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0:49
This is Undaunted Life of Man's Podcast.
0:51
I'm your host Kyle Thompson.
0:53
Let's get into it.
0:54
All right, guys.
0:55
I've got big news for you.
0:57
As of May 7th, 2020 at 1250 a.m.
1:04
I'm a father, so I'm super excited to share this with you guys.
1:08
Again, you guys, if you've listened to this podcast for any length of time, you know that
1:11
my wife and I have suffered a couple of miscarriages and those have been very, very tragic for
1:15
us.
1:16
And we've been working through those emotions and we had our rainbow baby, right?
1:20
I guess that's what you call a baby that you have after you've had a miscarriage or
1:23
that you've lost a baby and we've gotten that.
1:26
And so we've gotten the tremendous blessing of welcoming our son into the world and we
1:30
didn't tell anybody the name, okay?
1:32
So everyone wants to give their opinion of the name and the family is like, oh, let's
1:35
go ahead and start brainstorming and we were like, no, we picked the name very, very early
1:39
on and the name is James Kyle Thompson.
1:43
So in our family, in my family in particular, the men in the family give the firstborn son
1:49
their first name as the son's middle name.
1:52
You know, my dad's name was David and so my name is Kyle David Thompson.
1:56
So I'm Kyle.
1:57
He's James Kyle Thompson.
1:58
So here's the thing about the name James.
2:00
It's an incredibly popular name.
2:02
It's actually the number one most popular name over the entirety of the last century.
2:06
Believe it or not, it's been number one several times.
2:08
It's been in the top five even recently.
2:10
It's a good, strong name where we're not big on the, you know, Jim Jimmy versions of James.
2:15
It is just straight up James.
2:17
We love the name.
2:18
It's very simple.
2:19
We went through a lot of other iterations, a lot of other types of names, but you know
2:22
how it goes.
2:23
It's like, Oh, well, that was a guy in high school's name and I don't really like that
2:26
guy.
2:27
Or now that name kind of sounds dumb or I think we should spell this name that way.
2:30
Well, I think that's stupid.
2:32
We had a lot of fights.
2:33
My wife and I had a lot of fights about the name and then we settled on James actually
2:37
very, very early.
2:38
So we were very excited to get that out to people and to tell people what the name was
2:42
and we've heard only good things, but again, the kid's born now.
2:45
So they can't be like, ah, that name's stupid.
2:47
That would be a pretty [inaudible] thing to do, but he was seven pounds, three ounces, 20 and
2:51
a half inches long and he did come two weeks early.
2:53
So we were on our way to hospital, basically just to get my wife checked out.
2:57
She was having some pretty painful contractions.
2:59
And then a few hours later, we're in the other rooms where we're basically going into labor.
3:03
And so as of the recording of this, he is one week old and we are super, super excited
3:07
about it.
3:08
It wasn't the greatest labor.
3:09
I'm not going to get into all the details, but my wife's epidural did cut out on her twice.
3:14
And when you're in the middle of labor, I mean, I don't know this from experience, but apparently
3:18
it's not very awesome when the epidural wears off when you're in the middle of pushing and
3:22
trying to get a baby out of your vaginal canal.
3:24
So aside from that, we are going to divert away from that.
3:26
But the podcast for today, I'm going to keep it short and sweet because today is actually
3:29
my wife and I's 11th anniversary and the baby's here.
3:32
And so I need to get back out there and be a good dad and be a good example.
3:37
But I just wanted to flow on a few thoughts.
3:39
So obviously the majority of you guys listening to this have children or the majority of you
3:44
have been children at some point.
3:45
So some of these things you've probably dealt with are these emotions that you've experienced.
3:49
But I just wanted to, I just made a list.
3:52
I just kind of started writing down things that I thought a lot about over the last week
3:56
or things that occurred to me over the last week.
3:57
So I just want to kind of flow.
3:58
This will be a much shorter podcast, but don't worry guys.
4:00
We've got an amazing slate of interviews that is coming your way starting this next
4:05
week as well.
4:06
And we've had a couple of great ones leading up to this.
