Your Kids Are Your Responsibility, But They Should Also Be Your Joy | Clips | Dad Saves America

0:00 - What's your way of approaching your role as dad? - Well, for me, a lot of it comes back to my faith, to be honest. You know, I'm a believer that Jesus died on the cross to save our sins and that He's God's son. And I believe that the Bible is inherently true. And so, you know, I have to say with my limited amount of breath that I've got in this life am I gonna do things to serve myself or am I gonna do things that God has said, "Hey, these are really good priorities for you."

0:34 Right, and those are inherently wise things that I think if you generally look at society and the world, you go, "Hey, if you follow those principles life actually goes pretty well for you." And so there's some inherent whether you believe the Bible's true or not, there is some inherent wisdom to be had to living a life with those principles in mind. And part of that is really being serious about your role as a dad. And if you look at stories of the Bible where people didn't take that role seriously, bad things happen in the kids' lives.

1:08 And we can see that happening all around us in our culture, can't we? And so we gotta instill those same values in our kids. We need to instill that value of selflessness and not living for yourself, but living for others. And funny enough, when you do that, you find life's full of joy. And I think that's true with families too, right? I think as a single 25-year-old, all we can think of is what we're gonna do that weekend in our selfishness.

1:37 And as a 50-year-old now, 25 years later, I find a lot of joy in my family and time with my wife. And ultimately on my deathbed, it's not gonna matter how many mountain bike rides I went on with my buddies or whatever else I would rather be doing- - How many sports cars you bought. - Exactly. You know, as a dad, your biggest number one hobby should be your kids. And I think, honestly, I've as a dad over some period of time, you know, my oldest is 17, my youngest is 11.

2:08 I sometimes think of my kids getting in the way of my hobbies. Like, I can't wait for Saturday to come so I can work in the garage or do whatever. And I think it's only been the last couple years. Now, don't get me wrong, I'm not a, you know, I do spend time with my kids, but I think it's only been the last year or two that this has really been top of my mind. Like when someone asks me what my hobbies are, do I say hunting?

2:30 Do I say, you know, hobbies? Do I say whatever? Or do I say, you know, my hobbies are my kids. I really love spending time with my kids. And so, you know, I want to spend time with 'em and do things with them. I think that's the mind shift we need more and more dads to take just like me, to say, you know, I have such a limited amount of time with these kids while they're in my house and while there's influence.

2:55 And also now that I've got, I have boys that are 11, 13, 15 and then a daughter who's 17 my daughter might as well be in college. I mean, she doesn't want to spend six minutes with me, let alone six hours. - She's breaking your heart. - I mean, I get it. I know she'll come back around. I was pretty similar at her age whereas my 11 year old would love to spend all day with me.

3:16 But I have to really think every day what are my priorities? What'll be most important? And will I remember on my deathbed how I did that hobby on Saturday, or how I organized my garage? What matters more is those things that brought me great joy. And that's my family and my wife, my kids being a good dad and seeing them find their place in the world and making sure that they don't think too, that winning in life is a sports car or is a big house or whatever.

3:47 'Cause we know that those things don't bring satisfaction. - One of the things that I experienced, and I think I've talked about it elsewhere on the show is when my son was born, I was super ambitious. I was working in New York City in television. I wanted to be Steven Spielberg. And so when you're super ambitious, one of the things you at least can do, I certainly did, is you're judging yourself all the time against some external thing.

4:12 And what I experienced when he was born, when my son was born was this reordering. That was, it was almost instantaneous. And it left six months after his birth, I actually struggled to find like flavor in my work. - Interesting. - And then it came back but it came back reprioritized. And I actually ended up being more open to risk and more open to entrepreneurship and more open to doing things that people don't tell you will happen when you become a dad or when you have kids.

4:48 They say, "Oh you're gonna, now you got all these responsibilities, now you got mouths to feed," but you're a serial entrepreneur you've got multiple businesses, you've got basic, you've kind of built your own HGTV. It's like how has your life as a family man and as a husband and a father, how do these things play against each other? When are they intentioned? How do you balance it? - Well, first I would say, based on what you said, I need to always remind myself that comparison is a thief of joy.

5:18 And I think this is true for 16-year-olds on Instagram as it is for 50-year-olds. 'Cause you think, oh, I'm not as successful as this client of mine who's the same age or whatever. For me, when I had kids, I was very much in the throes of trying to just pay off this huge debt when of my kids were young. - That's very stressful. - It was very stressful. But honestly, it was really a good time in my life, 'cause I, prior to that, I had struggled a lot and I still do with materialism and thinking that the scorecard for life was my garage.

5:52 You know, let's say whatever car was parked there or what was in my bank account. And so having that stripped away from me and realizing that just 'cause you're in business doesn't mean you're gonna be successful. In fact, I made negative money the first four or five years I was in business. Helped me to really right reprioritize, like you mentioned, when your son was born. 'Cause I've always said, all right, you know, Lord, I'm gonna give this business up to You.

6:19 I'm gonna do what I should. And I'm gonna let You make the decision about whether I win or lose. And every time I've done that, I've ended up winning. And that's kind of where I am in life now where I'm looking back and going, gosh, even through all the hard times when I had a couple hundred thousand dollars in debt and no vision of what the future might look like, I was faithful in what God gave me and my family and my kids.

6:48 And God's honored that. And as a result, I really feel like, gosh, I'm in an incredible place in life where I'm very, very blessed to have this company. to have these amazing kids to still be married after 24 years. - Yeah. Bravo. - And have a great marriage. I think if you prioritize the correct things in your life, good things will happen. - If you enjoyed this clip we've got more where that came from. Be sure to check out my full conversation with Matt Risinger.

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