00:00:00 - Jay Twining
So now we combine all this disparate data the impact of kids on fatherlessness, the impact of friendship, the impact of influence, isolation, loneliness. And then we hit that endgame, which is, is he gonna keep living?

00:00:15 - Jerry Dugan
Do you feel like you're stuck in a rut in life or in a dead end job with no progression? I'm Jerry Dugan, and welcome to beyond the Rut, the podcast that offers you the motivation, inspiration, and practical tools to help you build a life worth living. My show is here to help you break free from your limitations and find a path to success. Join me as I share encouraging stories and actionable advice on how to get out of your rut in life and create a vision for your future. Life is just too short to live stuck in a rut. Here we go. Hey, rudder nation. How are you doing today? I'm excited to let you know that we've got a special guest, Jay Twining. He's the host of a YouTube show called Feel Good Fatherhood. So what are we going to be talking about as this episode is airing just a few weeks before Father's Day? We're going to be talking about fatherhood. We're going to talk about Jay's story, his AHA moment that he needed to bring more of himself, his genuine, authentic, vulnerable self to his family to be the best father his children need, his child needs. And we're going to talk about something called memetic traps. What memetic traps? So what are they? How do they help us or hurt us and keep us stuck in a rut? Because if you're aware of these traps that are stuck in your mindset, your behaviors, the thought processes, all those things, you know what's working for you and you'll have a better idea of what's not, and make that conscious effort to make a change in your life. Because this show is all about getting unstuck from your ruts to create a life worth living in your faith, family, and career. So grab a notebook, grab a pen, sit back, relax, and here we go. All right. Hey, Jay, thanks for joining me on this call. How are you doing, Jerry?

00:02:04 - Jay Twining
I'm doing really good. I've got a lot going on. It was so funny when we recorded this. I was in my at home studio for the filter show, and I was booking and scheduling. I was like, yeah, May the 6th, right after May the fourth with you when we're recording, everything's going to be great. And since that time we've sold our house, I'm in temp housing. I'm traveling to the new location, looking at new housing, and definitely have some opinions about how to maintain momentum and how to not get stuck. Thanks so much for having me on.

00:02:41 - Jerry Dugan
Yeah. My pleasure. Jay And I guess podcasting gets so easy at a point. We just got to throw in some curveballs, like sell a house, live in transitional housing, and shop for a house while we're at it. No, I'm kidding, guys. That's not a good piece of normal advice. If you're like taking notes on how to do a podcast from us, this is what we've got. We're rolling with it. It is going to be great. And I love that you took on the show must go on, I guess, attitude with this. It's like, you know what, it's going to be a while before we get resettled. Let's do this and we can always have you back on. I love that. And I appreciate you making the time on a Saturday morning too, because that's when I do my batch recording is on Saturday mornings, the first Saturday of the month. And some folks even ask me about that. I'm like, yeah, when I scheduled that for 2023, I thought I was going back into corporate America. And then I realized, oh, no, I did not. But I still held onto this archaic well, to me it's archaic. First Saturday of the month I'm doing this and my wife said it might be a good idea to keep it anyway because that frees me up to do like, the money generating stuff Monday through Friday. And my podcast is probably one of.

00:03:57 - Jay Twining
The key elements, I think, to on the topic of our show, of getting out of the rut of maintaining momentum is that habit, that routine. And so I completely agree. I would absolutely keep it. This has been, you know, we're in the 300s here, so it's been a really long time. You had that discipline you've been executing for so long, and so now it's a part of your life. And one of the things that happens and that I definitely want to talk about today, is when your routine is disrupted, in my case, moving, losing the physical space, losing that habit and pattern, it becomes even harder because it's really habit stacking, but inverse. So rather than building positive habits one on top of the other and maintaining momentum and growing and continuing to operate at maximum efficiency, it goes backwards. Where's my stuff? Or where's that thing that I do do? How's the pattern? Where's my little lucky choke in that kind of stuff just to do some push ups? It's crazy.