4:09
But the first thought is I guess I've had random emotions well up in me.
4:14
I'm not an incredibly emotional guy when it comes to like tears and stuff like that.
4:18
Like I'm a very passionate guy.
4:19
I'm a very driven guy, ambitious, all those things.
4:22
But I've had these random moments where I've been like choking back tears in times where
4:26
it's like I haven't had to do that.
4:28
So our neighbors are just wonderful neighbors whenever we announce the name, they immediately
4:33
sent us a YouTube video of the song Sweet Baby James by James Taylor.
4:39
And so I'm obviously James Taylor fan.
4:41
I've liked the guy for a long time, but I'm not a huge fan in that.
4:45
I know his entire discography and all those different things.
4:47
I had never heard this song before.
4:49
You know, it was certainly well before my time, but neither my wife or I had ever heard
4:53
this song before.
4:54
And so we listened to it and it's such a sweet song and it's such a nice song.
4:58
And we've probably listened to that song 25 times over the last week, but there have
5:02
been random times when I've been listening to the song by myself.
5:04
And it's just like this, this overwhelming pride and emotion wells up inside me.
5:08
And then there's another song that I was listening to randomly.
5:10
I was shuffling through some music and I was feeling a Zac Brown band kind of mood.
5:15
And I put that on there and it got, it came to the song called My Old Man and he's singing
5:19
about his father.
5:21
And in the first 10 seconds of that song, it was like I had transported myself to being
5:26
a grandfather and hearing my adult son that's got his own family describing his old man
5:31
and how much he wants to be like him.
5:33
And I just was kind of overcome with emotion.
5:35
And so that's been something that's really random is that I'm just not really experiencing
5:39
emotions in the way that I did before, some softer, some harder, which we'll get in here
5:43
in a little bit.
5:45
Another random thought and guys, these aren't going to be in any particular order.
5:47
So if you're type A and looking for order, this is not the podcast for you.
5:50
But my wife is just a natural.
5:53
I mean, watching my wife and the grace with which she handled the labor and everything
5:59
post labor and all the ambiguity since, you know, how do we keep them alive the first
6:03
night?
6:04
Guys, do we know exactly what the problem is? Wait, is he that color because he's screaming
6:09
or is that easy?
6:10
That color because he's dying.
6:11
You know, all these things, like I'm freaking out inside and she's just calm.
6:16
And I know she's not completely calm on the inside, but she is just displaying this tremendous
6:20
sense of calm.
6:22
And I mean, I feel like I've fallen in love with my wife even more over the last week.
6:27
Even though we brought a new baby, we brought a new baby into this world and we've experienced
6:30
a love that we're giving to a new child.
6:32
But just seeing my wife interact with my son, it's just been an incredible experience.
6:36
I mean, she's a natural and it just makes sense that she would be for whatever reason.
6:40
I mean, she's just great at everything seemingly.
6:42
The next random thought is just I've gotten, I've gotten this sense that I've really got
6:48
to learn how to handle the freak out.
6:50
And so the, the, I guess the best way to tell you this story is the first time I changed
6:55
James's diaper solo, okay?
6:58
That was a terrible experience, not only for James, but for me as well.
7:02
It was a horrible experience because, you know, we got the poop, okay, there's poop there.
7:06
And then, okay, he starts peeing, but I was ready for it, right?
7:08
So I've got the, I've got the towel there ready to dry it up, oh, but the towel wasn't
7:13
placed right.
7:14
So he kind of peed on himself.
7:15
Well, crap.
7:16
Now, now I'm not just changing a diaper.
7:17
I'm also changing his clothing.
7:18
And so he's kicking and you know, it's hard to get his legs in the diaper and then, oh,
7:22
not only did I just not have the diaper in the right place, I had it backwards.
7:25
And then when I got it in the right place, when I went to go get the little Velcro thing
7:28
ready to go, I ripped the diaper basically in half.
7:31
So now I got to get a different diaper.
7:32
I'm trying to clean him up.
7:33
I'm doing all the things and he's freaking out, right?
