it even right here. I have my own personal therapist. I've do I've done lots of couples counseling w ⁓ for me and my wife. And I always try to talk about it in my work with the with the dads, to try to really take any sort of negative stereotype of it away. and I

often get questions like, Hey, can you recommend? ⁓ when I bring it up, right? They may not say it in the big group, but they'll they'll send it they'll send me a note afterwards. I also notice the people that sign up for working with me, whether it's the group work or the one-on-one, often already have a therapist because they're already aware that in order to be a great dad, they need to do some work on themselves. ⁓

Hahaha

right.

Yeah.

And so there there's there seems to be a lot of linkages there. Yeah.

Do you discuss the balance when it comes to relationships? Especially in a situation, again, in my world where we're dealing with dads and moms who have to deal with children with different disabilities and neurodiversities and things like that, there's a lot more stress, there's a lot more pressures, and the divorce rate is 90%.

pretty incredible. you know, it's hard for them to come together on the same page because the standards that they've experienced in their lives, the expectations that they've had and understood my job is try to get them to change the paradigm.

and kind of view it from different perspectives and also be able to listen to each other because that support from each other is where you're going to get the most strength and the ability to move forward. think, because we have ourselves, but we always I feel like we need somebody else to kind like you said, other dads talk to other dads, that kind of stuff. So do you talk to the dads about the relationship with their partner and how they can kind of bring their even their differences together in a communal way that, yes, you can have

the different perspectives but let's find that balance somewhere along the line.

Yeah, I mean

obviously I'm not a couples therapist, but what we what we do in our sessions, ⁓ one of our sessions is we talk about these ten questions that that or conversations that we should have with our co parents, even if we're not married to them anymore, which are just like questions that make so much sense. If the one of the bigger challenges just generally now is

We want as we talked about, we want to co-parent equally. No one has experience in this, not just the dads, the moms, right? They were almost always raised as they're the ones making the decisions in the house, And so all of a sudden you're both there. You both love this creature in front of you more than anything in this world, and you both are making emotional decisions about at the same time. That is hard. And so the there are some basic questions to just start that journey.

That could be so useful. One is like, what are the things from your childhood that you absolutely want to emulate again? And then what are the things from your childhood that you don't want to have in in this situation? And those seem simple, but there's huge places for conflict there. My wife and I, it was really interesting. So I was raised with so much.

American junk food like frosted flakes three times a day, like store bought cupcakes and s and stuff and it was and so I was so committed to my kids eating healthy. Meanwhile, my wife had very hippy dippy parents when she was growing up and she wasn't allowed any sugar in the house. So right? So what did she want to do when the kids were like you know, when she was in a great way? She wanted to give them sugar.

And so we were butting heads on this, and it came from our own childhood experiences, right? And once we got to the root of it, we could be so much more empathetic to each other. And so those are just that's a very small, simple example, right? And then we can we can expand into how we want like in-laws engaged and how we think about education and all that stuff. We're not meant to be fully aligned when we start on this journey or even during the journey.

But we need to have like some foundation of conversations around this stuff and understanding that not one parent in all likelihood w is gonna make these decisions alone, which was probably the case in the past. ⁓ and so we need to think about how to do it differently.

How do you approach dads who are so set in their beliefs and their ways to be able to kind of work like clay, to be able to kind of soften areas and be able to say, okay, maybe I'm being a little bit too firm or strict in this area and I need to be able to be more accepting of my child and who they are because if my child is...

has a disability or a diversity, there's going to be differences in how the brain works, right? But we're set in this one pattern of how we were raised and how we understand the world to be, but I can't push that off on this child because this child doesn't function the same way. And really, in a sense, we can't assume that anybody functions the same way that we do, right? Because we're all different. have you found in your work, has that come up and have you found a way to try to work with dads on that?

I mean,

yes. So there's a couple of different thoughts there. The the first is it's always funny, you know, if if someone has one child versus two or three or four, right? They've then they've learned like I I can't treat all my children the same. So they by the time they get to the second or third, they're like, I I get that I have to be flexible in how I raise my kids. But ⁓ very specifically to like this sort of stubbornness or fixed mindset,

That's why I like working with groups because it's not about telling them how to think different. It's just about listening to the father next to them explain how they did something different and not offering them advice like this is what you should do, but rather, hey, here's something that happened in my life with my son. he was being really difficult, or maybe, he has some neurodivergent.

difference ⁓ from from me and this is how I managed it. And so just hearing these different stories without it being you need to do this, you need to do this, is what slowly changes a lot of the perspectives of of the folks I work with.