00:05:02 - Jerry Dugan
Yeah, it's almost like you've blown everything up. So all the things that are in place for you to trigger the next habit or the next behavior isn't in its usual spot because you're not in your usual spot. And that makes total sense. I read The Power of Habit earlier this year and it's like, oh, that's how I get past a lot of things or get a lot of things done. It's like my wallet's always in the same spot, my keys are always in the same spot, and if you want to lose me for about an hour, move my wallet. As much as I'd love to blame anybody else in the home, which is now just a jerkish thing to do because it's just my wife and I, our kids have grown up and moved out every single time. Not once in a while. Every single time it's because I put my wallet in a different place. I put my keys down in a bedroom as opposed to on its hook. So I understand routines. Big. I know I'm already like having squirrel moments here. My spirit animal is Dugan from up. You're my best friend squirrel. That is me. So you're the host of feel good fatherhood. There we go. I'm landing it back. I'm back, guys. Everybody, I'm back. So, Jay, you're the host of feel good fatherhood. You had me on as a guest, and I was very honored. And I shared that episode with my email list subscribers, and I'm getting it out there on my social media. And we talked about my journey into fatherhood and the routines that I put into place to help me be the best father I could be to my children. Before we dive into this topic of routines, especially in fatherhood, why is fatherhood such an important topic for us to discuss, especially today?

00:06:44 - Jay Twining
I think my story is not unique in the world today. When we think about the divorce rates being 60% people have serial divorces. I think more of us come from a fractured home. I know there's a more specific term, but I'd like to call it a fractured home. And so this is when, as a child, we have a creative set of parents, and so that can be any permutation. That's not the two biologicals in the house under the same roof in constant contact. And so for me, it became really important to me and also very related to the overall discussion we're going to have here about breaths and negative spirals and stuff like that. The last time I saw my father, my biological father, before my daughter was born, I was in high school. So it was about ten to 15 years since we had communicated any way, shape or form. And so when my daughter was born, I had this crazy urge to just kind of reach out. And it was weird because in my head it was this let them know the bloodlines continuing. It was this really awkward set of emotions and things that were going through me about the legacy and the family and stuff like that that I hadn't really considered up until that point. And then in that same year, a whole bunch of things happened. So this is crazy. My daughter was born. We ended up moving across the country. So we were in Providence, Rhode Island, to San Diego, California. So there was that disruption of the social group and stuff like that, was looking for my father. He died. He passed that year. And then I realized one day as I was going through my routine, because this is all a sad story, because I was also I used to make video games. And so I was working at my dream studio, sony Online Entertainment. I had always wanted to work on EverQuest. I was working on EverQuest. Not the original, but actually the other release, EverQuest next title. It was a dream come true with some great folks, and I left my house at a regular time. So if you know anything about the industry, you know that crunch is everywhere. I left my house at a regular time. My daughter was not yet awake. I had a regular eight and a half, nine hour day. Came back home. My daughter was already asleep. We were in a condo, and I walked upstairs. I woke her up so that I could hold her and sing her lullaby and put her back to bed. And then when I went downstairs, I had an internal there was this internal dysfunction. There was this disjointed emotion where my life up to that point, I think, had consciously been about accomplishing that dream, living what I had, living what I had always wanted to do since I was a child. And then when I hit that couch, I knew, oh, no, this is not what I want to do anymore. And so you can imagine this swirl of emotions up my head of my biological father, who I was estranged from, had passed, and I was negotiating that whole thing completely uprooted, moving across the country, different time zone from the family. Not that I'm sure for the military folks listening that happens, but for me in this world, I was like, okay, that was a bit weird. My parents were actually in Asia, in Singapore, working. So, like my whole side of the support unit, because your parents are actually very important in the overall high level family structure. We were completely away from my wife's family because all of her family was located basically in New York, New York State. And so it was just this crazy isolation and evaluating, number one, who am I and what I want to do in the world, which is incredibly common for men today. We're at a purpose epidemic. We'll talk about that in just a minute. But then also, what was my experience with father? So who was my biological father to me? What was that experience? Who is my stepfather to me? Who is my father in law to me? And then knowing, because I have a younger sister, my relationship and how that showed up for me, and how I interpreted all that kind of stuff, because there's a lot of ownership in how we interpret our past. What did I want for my family and what did I want for my wife? What did I want for my daughter, and what did I want for everything moving forward? So where I ended up gravitating towards was, okay, the biggest gap for me was the relationship with my biological father. And I said, all right, well, there's been a 15 year gap. I have this hole that it kind of exists. It just never really goes away. And that was more of a hole of a there was a being who was important to my life in the idea of being alive, that I had no relationship with. It's not able to be filled by anything or anyone. And then what did I want for my daughter? And so it just kind of started this cycle of learning. What is fatherhood? What does it actually mean? What's the role? This is like 2010, 2012 time. So if you're thinking about the cultural zeitgeist in the moment, like, what's happening with the world, with the whole masculinity fatherhood men thing was kind of starting, and all this stuff was going on, and I realized, you know what? This is the role I want to adopt. And so many years later, Joe good father. Fatherhood is the summation of, I think, the great parts of my life of personal development and working with kids, being a language teacher, working with couples and men and sort of imparting that to increasing the scope and scale of that. So that this message, this idea that we know that you can make a choice about things.