7:36
He's now he's cold because I took his shirt off and he's not supposed to have his shirt
7:39
off because he's a baby and he's freezing cold.
7:41
And so he's doing like this.
7:42
He's got his hands balled up and he's just, wah, this is just these wailing cries.
7:46
And every time he wails, it's almost like a bullhorn going off in my ear, you're a bad
7:51
father.
7:52
You're a bad father.
7:53
You're a bad father.
7:54
That was the feeling that I had inside of me and I know that's not exactly true, but
7:58
it probably took me five minutes to get this kid changed and to get his, you know, new
8:01
clothes on and to get him swaddled back up, get his hat on and all the different things.
8:06
And the thing was is I could have just handled that entire situation better because I was
8:11
freaking out.
8:12
I was not keeping calm.
8:13
I was not mentally stable at that point.
8:16
And even just if you go through this thing in the military where it's like, okay, slow
8:19
is smooth and smooth as fast.
8:20
I wasn't smooth at all, which also made me really, really slow in this situation.
8:25
And so that's got to be something I've got to learn to handle because obviously right
8:28
now he's just this thing that just moves and makes sounds.
8:32
He's not really adding anything to a conversation.
8:35
There's not really any of this higher level thinking that you have to do as a parent.
8:39
And so I've got to learn to really, really control my emotions.
8:42
So that's something I got to work on.
8:44
The next random thought is just, um, I had this thought is that people that quit on their
8:48
lives when they have kids, man, do they have it wrong?
8:53
So what do I mean by people that quit on their lives?
8:54
So you'll have these people that'll have kids and they immediately stop working out or they
9:00
have kids.
9:01
And then they really, really stop focusing on trying to grow their business or all these
9:04
different things.
9:05
And I'm not talking about the people that realized that they were workaholics and now
9:08
they're dying, but it backs so that they can spend more time with their families.
9:11
I'm not really talking about that.
9:12
But for my wife and I, we understand that she's still my number one priority and I'm
9:17
still her number one priority, which sounds crazy to some people that have kids.
9:21
But at the end of the day, if we do our job right 18 years from now that, that kids are
9:25
going to move out of our house and he's not moving back, right?
9:28
But my wife is still going to be there.
9:30
And if I treat her like a roommate for the next couple of decades, that's not really
9:33
going to bode well for our marriage.
9:35
And so we've been doing things to take care of ourselves.
9:38
We went on a date today.
9:40
Her mom was in town.
9:41
We made sure the baby was fed and comfortable.
9:43
And we went and had a date for our 11th anniversary because that's important.
9:47
You know, we got to look into each other's eyes and tell each other how much we loved
9:50
each other, sappy as that sounds.
9:51
And just to spend some time doing some adult conversating, you know what I mean?
9:56
And those things are very, very important.
9:57
So I just don't understand the people that don't date their wives anymore and don't take
10:02
care of themselves.
10:03
Again, I've got a guy who's a good friend of mine who has kind of turned the corner a
10:05
little bit in this area, but he said, yeah, you know, I took a 10 year break from working
10:09
out because I was trying to help raise my kids.
10:11
It's like, nah, you were just lazy, bro.
10:13
That's what that was.
10:15
Now you hid behind this, oh, I love my family so much and everybody look at me because I
10:19
love my family so much.
10:20
I'm going to let my body go and potentially delete years off the end of my life in order
10:24
to take care of my children now.
10:26
But but again, I just that's not something that we've really dealt with.
10:28
I mean, I missed essentially two workouts and then I got right back on the wagon.
10:34
But again, my priority is to my wife and right now if she needs help with the kid, she can
10:39
be the ace of spades and supersede any plans that I have when it comes to exercising or
10:44
doing any of those things, but my wife is such a superstar.
10:46
She's basically like, like yesterday, actually, she's like, how do you need to go work out?
10:50
And I was like, what are you talking about?
10:51
She's like, you're a little bit stressed, you know, you're, you're a little bit on edge
10:55
right now.
10:56
I know you just need to go work out.
10:57
So go to the garage.
10:58
Get out of here.
