Transcription
Fathers, imagine if one day your kids are older, 30, 40 years old. They make their own money. They have their own house. They have their own kids, but they no longer seek your company. They don't text you.
They don't call you. They don't come visit you. They don't have dinner with you. They don't go to movies with you.
How would that feel? Paint that picture and think about it. How would that feel? And by the way, what led to that? What did you and I do for them to no longer want to seek our company?
And I'm asking the question, how do we judge a great father? How do we judge if we were successful?
One, a lady told me many, many years ago, the way you judge a great father is by their grandkids. So which means we may never know if we were great fathers. But the second one is, are they a net positive to society? Do they take care of their own? Do they take care of their families? Do they make their community safer? Are their kids taken care of? And last but not least, do they seek your company after they no longer need you and I? If they still seek our company after they no longer need us, I think it's one of the ways to judge that we want as fathers. Not need us, want our company. Need is that give me money, give me money, give me money. No, no. I just want to be around you, daddy. Holy moly, what a dream for every father.
So today I'm going to share with you my 20 rules for being a great father. Okay. So if you give value out of this video, give it a thumbs up and subscribe to the channel. And to the 51% that are watching this who watch our content week in week out, but you haven't subscribed yet, here's a commitment I want to make to you. If you subscribe to us, we're going to do everything in our power to make the content better for you. It's all we think about. reinvest, make the items better, the products better, the value better in every possible way. And I want that pressure for us to deliver for you. So the only request I have of you is if you can take a second and subscribe to the channel, that would mean the world to us. Having said that, let's get right into it. 20 rules of being a great father.
One time there was this incredible architect in Spain, Barcelona. He's building this, I think it's called Sagrada Familia. I think that's what it's called. I may butcher the name, but it's a the tallest church built in the world. 55 56 stories tall. He wanted to build a Bible out of stone. And when he started working on this the last 42 43 years of his life, he died in 1926. A reporter once asked him, he said, "Hey, says why are you so excited about building something that you're never going to see?" He gave the most incredible answer. His answer was, "My client is not in a hurry." Who's your client? God. So imagine you and I are raising kids that we may never see the final product of how good of a job they're going to do and we still have to be excited about it. Can you imagine what that looks like? That's almost a visionary, somebody that wants to make the world a better place. It's a very important job you and I have.
So let's get right into the first point here. The first point, first rule of being a great father is too often we spend time just sharing success stories. Look how great this person did. Look how great that person did. Look how great this person did. Rather Charlie Munger, former billionaire that I think died at 99. Maybe he made it to 100. I don't know if he did. There's a book that came out by him, Charlie's Alman, and they interviewed his kids. And when they asked the kid the question, saying, "What was your dad like when he was raising you guys at night?" He says, "All he ever talked about is his friends, how they screwed up their lives with bad decisions they made." As a father, our job isn't to just tell success stories, but it's to say, "Let me tell you a story about Johnny. Johnny used to be my best friend. He had a 3.8 GPA. Then he met Larry. Larry introduced him to cigarettes, then ecstasy, then cocaine. Johnny died of an overdose of Xanax, and he's no longer with us. He was more talented than me. He was smarter than me. But one bad friend ruined his life. Don't be afraid to tell the horror stories of what could happen as well, not just the success stories. Rule number one.
The next three rules are similar but slightly different. Rule number two is prepare them for the day you won't be here. Rule number three is think about it as replacement. You're trying to teach everything to them for one day they replace you and the family. And number four is teach them everything you know so they can outdo you, but treat them so well that later on in life they seek your company.
So let's go through those three rules together. Number one, prepare them for the day you will no longer be here. I was 6 years old in Iran and the war was happening six, seven years old and we got bombed pretty bad one day. And my dad one day decides to talk to me and say, "Hey, you know, I want to talk to you about one day when I won't be here." And I was like, "What are you talking about? I'm six, seven years old." Anyway, I says, "Yeah, maybe one day I'm not going to be here. And if I'm not going to be here, it's your job to make sure you lead the family." Obviously, that's a lot of burden to put on a kid one day at six, seven years old, but I'm living in a different climate. I'm in Iran. There's a war going on. It's a chaotic environment. You know what is crazy? When he said that to me, it was one of the most painful conversations because my dad's my favorite person in the world. I don't even want to think about that. He just turned 84 years old two months ago on April 10th. But what did happen when he made that statement four years later when we left Iran and we went to Germany, I went to Germany with my mom and my sister. My dad wasn't there in Germany. What replayed in my mind over and over again is guess what kid? It's your job now. So, as a 10, 11, 12-year-old, how strong am I? Not that strong, but it was still my job to impose and find a way to protect my family because my dad prepared me for it when he said, "What are you going to do when I'm no longer going to be here?" And he kept reenouraging, "You're going to be fine. You're going to be strong if I'm not there, if you can't talk to me, if I'm not available." This is pre- cellphone days. You can't get a hold of your dad. When Kmeni died, I'm in the middle of a street. I can't call my mom and dad and say, "Are you guys picking me up?" I have to wait a few hours with all the chaos and traffic for somebody to get me. And my mom's like, "We're leaving this place." But even in the cell phone days, he said, "Even if you can't get a hold of me, you can pray. God's going to be with you." He injected that faith in me. So that's number two.
