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Healing Through Fatherhood: Trauma, Redemption, and Prioritizing Family (feat. Daniel Grose)
124 Plays4 months ago
Welcome to another powerful episode of The Integrated Man Project. Today, we're diving deep into the heart of fatherhood with our special guest, Daniel Grose. Daniel shares his transformative journey of prioritizing family over career ambitions, shedding light on the sacrifices and growth required to foster genuine connections. Joined by our host, Travis Goodman, they explore the toxic cycle of finding worth through productivity, as discussed in Brene Brown’s "Daring Greatly," and the relentless pursuit of success ingrained in our culture.
The episode takes an emotional turn as Daniel opens up about his traumatic upbringing, from his biological father's addiction and criminal activities to the struggles of his stepfather with drug addiction and bipolar disorder. These harrowing experiences shaped Daniel’s approach to marriage and fatherhood, leading him to make significant life changes to heal and prioritize his family.
HIGHLIGHTS:
1. Prioritizing Family Over Career Ambitions: In today's episode, Daniel discusses his tough decision to leave his previous business venture to focus on his family. An impactful move, emphasizing the importance of being present at home rather than succumbing to the endless pursuit of career success.
2. Unhealed Trauma and Growth: Daniel opens up about his past trauma, including his biological and stepfathers' battles with addiction, and how these experiences have shaped his approach to marriage and fatherhood. This heartfelt conversation delves into healing and growth for the betterment of future generations.
3. Practical Changes for a Balanced Life: Highlighting practical steps, Daniel shares how he made significant changes in his career, like selling part of his business and transitioning to a 40-hour workweek, to prioritize his family's well-being and manage his own self-care.
As we navigate through life's various roles, here's a reflective question for our listeners: **What practical steps can you take today to ensure you are prioritizing your family's well-being without sacrificing your mental health and self-worth?**
Join us as we uncover the importance of vulnerability, emotional intelligence, and the quest for positive change in fatherhood. This episode is a testament to the resilience of the human spirit and the enduring impact of family, love, and the courage to embrace growth.
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Transcript
Introduction and Membership Announcement
00:00:00
Speaker
Hey everybody, welcome to this week's episode of the Integrated Man Project podcast. Before we jump into this week's episode, I did want to share about an exclusive membership I want to be launching to help shape the Integrated Man Project community. If this is something you'd be interested in, where you will be co-laboring with me, sharing your ideas, giving input, giving me feedback, part of kind of this process of creating something bigger and better for all men, I would love for you to join. And if this is something you're interested, please reach out to me. Email me at integratedmanproject at gmail dot.com. You could also send me a direct message on Instagram as well or on LinkedIn. I would love for you to reach out to me. I would love for you to be part of this exclusive group to help again shape and form this integrated man community.
00:00:50
Speaker
ah Because as you do this, as we share in this journey together, we're going to create a community of men around the world where we become more grounded, more adaptable, more resilient, and more authentic men. So come on and join. If you're interested in this, please reach out to me. And without further ado, let's get into this week's episode.
Meet Daniel: Family and Life in Memphis
00:01:17
Speaker
Welcome, everybody, to this week's episode of the Integrated Man Project podcast. I'm excited to have this guest on this morning, and I'm gonna have him say hi, intro himself, and it's Daniel. So, Daniel, welcome to the show. How you doing this morning? man, I'm doing a pretty good, I know it's earlier for you. It seems early to me though. So I appreciate you taking the time this early in the morning to hop on. That's some real sacrifice ah yeah out right there. But yeah, so we're two hours difference. I'm in the good old South United States. I'm in Memphis, Tennessee. And as you said, my name is Daniel. Um, so I'm married to Rachel. We've been married for 15 years. So we have four kids and they kind of span the game at their all boys.
00:01:59
Speaker
But our youngest is one and then we have a six, eight and a 12 year old. He'll be 12 in a couple of weeks and they are a high energy pack of kids. um And we like it that way. We want them to be full of energy and to live their best life. But yeah, I think Travis, I mean, you connected on... on Instagram when you and dad's don't babysit Nate had a real one time about just calling another guy up when you're going through something hard and um like legitimately sharing that and caring about each other. And so I started checking out your page, but um yeah, I have a honest fatherhood is my Instagram page.
