Transcription
How to raise strong kids in a weak world. The first thing I wanted to kind of show you is a documentary I watched with, um, We Are the World. You guys remember that old song, you know, We Are the World that they did? And it was right after the American Music Awards, and Lionel Richie was working with Michael Jackson on all these guys. They made a documentary about this about a year and a half ago, and I watched it. And in the documentary, Lionel Richie says something. He says his father gave him advice which was priceless. He didn't understand it at first. He says his dad once told him, he says, "Lionel, enjoy coming home." He says, "Why?" He says, "Because there will come a time when you can no longer enjoy it the same way." He says, "I didn't understand what my dad was talking about. Dad, what are you talking about?" And his dad said, "Because the house will still be there, but the people in the house won't." What do you mean? The kids are going to be gone. Our, our parents are probably going to be gone at some point, but the kids will be out of the house. My oldest is 14, 12, 10, and the youngest is now five. You know how quickly he turned 14, like this? How did that happen? He's already talking about conversations with college. How many of you guys have had your kids that leave for a week and we're devastated when they're not around us for a week, right? We're like, "Oh my god, I need my kids around." They're going to be gone one day, and it's just going to be us. We don't have a long time with them. And this is the small little window that we have to raise them the right way.
So, the topic of fatherhood, why is it so emotional? I want to share two clips with you. One of them is from an actor, Gene Hackman, one of the greatest actors of all time. In this video, I believe he's 77 years old. He's at the interviewer asking him about his father and the impact it had on him when his father left at 13 years old. I want you to watch this and remember, this is a grown man, tough, successful, super wealthy. I've been to Pebble Beach, right next to his house, $50, $60 million house, right on the water. But he had this moment when the conversation of father came up. Watch this clip here of Gene Hackman.
"We come to a very common theme in this series, which is the departure of a parent and its effect on both the person and ultimately on the artist. Uh, how old were you when your father left?"
"Uh, well, my dad left us when, um, I was about 13, I guess."
"Was it easy? Hard?"
"No, it was tough. Yeah."
"Tough. I've read that there was a sort of a casual wave goodbye. And..."
"Yeah, I was down the street, uh, playing with some guys and, um, he drove by and, and kind of waved and, uh, that was it. But you saw him occasionally, presumably, huh?"
"Uh, were you close to your mother?"
"Yeah. Excuse me."
Watch what he says here. [snorts]
"Did life change radically?"
"It's only been 65 years or so, you know." [laughter]
Can you imagine how sensitive the topic of father is that we can either make these guys or break these guys, but some of the biggest scars they'll have is based on how their father raises them. We're sitting in the office two days ago, and we're preparing final prep of this, and it's me, you know, the girls, Angie, Kelly, everybody in the counter, and we have Mario sitting over here. And I'm giving a couple stories of what things to be thinking about that fathers, us as fathers, we struggle with. Mario over here can't even hold himself. He just breaks down crying. He's got a beautiful two, three-year-old son named Gabriel. He named them after my father, and he just went to a whole different place because he says, "I cannot imagine never wanting to not be around my kids." And he had a certain moment with his father as well. It's a very, very emotional topic.
I want to show you this other clip. This is a rapper named Logic. He's talking to his father and he's letting him know what happened many years ago. "When I was a kid, Dad, I was waiting for you to come home. Why didn't you come home, Daddy?" He's 33 years old. 30-something years old. Here he's speaking like he's six years old. Listen to this man's pain. When you hear Logic here, the rapper, watch this.
"Uh, uh, I waited for you. [music] I waited every weekend and you never showed up and you always told [music] you always said that you would. That's 33 years right here. That's what this is. Yeah. You told me that you would come, Daddy. You never did. You told me that you was going to pick [music] me up. And I waited and I look at my son and I think about how much I, what my, what my son means to me. And I can never [music] make him sit on a curb. And I don't say this to make you feel bad. I, I don't, I really love you. This is not the beat [music] you up show. This is the here we are. This is the we're going to rejoice. So, let me get it [music] out 'cause you're like me. We're the same. I know you love to talk. And let me just say, I was that little boy and you told me [music] you would come and you promised. You promised. You know, I'm a man of my word today [music] because you aren't. I'm a man of my word today because you aren't."
Can you feel his pain? Can you feel his emotion? Can you feel what he's going through? And he's just trying to say, man, this is what I went through as a kid. And, and by the way, I mean, this, this job that we have, this incredible job that we have, the greatest superpower that we have as fathers comes with a lot of highs, lows, excitement, a bunch of things. So, if you're like me, listen, I'm trying to figure this thing out every day. And whatever I'm sharing with you today, I want you to know that these are things I'm sharing with you that's working for me right now. But we're not going to know if this stuff works for another 40, 50 years. This is, this is the most important job that we have together as we go through this. The, the reason why I wanted to do this webinar is because for many years, I don't want to talk about this. Behind closed doors, I talked to a lot of people about the topic of fatherhood, but not necessarily public. People like you should write a book. One, I'm like, "Why would I write a book? My kids are young." You should write a book one day. You should write a book one day. And it kind of led to this.
So, what is the whole moral of the story of why we're doing this? The reality of it is, we have 18 years with our kids, and it goes by very quickly. They did a study. They said by the time your kids leave the house, you have spent 90% of in-person time with parents already spent by the age of 18. 90% of all the time you're going to spend time with your kids. The moment they turn 18 and they leave, 90% of the time for your entire life you're going to spend with your kids, you've already spent. 95% by the time they turn 10. That's it. You only got five more percent left. They're saying a long time that we have with them. You know what I'm saying? This goes very, very quickly.
So, who is actually raising our kids? Who's raising them? Right? Who is raising them when we, when we see this? Uh, uh, give me a second. Um, give me a second. Okay, watch this. Even when a father is present at home, the average school-age boy spends only this much time with their dad. Look at the numbers. How many hours is a TV, video, on social media? A ton. How many is with school instruction hours in school? A ton. How many is it with peers on social time? A ton. How many is it with father? You ready? You want to know the time? 30 minutes of one-on-one time with dad per week. That's the average time. 30 minutes. If, if you're sitting there watching a movie, that's not one-on-one. If you're sitting there having dinner with everybody, that's not one-on-one. 30 minutes a week of one-on-one time. That's not a lot of time. 45 hours a week, 44 hours a week is weekly, uh, screen, uh, consumption. The, the question becomes whether your child is being influenced by you and I, or by whom? Because as we go through this, this is screen time. I got a five-year-old. I'm very protective of screen time. Three and a half hours a day on average. For 8 to 12 is five and a half hours a day on average. 13 to 18 years old is 8.6 hours a day on average. Boys are 9 hours and 60 minutes. Girls is 8 hours and 2 minutes. This is a long time that we're talking about. Recommendation is two hours.