Number three is the idea of replacement. My wife and I are having a meeting with Tom and our estate planners. All of a sudden, my wife is asking a question about investments and finances. Which of the kids are you working with to teach the way you look at investments and money? We have our kids. They think like you on math. Can you spend time with them? So, they're looking at money the same way as you look at money. And so, that conversation with the wife and I is about replacement. Who's going to take the family's estate and take it to the next level with you? It could be what are some of the responsibilities? Maybe you run a small business. Maybe it's but it's constantly thinking about replacing and transferring some of that knowledge you have to them.
And then the fourth one within this is teach them everything you know that they can outdo you. But at the same time, you know, treat them so well that they want your company later on. Sometimes I know a lot of people that teach their kids very well, but they're jerks and [ __ ] It's like, dude, why are you being such a jerk and an [ __ ] Just want your company. Why are you talking to me that way? Right? It's not just what you teach them. It's also treat them well. Give them their own dignity. Like, you know, one of my kids, I talked to him. I said, "Look, I know you don't like it when I openly talk about things that we need to improve. I know you want me to do it privately." And so when I go to him, I'll say, "Look, I'm giving you respect. I'm giving you respect of talking to you privately right now 101. But if I'm giving it to you, you got to give it to me when we're over here publicly, everybody together." Says, "No, that just the fact that you're being respectful with me oneonone, I'll take the heat 101, but don't give it to me publicly. No problem." You're building up their identity and their character to say, "Hey, this guy's very respectful to me." later on when the kid is 32 years old, God willing, he's going to be like, "I'm going to go have a serious conversation with my dad 101 cuz he's always respectful."
Number five, learn to confront respectfully and teach them to confront. But you learn to confront respectfully. The other day we're driving back, one of my kids and I have a heated conversation about career planning and he kind of blew me off and he's like, "Well, I I I think you just want me to go to college because you just want me to go to college." I'm like, "Well, you think I want you to go to college because I want you to I do." I'm like, "Well, this is going to be a challenge. It's a 4-hour drive. Two hours I'm thinking, "What am I going to do with this guy?" We come back home. We're celebrating Father's Day. Everybody goes out. Then at downstairs in the kitchen, it's just and I said, "Ravvice, we need to have a conversation together." He says, "What's that?" I said, "We're not going to let this go. We're not going to have a lingering conflict." And it's not like our rel he wanted to watch a movie with me that night, but it's like we have to address this. So, we sat there and I wrote down five things. This is what I do with everybody. Confront based on these five things. You write out their concerns, your concerns, their assumptions, your assumptions. Their motives, your motives, their fears, your fears, their ask, your ask. So, we started talking about career. I said, "Tell me about your concerns when it comes on to career planning and my influence to it." He said, "Well, I'm concerned about XYZ." I said, "You don't have to concern about that. That's zero." He says, "Okay, that's good to know. My concern is XYZ." I said, "You should be concerned about that. That's 100 on mine." Well, I figured I was right. I said, "Let me give you my concerns." Boom. Oh, wow. That's your concern. Yeah, I thought that was your concern. Not at all. Okay, we're on the same page. Assumptions. What assumptions do you have of me? He gives me his assumptions. I give my assumptions. Complete opposite direction. We had a miscommunication. Scored away. Next. What are your motives? What do you think my motives are? Do you think my motives are that I don't want you to succeed more than me? No, daddy. I know for a fact you want me to outdo you. No problem. Fears. What are your fears? I don't have any fears. Here's my my only fears. I don't, you know, achieve my dreams. Okay, great. That's normal. My fears are this. What is your ask? What is my ask? We finish the meeting. Then all of a sudden, my wife comes in. I said, "Hey, can you tell mommy out of all the conversations we had, what do you rank this one?" He says, "This the second best conversation you and I have ever had in our lives." Why? Confront respectfully. When you confront them respectfully, you can encourage them to confront their peers, their siblings, their mom, their dad, their bosses, everybody respectfully.