10:59
And I'm like, no, no, no.
11:00
Like I'm here for the baby.
11:01
Like what do you need?
11:02
She's like, I've got everything I need.
11:03
You just got me water.
11:04
You just rub my feet.
11:05
Now get the heck out of here.
11:06
So it's kind of one of those deals.
11:07
I just really think it's better for folks that you can keep your life going while still
11:10
being a good and dutiful parent as well.
11:13
The next random thought is I'm seemingly more hyper focused than I normally am.
11:19
I'm not a scatterbrained person.
11:21
I don't think that would be a fair way to describe me.
11:23
I'm just like a dog with a bone, but sometimes there's like 17 bones around and so I'm like
11:27
sprinting in all these different directions at different times.
11:30
But one of these things that I've never really been super tuned in on is my wife's needs.
11:35
And I'm hyper focused on that right now.
11:37
I'm constantly asking my wife, what do you need?
11:39
Because again, I can't feed the baby right now, right?
11:42
I don't have boobies with milk.
11:44
Like I can't feed the baby, but there are things I can do.
11:47
I can make sure that she's got her phone that's got the app on it while she's feeding to make
11:51
sure that she can time it.
11:52
And I can make sure that she's comfortable.
11:54
Oh, honey, you look colder.
11:55
Oh, honey, do you need some more medication?
11:57
Has your medication worn off?
11:59
Are you still dealing with some pain right now?
12:01
Hey, you've been up and walking around for a little bit.
12:03
You should probably just sit down.
12:04
What were you going to go do?
12:05
I'll go do all those things for you.
12:06
I'm seemingly more hyper focused on my wife's needs than I've ever had been before.
12:10
And so I'm pretty thankful that I've kind of naturally made that switch, but I just got
12:14
to make sure that's not just like, you know, hey, the baby's been here for a week thing.
12:17
This is who I'm going to be.
12:18
But that's who I'm going to be going forward as well.
12:21
Another thought is, and this is a weird thought that I did not think that I was really going
12:25
to share this with you because I didn't really want to tell anyone about this.
12:28
So hey, I might as well tell all the guys listening to this podcast is I feel like the
12:31
entire process of laboring has revealed my personal selfishness.
12:40
And I guess the best way for me to elucidate that further is we are all selfish to a degree.
12:45
Some guys are supremely selfish and some people just have, you know, temporary tendencies
12:50
of selfishness.
12:52
But let's just say this, the baby did not come at a very opportune time.
12:56
Two weeks early, there were a lot of things I was trying to get done specifically for
13:00
this podcast, but also for my business before a baby came, right?
13:03
And no, those were the best laid plans.
13:06
Got had other plans.
13:07
The baby had other plans, but there was a huge podcast interview that I had scheduled
13:11
months prior that was going down on the day my son was born.
13:15
And so I had to miss it.
13:16
We couldn't leave the hospital, right?
13:18
Like my wife was going to be like, dude, you need to go do this podcast.
13:20
It's huge, huge guest.
13:22
And we're working on getting him back on the podcast.
13:24
So we'll see if that actually goes down.
13:27
But I was just sitting there like lamenting almost like, dang it, why did he, why did
13:31
my son come early?
13:33
That was a thought that came to my brain.
13:34
Again, I'm just telling you guys to be as transparent as possible.
13:37
I was like almost mad at my son.
13:38
I wasn't really mad at him, but I was just like, man, could you not have waited like
13:41
three days for me to record this interview?
13:44
I had a big meeting to close a huge deal for my business and some consulting that I'm
13:49
doing.
13:50
And then it was just like, man, could you not just crap like that meeting blew up and it
13:53
had to be moved.
13:54
Now it's not as good and now there's this extra expectation now because there is a third
13:59
mouth to feed, but the whole time I'm just sitting there like, God, how selfish can you
14:03
be?
14:04
Like your wife just got through pushing a human being out of her sexual organs, right?
14:10
And you're sitting here freaking out because, oh, you might have to reschedule a podcast
14:14
guest.
14:16
And so that's one thing that I've been trying to be aware of.