So, who's raising our kids? YouTube, the screen, Netflix, Amazon, Disney, Hulu, they're raising our kids. TikTok, influencers, gamers, YouTubers, they're raising our kids. We don't even know it. If you have 30 minutes and he's consuming 20 hours of an influencer every week, who do you think is the real daddy? Not you, the influencer. That's who he's watching. That's who he speaks like. If he spends 20 hours watching what he is saying, he speaks like him. She speaks like him. Are you okay with that? I know you're not. That's why you're on this webinar. But it's the truth.
So, the greatest superpower you and I have is to procreate. As a man, we don't have another great superpower. You may think, "Pat, I can bench four plates." It's great. "I can squat 500 lb." "I can curl 90 lbs." "Pat, you don't even know. I can run a 40 and 45. I can do 22 pull-ups." That's great. Your greatest superpower is being able to, being able to have kids.
Let me continue with this. Why fathers matter? The world needs present, purposeful fathers. The lack of good example has left a generation without a compass. Kids are confused. And our calling is to be able to develop leaders. And by the way, that picture right there, that's supposed to be Dylan. If my son sees that picture, he won't be too happy with it because that's what AI did right there. But it is what it is. Let's continue.
So, this is for all types of fathers. Some of you guys are married and you're a father. You have kids. Some of you are stepdads. Some of you are single fathers. You only get them twice a week. And some of you are future fathers. You're expecting. You're not one yet. So, let's address the elephant in the room. This is going to be hard. You know that it's not easy. We screw this thing up quite often. You will be frustrated constantly. You will make mistakes, inevitable. We will not be, we don't have to do this alone. I see a lot of fathers try to do this all by themselves. You don't need to. You can be part of a community. It's good for us to talk amongst others and say, "What do you do? What do you do?" Every time I'm around a father and their kids are successful, or a mother, I always ask them, "What's your secret recipe? What's your secret sauce?" Right? And last but not least, the reward is worth it. It's priceless, but the reward is worth it.
So now, as we're going through this, and I'm kind of sitting there going, and I, you know, how does one become a father? Like, what, what is the whole thing? I was having a conversation with one of our guys from the podcast, and this was about two years ago. I said, "You know what the challenge with you is?" Because he's asking me, "Pat, what do you think I need to be doing at this next phase of my life?" I said, "You're too selfish." He said, "What do you mean I'm selfish?" I said, "You hate responsibilities." I said, "It's only you. You, you just want a life for you. You're living a selfish life." If we score life about selfless and selfish, you live a 90/10 life, an 80/10 life. 80% is all you, 20% is everybody else. That doesn't work if you want to be a great father. And it doesn't, it doesn't also mean that you have to be 100% your kids, zero you. That's also not what your kids want. Kids want a father that's driven, that's in pursuit of something, because they want to watch you. They want to watch. "My dad's in the game. My dad's trying to build something special. I want to be like my dad when I'm growing up." Not just teaching them, they want to catch what you're doing. So you cannot be too selfish to only live for yourself. At some point, you have to decide that this life is bigger than just you and I.
So, as we, as we go through this, there are men who live only for themselves. Fatherhood requires the deliberate transfer of time, energy, and attention. And the moment you choose fatherhood, your life stops being only yours. And that is a gift, not a burden. Oh my god, I didn't get any sleep last night. What happened to the good old single days? Oh man, these kids. I see some parents, they'll speak with kids like it's such a burden. Man, it's exciting. It's a project. We're building them. It's amazing. It's the greatest reward.
So, when you look at the score, we came up with this chart on shows the selfish score versus the selfless score. The self, if you're 100% selfish, you're a psychopath. You're a criminal. No, no one on this call is going to be that, or else you wouldn't be on this. Why would you be on this? Because you want to get better. If you're 90/10, you're generally a narcissist. The world revolves around you. If you're 80/20, you're a solopreneur. Everything's about, you know, you can get things done yourself, but you're kind of like, "Nobody will do it as good as me. No, no, I'll do it. Nobody's going to do it as good as me." You're also not developing. 70/30 is good because if you're 70, you have your own selfish goals, your own selfish dreams. You want to have a bigger house, live in a better community, maybe have some kind of an impact. You're in pursuit of something, right? 60/40, you're a good synergist. You're a good teammate. 50/50, you're a good advisor. You're a good thinker. 40/60, you're a supporting cast. And then you got these other jobs that comes on the bottom. But we need a little bit of selfish, but not too high of it. Good fathers, great fathers are typically a good mixture of 60/40 or 70/30. They want to develop everybody around them, but they want to do it by leading from the front and then, you know, challenging their peers around them, challenging their kids to also get better. And the kids are watching saying, "Man, my dad's in the game. My dad's in the hunt. My dad wants to do something big."
So, I'm going to tell you the story about this one, uh, museum that was built, the biggest church, the the tallest church in the world called Las Sagrada Familia, which is in Barcelona, Spain. I was there just about, I don't know, first time I saw this place was in '08, 18 years ago, and they were building it. There was all these, you know, structures around them that they were building. And they were talking about this guy named Anthony Gaudi, Antonio Gaudi, and amazing, you know, at what he does and, you know, engineer and all this stuff. And he was building this place. And this Sagrada Familia was built in, it started in 1882, and they said it was going to take 143 years to build construction. The, the time it got ready was this year in 2026. It took five generations to build. But this guy right here, Anthony Gaudi, the architect, died in 1926. He was working on this property for about 42 years, and he was buried inside the church he never got to see finished. Less than a quarter to complete. Five generations of architects worked on this place, carried his vision forward through a civil war, a pandemic, and a century of doubt. The central tower was blessed by Pope Leo in June of 2026. It's 55 stories high. He called it, "I want to build a Bible made out of stone." But he said something very powerful. Anthony Gaudi, when they asked him, they said, "Why are you so excited about building something that you're never going to see the final product? You're never going to see it." He said this in an interview. He said, "My client is not in a hurry." His client was God. "My client's not in a hurry. He wants to see a great product."
What does this have to do with you and I? There's a very high likelihood you and I are not going to see the work that we put together here because the way they judge a great parent is by their grandkids, not by their kids. I'm 47 right now. If my son gets married at 30, same age as Dad got married, that's 16 years from now. I'm 63. By the time his son's going to be an adult and has his own family, it's going to be 35 years from that, that's what, 98. I may never see it, but that's the beautiful thing. My client's not in a hurry. We're trying to build future leaders together, you and I. This ought to be exciting. But you may never see it. We may be in heaven looking down saying, "My God, look at what we build, man. We did good. Look at what we build. Look what he's doing right now. Look what she's doing right now." Requires patience. Also, patient with you yourself as a father because we're also going to make some mistakes.
So now, who, how are we judged as fathers? How are you and I judged as fathers? Like I said earlier, it takes 40 years to find out if we're good fathers because we're judged by our grandkids, not by our kids. So for me, my hero is my dad. I've never met a man like my dad in my life. He's my hero. You guys have heard me talk about this all the time if you consume the content. So one of the goals I have is to make him a great father by making sure I raise good kids because then that means he raised a good son, that he raised good grandkids, which means my father's a great father, which means he did his part right. Think about that. And by the way, as we go through this, three things I want you to think about on how we judge great fathers.