Rule number six, very simple. I'm in Neiman Marcus or Nordstrom's. I'm looking for some clothes. Dylan is wrestling with me. He's probably four or five years old. He's on my back. We're having a good time. One mother looks at me and says, "I remember when they were that age." I said, "Really? How many kids do you have?" I have three sons. What do they do now? One's a doctor, one's an engineer, one's all successful. All successful. Can you give me three tips on how to be a better parent? He said, "I won't give you three, but I'll give you one." I said, "What's that?" Deliver on your threats. Deliver on your threats. Yeah. What does that mean? If you say no ice cream, don't give them ice cream. If you say no park, no park, no movies, no movies, don't threaten and not deliver. Your kids need to know that there are certain things that cannot cross when you're developing discipline with your kids. So, if you're going to threaten your kids with any kind of things, make sure you deliver on your threats.
Create an environment where debate is welcomed. Everything we do, we debate. Dinner, debate, conversation, debate, sports, debate, movies, debate. Where to go for vacation, debate. And the person that makes the best argument, we listen. You know, I honestly don't think we need to go to Aspen anymore. Why? Because we go with such a big group. Every every time we do, if one person gets sick, everybody gets sick. And it's just a bad experience for us. I think, you know, we need to go to a different location during Christmas. What do you think about it? What do you think about I disagree. Snow's a unique experience. We just have to be more prepared. And then we collectively sit there and everybody is debating. Create an environment where debate is welcome. Matter of fact, encouraged.
Number eight, don't try to please everyone. Don't make the goal for you to please your kids. Your goal isn't to try to be your kids' best friend when they're six years old. That's not the issue. Like, let's just say if it's father, best friend, you know, leader, and you combine what that is, at 6 years old, friend is not that priority. They they need a father. Maybe friend is at 32 years old, but not at 6 years old. So, don't try to please everybody in the family. Sometimes, like, you know, if you know you're right, lead the family. Like when I know sometimes I'm right on what's going on with the family with the standards I'm setting. I'll sit with my nanny my my wife my family like guys I I don't like what we're doing here. We're not gonna in 30 years they're not going to say how was the nanny look at the nanny how she failed raising the kids and look at they're going to say look how the father failed as a father. So no we're not doing this. I'm not trying to please everybody in my family to be willing to compromise my standards. I'm not doing that. Not saying you be a jerk. I'm just telling you, don't try to please everybody to be an okay father. Oh my god, I want my kids to love me all the time. No, not necessarily. You got to love, like, respect fear. Love, like, respect fear. If this is a mutual fund, you got to make sure you diversify accordingly at a certain phase of their lives. If your goal is to be liked by everybody, you're probably going to be a terrible father between 0 to 18. likability is important when they're after 25, 30, not when they're 12. They they want to be led. They want somebody to raise standards. They want somebody to love them. You need a little bit of fear. If fear is too high and you raise your family like a dictator, that's a terrible environment to be. Later on, they're probably not going to want to be around you if it's always like palm my way or the highway. But balance those four nutrients, those four ingredients of lead, respect, fear, and like. And don't always make like your front runner. It's not the goal to be liked all the time. Don't try to please everybody. You will fail as a father if you try to please everybody.
Number nine, create a clear currency in your house. For me, it's reading. Very simple. For me, it's watching documentaries. Uh that I choose, by the way, not like gibberish documentaries, but for me, it's reading. My, you know, you know what excites me the most? The other day, my daughter, it's 11:00 at night. I come in the room, she's laying down with her feet up. She's reading. I said, "What are you doing? you already read for the day. She says, I know that, but I'm in such a great section with this book. I can't even put it down. Bingo. She's in love with reading. At first, like, I don't like to read. It's come on, Dad. Why today? Why this? Now you're hooked. Awesome. This is great because if we can feed the right information here, you're going to be free. So, what is the currency in your house? Could be any. For some people, it's like you got to clean your room, you got to do this, you got. No problem. For me, I chose reading as currency. Right now, my kids are going through Hillsdale College education to learn everything about the history of the America. And he's telling me about Mozart and Beethoven and classical music and how the founding fathers and the Bill of Rights and all. I love it. I love it. They're required to finish it this summer over and over and over and over again. But choose your currency. For us, it's reading.