00:12:28 - Jerry Dugan
Yeah. Now, have you come across any statistics that show the impact, the benefit of having a positive father figure in the home versus not having one?

00:12:42 - Jay Twining
Here's some nuts statistics. You look at all suicide caliber, which nobody wants to talk about, but it's a number that we have to consider that's in the 10,000 to 20,000 per year food insecurity, which means having one or fewer meals per day, graduation rates from high school, college rates and lifetime earnings, all of it. It's an exponential curve in a fatherless household. All of it. Period. Across the board, we're talking factors of two X increased rates to four X increased rates. It's like a four X increase for homelessness, for a teenager.

00:13:22 - Jerry Dugan
Wow.

00:13:24 - Jay Twining
It's like a two X increased rate for suicide. When I think about serving fathers, really when I think about serving fathers and when I really think about this data, I think about serving men in this capacity. Part of it is whenever we're picking an audience, whenever we're picking somebody to help, there's a knock on effect, a positive ripple effect, not only to that person's fulfillment and purpose in life, but their family, to their community, and to everybody at large. I'm very motivated in this work because the child has no agency into the family in which they're born. And I think I take and I hold that because what I see is something relatively straightforward, relatively easy to do, relatively. It takes a lot to fix relationships and do that kind of stuff. When I think about the effort that can happen when men show up as complete, healthy individuals in a fatherhood role, the knock on effect, just for that individual, just for the father, is huge. Here's some data. A Gallup poll, 1990s talked about men and women identifying as father or mother. 1990s, ten or 20%. The role is important. Around the same percentage fulfilled. My father, ten to 20%, late teens, 20. So 2016, 2018, resurvey it again. So get this increase. It's something like I think it's 49 between 47 and 49. I don't remember the exact number. Percent of men that get fulfillment from the role of fatherhood. That's a forex increase in 20 to 30 years. So what is that telling? That's telling me that number one, that sorry and let's take this step back. Fulfillment. This means that these individuals are deriving pleasure and joy and contentment from this role, from showing up for their kids, from showing up in the house. So we've been going through decades of this message of men don't belong in a home, go be the protective, only the protective provider. Protective provider still important, but only the protective provider. And then what we're seeing is that men are just saying, no, I'm actually quite satisfied with this role. I want to spend time with my kids. I get a lot of fulfillment and purpose out of it. What else? Let's see. That one really blew my mind as far as the individual stepping up and enjoying this role. Final piece of data, not directly related, but we're talking about friendships. When do you become a father and you adopt that role and you get integrated into the family and the community in the way that feel good, how fatherhood is set up. So you fix yourself, you do your self improvement work, whatever that happens to look like. I have some ideas, you've got some ideas. There's a whole bunch of stuff there. You work on the spousal relationship, making sure that works. That's the longest term relationship you're going to have in your life. Next to your siblings, if you have them, then you work on the family and then from the family you can expand out. That can be getting involved in the school, get involved in your work, all this other kind of stuff that's just healthy, normal functioning. The first thing that I always say is like you do you and whatever the level of engagement that you can do in your life, you can do that. But here's the crazy data, because as you work on these different pieces and as you take out progressively larger circles of influence, what ends up happening is the concept of friendship changes. So in 1990, according to the American Perspective surveys, in 2021, that was the second data point down at the 1990. What I really want to look at here is one or fewer close friends. A close friend is directly defined as the person that you can call up in the middle of the night when you have when something's wrong and they'll help you. So that's how we'll define that. In 1990s, it was about 8%, so we'll say eight to 9%. So we'll say 15% had one or fewer friends in 1990, today that's 20% so it's increasing. What's important here is that on the latter half 40% had ten or more close friends that they could count on in 1990. Today it's 15%. That's more than a two X decrease. So at the same time where we have this crazy ability as men and fathers to break generational patterns, set our path and trajectory forward in the way that we're choosing increase the prosperity of ourselves, our spouses and our kids, we can positively impact everybody around us. At the same time, individuals are becoming more and more isolated from each other and directly from this idea of this close friendship feel good fatherhood is whole purpose of it is to inverse that bring this idea, this acceptance of this idea of getting rid of the Marlboro Man if there was an enemy I don't like having enemies. It creates tribalism. I don't like it, but I think of for a long time as an 80s kids, right? Arnold Schwarzenegger, who I absolutely adore, commando, right? So that was his role as the father saving his daughter from his old squad, right? Commando quippy rather than what do we actually want men to do? Well, we actually so check this one out. You are more attractive as a potential mate if you can de escalate a situation than if you go in and act with violence, right? Oh yeah, and I completely understand that it's an action movie and I get that, but I totally get that.