Number one, do our kids become a net positive to society? Do they pay their taxes? Do they take care of their own? Do they contribute to their finances and communities? Do they make everything better that they touch? Do they? That's one way to judge. We raised a leader that makes his city or her city better.
Do they seek our company after they no longer need you? This is a heavy one. This is a very heavy one. One day they're going to make their own money. They have their own careers. Do they call and say, "Hey, Daddy, can I come and see you? Can we go to a game? Can we go have dinner together? You know where my dad lives?" With me. Not because he wanted to live with us. Because I wanted him to live with us. I said to him, "Dad, if you're moving to Florida, you're not moving here because I'm going to bring you here once a month like I did in Texas. You're coming to Florida because you're going to live with us." He lives with us at the house because I seek his company. He's 84 today. I want his company at 47 years old. Can you imagine if our kids don't?
I'm going to tell you a story. I was in this Bible study in our, in our community, Traml Estate in, um, uh, Porter Ranch. And we used to go to this Bible study right next door to us. A guy named Roy was there. And one day Roy starts crying in the middle of a Bible study. I don't understand why he was crying. He walks out. He says, "Excuse me." I go out with him. I mean, Roy, you're good. He hugs me. He hugs me and he puts his head right here and his, in tears. This man is 30 years older than me at the time. And I said, "What's bothering you?" He says, "Man, he doesn't want to see me anymore." I said, "Who doesn't want to see you anymore?" He says, "My son." I said, "What happened?" He says, "He's 33 years old." He says, "I know why he doesn't want to see me anymore." I said, "Why?" He says, "Pat, when I was younger, young father, I was a mechanic and I would work 12-hour days. And when I would come home at night, I was tired. And my wife would go and tell my son who just wanted to play with me when I got home. Just wanted to play with me. That's all he wanted to do. He just wanted to watch a game with me. He just wanted to be with daddy." My wife would say, "Leave daddy alone. He worked very hard. He needs to get some rest." And he says, "Pat, I did that so many nights in a row." He said, "Now he's 33 years old. I called him. I said, 'I just want to go to a game with my son. Just go to dinner with me, please. Let's just go have lunch together.' And he says, 'I'm too busy.'" He says, "He did to me what I did to him." Wow. Can you imagine? Like I'm listening to him. And by the way, at the time when that was happening, I'm listening to this one song by Paul Anka that's called "Papa." If you guys know this song, you know the song. It's a difference. It's a very emotional song, and it talks about the father coming home, and it's a very, very, very, very beautiful song. And we're both outside now crying. I can't imagine a life where your kids don't want to seek your company. How's it feel just the thought of thinking about it right now? It's painful, right? You're like going to a certain place and you're thinking to yourself, "I, I don't ever want that to happen to me." I don't either. But we have a job to do to make sure they seek our company after they no longer need us. Do they want to be around us? No obligation. They just want to be around us. This is the ultimate report card.
So now, before becoming a great father, there's a few things that we have to address because so often we go to, "Let me go be a great father." It doesn't work that way. Why? We all have certain limiting beliefs. You ever meet certain men or women that are afraid of becoming a parent? You're like, "Oh, dude, I'm not get, I'm never going to get married, man. My parents' marriage didn't work out. They got a divorce. My dad, my mom, I'm never having kids. I don't want to screw it up. This thing is hard. I don't want, I'm good. I don't want any commitments." You ever hear people go through it? As some of us maybe went through that at 28 years old. I told myself, "I don't need to get married. I enjoy my own company. It's too risky. What if we screwed up with this kid stuff, right?" But the reality is, before we become a great father, we have our own limiting beliefs we got to address. And you know what the biggest one is? The boy tendencies. Some of us are, are trying to be a great father, but we're still a boy. How do you become a great father when you're still a boy yourself? Number two, some of us are trying to become great fathers, but we have limiting beliefs based on our relationship with our parents, our mom and dad, and it's still lingering, and we're trying to avoid it, but it's still there. Number three, our relationship with our spouse, our wives. We need to address that. And then last but not least is how you are as a father with your kids.
So, let's go through the parenting of being a great father. Your boy tendencies. If you and I have any boy tendencies, we're raising our sons to be a boy, not a man. And I'm not going to play a song for you right now from "Boys to Men," but I'm trying to tell you it's boys to men. But we are boys. How hard is it to raise a boy if you're a boy? Very hard. It's not easy. So imagine we're talking, "Be a man." Well, "Dad, you act like a boy yourself sometimes. What are you talking about? What are you talking about, Dad? You're acting like a boy sometimes." "What do you mean?" They're saying this and they're behaving like us.
So, let me go through our own boy tendencies. Blaming others. It's what boys do. It's not what men do. Making excuses. That's what boys do. That's not what men do. Quitting when things get hard. "My god, this job. Let me quit." That's what boys do. That's not what men do. Seeking constant approval. You just want everybody to be happy with you all the time. "Oh my god. Conform. Conform. Conform. Can everybody be happy with me? Please, can everybody be happy with me?" That's what boys do. It's not what men do. It, it's a very different mindset. Right. Next. Excessive video games. As a grown man, I have some people that are 40 years old. They play so much video games. That's what boys do, not what men do. Procrastinating. Boys, not men. Poor time management. Boys, not men. Avoiding difficult conversations. Boys, not men. Boys avoid. Men have the conversation respectfully. Lying to avoid consequences. Boys, not men. We've all done it. Boys, not men. Being disrespectful to authority. Boys do that. As a man, what are you doing? You're a grown man. Lack of self-discipline, sleep, screen time, porn. Boys. Boys. So, if their daddy's doing this, why are you upset if they're doing it? Comparing yourself to others. Boys, not men. Not keeping commitments. Boys, not men. Poor listening skills. Boys, not men. We're not listening. Reacting emotionally to criticism. Boys, not men. Victim mentality. Boys, not men. Avoiding responsibility. Again, boys, not men.
So, imagine we're trying to raise men, but we're acting like boys. Man, that's a heavy message. Some people messaged me, they said, "Pat, do you think this is worth watching with my kids?" I said, "Do it at your own risk. I don't recommend it." Some of you guys right now may be telling your kids to kind of get out of the room. So, "Get out of here. Let me watch this by myself." Boys. So, if we're trying to be men, but we ourselves are acting like boys, how are we expecting our boys to be men?
Then, as we're going through this, and we go and talk about the issues that we have with our parents, how did our mom show love? How did she discipline us? How did Dad do it? Have we had those conversations with them? You know how many sit-downs of conversations I had with my mom and dad before having kids? Because I needed that limiting beliefs to be out. I asked my dad a question one time. I said, "Dad, let me ask you. You worked six days a week in Iran. I only saw you on Fridays. And in Germany, I went to a refugee camp. I was there for 18 months. I never saw you. Later on, when I came here, I didn't see you that often. Did you, do you regret working that hard?" He said, "No." I said, "Why not?" He says, "Look what kind of a man you became. I wanted to raise a leader. I didn't want to raise a boy. Are we not friends?" And I said, "We are. Are you not a net positive to society? We are." In his own language, he says, "Guess what? Then I did my job right." I said, "So, you didn't miss working that hard?" He says, "No, I didn't." He says, "I wanted to turn you into a leader so we can be friends for the rest of our lives." His words, he would always say that. So, have you had those conversations with your mom and dad, or are you avoiding that conflict? Because that's what boys do. Do you know how to respectfully confront your parents and have a conversation with them?