Create rituals and traditions in your family. What you do daily, weekly, monthly, quarterly, annually, create rituals. Whether you're like Pat, we don't make a lot of money. It doesn't matter whether you're making $72,000 a year, you're making 20 million a year, it doesn't matter. Create rituals. Rituals could be I I used to work a lot with Mormons in an insurance company I used to be a part of and they had a Monday night game night where the family would play games every Monday night. I loved it. How much does it cost to buy Monopoly or to buy sequins or to buy scrabble? Not a lot, but you said, "Okay, I can't wait to play the game. Oh my god, here's what's going to happen." Create rituals, traditions where you go, places you go, sporting events you go to. We create certain traditions in our family. But it's so important for you to create that because kids look forward to it's like, "Oh my god, what's the next thing? Oh my god, what's the next thing?" And the goal is eventually, God willing, later on in life, those traditions and rituals continue where they come home to see you for Thanksgiving. They come home to see you during the summer. They come home to see you during Christmas. It becomes a magical magical thing. Somebody in our community, they brought three houses right next to each other. Very well-off family, but three houses right next to each other under different LLC's. Oh my god. Who's buying all these houses? You know what it was? It was a father, husband, and wife who build a company. Now they got 8, 9,000 employees and their two sons with four grandkids live right next to them. Literally, the grandkids go visit grandma and grandpa and the cousins are all next to each other. Three houses right. Dream to see some. By the way, back in the days, it was kind of like that. But imagine how cool it would be if you create rituals and traditions that later on in life these guys are like I want to stay as close to these r hey it's dinner Saturday as a family party of 28 we're coming to the restaurant unbelievable but create these rituals and traditions and FYI if I miss a Saturday night dinner with my kids my son will call me out he say hey dad what are you doing it's dinner the other day he was going to IMG Academy for the summer and he says hey since I'm leaving on such and such day we're not going to do our traditional Saturday night. We're doing dinner on Wednesday night. He called the dinner. We went to dinner on Wednesday night because we were not going to do dinner on Saturday night. It's a beautiful thing when they later on start protecting the family traditions and rituals.
Ask real life questions. Ask case study type of questions and let them process it together. Like we'll we'll be out there sitting up like, "Oh, let me ask you a question. What's that? What would you guys do if your sister dated a guy who you know smoked weed and did a lot of drugs? What would you do?" Well, I would kick his ass. No, you wouldn't. But what would you do? What is the right thing to do? And then they're like, um, I'd probably confront him first. No, I would confront her first. No, I would us talk to each other first. No. Why do you Why Why would you confront her first? Well, because of this. Why would you confront him first? Well, because of this. And we just kind of go through it. Case study. And then I add whatever things. Mom, what do you think? Vinnie, what do you think? Tom, what do you think? And we literally do this all the time. Okay. What what what do you do if all of a sudden, you know, you notice your brother is hanging out with a guy that got kicked out of the team. He used to be one of the best players. Horrible attitude. Your brother has a shot at making it pro, but he's hanging out with a guy that's very negative. What do you do? I'm going to go address it with him. What What do you do if somebody puts their hand on your sibling in school? What do you do? How do you handle a bully? What do you do if a bully does this? How do you handle that? What do you do if somebody's punking you publicly? What What do you do if later on you go to school and somebody says, "I know who your father is. Your father is a da da da da." How do you handle that? How how do you handle that? Does it hurt you? Do you get offended? You know the relationship. How would you handle that conflict? What is the right way to handle it? Should you fight everybody that disrespects us? What should we do? Literally, we're asking these types of questions and it changes all the time. What do we do later on in life when the family's money is going to everybody? Should we give it evenly to everybody? Yes. No. Why not? I think you should go to us. I think you should go to the oldest. I should think I was Why not me? I should get some. What if somebody does this? What if somebody is reckless? What if somebody's values change? What if somebody does this? Then I don't think they should get anything. Then I these these are great conversations, but spark case study type of situations and let them solve it. You don't solve it. Let them solve it. Their brain is automatically thinking about solving problems.