00:19:11 - Jerry Dugan
Zero women trying to be the tough guy my whole life.

00:19:15 - Jay Twining
Exactly. The thing that's attractive is number one is are you willing to de escalate? But number two, the thing that's actually more attractive is that you're willing to make the effort and stand in between and that actually goes both ways. So is she willing to come up next to you in that relationship and support you in a confrontation? And then are you willing to come up and support her in a confrontation? So just the act of it, whether it's a winner or lose, it does have an impact. Like winning has the most impact and winning can look at either like actually winning a fight or de escalating and then losing, losing, stepping up and losing is still more attractive than not stepping up. So even though it's a little bit less, in any case not as important. So we take all this crazy data and then on top of it and here's the other reason, right? Men are 3.5 times more likely to die from suicide than women. So when we combine all of this at the end game and you and I talked about Christianity, I personally believe that it's one of the worst things you can do is end life or end somebody else's life or end your own life. Because as God gave us free will, you stop being able to exercise your free will in your worship or purpose in life. And so it's kind of like it's this terrible end state. The Catholic Church has a heck of a lot to say about it. I'm not Catholic, but it certainly does so when we're talking about so now we combine everything so now we combine all this disparate data, the impact of kids on fatherlessness, the impact of friendship, the impact of influence, isolation, loneliness. And then we hit that end game, which is, is he going to keep living? Is he going to keep having that opportunity to keep going? Is he going to have that opportunity to improve himself? Is he going to have the opportunity to impact positively those around him and those he cares about and grow to become the person. The best self. The best self I'm defining is activated with purpose, activated with fulfillment. Activated full of all the positive emotions managing and full of all the negative emotions at the same time, but just being able to have emotional maturity in some capacity, make your kids laugh, have a good time, live a good life. That's it. Yeah, that's the purpose.

00:21:40 - Jerry Dugan
Man, I love that. And you've touched on so much in just the past few minutes. And some of the things that stood out to me that you've brought back to the forefront of my memory is I'll start with a Christian marriage retreat my wife and I had gone on. It's called the weekend to remember. We had gone I lost track how many times we loved it so much that we became volunteers at the local level. But the point I'm making is, through most of the weekend, we are side by side, learning these lessons, talking to each other, sharing our own stories we hadn't shared before, sharing things that we had shared before, but hadn't said in a long time. And then on the last day, they split us up. All the wives and women are in one room. All the men are in another conference room. And the tone shifted. And you would think that it would be like this rapha male type of manly men. Now it's just the men together. And again, I've gone to multiple of these conferences, and it was always consistent that the man leading that discussion in that conference room took on the role of the tender guide and talking more about masculinity from the perception of Jesus, this tender leader, this person who saw and led with love, led with service. And the thing that stood out to me the most was these speakers would take us through this exercise of remembering our own fathers. And it's very quiet. We're reflecting, we're writing in our book. What memories come to mind when you think of your father? And for me, I'm writing down things like, my dad give me the last $20 in his pocket so I could go pay the fee to play high school football. And that was it. That was the last of his cash until payday. And I knew it. And that's the kind of thing I remember of my dad, that sacrificial love. I'm willing to drive an hour to work at a job. I hate to put food on the table. That guy. And so I wrote those kinds of memories down. And then after you've had that time to reflect, the leader would ask this question of great, just shout out that one word that comes to mind when you think of your father and the memory of and I remember saying gentle and somebody else had said loving. Another one said strong, another one said provider. And then you hear this very painful, deep, tough voice say and you could tell the voice is a little broken and he shouts out pain and everybody just like, oh wow. And then the next guy says absent. These guys are saying it with such pain and brokenness. And I'm like ready to weep right there. Like wow. I was blessed to have the father I had. Even though my parents split when I was eleven, I stayed with my dad, I lived with my dad. He basically carried the torch, made sure I lived to adulthood, basically. And provided very loving, the best loving home he could with what he knew. But to hear all these other men talk about that brokenness and then that leader brings it back and says, great, now we've got a choice that we can make as men. We can carry the torch that our fathers handed off to us, or we can decide it's time that we burn a new torch. And it was an invitation to the men who had absent fathers, broken homes, painful fatherhood experiences. It was their invitation to extinguish that old torch, start a new torch. And it kind of brings me back to the we talked about routine. We've talked about knowing your past so that you could propel into your future. And then there's this phrase that you shared with me called memetic traps. And I feel like this is the perfect time to start talking about that. Like what are memetic traps? How do we avoid, how do we recognize them, for one? And then what do we do about those?