14:18
And maybe that's, that's what's led to something earlier about me being more hyper focused on
14:22
my wife's needs.
14:23
It's again, Kyle, it's not all about you.
14:25
It's not all about the things that you need and things that you want to make you comfortable
14:29
at this exact moment.
14:30
But it's been a very uncomfortable feeling to be sitting there, like almost depressed
14:34
at the things that I wish I was doing at that moment when I'm three feet away from my newborn
14:39
son who's perfectly healthy, 10 fingers, 10 toes, you know what I mean?
14:42
So that's been something that I'm still working through right now.
14:45
Another random thought is this whole process of labor and even just the first week of being
14:50
here for my son has kind of revealed my inadequacies.
14:53
And it's just again, goes back to those times in, you know, when I'm in freak out mode and
14:57
I can't seem to get control of my emotions.
14:59
Some of those things, one of the things that I wasn't too concerned about is because since
15:02
I'm 33 and not 23, I thought just being at a different level of maturity, different level
15:07
of understanding a different level of brain development, you know, my brain's fully developed
15:10
and all those different things.
15:11
I thought that there were going to be some things that I would be able to handle better.
15:15
And the thing is, is I'm not running around like literally freaking out, like, you know,
15:18
running into walls and crap like that.
15:20
But there are some things that I'm fairly inadequate at and that to a degree, that's
15:23
what I expected.
15:24
One of the things about my wife and I, the reason why we weren't freaking out leading
15:27
into our first kid being born is because we know what we don't know.
15:31
And we know there's a lot of things that we think that we're going to be good at, that
15:35
we're actually not going to be good at there.
15:36
There's at least that level of self-awareness.
15:38
We may not be able to describe those things specifically like in each category.
15:43
I guess would be a good way of saying it, but at the same time, it's one of those deals
15:46
where she and I are just, we understand what we're good at and we understand the things
15:51
that we're going to have to take care of.
15:53
And like my wife is supremely positive and supremely confident.
15:58
And she just is elevating that to a more extreme degree right now because these are times which
16:03
can lead to a tremendous amount of self-doubt and depression and postpartum and all these
16:09
different things.
16:10
And so that's been an interesting thing to just see where I'm inadequate because being
16:14
who I am and the way that I want to be, I'm trying to focus on making sure to correct
16:19
those things.
16:20
Another thing is that my friends and family have been just so generous, not just my friends,
16:25
but Kelsey's friends and family, super generous and thoughtful.
16:29
I mean, since the baby came two weeks early, our neighbors, I called them on the way to
16:33
the hospital to be like, "Hey, man, we didn't plan for this.
16:35
We kind of ran out of the house, but can you like take care of my dogs for the next two
16:39
days?
16:40
Oh, yeah, man, no big deal."
16:41
And then the first thing that we see whenever we walk back into our house is not only two
16:44
healthy dogs, they set up like a little welcome thing on our kitchen counter, right?
16:49
Welcoming home, baby James, right?
16:51
That was awesome.
16:52
Of course, we got people bringing by food and all the food's been awesome so far.
16:56
So that's been excellent.
16:57
We've had people come by to see the baby and bring their families by, which has been awesome.
17:01
My dad for basically the last, I guess, two months of my wife's pregnancy, he was just
17:07
every two or three days calling me to ask me if we need anything.
17:10
"Hey, son, you need anything?
17:11
Hey, does the baby need anything?
17:12
Hey, does my grandson need anything?"
17:13
It's just one of those interesting times where it's just like, "No, dad, I don't know
17:18
that we need anything.
17:19
I know we've had to cancel some baby showers because all this COVID-19 nonsense, but no,
17:24
we don't know that we need anything right now, but just he was just right there, just,
17:27
"Hey, what do I need to do?
17:28
What do I need to do?"
17:29
And then last night, I had some friends absolutely take the cake.
17:32
So I've got this little private whiskey group that I'm a part of in the town that I live
17:36
in.
17:37
Six of us, six guys or so, and those guys text me while I was in the hospital and they
17:40
said, "Hey, we got a little something for you.