I had this conversation with my kids two weeks ago at this taco place, and I said, "Hey, we need to learn how to manage expectations." The next one is with our wives, with our spouse. Do you sit down and have these conversations? What kind of kids do we want to raise? What values do we want to teach them? Have you had that confrontation with your spouse? You need to have that. You can't wink parenting. It's hard. Then it comes last with the kids, which we'll get into. And I'm going to go through a few different things on what to do as us becoming better fathers. But there's this six different types of fathers out there. Okay.
The first type is the absent father. Physically or emotionally checked out. Child asked the question, "Who am I?" Deep wound, authority, rebellion. Then you have the pacifist. Avoids all conflict and friction. Child's question is, "Anyone strong enough to stop me?" Anxiety, lack of self-discipline. Why? Because the dad was a pacifist. Then you have the next one, the friend. "Man, my dad is so cool. He smokes weed with me. Oh my god, I love Johnny's dad. Every time I go to his house, we get drunk together. Oh my god, I love Bobby's dad. He's so cool. He gives us the best weed." What are you talking about, man? He's such a cool. "I wish my dad. My dad is tough, man. I just want to be a friend with my, you know, dad. It's just a friend. He's such a, I'm a friend. What kind of a father? Oh, we're friends." Before 18, your son doesn't want a friend. He's got friends. He needs a dad. Now we're friends. Then child's question, "Why should I try?" Zero strength, entitlement. Then you have the dictator. "Hey, you better do this or else. Hey, you better do this or else. Hey, you better do this. Hey, why aren't you doing this? Hey, why aren't you doing that?" Someone wants a little bit of love. "What if I fail?" Always walking on eggshells. Some of you guys have gone through this. Fear-based. No intimacy. Then you have the provider. It's purely money. Gives you money. Does everything with money, money, money, money, money, but it's no time. There's no connection. There's no conversations. "Does he even see me?" Emotional disconnect. And then you have last but not least, the builder. This is act of love plus strong rules. "How do I build my vision?" Child is asking that question. Confident, grounded leaders.
So, as you're watching this yourself, you may be thinking, first thing we're probably thinking about is not what kind of a father we are, is what kind of a father raised us. And by the way, if you're comfortable posting in the comment section, post how you were raised. Then we ask, which one is you and I? How were we raised? How did that impact you and I? Who do we want to be? And, and, and the simple question is easy. If you're absent, be present. If you're a pacifist, be a little bit more firm. I remember a lady told me at Neiman Marcus one time or Nordstrom's, I was wrestling with Dylan, and she, she was laughing. She said, "I remember my kids that were that young." So, really? Yes. So, really, what do your kids do? Doctor, engineer, lawyer. Wow. All successful, all successful. What's the secret sauce? Can you give me three of them? She said, "I'll give you one." I said, "What's that?" "If you're ever going to threaten your kids, deliver on your threats." So, really, if you're ever going to threaten your kids, deliver on your threats. Wow. If you don't, what is your, your voice has nothing. There is no weight here. So, if you're a pacifist, be a little bit more firm. If you say no ice cream, no ice cream, right? Then you have, if you're a friend, start leading. If you're a dictator, start coaching. Lift up, you know, and start kind of being gentle on the way. Counsel the feedback you give them. Almost like how snow, you know, it's snowflake how it lands. It's a little bit gentle when it lands on the ground. Give feedback, but a little bit more gentle. Provider, be engaged. Get in the arena more than more money. Things matter way more than just money. I don't care if you're buying me everything. I sometimes want to talk to you. I don't want just the car or the gift or the watches. I want you. I want you and I to spend time together. And if you're a builder, do not stop. Do not stop because you don't even know what's going to happen. You may be building some of the future leaders, future governor, future senator, future job creators that do incredible things. Future pastors, future president. We don't know what we're building. We're not going to know that. But to the builders, more power to you. Our goal, every day I try to look at, I'm like, "Ah, Mitch, every day you're falling short. You're trying to do your best to be a builder." Every single day.
So now, five aspects of every single relationship that you ought to have these conversations with your spouse, your kids, your in-laws. Remember how I showed you all those things? Your boy tendencies, then your parents, then your spouse, then your kids. These five things in every relationship. I want you to apply this tonight. If you can apply it this weekend on Fourth of July with your family, with your kids, with your in-laws, with your parents, sit down and with your spouse. In every relationship, each party is thinking about five things. First thing is they have their own set of concerns. Like, let's just say somebody's getting married to another person. They have their own concerns. So does she. You have your own fears. So does she. You have your own assumptions of her. She's got her own assumptions of you. You have your own motives. So does she. You have your own ask. So does she.
Last week, two weeks ago, my son had a tournament at IMG. We're at IMG. On the way back, I'm having a conversation with one of my kids about his career, on he should consider wanting to go to an Ivy League school. And all of a sudden, he's like, "Ivy League school?" I said, "Yeah, why not?" Says, "Are you just doing it because you didn't go to college?" I said, "You think I'm doing it just because I want you to go?" "Yeah, I think." "What would make you say that?" "I wrote a book called 'Drop Out and Get School.' I made a video called 'College is a Scam.'" Then why would you say I should go to school? I said, "Okay, we got a two-hour drive left. We're leaving from Naples and we're at this restaurant, uh, Milano Cafe. Incredible food, incredible bar cheese salad, phenomenal balsamic glaze, great place." So, we come back home, Father's Day, they do their thing, everybody goes to take a shower. So, it's me and him in the kitchen. I said, "You and I have an appointment right now. Grab a seat." He sits down. I take out my paper and pen and I write down concerns. I write down motives. I write down assumptions, fears, and asks. I said, "What are your concerns when it comes on to you and I doing career planning together?" He's telling me. I write mine. He says, "All those concerns you have, we're on the same page. These are mine." Oh, wow. We're on the same page. We are. What assumptions do you have? He gives me his assumptions. I give mine. Wow. I said, "Are those right?" I said, "Nope, you don't have to assume that. I don't even think." Oh, that's great to know. How about mine, Dad? Also don't think about, like, for instance, I said, "Do you worry that I don't want you to be more successful than me?" He says, "Not at all. I know you want me to be more successful than you." We went through every one of these. By the time it's done, family comes back downstairs, everyone's out of the showers. I look at Jennifer, I say, "Hey, can you tell Mommy, out of all the conversations and sit-downs you and I have had in our lives about your life, where do you rank this today's sit-down?" He says, "This is the second most important meeting you and I have had." Why? Because we sat down and we addressed it. But you got to do this with your wife, with your parents, with every one of your kids, with everybody in your life. You got to do this, and we got to get in the habit of confronting respectfully.