Do you kind of like talking about how that impacts them when something doesn't work out for them or their frustrations and trying to let them kind of work through that? I know you're not a therapist therapist and I don't mean to put that on you. ⁓ But the idea that look, okay, so you recognizing that these are the realities and you're stuck in these situations. How do I get you to move past your firm beliefs and be able to be willing to accept that change is

going to be the best route for you right now and how to do that. How do you guide dads through that path?

I think it's subtly. in all of my experience as a leadership expert and as a coach, some people come to me and they're they're coming to me because they're open and they want to change, and others are coming because they have a problem and they don't know how to let go yet. ⁓ and those folks in particular, while stubborn.

I find the best way to engage with them is is exactly what I said before, which is through examples of other people rather than through advice. we all work better that way. ⁓ we we we are more likely to take in a lesson if it doesn't come in as advice. Right? we know that as teachers, we know that as coaches, ⁓ and as therapists, because therapist's job ⁓ is

Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

to get you to decide what you need to change, right? Not to tell someone and advise them. So th that's kind of the way I I try to work on it. So if there's an acute challenge with one dad, one of the activities we do is is often they they talk about what that challenge is. ⁓ and then the the rest of the dads in the virtual room can talk about a similar experience in their life and what they did without giving any advice. And and and that's

Right,

type of thing that can

help move the me the needle. Yeah.

We're talking about not giving advice so much, but when you're with the dads and they're kind of struggling raising their kids.

Maybe they have additional needs, maybe they don't, whatever it is, but when they find themselves stretched and overwhelmed and unsure of what to do next, how do you build that confidence in them to be able to make the changes that necessary to be able to, or to just to manage that balance?

I

think again that comes back to this idea that in in my programs and one on one, we're building this fatherhood philosophy. So what I'm trying to get them to feel like is if they keep l living on their heels, if they keep being reactive, they're always gonna have this sense of I'm not doing enough, this isn't working.

But if they have this idea that they have this intentional vision for how they want to father, regardless of the the challenging circumstance they've inherited, then it it it just it enables them to get through that situation a little better. Maybe they're you know reminding themselves of what they're trying to build with their son or daughter as they're going through something difficult, rather than just reacting to the comments.

⁓ so it's it's really about building a set of frameworks, of beliefs. and most of the dads that I work with when they really love this stuff, they obviously share it with their spouses if they're if they're married, and they use it in all sorts of different ways.

When you think about the idea of dads as they are now, even that old school...

idea is still present. do you find that to be still kind of an overall perception of what a dad is supposed to be? That strong protector who, you know, is supposed to stand in front of the family and guide it and do all the right things for the family and knows the best for the family, knows what's right and wrong for the family. Do you find that to be, cause I felt like that, I feel like that's old school kind of stuff. in today's society, the way things are right now, there's this kind of

of like two paths of what a man is, you this whole idea of masculinity and it's becoming this very old throwback masculine style Where do you feel the weight of?

that falls on dads at this point? you feel like it's still very strong compared to what you're trying to foster and how is it possible to maybe make that change? ⁓

It

all depends on your algorithm, I guess, is one one way to put it, right? ⁓ I think it is a mess right now. I think we can find whatever we're looking for around ⁓ the type of man ⁓ we wanna be and how we define masculinity. I think the people that ⁓ that tend to gravitate towards ⁓ no doubt the conversations you're having on your podcast and I have on mine.

I get it. All right.

Are not the ones that believe in toxic masculinity or, you know, believe in the the Tate brothers style of of masculinity. but they also and this is why the gap is so big and why there's still these two big competing forces is there's also not a clean definition yet of of what modern fatherhood at its best looks like. because we're still

Figuring it out. and I mean that in a wonderful way because it's evolving. We're learning. You know, one interesting data point just to show that it's not like cemented yet, is from one research study it was something like two thirds of dad ⁓ wanted to be equally involved in the co parenting at home and all the sort of house activities at home.