This next one is uh it's a very personal one, but uh stop saying you hate math. You're not good in math. You had a bad teacher. You know, one of the things that really upsets me for whatever reason when parents talk about how bad they're in math. Why are you saying that to your kids? You know what math really is? Solving problems. You're either a good problem solver or you're not. Don't say you're bad. You hate math. Math didn't do anything to you. Did Einstein said the only difference between genius and the rest of the world is they stay with problems longer. I hated geometry. Why? Cuz it was like theorem, you know, prove this and prove that. But you know what it was? It was annoying because you had to stay with the problem longer. CPCTC congruent parts of congruent triangles or congruent [ __ ] that we had to learn. But then it forced you to do what? Stay with problems longer. Parents, fathers, stop saying how much you hate math or you're not a math person. You know what somebody likes me here is when somebody says they're not a math person. You don't like to solve problems. Stop saying that. Just find ways to solve problems and encourage them to think about it the same way as well. If your kids start saying stuff like that, they're telling you they don't like solving problems. Stop them right there and tell the genius quote by Einstein. Get them to realize they got to stay with some problems a little bit longer.
Always allow your kids to negotiate better arrangement for themselves. Let them negotiate. It's like, "Hey, dad, you know, I I think I want to be able to go do this." Really? Make a case why that's a good argument. I don't know if I want to do this. And let them negotiate. What do you mean? If you make a good argument and a case like a lawyer, I'll negotiate with you, but so far you've not convinced me. Well, give me a minute. I'll come back. Then they go and talk to each other. Then they come back as a committee. Well, here's why we're thinking. I'm like, "Oh, you guys want to team up against that?" Yes, Dad. Let us Don't you want us to one day have great experiences as your kids when we can use that in our life when we're doing dagm Imagine if you want me to make good movies you want me to have these great experiences I can tap into as a producer and a director and I'm like that's a good thing but I love it I'm excited that you made a great pitch fair we'll do this cuz you guys so it's constantly they want to get better at negotiation and better at presenting their cases by the way the reason why this is important is they're going to do this for the rest of their lives there's a girl They like three boys want to marry her. The person that makes a better case is probably going to end up with her. It's not just going to be looks. They got a job that they want. There's going to be people making a case. They have to learn how to make their case. But negotiation is very important to teach your kids early on.
Number 14. There's more cuts than taught in parenting. Stop trying to teach them everything all the time. Do be a leader. They're going to watch what you're doing. I have a guy that's like, you know, I want to make all the money because I want to spend all day with my kids and I just want to be around them all the time. I'm like, man, that's not going to work out well for you. Why? Well, because you're trying to be your kids' friends and you want to be around them all day long. That's not how men were back in the days. Men went hunting, then they took their kids to teach them how to hunt. You're going to be the person that's going to teach them and how to hunt instead of show them. My kids are at the office every day. When they come here, guess what? They see me? They see me in the boardroom. They see me in meetings. They see me doing stuff, they're like, "Oh my god, daddy doesn't need to work. He has all he has money and he's free, but he's still doing this, man. I got to There's more caught than taught in parenting." Stop trying to spend so much time teaching. It's good to teach, but do 20% teaching, 80% doing instead of 80% teaching, 20% doing. Let your example be the best teacher.
Number 15. Once you identify your kid's obsession, do everything you can to pour into it. Positive obsessions. Let me unpack that. So my kid's playing all these different sports. And so I noticed he's interested in soccer. He's interested in baseball. He's interested in football. He's interested in whiffle ball. Interested. But he became passionate about football and soccer and whiffle ball, but he became obsessed with soccer. So I'm not, you know, I'm just watching, right? You're like, okay, what do you I'm interested. Great. I'm not making a lot of investment into interest. You're passionate. I'll make investments more into passionate. You're obsessed. I'm making investments into your obsession. I'm taking you all over the place to water your obsession. Positive obsession. Hey, I like horror movies. I want to make movies. Really? Yeah. You're interested. Yeah. You're passionate. No, you're obsessed. No problem. Write a script. I'll fund it with you. Let's go raise some money and let's make a horror movie together because you're obsessed. So, if you're obsessed, I put all the movie people around you because it's an obsession. Pay very close attention to your kids interest, passionate, and obsession. And once they get to this level, your goal is to water it as much as possible because it can turn into something very special.