So, your next moves today, okay, after today's conversation, 20 rules as a father, let's go through this together because we're almost at the end of it, 22 minutes. And remember, everything I'm going through, you guys going to get a way to get the, the PowerPoint. I'll share with you at the end as well as the notes and a PDF. So, hang tight. And for some of you guys that have questions, I'm going to tell you how you can get on a 90-minute webinar that we'll do where you can actually engage and ask questions about this. But let's go through the 20 rules for fathers.
Number one, prepare them for the day you won't be here because one day you won't be. Everything about us with them is to replace what we're doing with them. We're doing estate planning the other day. My wife and I are sitting there in our estate planner. Everybody's in the room. Tom is in the room, and we're talking about how to do the finances. And she says, "Babe, you have to start teaching everything to the boys on what you do on your philosophy with investments because one day when you're not here, they need to do know what to do with." I said, "Yep, you're right. We're going to be doing that." Why? Everything is preparing them for the day they're not going to be here. Whether it's business, how they carry themselves, what kind of a husband they're going to be, father, mothers, wives. My daughter and I have a meeting tomorrow. Not tomorrow. Tomorrow we got a gubernatorial debate, but in two days, all of that, but we're preparing for one day that you won't be there, that I won't be there.
Number two, don't try to please everybody. You have to be a little bit more firm around the people in your, uh, in your life that are trying to raise your kids in their own way. That may not be the way you're doing it. We had standards I created in our house about reading. And two or three days, I came home and I noticed the standards wasn't being held. And I told my nanny, I said, "Mela, I love you, but I'm telling you right now, 20 years from now, people are not, not going to say, 'Who were Patrick's, uh, who were these kids' nanny?' They're going to say, 'Who was the father?'" I said, "Please follow my standards, or we're going to have a problem." And I don't have 50 standards. It's three standards. She says, "Daddy, you'll never have to worry about it." My nanny is like, uh, our mom. She's, she's been with us for 18 years almost in our house. Um, she says, "You don't have to worry about it." I'm not trying to please everybody. I'm trying to set standards and stay firm with these standards 'cause I'm trying to develop leaders. I'm a builder. You're a builder. Don't try to make everybody happy around you. You're going to fail miserably.
Number three, learn to confront respectfully and teach people how to confront respectfully. I teach my kids how to confront me respectfully. I teach my executive team how to confront each other, including me, but respectfully. It's a very, very important skill set to learn. This is one of the things we talk about the vault at the Vault conference a lot. It's always about this on how to have these types of conversations. It's very important. It's a very valuable skill set. If you learn how to do this in your family, you learn how to do it in your business and every aspect of your life. You're going to be a valuable asset.
Number four, deliver on your threats. I shared with that briefly earlier with you.
Number five, create an environment where debate is welcomed. Every, every time we go to dinner, we're debating. We're always arguing as a family. We're always arguing. Are horror movies good to watch? No. Yes. Tell me why. No. Tell me why. Yes. Do you agree? No. Did, did he change your mind? Did she change your mind? No. Why do you think it's good to watch scary movies? Faith. How do you know Jesus? What? How do you know? Tell me why. Why shouldn't we look at another religion? Capitalism, socialism, economy, money, exercising. Why should we exercise? Maybe we shouldn't exercise. Why worry about our diet? Why have a good hygiene? Why not just let yourself go? We literally debate everything together, and the kids are programmed to debate each other. It's constant. Why? It's a very important skill set. It gets the brain to be a little bit more witty and sharp and on top of it. So, choose topics this weekend when you go to dinner with your family. Fourth of July, take, take three topics. If you're not good at this typically facilitating, take your family to dinner and debate three issues with them. Debate three issues with them. See what they tell you. It'll be one of the funnest moments you'll have, and your kids can't wait to do it again. My kids will say, "What are we debating tonight? What's the next one?" Right?
Number six, create rituals and traditions the family looks forward to weekly. Our, our dinner when we have every week, everybody looks forward to because it's three hours that nobody has their phone. Everybody looks forward to it. Two weeks ago, when my son went to IMG, he came and he says, "Hey, uh, since we're not going to dinner this Saturday night because I'm out, we're going to have our family dinner on Wednesday night." He coordinated it, and we're like, "Oh, okay. Great." If I'm out of town and I miss dinner, you know what they say? "Hey, what happened? What happened to our tradition?" They're holding the family accountable. Now, you know why that's important? Because, God willing, later on when they have their own family, what are they going to say? "Every Saturday, you know how that works?" They're going to do it themselves. What? Tradition. Put this flipping thing away. Then create tradition quarterly. You and your wife have your weekend. Get away for two nights, maybe one night. Summer experience together. If you can't afford it, do a weekend out. Christmas tradition, New Year's Eve. Every New Year's Eve, we're at the house. We go to Barnes & Noble. We buy 50 magazines and books. We go to Michaels. We buy boards. We buy frames. We buy glue. We buy scissors. We come to our house. We do each other's vision boards. And we finish at 12:30. Everybody shows their vision board. Every year the kids look forward to this. You know what's the benefit of it? I'm hoping later on when they're older, they want to stay with Daddy and Mommy on New Year's Eve because bad things happen on New Year's Eve. And everyone's dreaming. "Show me your vision board. Show me your vision board." It's incredible when we go through it together. But you ought to create traditions. Again, this is something you ought to have with your wife. Remember, remember the concerns, assumptions, fears, uh, uh, uh, motives, and asks. These are things you want to bring up to your wife. "Babe, I'm wondering what kind of traditions we need to create. This is one of my concerns. What's my motive? My motive is I want to create a tradition where the family stays together. My fear is if we don't, they're going to be divided later on when they're not going to be together. And I'm assuming you want the same thing as well." "I do." "Great. Here's my ask." Boom. Makes sense?
Seven. Create a clear currency in your house. For too many people, it's like, "Wash this, clean this, do this." For us, it's reading. The other night, it's 11 o'clock at night. I go to the room. My 10-year-old daughter is sitting there reading the book. I said, "Babe, why are you reading? You've already read your pages today." She says, "No, Daddy. I can't put this book down." Bingo. She's addicted to reading. How awesome is that? You, you keep a standard of them reading, and then all of a sudden they read, not because you're telling them, now they're addicted to an incredible addiction that changes people's lives. But you got to choose what the currency is in your house.
Number eight, don't just share success stories. Share massive failures.
With your kids. Let me tell you about Bobby. Let me tell you about Larry. Let me tell you what happened with XYZ. Let me tell you what happened with this person. Let me tell you what happened with that person. Share stories of what mistakes they made. I, I tell so many horror stories to our guy, to my kids. Um, I tell so many horror stories.