00:25:42 - Jay Twining
Absolutely love it. And I'm so happy that we got here because it's such a natural extension of it a medic trap is I talked about circles of influence and I provided that illustration for the listeners of there's you, how you're doing things. There's the spousal relationship, there's your kids, what I call your immediate family, extended community. And it kind of goes out into the universe, right? And so if you think of progressively larger and larger rings, kind of like as a target, you at the center. Mametic trap is in any world where you are pressured by an external ring from yourself. And this can be from anywhere, from a spouse or relationship, which is the next ring for fatherhood anywhere else to the universe. So the universe is extending and you are unconsciously playing a game where you can be winning or losing, but you have no agency in it. You haven't consciously made the choice. Memetic traps can be positive in telling, say, let's see what's a really great example it's not good to kill people. It's not good to commit murder. That's a great momentic. Trap right. So it's just this core idea of there is a standard of behavior and it's just accepted and you unconsciously obey this standard of behavior. Where it shows up poorly is when you have pressure. And this is where it commonly shows you have pressure from your parents to go and do and be a certain thing. I love hasanage has a great joke about this. He was like being an Indian kid was fantastic because we were always told, you can be anything you want in life as long as an engineer, doctor or lawyer. So that's a moment of trap, and that is the quintessential example of that. So how can this show up? Are you in school? Are you in your bachelor's? Like, say you're going for your four year degree. Are you pursuing the field of study that fills you up and makes you excited? Or are you doing something that are you pursuing a course set, of course, because of some romantic interest? Are you doing a course because your parents said you want to do something? And it could show up as FOMO it could show up as competing with the Joneses. That idea that, oh, Bob or Isaiah down the street bought the new car, I need to go buy the car, whole thing. And this influence is consistently there. And the reason why I paint this picture from that rings is because that's what I call the path to failure. The path to failure, the path to resentment, the path to isolation, the path to real and true loss is when you lack any sort of identity from yourself that you've consciously made and you are fully directed by everything else that's around you. And it's a razor thin edge between conscious choice of accepting pressure and doing it versus being influenced from the outside, because it always is a choice, it's always a perspective, and you can choose it. So why was it important that we bring this up? We're talking about our fathers. Well, when we're young, actually, let's take a step back. When you're a child, you are constantly looking at your parents and actually, very specifically in this context, at your father to answer two questions. And this is all going to be unconscious. There's no words you can say. They're going to communicate this, is this man proud of me? And I think the second one, which is even more critical, does this man like me? And that is communicated through actions. But the colloquialism or the idiom is that kids understand. L-O-V-E-S-T-I-M-E.

00:29:36 - Jerry Dugan
Yes.

