I want you to take a look back into your childhood memories—what was your first motivation to workout? I actually have 2. The first, like I suspect will be true of many in this group, was I saw my dad lift regularly as a kid. Being strong was the norm in my house growing up. This is important. My second was actually a tv show, an anime specifically: Dragonball Z. I’ve always had a real nerdy bend to me, and grew up loving American comic books and superheroes. DBZ introduced me to a new type of storytelling however. In a Superman or Thor comic, they always tend to have just the amount of strength they need to stop the bad guy and save the day. Sure, they may need to tough out some adversity and dig deep, but they always had what they needed within themselves. Characters like Spider-Man or Batman maybe at least had to outsmart them, but they always had what they needed within themselves. In DBZ though, the heroes would often get their asses kicked, train really hard to get stronger, and then overcome the villain, often after an emotional breakthrough that leads to a transformation. It still gets me fired up to train, and as a kid that was tenfold. There are two important lessons here: you modeling healthy behavior for your kids is critical. It shouldn’t be weird or special that someone in your family works out—it shouldn’t be the expectation. The second is the media that we consume is critical as well and I think about this a lot as my daughter is getting older. My wife and I are only going to watch shows with her where the characters demonstrate traits we want her to have. It’s still modeling, just in a different form. But I am genuinely curious—what first got you into working out?

Last night, I was at a baseball game and outside of the stadium, during the pre-game festivities, there was a father struggling to get his daughter up on his shoulders- it wasn’t because she was wilding out or having trouble balancing, but because the father was having trouble getting the weight up. Eventually, he did it but it was a struggle and he needed help from his wife. That is fine and somewhat normal but, for me personally, being able to execute complex movements like this is a point of pride. I preach often about why staying in shape is important for our families’ wellbeing and for our own longevity but this hit me different. Just food for thought.

Fatherhood is an amazing thing. You get to take part in the raising of a young life that you had a hand in creating and you get to show this wonderful little person whom you love with all of your heart the world and see them experience it with fresh eyes. It’s nothing short of amazing. It’s also an awesome responsibility. Being a dad comes with so much responsibility, and not just making sure the bills are paid and the family is safe. As a dad, you’re one of the two greatest role models in your child’s life. It is you, who is responsible for showing your child what a man is and what it mean to be a man. I tell all my dad clients that one day your son will turn into a version of you and your daughter will bring home a version of you and it’s on you to make sure you don’t hate that guy. Once my daughter was born I began looking at myself through such a microscope to see where I could improve (spoiler alert: just about everywhere) and I’m still working on improving those areas. It just sucks, as everyone here knows, that this happens at a time when you’ll be short on time, short on energy, and often short on patience too. But the responsibility and duty remains. I think as parents we often try to give ourselves a pass. We say things like, “I’m doing my best,” but are you? Are you really? I can’t speak for any of you but I know there were lots of things in my life I worked way harder to prepare for. When it came to parenting we tend to just kind of wing it. The best thing we can do for our children though, is to model that good behavior. I want my daughter to see me as being such an amazing and strong man who’s so loving to her and her mother, that it’ll be really fucking hard for her to find someone who measures up, and that way I’ll also protect her from being with someone who won’t treat her as well as I do her and her mom. And if I one day have a son, I want him to look at me and be inspired to follow in my footsteps and become the same kind of man. These are some of the things that I want to tackle with this group. I want it to be a place where dads looking to become their best selves come to share experiences, advice, cautionary tales, all of it, and I also want to be able to help you all become those best versions of yourself.