There used to be a guy who had a 3.5 GPA, much smarter than me. But let me tell you what he did. One time, there's this kid that came to us, and I give nicknames. His name was Beaver Ready, and he came here and he introduced my, uh, best friend to cigarettes. And then another guy introduced him to alcohol. And then next thing you know, that led to marijuana, and then led to ecstasy. And then I went to the army, and I came back, and this guy was selling Xanax and Vicodin and all this stuff. And then next thing you know, he died from overdose. No way, daddy. This guy was smarter than me, charming, charismatic. We were best friends. I lost him. I'll never forget that day that I lost this guy.
We tell too many success stories. They say Indian parents raise very good kids. Chinese parents, there's that, uh, tiger mom or whatever that book that came out. You know what Indian and Chinese parents have in common? They judge a lot. "That friend's not a good friend for you. That person's not a good person." Sometimes Americans are like, "No, but maybe he changes. It's okay. It's just, it's okay. It's okay." What are you talking about? It's not okay.
We had a kid that came to our house. I'm like, "That kid can't come to our house again." I went, sat outside, and just watched him the entire time like a hawk to see what he was doing. I don't know this kid. And I got the right feeling. I don't know what his parents' standards are on how they're raising a kid, but that's not my problem. I'm not going to have that standard influence my kid's standard. No. So then we had a conversation. "Well, are you being a little too judgmental?" That's my problem. You don't have to worry about it. So, "Oh my god, it's not fair to do that." No, we got to have these conversations with them. We got to, sometimes we're too passive.
Number nine, ask real-life type of situation questions. What happens if your sister, one day she's going to school, and you find out her best friend is selling drugs and cocaine? How do you address that? Who do you go to first? Do you come to me first? Do you talk to your sister? Do you go talk to the friend? Do you talk to each other as siblings? How do you address that? What do you do if one day one of your brothers got a, got a black eye and another kid punched him in the face and beat him up? What do you do when you go to school the next day? "Why would you do that? You think that's the right thing to do?" What do you do with it? You're asking case study type of questions. At the Vault, one of the things we do is we ask case study type of questions with 12,000 people. They all go into groups of four and five, and they're processing the case together. It's a powerful thing. We do it in every single business that we run. We do case studies, but we also do it with our family.
Number 10, allow your kids to negotiate better terms with you. Like, a lot of time we'll say something like, "Hey, Dad, can I negotiate on why we should go to XYZ?" I said, "Okay, go ahead, propose." "Well, you've said many times it's important to you to keep the family together. So we were thinking it's better if we go here because it's a three-hour drive. On the drive there, we can talk and have some fun." And then when we get there, and I'm just saying, "What's important to you, daddy?" [laughter] "That's a pretty good neo. You know what? You closed me. All right, we're going to do that." Let me tell you why I think we need to go to XYZ restaurant. Then the other restaurant, I'm not open to it. "Can I negotiate?" "Go ahead." "What do you want to say?" "I noticed this last time we were there, you were also saying that they seem to use a little bit too much oil. And I've been listening to you lately. You're talking about your health a lot. Do we really want to go take our family somewhere where they use more oil than another restaurant?" I'm like, "This freaking kid." They're talking like that. I'M LIKE, "WHAT ARE YOU TALKING ABOUT?" It's funny as hell, but they're negotiating. And I'm like, "You want to raise good negotiators one day? You want to raise good negotiators? Let them negotiate with you better terms as long as it's good for them and their family." And not like, "Let me negotiate like my youngest daughter does on how to get five of those necklace candy, you know, with the necklace candies that you eat." Like, "Can I put five of them now?" "You can't get five of them under no circumstances can you get five, you know, necklace candies. No, we're not doing that, right?"
11. Teach your kids math and problem-solving. Parents, I'm begging you, stop telling your kids you hate math. Stop bitching about math in front of your kids. You're teaching them to hate math. You know, when somebody says to me, "They hate math," what I think they're saying to me, "Can I tell you this? Every time I hear a parent say they hate math, you know what I think they're saying? I think they're saying they hate solving big problems." That's what my interpretation is of you. Stop saying you hate math. Maybe you had a bad teacher that was lousy, but math is life. We'll be at dinner, and we'll play a game. All our kids are sitting around. Here's how the game goes. "What's one time one?" "Daddy, that's too easy." "Go." "One." "Two times two." "Two." "Three times three." "Nine." "Four times four." "Sixteen." "Five times five." "Twenty-five." "Six times six." "Thirty-six." "Seven times seven." "Forty-nine." "Eight times eight." "Sixty-four." "Nine times nine." "Eighty-one." "Ten times ten." "One hundred." "Eleven times eleven." "One hundred twenty-one." "Twelve times twelve." "One hundred forty-four." "Thirteen times thirteen." "One hundred sixty-nine." We do this until we're like 27, 28, 29. And I'm like, "I want you to do it without paper. Don't help him. I want you to do it without paper." "Oh man, I missed it." "You're close by two." "All right, let's go again. Give me a tough one." "Fourteen times thirty-eight." "No paper." And then problem-solving. Stop. Take these words out of your math. "I, I hate math." Stop saying that. Your kids are confused. They want to, they also hate math because of you. You know what I'm saying? Stop saying, "Maybe you'll do, maybe you won't." It is what it is. Maybe that's a tough challenge for some of us to [snorts] do that.
All right. Next. 12. There's more caught than taught in parenting. We can teach them all they all we want. They're watching us. So, let's do better.
Number 13. Guy asked me a question the other day. Carson, who's my physical therapist. Love this guy. Uh, his, his, his wife's pregnant. They just came back from Paraguay. They were celebrating when Paraguay won. And every time we do physical therapy, he's always asking questions. He sees me with the kids and all this stuff. And you know, you know, so, you know, "What do you do with this?" and "What do you do with that?" and "What do you do with that?" And it was a conversation with him or another fellow that I was talking about. And I said, "When it comes down to kids, there's three things I look at." This was with Will Hall. Will Hall is the conversation. I said, "I watch my kids on what they're interested in, but I don't invest a lot in your interests. I invest a little bit more into your passions, but I overinvest into your obsessions." It's that simple for me. My entire goal with my kids is to put them in a different environment to see what they get obsessed about. My, I realized my oldest son loves scary movies. So, I said, "Hey, by 17 years old, let's go ahead and direct a scary movie. I'll put a budget together for you, but you need to go read this book by Stephen King. Read this book by Jim Scott Belt." "No problem, daddy. Let me get to work." Right. Every day he's here, they're working on a script together. But I don't fund interest. I fund passion a little bit. I will overfund obsessions. And share this with your kids. Interests. Passions. Obsessions. I got to where I got to because I got obsessed with what I'm doing. You got to wherever you got to that you won at whatever you did is because of obsessions. You got obsessed about something. I tell my kid, I'm like, "I don't think you're obsessy. I think you're just interested." "No, Daddy, I'm passionate." "No, I don't know about that. I don't know. You only train 20 minutes a day. That's not, that's, that's passion. It's not obsession." "Daddy, I'm obsessed." "Oh, dude, you're obsessed now, cuz." And by the way, I'll tell them obsession takes 18 months, not one month, not one week. Show me a little bit longer that you do without somebody telling you to do it. Interest, passion, obsession.