Number 16, if you're able to do it, take your kids to work. I I love when my employees bring their kids to work. I love it. You know, we'll have a day where my uh chief HR officers, girls are here and they're here all day and they hang out with my kids. Awesome. I I love it when my CTO a couple weeks ago, his son is in the office and they're watching soccer and he's doing his stuff. I love it. I love the fact that our controller, her kids came here with her husband and their sons are playing soccer in our soccer field that we build and they're just running around. I love it. I love it. If you're able to bring your kids to work, bring them to work. Let them see what mommy and daddy do. It's a beautiful thing. My kids will come like my one of my sons will go to that building. The other one will come to this building. The one that comes to this building never goes to that building. He likes the people in this building. This is the studio. This is the special creative people and they'll sit there and they come up with characters and movies and all this stuff. I'm like, and I have to hear about it when he comes home. Let me tell you what character and what idea. What do you think about this movie? And it's a little bit bleak ending. Kind of like Mystic River. What do you think about that? And it's kind of like that part done. I'm like, "Oh my god, what?" Well, I talked to Henry and I talked to Chad and I talked to Ombberto and I talked to this and I'm thinking about this. I love it.
If you can bring your kids to work, look, there's a lot of BS systems out there and things people talk about on how to be a great father. It's really five things. Your kids want a present father, a strong belief system that you're pitching them, you're presenting them, you're selling them, standards, friction, and fun. You need all of them. If you have a frictionless environment, you think life is frictionless. So imagine if I'm raised in an environment. Oh, hi. Okay. All right. So, oh, honey. No, we don't do that, babe. It's just okay. All right. You ever been to these families, you go to dinner, it's just like everything is perfect. I'm like, "Holy shit." You know, the real world is not like this. Like real world is filled with friction. So in our family, we're okay with friction. Little bit of friction is okay. Hey, there's friction. It's okay. Address it together. What do you want to do about it? Fun. We laugh, joke, you know, pranks. We're fun environment. But belief system. Here's what we believe in as a family. Lead, respect, improve love. Three things we pray for. Courage, wisdom, understanding. You know, few things we repeat. I then you repeat your name will one day be a great leader. We say that hundreds of times, right? It's repeated. This is our belief system. This is a standard. We have friction. We're okay with friction. We okay with to create that kind of a mixture where it's okay to have a little bit of friction combined with fun. And it's, you know, and you're selling your belief system to them with the way you live and you're telling these stories. But there's a lot of weird ideas nowadays about what it is to be a father. I don't listen to 90% of it, but I have basic fundamental things that I follow. Let these things become the norm for you.
Number 18, create a positive peer pressure environment where it's not all you. Like, you know, if one of your kids is getting straight A's, allow that to be a little bit of positive peer pressure for others to also step up by recognizing them. Not comparing, recognizing, hey, Johnny, so proud of you, man. You you had a couple C's two years ago, straight eight. Phenomenal job. That's exciting. It's phenomenal. Then all of a sudden, this one jumps in. I'm going to have straight A's this year. Okay, so what's your plan? Because you had three B's last year. Well, here's what I'm going to do. Okay, great. Hey, great job on finishing this many books. I'm so proud of you. And D, hey, I I'm going to finish. How many books you going to finish? I'm going to do this. Great. Hey, I'm so excited on what you're doing with your sports and look at your legs. How it's developing. In our family, we're big on legs. We want strong legs in the family. Everybody does legs in the family for, you know, many different reasons. Hey, I I can do this many. My four-year-old, 5-year-old, Brooklyn, just turned five yesterday. You should see her legs. She does all these uh uh what do you call it? The step-ups. And she does these step-ups, 20 each leg. I can do 20. I can do this. Allow a little bit of positive peer pressure. And by the way, in our environment, Tom's daughter, oldest daughter, is such a great example. She's loving, respectful, seeks relationship, always wants to be around us, and we love her company. And she got a 1560 on her SATs out of 1600. Holy moly, we recognize it. But she sets the tone as a Roger Banister. It's possible to get a 1560 on SAT. And she went into a very, very good school she wants to go to because one day she wants to be a general manager of a major league baseball team. Shout out to Bailey. But it's you want a very good positive peer pressure environment where everybody is making each other better.