17:43
When can we come by?"
17:44
And so we just set it up for last night.
17:46
So they come by and one of the guys walks in with like a handheld Pelican case.
17:51
And I've been around the whiskey game long enough that when a whiskey person is walking
17:55
around with one of those cases, that means there's a bottle inside that is worth putting
18:00
in a very expensive Pelican case, okay?
18:02
So without drawing the story out anymore, the guys basically set the case in my lap and
18:07
say, "Open it, but hang on, let's get some video going."
18:10
So one guy pulls his phone out and I was like, "Oh, okay."
18:12
So I'm halfway expecting some sort of inappropriate gift inside of this thing.
18:17
You know, they got me thinking it's a bottle of whiskey.
18:19
And then I open it up and there's some foam in the way and then I move the phone out of
18:23
the way.
18:24
And then I see a box.
18:26
It's a box of scotch and it says, "Log of Ullen, 25 year old on the outside."
18:34
And I look at these guys and I go, "Wait, what?
18:37
What?
18:38
Log of what?
18:40
And then again, I'm still thinking it might be a joke.
18:43
Still thinking it might be a joke.
18:44
I open the box and there it is, a 200th anniversary edition, 25 year old log of Ullen scotch.
18:52
Now why that's significant for any of you non-whisky people, you non-scotch drinkers,
18:55
okay?
18:56
Only 8,000 of those bottles was made.
18:58
Only 8,000, okay?
19:00
This is bottle 153 of 8,000.
19:03
But also, I've tried a lot of whiskey in my life.
19:06
I've tried a lot of different scotches.
19:08
That is my favorite scotch I've ever had in my entire life.
19:13
My favorite category of whiskey is isla scotches.
19:17
You know, that's the Ardbegs, the Lofroigs, the cholillas, the Bo-Morse, right?
19:22
And certainly the log of Ullens.
19:24
The 25 year old is just, it's on a different level and the thing about it is, is even if
19:29
it wasn't really good juice, only 8,000 of them have been made.
19:33
And these guys got together with a friend of mine who is one of the most world renowned
19:37
collectors of whiskey.
19:38
He's one of the few people in the United States that even has this bottle and they all kind
19:42
of got together and you know, they split the cost of this very expensive, incredibly rare
19:46
bottle of whiskey.
19:48
Just to say, Kyle, welcome to fatherhood.
19:50
We know you're going to need this at some point.
19:52
But man, enjoy on us.
19:54
And the cool thing was, is I immediately opened, and this is going to freak some of
19:57
you guys out.
19:58
I immediately opened the bottle.
19:59
There was not even a second thought that I was going to maybe store this away and try
20:03
to sell it 10 years from now.
20:04
No, I immediately wanted to open that bottle and enjoy it with my friends because that's
20:08
what whiskey is all about is enjoying it with people, right?
20:12
But again, the fact that these guys had the forethought, because again, people give guys
20:16
a bad rap, like, oh, guys aren't very sappy.
20:18
They're not very thoughtful.
20:19
They're not anything like that.
20:20
In order to get their hands on this bottle, they couldn't have just come up with that
20:23
idea the day before they showed up, right?
20:26
That's not how this works.
20:27
With a bottle like that, they had this idea months ago.
20:30
They coordinated as a group without me to make sure that they could pull off this incredibly
20:37
generous thing.
20:38
So the generosity of the gift, the lavishness of the gift is only outweighed by the tremendous
20:44
thought that went into it, right?
20:45
So I've been absolutely astonished by that and it's been a real treat to see that.
20:50
And the other thing that I've been thinking about as well is the compliments continue
20:54
to abound.
20:55
I know I did a podcast basically where these guys are always telling me, hey, you're going
20:58
to be a good father.
20:59
You're going to be a good father.
21:00
But just seeing the compliments that my wife and I have gotten from people that are just
21:03
so supremely confident that she and I are going to make great parents.
21:06
We have some good friends that live overseas and they send us a message that we read last
21:09
night.
21:10
And basically it's like you guys were literally born to be parents.