Number four, 14. Take your kids to where you work. I love, I love kids. Today, our Chief HR Officer's two daughters were here. R.J., I love it. They were here running around. Great. My kids were here running around. Take your kids to the office. Now, you may say, "Pat, our kids, you can't even, I can't even take my own spouse to the office, let alone my kids." Find a way to take your kids to see where you work. Let them see what mommy and daddy does. If you're able to do it, we do it every day. Summertime, they're here every day. If I'm able to, I would do it school season, but they're, they're in school.
Next, a boy needs a present father, a strong belief system, standards, friction, and fun. Let me target the last two. You need friction. A frictionless relationship is fake. And if you don't teach your kids that it's okay to have friction, what the hell are they going to do when they get a job and their boss has a tough conversation with them? You think they're going to fight, flight, or freeze? Because daddy didn't teach them friction, they're going to run away from every problem they have in their lives. Everything they do, boom, I'm running away. Why? 'Cause I don't know how to manage friction. Make it be okay to have friction. Make it be okay to have issues. It's okay. And then have fun with them as well. Laugh. Let them see you laughing, having fun, enjoying all of that. Don't be uncomfortable with that. But friction is a big part of it as well. We'll go a little bit deeper into this at the Vault Conference.
So, I'm coming to the end of it, so I don't want to go over time because the USA is playing tonight against Bosnia, and us Americans, we kind of want to go watch that game, even though it's at 8:00. At first, I thought at 6 o'clock, I said, "We're screwed, guys." Then they said, "No, it's 8:00." Which is good. So, let me get through it.
Number 16, create positive peer pressure for your kids to challenge one another. It's okay to have positive peer pressure. Negative peer pressure is here. "Try this. Johnny smoked as well." Positive peer pressure is, "That guy's been reading for two hours. You've been sitting around playing video games. Let me read a book as well." "That guy's working out, doing plank at 12 years old. You're sitting around having chips." Positive peer pressure.
17. Tell your kids you love them unconditionally. However, be very protective of how often you say, "I'm proud of you." Be very protective of it. The other day at the house, we're celebrating my daughter's fifth birthday, and at the end of the day, there's like five fathers there, and we're all talking. I said, "How often did your dad tell you he's proud of you?" This one guy's like, "Never." He was Indian. I said, "Wow, super successful guy, does a lawyer, Roy, super successful, but to get 'I'm proud of you' was a little bit tougher." Then the next one, then the next one, then the next one. It's like, not a lot. Why? Can you imagine if everything somebody does, you say, "I'm proud of you"? Then what's the standard? Like, should I not keep that a little bit where when you say, "I'm proud of you," it's something that you knew this kid was capable of doing, then you drop it, and they cry? If you say, "I'm proud of you," and the person walks away, that statement doesn't mean a lot to you. You've been throwing it around a lot. Throw "I love you" around all day long, unconditional. I tell my kids, "There's nothing you can do for me to love you more or love you less." But if you want me to be proud of you, you got to earn that. And that takes a while because, man to man, you got to earn my respect on being able to say, "I'm proud of you." It took my dad 21 years, 22 years, 25 years to say, "I'm proud of you." 25, 20. I gave a talk in front of a thousand people at 25. He finally said, "I'm proud of you." First time. First time. It's okay. Now, I'm not saying wait 25 years, but don't do it 50 flipping times a day. Save it a little bit.
18. Never avoid the tough conversations, especially the most sensitive ones. Have it with them. And you mean sensitive? I mean really sensitive, like sex, private parts, everything, early.
19. Teach your kids everything you know so they can outdo you.
20. Teach your kids how to make a better case for what they want. Teach your kids how to make a better case for what they want. This kind of goes with the negotiating thing that we're talking about now.
10 conversations for you to have with your sons before somebody else does. I'll go through these things a little bit quicker. We can talk about this together for some of you guys that may join us on that 90-minute webinar to ask any questions you have.
Number one, the difference between being silly and funny. I don't like silly stuff. I like being funny, but I don't like silly stuff. One of my kids, one time I sat with him and I said, "Hey, are you in the business of being a clown?" I said, "You want to be a clown when you grow up?" He said, "What do you mean?" I said, "Why are you trying to be silly in front of all your friends and they're all laughing at you?" I went online. I said, "What is the average salary of a clown in America?" You know what the number was? $32,000. I said, "You want to be a clown? Let's go help you become a clown. No." Why are you doing this? I said, "Do you know the difference between being silly and being funny?" What's the difference? Silly is people laugh at you. Funny is we laugh together. Everyone's laughing at you. Stop being silly. Be funny. There's a big difference. Unless if you want to be a clown or a comedian. But we need to break down the concept of silly versus funny. I don't like silliness all the damn time. It's a, it's a little bit unattractive. We need to have that conversation about silliness, about being funny.
Number two, the sincere compliment game. One time, two of my kids went at it pretty hardcore. They had a big fight. I took them upstairs. This was also a good excuse for me to get 50 minutes with my wife, uh, of an extracurricular activity. If some of you guys know what that means, it's super necessary. I put an iPad in front of my two boys. I said, "For 15 minutes, I want to see who can give better sincere compliments to the other one." And they're like, "Come on, daddy." And by the way, they're trying to fight it. You know what they're trying to do? I said, "I want you guys to go through it together." And they're sitting there looking at each other and all this stuff. And they start complimenting each other. I said, "No, you can do better than that. You can do better than that. You can do better than that. You can do better than that." And then they got real. And then I watched that 15-minute video. It is so awesome on what they did. So beautiful. And I came back. Mommy and I had a good time together. They went 30 minutes. 15 minutes became a 30-minute thing. They got to learn to protect each other and be complimentary to each other. Don't get me wrong, our boys, our boys fight. And we have a rage-baiting type of a culture as well. We troll. We do all that other stuff. But you never disrespect your siblings in front of other strangers. And if strangers disrespect your siblings in front of you, you better defend your siblings. Privately, we can make fun of each other and laugh a little bit. Publicly, we protect each other. Have that conversation with your kids.
Number three, your last name. Explain to them why your last name is important. Sell it to them. They need to be proud of it. They need to be proud of it. They need to be proud of your last name. They need mommy and daddy to sell them why the last name is special. There needs to be a level of pride on what that last name is all about. I'll tell you, there was a one story that I had one time that, um, uh, I would always tell my kids, "What's the most powerful last name in the world?" Bet David. "What's the most powerful last name in the world?" Bed David. One day, one of my kids says, "Daddy, how do you know?" So, "What do you mean? How do you know it's the most powerful last name in the world?" I said, "You ask me, how do I know?" "Yeah." I said, "I know 'cause I believe it. I know 'cause I believe it." And I told them stories about their grandfather. I told him stories about what we've done as a family, how far along we've came, and how we're just getting started. And they need to be proud. I said, "Do you believe it's the most powerful last name in the world?" He then looks at me and says, "Now I do, daddy." It's a beautiful buddy. Sell your family to your kids over and over and over again. Over and over and over again.