00:02:37
Speaker
and So I've been trying to share things that I wish someone had told me um when I got married and before I had kids with ah the social media world. So I'm 40. I haven't done um everything well or right, but I've definitely made some mistakes that i' like I would like to tell people about my mistakes. So maybe they don't have to walk through those same valleys
Fatherhood and Healthy Masculinity
00:02:59
Speaker
that I did. So that's kind of my backstory. And I'm glad we connected and that was something that with Nate and Nate's a great guy. Dad's don't babysit. Nate, if you're listening, good morning. And those that don't know his account, like great guy. And yeah, that that was a fun reel. It was an idea I had. um What that actually was pitching it to him saying, Hey, what if we just modeled and showed kind of healthy, you know, men vulnerability kind of connection and just modeled ah a call that we might do. And we did a few of them.
00:03:29
Speaker
Just to kind of show that of here's actually what we kind of need and here's what it would look like if you wanted to call a buddy um and maybe do something a little deeper than just kind of keeping surface-y. Because again, like to your point, is what was modeled to us and how do we kind of talk through things and provide education and growth of things we actually need. But if we don't have a roadmap, how do we do that? you know what How do we navigate this thing of fatherhood or manhood, you know masculinity, all that you know what does it mean to be? You have emotional intelligence, all this stuff. And kind of what you're doing is you know trying to answer some of the questions or having some conversations around some stuff that you might have needed that wasn't talked about.
00:04:10
Speaker
growing up um And that's when I saw your page too. I was like, oh this is you know, it's like it's like another Nate But it's like Nate 2.0, but I still like Nate Nate's 1.0. So it's all good Nate. You're still my friend Daniel's 2.0, but so important to what I liked about your account was just another another honest guy just having these conversations and not having it all figured out and and to that point I also don't have it all figured out and Sure, I have letters behind my name that say I'm a licensed therapist or coach, but I'm still at the end of the day a dad, a man who has his own stuff too, and I just happen to go to school to try to better myself through that way and understand ands understand the science behind it. But it doesn't mean that I'm any better or farther along than anyone else.
00:04:57
Speaker
um So I mean quick thing every now and then I could have that imposter syndrome you know thing is like well I i should know these things I should be better you know that sometimes the voice that gets in my head you know one that tries to creep in when I'm not my best kind of like the real that you shared this morning or yesterday about you know maybe raising your voice with your kid and yeah to that point of that breaking point of I also get to that point and you know I could get in my head and have in the past of hey did you know this you're you're the one teaching you're a therapist you you went to school for this and I've gotten better at kind of not believing that kind of lie in my head you know not like buying into that shame um but I'm it challenged me to be better so
00:05:36
Speaker
All to say, like, I'm so glad that we connected. I think I i love what you're doing. I love what Nate's doing and and other guys. I think it's such a needed thing to kind of be in a model out there, kind of showing this rawness and growth and process. Because it really is, I think, also modeling what healthy positive masculinity, showing courage, showing strength, bravery, all these things to kind of say, hey, I don't have it all figured out and that's okay. But I'm on this journey to kind
Healing from Past Wounds
00:06:02
Speaker
of better myself. And I think such a needed thing and in in our social media world, So I'm, I'm stoked. I think keep, keep doing what you're doing. So, you know, with that said, for today's topic, I think, you know, following the intro is really this idea of which we just talked about healing from and growing from kind of how we were raised and the importance of that as we, as we kind of come as men, you know, I'll be 40 in just a few days, actually.
00:06:29
Speaker
So I'll be joining you. Um, which is a weird thought, kind of surreal thought. If I think about it, I'm thinking back to my childhood. I'm like, man, I remember when 20 sounded old and 40. I'm like, that sounded ancient. And so I'm hitting 40 and I don't feel that old. And ah so it's kind of the the importance of healing, growing, changing, and not only for us, but for the next generation. So that's kind of where we're going today. And so with that said, why are you on this journey? Why do you think it's important to to grow and heal from your past? And why should that or does that matter to the next generation?