Number 19, tell your kids, "No matter what you do, you're going to get unconditional love from your daddy. You're going to get it from me no matter what you do. I don't care if you have straight Fs or straight A's. I love you the same. I I I don't care if you're 280 pounds with a big belly or 195 pounds with 6% body fat. I love you the same. It doesn't change. One day we're having a game and I noticed one of my kids was out of it. Just didn't give his best in this game. Afterwards, we're walking. So I said, "So how did you think you did today?" Says, "I I give myself a six." So really, what did you give me, Daddy? So probably a four. And all of a sudden, he goes like this. I said, "What? What are you doing?" I just want I said, "I'm sorry. What What are you doing?" I I said, "For in your performance, not in you as a human being." I said, "You didn't run around today. You were very casual. I don't know why you're the most energetic guy. You just didn't give an effort today. I don't care if you scored a goal or you got three assists. I'm scoring you on your effort. You didn't show up today. Keep your chin up. You're a bad David. You have nothing to worry about. I'm just telling you in today's performance, life is going to go on. We just got to get better." But I love you no matter what. Whether you have a great game or a bad game, there's nothing you can do for me to love you less or more. And you say you just want like this. He looks at me. Okay, Dad. Can we go eat something? Yeah. Boom. He's over it. He moved on. You know, if if there's anything you can tell your kids, whether he goes 0 for 20 or 10 for 10, if you tell him afterwards, son, would you score a point or not, I love you? Says your kids need to hear that from you over and over again. Teach them. Constantly give them unconditional love. Unconditional love.
But the one thing that you got to protect, and that's in the caveat here, uh, that I'm going to put as point number 20. You know what number 20 is? Protect the I'm proud of you. Protect the I'm proud of you. What do I mean by that? I'm going to finish with this. I can't give you 30 more points, but I'm going to You're going to get more content like this that's coming up because my mind's all into fatherhood right now. Protect your I'm proud of you. You know why? How many of you remember the one time your father said, "I'm proud of you." Did you cry? Do you remember that moment? Why did you cry? Why? You know why you cried? Because he didn't say it often. That's what's valuable about it. Love, you can say it as many times as possible. Don't Don't protect the word love because I feel like I have to win it from you. No. No. Love is unconditional. Proud is conditional. I'm proud of you is one of the most powerful statements in the world. Don't give it up that easily. It's like somebody that's been around. What do you think about them? Don't don't be the person that's been around with I'm proud of you. Protect it. It carries a lot of weight. And when your kids do something that's truly impressive, then you sit them down and say, "Son, honey, just want to tell you that is very proud of you, babe, for what you did. Very proud of you." And if they get emotional, they know how much weight those words carry. You remember when somebody told you they're proud of you, that got you emotional. That person's words had a high credibility of when they don't give it to people easily. So when they gave it to you, you know, it felt like, you know, when you kind of like you go back to the hotel room and we're in the car and you're not around other people, but you all of a sudden break down crying. You're like, why the hell am I crying as a grown man? Because the the feeling of I love you is very different than I'm proud of you. Protect the word I'm proud of you. Don't drop it left and right. Or else their desire to want to push harder to win goes lower because they already got what they wanted from their daddy. They already got it. Not saying don't say it. I'm not saying say it once every 20 years. Just saying be aware of it. Protect that phrase.
All right. So, fathers, if you got value out of this, by the way, if you're watching this, you're not even a father. You're like, "Oh my god, this was you're ahead of you're ahead of all of us, right? Because you're going to be able to do some of this stuff on the day that it happens to you. It's life-changing. I love it when people tell me their, you know, their wife's pregnant, they're going to have a kid, they're expecting, there's nothing like it. If you got value out of this, give it a thumbs up and subscribe to the channel. And we're going to continue. If you want to see more of this stuff, if you want to say, Pat, I want to see more content like this. Let us know. Subscribe. Show it to us by taking the CTN action. We actually want to start contributing more into content about fatherhood because we think there's a massive demand for it.
Number two, if you want to take a quiz, we're going to create a resource site specifically for fathers. It's a vtfathers.com. On vtfathers.com, you can go there to get the PDF of this. There will be right there. All you have to do is give your email, but go there to get the PDF. On top of that, you can take a quiz to score yourself on how good of a job you're doing on these 20 different points. You'll be like, uh, this is a one for me. This is a five. This is a three. This is a four. And recommendation at the bottom of what things you and I need to work on as a father. So, go to vtfathers.com to, uh, take the quiz for yourself. it will be right there and you'll have many different resources.
And last but not least, if you got value out of this one and you've never seen the video 20 rules for young men, you may say, "Well, this was good for me, but what do I share with my son? What do I share with my kids?" There's a video I did, 20 rules for young men. If you've never seen it, it's got millions of views. I think you get a lot of value out of it. Take care everybody. God bless. Bye-bye. Bye-bye.