Number four, what a man's body goes through. Talk about all the awkward stuff. Fathers do it, or else somebody else will, right? The whole thing with, you know, there's a couple things that's going to come out of your dangling. One of them is peeing, and the other one's going to be weird when it happens. Let me tell you what it's all about. Oh my god, this thing just got awkward. If you think this is awkward, imagine a stranger having a conversation with your son. What awkward. Awkward is not having this conversation. I never understood when fathers have a hard time having this conversation with their kids. Have the flipping conversation. I'm going to have the conversation. One time we're in the shower. I said, "Hey," I looked at my boys. "Whose pee-pee is that?" "Mine." "Whose is that?" "Mine." "Whose is this?" "Yours, daddy." I said, "Who gets to play with that?" "Who?" "Only you. And yours is you. And mine's your mommy. But I said, 'One day you're going to find somebody that's going to play with that.' But that's a lot of years from now. It's going to be a girl 'cause we got to make some kids. But do you understand?" Oh my god, this is such a tough conversation. Yeah. Well, I mean, this is a tough conversation. What world do you think we're living in? You know what kind of porn is online? You're worried about this conversation. Stop it. Come on, parents. We can't be boys. We're men. Remember, we're men. We can have fun and have these types of conversations. My wife remembers that conversation. She's in the shower with. She ran out. She got so uncomfortable quickly. But it's my job to take the lead and have that convo, or else a stranger will. And I'm going to get ahead of the stranger.
Number five, four G's. I'm going to go through these a little bit quicker, and we can address these on the webinar together. You got to talk to your kids about girls. If you have daughters, you got to talk to them about the guys. Girls or guys, gluttony, gambling, greed. Very important to address this with them.
Number six, managing expectations. I teach them with everybody in your life. You got to manage expectations with girls, with friends. Say, "Hey, you want to use drugs with girls?" "What are you going to do if the hottest girl on campus wants to have sex with you, but she wants to do cocaine?" "I'm not going to do that, Daddy." "You sure she's hot?" "What if she's the hottest girl in the world?" "Dad, I'm not going to do it." "Are you positive you're going to say no to her?" "Yes." "Why?" "Why are you going to say no to her?" "That you want me to do?" "I'm not telling you to do the drug, but why are you going to say no to her? How are you going to have a strong willpower to say no to it?" "Dad, I, I don't know." "What are you doing?" "I'm, I'm asking you." "I'm going to say no." "Why are you going to say no, son?" "Because it's going to hurt my..." So, these are, these are moments that we need to have managing expectations with everybody in our lives. In our lives.
Seven, addressing the tension between you. The whole thing that we talked about earlier, concerns, assumptions, motives, fears, asks. Teach them to do this with everybody in their lives. Trust me, you can teach them early, not drifting through life. I have a list of 12 books that I want to recommend for all of you guys to read. I, I will give that to you guys at the end on a PDF as well that everybody will get. But there's a certain set of books that you got to have your kids read.
Number nine, beliefs to live by. We believe in leading, respecting, improv, and loving. My daughter, five years old, every day is required to read, to write the word "lead" 10 times, the word "respect" 10 times, the word "improve" 10 times, and the word "love" 10 times. She's been doing it since she was four. She's required to write it. I have so many of the pictures on my phone to show you. She writes it, and she's required to do 20 step-ups on each leg every day. Our kids have decent legs. I think you need to have strong legs. It's a different conversation.
And last, but not least, their career. I wish I had three hours. I wish I had four days with you like we do at the Vault Conference to go through this with you because this is the type of stuff that we talk about at the event together. But their career, and there's a way of having this conversation with them. And all of this stuff gets to the end here about the following: Your ceiling is your kids' floor. You go up there and you win, and whatever you do, whatever level you get to, that becomes the new level for your kids. All the relationships are theirs. All the contacts are theirs. All the resources are theirs. But if you stay here, this is only the level of resources. Your ceiling is your kids' floor. So we need to raise our ceiling so our kids have a bigger upside of what they want to do with their lives.
So, where are we going to right now? At the end of course, when we do a webinar like this, there's going to be an offer at the end. And I'll make it very simple for you. And I, we're going to make such an insane offer that everybody's probably going to want to take advantage of this, but it's not going to be for everybody. Let's get through it.
The Vault Conference, we host once a year. This is our Super Bowl. We've had The Rock at this event. We've had Tom Brady at this event, Mike Tyson, and we've had a lot of different people at Tony Robbins, Martis, a lot of different people. This year it's Logan Paul, Steven Bartlett from The Diary of a CEO. Then you have Jerry Rice and Joe Montana on Finding a Running Bates. And it's Dan Martell, which is the AI guy. He's the AI king on social media, has had multiple exits and a great family guy and a great successful guy. The Vault Conference is the only conference you'll go to that we talk about these five things at the same time: leadership, life, kids, marriage, and business. And we don't walk on eggshells. I talk everything at this event comfortably. And people who come to this event are people that share common values. And a part of you as a father and a mother, you need to find a better community yourself to go from being a boy to being a man. You need a better positive peer pressure to improve yourself. You need to create that climate. Every year, families come back with their wives. This year, we're probably going to have 4,000 husbands and wives in the room together. Every year, people bring their kids now with them, 14 plus. They bring their kids with them. We had a, we have a guy that owns 20 plus McDonald's, Mark Parish, who brings his entire family, three of them, 16, 14, 12. They sit right there and they're going through a 296-page manual. Altogether, the guy owns 20 plus McDonald's at $7 million a pop, $10 million a pop. And they'll sit there right there going through the whole thing together.
So, this year's Vault Conference is going to be August 31st through September 3rd at MGM Grand Arena in Las Vegas. And, uh, which this is the first time we're going to the West Coast. We typically would do it on the East Coast, but this is the first time we're doing it on the East Co, West Coast at MGM Grand Arena. By the way, this is the place where Michael Jackson's had concerts. Jay-Z's had concerts. Mike Tyson bit someone's ear at this place. There's a room in the back, I'll show some of you guys on what this room is all about, where Michael Jackson would change, a change room for all. It's an incredible, historic place. The relationship, the contacts, you as a father being inspired to take your life to the next level. We can't wait for that. We all know we're one decision away from changing our lives. I hope you make that decision to do so. And for those of you guys that tuned in, I wish you know how much respect I have for you. The world's a better place because you have chosen to want to become a better father. And especially the mothers, you are the true heroes that you got the husband to get on. I respect you as well. You know who you are.
If you had any questions, again, the 90-minute mastermind will be for the first 50 that go ahead and get those two tickets, regardless of what the ticket is. And, uh, the first hour and the first 50 are going to get that private tour with me at MGM Grand Arena. Go to vault2026.com. vault2026.com. God bless everybody. Go USA. Take care everyone. Love you all. Bye-bye. Bye-bye.