00:29:39 - Jay Twining
And even beyond that, when we want to bring it to the next level, it's when you're in that time, are you happy. I had my daughter as is normal, completely normal, doesn't quite have that seek with her. I said, I'm trying to figure out how to express it. Finding things in the home. So we'll lose our remote control, we'll lose her homework, we'll lose her shoes, like when she's wearing them, like just crazy stuff like that. I became particularly aware of this because in the past, unconsciously, we've been critical of this. How could you not know where the TV remote is? You've been watching TV for the past hour. What's going on? Just really not great things to say. I fully own that. And then I realized one day we were kind of wrapping up very recently the past couple of weeks, and the remote was gone. And it was like, oh, this was going on. I was kind of recognizing the negative pattern of language I had here. And then I said, oh, do you want some help? Do you want me to help you do this? And she said yes and going through and it was like right next to her kind of thing. And it was kind of like right under the skirt of the couch, so to speak. So I did that, and I saw it. And this is what happened. This is the behavior that I saw. Because I think this is critical that we understand this as fathers. She didn't even care that we found the remote. What she immediately did was look at my face. She was immediately in her mind, she had failed because she had lost a thing. And that has been anchored in her brain. And in the moment that we found it, she wasn't looking. She wasn't delighted that she found the thing. She was looking at. My reaction to see whether or not I was going to school her, was I going to be delighted, was I going to be happy? And what I tend to do and comment in the, comment in the show notes or comment on your favorite platform or on social media, let me know what your opinion is. What I said was, hey, I'm so happy that we found it and it's okay. Would you like me to help you to find things? Would you like me to help you build a mental model? She's old enough now. She's turning eleven. Would you like me to help you build a practice, a checklist of things to go through when you're looking for things? And under the core idea that like, hey, if I teach her this skill, we can apply that. That's how I do land and expand. Right? Teach her a skill now. Apply it to everything that's going on. And she said yes. And so we've been working lately on, okay, so you've lost something here's. All the places you're going to look. And I think of that principle, that skill of thoroughness and attention to detail. This right now is the moment where I can teach her thoroughness and attention to detail. Huge indicators of success in the traditional professional capacity. So I'm like, okay, this is a really great teaching. So what are other things that are medic traps? So that was a familiar example because now I'm going to speak to more of the young guys here's. The common example, not doing locker room talk. The common example is this is that young boys like to boast and talk about their accomplishments. I don't want to take that's a bad thing, accomplishments. Right. Young boys are trying to figure out how to do hierarchy and all that kind of stuff, trying to figure out how they fit, trying to figure out who is their buddy. Everybody's doing it, but in this context is young boys. So locker room talk is at this crazy age when people are becoming sexual, figuring out their sexuality and engaging in something that they think is there. And most of that comes from the idea that you hear it when you're in middle school or 9th grade and you're hanging out with people that are two, three, and four years more mature, and they might be having a different kind of conversation. There's just a world apart. There's a world of difference between somebody that's approaching 18 and somebody that's approaching 14 tons of things. Brain development, body development, the whole deal. There's an interesting theory that all kids have the same upbringing. All kids have the same ideas, the same stories, same games they play, all that kind of stuff. And I think it comes from this daisy chain of patterns of conversations. Once you reach a higher if you think of elementary school, usually it's one through 6th grade or one through fifth grade, depending on where you're at. High school is 9th grade through 12th grade. And so you're always hanging out with somebody that's got many more years of experience passing down their habits and behaviors. Yeah. Again, great example of a medic trap. Why are you engaging in locker room talk? Why are you doing these patterns of behaviors? Why are you doing all this kind of jazz? And at that time as well, we're asking if we're going to break the monetic trap. We're asking a teenager to make that chance to not fit in and stand by on their own, which is not respected. Definitely respected this in adults.