00:07:04
Speaker
All right. That's a, that's a heavy question to start out with in the morning. So I will maybe get that coffee. So yeah, and maybe I'll give a ah brief bit ah of context because, um, you know, I had these and different kinds of trauma and wounds that came from my past, which I think every man does to an extent, even those that had. um you know, present and intentional and thoughtful fathers. Like my kids are probably going to have some kind of thing, nuance or insecurity that that came from me, even if it's not major trauma, but we all kind of have to work through our parents' imperfections in raising us. So when I became a husband and then a father, I started seeing things sabotage my marriage, my fatherhood. And, you know, I was young and naive and untested when I was 26, right? And I thought,
00:07:53
Speaker
I'm going to love my wife perfectly. She's going to feel so loved and valued and seen. she's just you know I'm going to have this perfect relationship with her and then I'm never going to yell. I'm never going to get frustrated with my kids. They're always going to think of dad as you know this calm man of endless patience and integrity. And when I started not being those things and what I would call like failing at them, um, I either had to figure out, you know, do I blame my wife, my work situation, my kids, do I blame everybody else? Or do I look inside and like, why am I yelling? Why am I getting defensive at my wife for certain things? What's going on with me? And I could really trace it back pretty directly to things I went through growing up and,
00:08:35
Speaker
defense mechanisms i I had and insecurities and fears I had based in childhood. So it was necessary to address those things, right? Going back kind of the quick ah backstory, my mom was married to a guy named Cecil and and that's my biological father and they were married until I was five, or sorry, until I was four.
Childhood Trauma and Its Impact
00:08:54
Speaker
um Even then I called him Cecil, I never called him dad. He just wasn't around that much. He was an addict. and He also had multiple affairs and different things like that. So my mom, when I was four, decided, you know, I don't want this to be the man who raises my son. So she got a divorce. um And then she remarried my stepfather when I was five years old. And he came in like this knight in shining armor, just this wonderful man. He was a fireman. He was tough. He had newly become a Christian and he was kind of on fire for God and doing all these right things and being a good loving man. So
00:09:29
Speaker
He would like work with us and he would wrestle with us. And I just, I took to him immediately, like just gave him my love and affection without hesitation. You know, kids are really good at that. They don't have our adult defense mechanisms, which is like prove your trustworthy. If a kid sees you and they like you, like they just give you all their affection. So. um I did that with him and for years I didn't really know anything was wrong even though I had divorced parents. I still loved Cecil. I thought he was Superman. I think he functioned maybe a little more like ah a close uncle or something because he didn't do the dad stuff like the disciplining and the raising but he did fun stuff with me like he'd buy Ninja Turtle toys or let me play Nintendo.
00:10:12
Speaker
You know, the old version of Screen Time. um You know, and he took me hunting with him and the only present he ever bought me was at my first rifle. Every man in my family was a hunter. That was like a rite of passage for us. So I loved him and Cecil was really charismatic. Like I felt like anytime we were at a group gathering, people oriented themselves around him. And if you know much about addicts, a lot of times they are that way. like and Maybe it's because of the upper that they're on, but they're fun to be around when they're high or when they're in their you know moment. um so For a long time, like i just I went back and forth every other weekend to my grandmother's house where Cecil lived because he lived with his mom. and Then I was at my house during the weeks with my mom and stepdad. and Things were all good. Around the time I was 10 years old, well, actually spring break when I was in fourth grade,
00:11:02
Speaker
a thing happens and it was the first bit of trauma in my life. So I hadn't been to see Cecil in a few months and didn't know why and missed him and wanted to go see him. Now I know that my grandmother did not want me to see him in his state. He had devolved. There was a lot of stuff going on with him and the woman he was seeing at the time. And my dad called me in from playing. um So when I say dad, I am referring to my stepdad, not just for confusion. I always call Cecil Cecil. um So my dad called me in and sat me on the couch and he said, son, i I need you to sit down. There's something I have to tell you. And he had this tone of voice that I did not know or recognize in him. And he just said, he just let it out. And he goes, you know, Cecil has shot his girlfriend and he's on the run from the police. and We need you to come inside. We're afraid that he might.
00:11:49
Speaker
come and and try to get you. And that was the closest thing I've ever had to an out of body experience. My 10 year old brain could not process the words he had just told me. And it was this weird confluence of denial and shock and emotion just welling up. Like in my chest, so like it hurt and it was probably close to shock or almost like a panic attack. Like I started feeling waves going down my body and I just didn't know what to do with it. So I stood up. I wanted to go to my room and you know, process my emotions in private. I made it it about five steps in this collapse on the floor and in tears and you know, my stepdad held me.