But then when asked if they were actually at fifty percent, only like a third of them were, right? So they want to be getting to a place where they're truly sharing 50-50 with their partner in in the weight of parenting, but that's not yet happening. And so we're moving there. it's still growing, but it's not there yet. And so we've got just men on so many different levels, and then we've got

the media on so many different levels and the algorithm on so many different levels. but I I'm positive about I mean I'm having wonderful conversations with dads that really do care. and once in a while I won't say who, but I was surprised I had a podcast episode with someone famous that I thought was gonna be like this amazing episode about modern fatherhood and he was so Tate brothers like that I I didn't publish the episode. No.

Yeah, it's hard to deal with that,

Because when I'm dealing with certain dads too, and they have their beliefs of what the definition of a man is and how, you know, I remember asking my dad years ago, like, do you believe that everybody thinks the way you do or should? And he said, yes. And I was like, that blew my mind because it's like, how? You know, but I find these some of the dads that I meet are kind of like stuck in that place. And it's actually I mean, it breaks my heart for them because I feel like there's so much that needs to be done for them.

Okay.

What's the best way we can help dads get to that place where they can find that balance and feel that success as a dad and that partnership? Or if they're single dads, I don't mean always with partners, obviously.

I think

build more containers of vulnerability and safety. So we need more spaces where we can share. The challenge too is that I find there are plenty of dads that are in my programs that say, Hey, I go to a dad's meetup, like we meet once a month, but all we do is we talk about sports and our mortgages and finance, right? It it's so inbred to talk at that sort of

I don't know, superficial level in some respects, right? And not not at this vulnerable level. And so it's it's not just saying, Hey, let's all meet up as dads. It's who's gonna be there that's gonna facilitate a more vulnerable discussion. And so I think a big piece of it is just doing what we're doing.

Yes, I like surf level, right?

Writing, having these conversations, running workshops and programs and getting more dads to do it and getting all of us to be like it's okay, it's not okay, it's wonderful to talk about these vulnerable things. and we need more of it.

Yeah, yeah, I agree. it's soul filling, you know, I mean, to be able to be vulnerable and know that, you're not going to be perfect. think accepting that you're not going be perfect.

is a challenge for a lot of men, but I think the way through and just to continue to get that message. So I'm so grateful for you and what you do and so grateful for you to be here today to help pass this message along. if your son's described you as a father 20 years from now, what do you hope they say?

And maybe what are you doing also today to help make that?

I think they would describe me as their role model and that's what I would want I mean that's what I would want them to say. and I think maybe fortunately or unfortunately that happens naturally, but I can tell you that I I'm really proud to to have them like believe that and see that 'cause I I think I'm doing my best to live the the types of values I want them to absorb. So yeah.

Man, and hopefully people will be able to see this when I post, but the emotion in your face, the truth in your face right now, just like it's so real, man. It's beautiful. It's beautiful. ⁓ Is there anything that we haven't talked about that you might want to just get out to audience that I haven't covered?

Yeah.

well I'm I'm

launching I have a number of I call them integrated ⁓ leadership pods. So dad groups that will work in groups of three to six dads. We meet twice a month for like almost an hour and a half and we work on a lot of what I've just been talking about. and so I'm constantly launching new ones and if people are interested, just go to ambitious dads dot com and

Give me your email and and I'll take it from there.

Do you have any place for non dads like myself?

Yeah. ⁓

I mean I I actually have a ton of collaborators that run men's groups ⁓ that are not dad specific. So I do. Yeah. Come come talk to me about that too and I will send you to some amazing men that as you would imagine, and I imagine with you too, ⁓ I collect dads that are authentic and vulnerable men, sorry, not dads that are authentic and vulnerable.

and love to spend time with them and and a lot of them are are also in this field of of trying to support one another because we need it and we we we recognize we need it and most of us didn't get enough of it when we were young too.

Agreed. And thank you for that, being open to that, because I find I don't work with as many dads as I do moms, but when I do and I find a reason, a latest happened a little bit more, I feel so compelled to want to work with the dads because I feel like they don't get the recognition enough. Oftentimes, sometimes they get too much. ⁓

grace when they really don't deserve it, but also just being able to talk them about what it's like to relate to your child and how that might happen, how it might be best to happen. So yeah, I'm open to it. I'm open to it. So we'll talk. ⁓ Jeff, it's pleasure to meet you and to know you, man Keep doing your great work, and thanks for being here today

Awesome. All right. To be continued.

Thank you so much. I really appreciate it, Mark.

Yeah, we'll talk to you soon. Okay. All right. Have a great day.

You got it.