21:13
And that that's a pretty damn good compliment to hear from somebody's like, man, y'all were
21:17
born to be parents.
21:18
Like you are born to be a unit that helps bring a human being into society to where they're
21:27
going to have a benefit on everything around them.
21:30
And to hear people say that was such confidence because guys, you got to know they don't have
21:33
to say that.
21:35
They certainly don't have to take time out of their day to say something like that, especially
21:38
if they don't mean it.
21:40
So that's been incredibly, you know, honoring for us to hear and it's very, very, it just
21:46
makes us really happy, I guess.
21:47
Another thought I've had is I don't feel like I've ever been more vigilant in my life in
21:51
terms of my focus on being a sheep dog.
21:53
So certainly most of you guys understand that concept of the sheep dog as presented by Lieutenant
21:58
Colonel Dave Grossman, basically three types of people.
22:01
There's sheep, there's wolves and their sheep dogs and the wolves are always looking around
22:05
for sheep that they can take advantage of and the sheep dog is interceding on behalf of
22:09
the sheep.
22:10
And it's a mindset and it's a, it's a goal for you to basically not only be a well-trained
22:17
and dangerous person, but not just for your sake, the sake of others and even others that
22:21
you don't know.
22:22
Cause that's the thing about sheep is sheep will defend other sheep that are part of their
22:26
family, right?
22:28
But they're not just going to defend someone else's sheep, right?
22:31
But a sheep dog will not only defend themselves, defend their family, they will defend others
22:36
as well.
22:37
They have nothing to do with them.
22:38
And when you see a kid, I mean, you've, you've seen this before, you hear about, you know,
22:43
these fathers that become fathers, all of a sudden it's just like they, they feel this
22:46
extra level of anger that they could get to and, and inner violence of anyone potentially
22:53
doing something dangerous or harmful to this child.
22:56
They're just like, nah, nah, not on my watch.
22:58
And maybe they didn't have that aggression before, but when they see that baby and they
23:02
think about anyone taking advantage of them or hurting them, they become very, very overwhelmed.
23:07
And they want to make sure that that can't happen.
23:09
And so part of the thing is, is you can have those overwhelming emotions.
23:12
But if you're not trained and if you're not willing to do the things it takes to be a sheep
23:16
dog, then it doesn't really matter what your emotions are at that point.
23:18
Your emotions aren't going to lead you to the outcome that you want if you don't have
23:21
the sufficient levels of training.
23:23
And so I feel like for me, my focus on being a sheep dog has never been sharper than it
23:28
is right now.
23:29
A couple other thoughts before we let you guys go, I'm, I'm trying to remember to live
23:33
in the moment and not look forward too much to ladder stages of James's life, right?
23:41
Not looking forward to, oh, you know, when he's, when he's finally walking or, oh, whenever
23:44
he can finally, you know, carry on a conversation or, oh, when we could finally read a book
23:48
together and go over it or, oh, you know, when we can start doing certain things.
23:52
Some of the best advice I feel like I've got is it's just like Kyle, it goes way too fast,
23:56
enjoy every stage.
23:57
The stages only get better.
23:59
They get more difficult, but they only get better.
24:01
And so I'm trying to do what I can to live in the moment because I'm a guy that looks
24:04
forward a lot and looks backward a lot.
24:06
I do a really, really crappy job of living in the moment.
24:09
I'm looking at my past, wondering what I could have done better and how I could have, you
24:12
know, basically gotten to a better position at an earlier moment.
24:15
And when I look at the future, it's like, I can't wait to get to the destination.
24:18
But once I get to the destination, I have a really hard time of enjoying it while I'm
24:22
in it, right?
24:23
So that's something I'm wanting to make sure I take a look at.
24:25
And then the last thing here for you is, in this kind of goes with the, with the last
24:29
thing I just talked about, I am really, really ready and really excited for taking my son
24:35
James through rites of passage.
24:38
You guys have heard me talk about this before.
24:39
A lot of you have talked to me, you know, offline about basically developing a daunted
24:44
life, rites of passage for men to go through with their sons.