00:12:30
Speaker
at the time and we worked through it and over the next couple of weeks, my mom did take me, we went and stayed with some friends ah for a while and I just went in and out of tears trying to process this thing that felt like a movie, like how could Cecil, my Superman, like my fun dad, like how could he have done this? I i just, I didn't, I couldn't get it. and Over time, I eventually did, he, a week later, did end up getting arrested and served a life sentence in prison ah for first degree murder and he actually He passed away about four years ago um in prison. He died of cancer there. So that was the first moment of trauma. And in that moment, it did something interesting. It instantly made me feel alone and separate from everybody else. Not that my friends didn't have trauma going on. It's just that I didn't know that. And I went to school and it was like, how am I supposed to go back and do spelling tests and kick balls around at recess when
00:13:27
Speaker
you know, Cecil was on the run from the police and I have this huge unsettled trauma going on in my life. And my friend's dads were like soccer coaches and pilots and, you know, all these reputable things. And I'm like, I'm different. And I felt like an outsider looking in. Now I didn't have anyone to talk to about it. It didn't feel like I could talk to anyone about it. That's a lot of weight for a 10 year old to carry, you know, My parents had never been through anything like that. They didn't necessarily know, how do you help a 10 year old process this kind of thing? um So I kind of just kept going with this unhealed wound. And about that same time, um I didn't know it, but not had an injury where he cut his arm and was prescribed some pain medicine. And he had used drugs before. And that situation kicked off his
00:14:21
Speaker
drug addiction at that point. So at the same time when I lost my biological father, he went to prison, my stepdad started using drugs. And by the time I was 11 or 12, he was full blown in the throes of addiction. um He's also bipolar. ah He took different medications for it, none that ever seemed to work. He took Prozac, well butrin, all kinds of things. But when his addiction Um, to drugs and his, you know, mental struggles collided made for a very angry, volatile and rageful person. So like all the the stuff I talked about this morning on the real with when your kids get frustrated and you are out of patience and you yell at them with him, it was much more.
00:14:59
Speaker
There was much more rage and much less, any kind of temperance over anything. So he ruled by dominance and fear. And for the next 10 years of my life, we lived in chaos and and fear. Like he would break everything in the house. He would cuss my mom out. He would cuss us out. And, you know, I wasn't abused in this like close-fisted punch you kind of away. It was more like, if someone's going to spank you, it's like, throwing you on the ground and you know pushing you or like slapping you and it's it's that kind of a thing. So we just stayed away from him as often as we could.
00:15:32
Speaker
And there was often these points where it climaxed into like a big event, um so something like that, and then we would leave. And then after a couple of weeks, he promised to go to rehab. He promised he'd get better. And then he'd come back. um He was different than Cecil. He, I feel like, had a good heart and was a very kind, loving person, whereas Cecil was really just a narcissist. Knott was really kind of a victim to his addiction. Like, he did choose to do drugs, but in many ways, He also, he did want to get out of it. I remember when I was like 14 one night, he came into my room and he said, you know, son, I want what he says, I don't even want to get better. like I was like, I just want to die. Like i'm I'm done with it. Will you pray for me that I could even want to have the desire to try to get better? ah Because for him, he just felt like it was over.
00:16:23
Speaker
ah yeah which is a big weight also for a 14 year old to carry looking back on it now that I have kids. And by the time I was 18, his addiction had got to the place where he was just completely medicated. He wasn't angry anymore. He was just comatose, just a zombie on the couch, always out of it. Um, and I moved out around the time I was 21, which was a hard thing. I thought I had to be there to hold the family together. And when I realized at some point, like I couldn't do it and I was really unhappy and I was going to college and working two jobs and I was burned out. Um, I moved to Los Angeles, California, and it was, I don't know if this was the cause of this, but six months later, my mom left him and told him she was gone for good and he ended up going to rehab.