00:34:40 - Jerry Dugan
Such an odd clash of desires, right? Like, teenagers want to stand out. They want to be an individual. They want to find out who they are, and then they're in an environment where all the pressures are be just like everybody else. Otherwise you're the weirdo. And it's like, embrace the weirdo. And it's kind of the same thing for us men. I'm thinking at a time when my daughter made me because she knew I was going to get into backpacking, and I wanted a wallet I wouldn't lose. And she was really into making things on a duct tape, and she got the most neon pink turquoise duct tape she can get her hands on. And she made me a homemade duct tape wallet that I not only used for a few months. I'd had that thing in my pocket for years until the glue finally started sticking to everything, and I finally had to retire the wallet. But men would kind of give me odd looks when I pull that wallet out, and they're like, purple, pink, turquoise. What is this? I thought you were a combat veteran. I'm like, I am a combat veteran. I thought you were, like, this manly man who does backpacking. I'm like, I go backpacking. Yeah. So what's up with the wallet? I'm like, my daughter made it for me, and I'm going to proudly use it. And they're like, no, but men don't. I'm like this one does. I'm not defined by this wallet. I'm defined by who I am. And I put that wallet back, and my daughter, she was there, and she was about to cry because these guys were like, oh, you don't do things like that to your dad. He's got to be manly. He's got to show he's tough. I just looked at these guys. I'm like, gentlemen, as a combat veteran, I will tell you I am tough enough. And this wallet, again, this is something my daughter made, and I will use this for as long as I can, and that's all that matters. And I was like, Emma, don't listen to these guys. I love you. What they think about this wallet doesn't matter. It's what I think about this wallet. And you could see the tears in her eyes and then the smile on her face, and I'm like, that's my baby girl. That's the person I will burn the rest of the world down for, but instead, I'm going to live for her. But that's another example of the memetic trap, I think, is this idea that Masculinity is the Marlboro man is the tough guy who has to have black, green or gray or blue jeans. Like, we have a uniform. We got to wear the vet bro shirts and all that stuff and drink black coffee. And it's like, no, your measure of whether or not you're a man is nothing to do with the shirt you wear, the beer you drink, the things you say you're into. Whether you are or not, it's who you are on the inside. I love that. That's been the theme you've been bringing up is know who you are. Answer that question. Who am I for? Yourself. Not what other people have told you, but for yourself. And I love that so much, and sorry I'd cut you off there, but that is like, guys, if you're stuck in one of these traps. Got to answer for yourself. Who are you? Who am I? And what are your values? What drives you? We're running out of time. And the thing that I want folks to know is where can they find Feel Good Fatherhood? And learn more about this and hear these great conversations with like, I don't know, Jerry Dugan and Aaron Thomas and all the other great folks you've had on your show to bring their experiences, their perspectives and their expertise on Fatherhood. Where do we find that show?

00:37:56 - Jay Twining
Perfect. You can find feel good fatherhood on YouTube and YouTube music. It's in the podcast section. Give it a search for feel good fatherhood. It's also YouTube at Feel Good Fatherhood, soon to be on all the audio platforms of the same name, Feel Good Fatherhood. Remember that the show is this time honored transition of getting together and sharing our experiences. And so really it's about these gentlemen as fathers talking about either fatherhood or their expertise and bringing it to us in a way that we can model, learn from. I've taken a tremendous amount selfishly as the host. I take a tremendous amount of learning from learning from everybody around and having my thoughts challenged and kind of pursuing and expanding and shedding these memetic traps from my life and really reflecting on it. That's where you can find me. And please go ahead and comment and then also subscribe to the show and I really appreciate it because it's the cool thing to do.

00:38:52 - Jerry Dugan
It is. And leave a review as well. Now, any final words of wisdom for the rudder nation folks listening in right now?

00:39:01 - Jay Twining
Absolutely. One of the statements that I always say is continue being awesome. Here's how we break it down. Continue as a word means that you have been this thing in the past, you will continue to be it in the future and you are it in the present. Being is that essence of who you are. What are your values? What are the routines that you engage in? What do you care about and how do you show up in the world? And then awesome not as the cool 90s bro colloquial term that we use now, but awesome is an awe inspiring that each and every one of us has this capability to be truly amazing and to do truly incredible things. We could surprise and delight ourselves and everybody else around you and so continue being awesome.

00:39:46 - Jerry Dugan
I love that, Jay. It was great to have you on this show and I look forward to having you on again and just dig a little bit deeper on this fatherhood story and just keep inspiring guys to do their best. I mean, we got this one chance, well, I mean, depending on how many kids you got, but we got one life anyway to make an impact in the lives of our kids, our grandkids, and then see the impact that has on our great grandchildren hopefully. So thank you for coming on here.

00:40:10 - Jay Twining
Thank you, Jerry. Thanks for having me. Thanks. Be on the routine.

00:40:13 - Jerry Dugan
Hey, I hope you found a lot of value in that conversation with Jay. I know I did. I had a great time reconnecting with him. And if it wasn't for a batch recording day, I would have kept talking to that guy into the afternoon until our wife said, hey, we got things to do. Can you guys wrap this up? So if you want to learn more about Jay's work with feel good fatherhood or you want to learn more about his work as a brand consultant, then check out the show notes beyondtherut.com Three Six Six. There you'll find links to the resources that Jay provides, as well as related content to the topic we covered today. And I'll even throw in some information about where you can find my book, beyond the Rut create a Life Worth Living in Your Faith, Family, and Career. It's available on Amazon as an ebook, a paperback, and it's on Audible. But if you get either of the print versions of the book, I give away the audiobook for free. So a little tidbit there for you. Now, I'm glad you joined me for this episode, and I look forward to joining you again on the next episode. But until next time, go live life beyond the rut. Take care.