24:49
And I'm already thinking through what that's going to look like, you know, what age do
24:51
you start something like that?
24:53
You know, how do you increase the intensity of this without making it a crushing experience?
24:57
It should be an uplifting experience.
24:59
But like I talk about all the time, like I love my dad, but he was very unintentional
25:03
about a lot of things.
25:05
Like a lot of the great things I learned from my father were completely accidental, which
25:09
doesn't make them any less valuable, mind you.
25:11
But a lot of the good things I picked up from my dad and things that I will pass on to my
25:15
son, those are accidental, but I'm a more in a more intentional guy.
25:20
Like I want the three step process to get there.
25:23
And now that doesn't mean that I'm not expecting to make any mistakes.
25:26
I, I plan, I actually plan to make a lot of mistakes, but at the same time, these rites
25:31
of passage, I don't want accidental manhood.
25:35
And perhaps it's different in this generation that my son's going to be growing up in because
25:38
just having, you know, male sex organs now makes you a bad person in a lot of people's
25:44
eyes.
25:45
And no previous generation has ever had to traverse such vitriol and certainly in the
25:50
education system, right?
25:51
And the public is certainly the public school education system.
25:54
And so that's the type of thing is I feel like I've really got to be on my game as a
25:57
dad and my wife's really got to be on her game as a mom to make sure that this kid's
26:02
ready to go that when he's about to leave the nest that he's ready to fly, that there's
26:07
no question about it.
26:08
It's not that we won't be sad.
26:09
It's not that we won't be nervous, but we want him to be very, very prepared and have
26:13
all the tools he needs in order to be successful, whatever that ends up looking like.
26:17
So I'm very excited for that.
26:19
I'm excited to have a son to walk through those things.
26:23
My wife and I are excited to continue to grow our family from here and see what God has
26:27
in store for us in those types of aspects and guys, this is one week's worth of thoughts.
26:32
So I've got a lot of more weeks, you know, hundreds of more weeks in front of me and
26:36
I couldn't be more excited.
26:37
Well, guys, before we let you go, we are going to do a quick resilience boost.
26:40
As you know, by now we are a men's ministry and our mission is cultivating mainly resilience.
26:44
Specifically, we do that by providing content like this podcast that helps you forge spiritual
26:48
mental and physical toughness.
26:49
So for today, I've got one thing for you because if you were like me and you had never heard
26:53
the song, "Sweet Baby James" by James Taylor, I wanted to share that with you.
26:57
So I've got a YouTube link to that song so that you can enjoy it.
27:00
All right, guys.
27:01
Thanks so much for listening to the podcast.
27:02
We really do appreciate it.
27:03
If you would, please subscribe on Apple Podcasts, iTunes, Spotify, Google Podcasts, or Stitcher
27:07
and refer your friends to listen and share this on social media, guys.
27:11
If we deserve five stars, not four below, but if we deserve five stars or more, please
27:15
leave us a five star review and a few sentences letting us know why you like the content.
27:20
I mean, James would want you to do it.
27:21
So come on, go ahead and take the time in order to do that force.
27:24
We appreciate it.
27:25
I'm currently booking speaking engagements for the remainder of 2020 in the beginning
27:28
of 2021.
27:29
So if you want me to come speak at your mensivin, at your church, at your team, on your podcast,
27:32
just hit me up info@undaunted.life, the email is iNFO@undaunted.life.
27:38
Our website and our newly designed and beautiful website is www.undaunted.life.
27:43
You can follow us on Instagram and Twitter @undauntedlife or Facebook.com/undauntedlife.
27:48
Check out our free devotionals on the YouVersion Bible app.
27:50
As always, we want to thank the band August Burns Red for allowing us to use their entire
27:55
music library for our content.
27:57
The intro outro track on this podcast is their song Defender, which is off their latest record
28:01
entitled Guardians.
28:02
The links are in the description.
28:04
I'm your host, Kyle Thompson.
28:06
Remember, keep cultivating manly resilience, keep forging spiritual, mental, and physical
28:11
toughness.
28:12
Keep seeking the Lion of Judah.
28:42
[music]