00:17:11
Speaker
for 12 months after that, and then that was the the beginning of his getting off of of drugs um at that time. It has been a hard journey since then. There's been a lot of up and downs and some relapses, but he is he is clean today. We have a strained, but we do have a relationship. um so i'm Sorry, I know I said I was going to give you the short version. It's hard to make that short. um Yeah. Well, it's and that's okay. I mean, they're known to be sorry for that, and there's and I appreciate just you sharing and and giving context. and
00:17:43
Speaker
Yeah, I mean so many things that I was as you were talking that are hitting me and and thinking of, you know, the little version of you and you're right, like a 10 right hearing right hearing about your dad and yeah just the overwhelm the overwhelm of like on the and inability to fully process and comprehend and this outer body experience what that sounds to me is absolutely a trauma response of kind of you know it's surpassing you know exceeding your capacity to cope it's overwhelming your nervous system to have this outer body experience where it's too much for to process so it kind of causes this like disintegration
00:18:21
Speaker
of like, and then you can't, there's this like disconnect, which is completely trauma. And that would be, you know, those listening, I mean, I know trauma is a word that gets used um out there on the interwebs and social media, but that would be considered a capital T trauma, meaning it's like this single incident. It's very severe, you know, life threatening, kind of ah an incident um that is more traditional, what we think of trauma of a traumatic incident is this, just this kind of this thing that's just so much like going to war or physical assault, sexual assault, or in this case, this kind of hearing about your dad shooting his girlfriend and as a kid. It's just, it's so overwhelming. And then going to school, like you said, trying to, how do I go back to school? And even at 10, thinking, how do I go back to school and play in the playground? But I have this weight of this happening. But something I also did hear, even though your stepdad later really got stuck not too long after,
00:19:16
Speaker
But in that moment, it sounds like he was very present with you too. So he had this moment where he was engaged with you and kind of sounds like very a calming presence at at that time. I mean, that's what I was hearing and correct me if I'm wrong, but it sounds like he was very like with you and and present and not in the throes of addiction or are angry, but really kind of like yeah calming, right? I mean, that's safe in a sense. I mean, that's the sense I was getting, but please correct me if I'm wrong. That's what it sounded like. Yeah. So it's pretty interesting. Um, I have a two little brothers, my stepbrother from my stepdad's previous marriage is three and a half years younger than me. And then my half brother is eight years younger than me. The first five years of not marriage to my mom, he was
00:19:56
Speaker
such a good man in many ways, what I consider to be like the ideal father that has really helped me in my adult years empathize. And I would even say like it's aided in the process of forgiving him from a lot of those things. I think I've seen my brother struggle with it more because they don't have as many memories of the man that he was before drugs came into the scene. got And sure my, my eight year old brother, or sorry, my eight year younger brother, has a very drastically different life than I do. He's he's in a rehab right now. He's 32 and has been an addict since he was probably...
00:20:33
Speaker
He started when he was 14, but a full-blown addict, his first rehab was when he was 17, because he never had presence, and I think that's been harder, that has been a factor in his life. Sure, and that and that would make sense. you know Yeah, absolutely. and you had You had this foundation of ah where he was not stuck in the throes of addiction, and he was present, and you like you said, that does make sense, really a positive foundation. and then you know you said to yourself it gives you this capacity to have more empathy and forgiveness because you saw the the before and after of what the the negative impact of drugs can do and what happens when someone gets stuck in their nervous system how it can really change them you know pretty horrendously and but you
00:21:16
Speaker
eight years younger, your brother probably only really had memories of that. And that makes sense why you could have the same family, different experiences. And, and something else I was thinking of is like, those are the listening is this like notion of what we call little T trauma. And that's kind of not so much like you were saying, it wasn't life threatening. It wasn't physical assault, sexual assault, but it was more of the later on when he was in the throes of addiction is more of that chronic ongoing stress in the home with his anger and the fear that that can cause overwhelm in the body too of shutting down of anxiety of stress in this kind of constant state of tension and this is well documented by you know all the main researchers of trauma like Peter Levine, Besser van der Kolk, Dan Siegel, Stephen Porges, these are all guys and and men that have
00:22:04
Speaker
um that have researched trauma on the body and and even Peter Levine and then would say, hey, it's really anything that's overwhelming the body's, again, nervous system to effectively integrate and manage and navigate, especially chronically daily is like you're, in a way, it's kind of like being in a battlefield to some degree, right? You're constantly in the state, like, is dad gonna yell? Is he gonna get upset? I don't know so you're kind of walking on eggshells and then at any minute things could like take off and so you're you're you're constantly in this edge state and it might look at like anxiety for some it might look like irritability for others it also might look like people pleasing and numbing and getting quiet right as a way of coping and managing and so that's you know, two kind of variations of trauma I heard with you where the second one sounds like it was this it was ongoing for years, right? And, you know, what do I do in that impact that has on your psychology, your your emotions, like just your relationships? And so I'm wondering with that during that phase of life, how did you navigate or manage with all that with home life? Was it just kind of school and distraction or sports? Like what, you know, did you have anyone you talked to at the time? Was it kind of like, just keep your head down? Like, how did you navigate that?
00:23:13
Speaker
That's a good question. and I tried at the time, mostly to find acceptance through or some kind of positivity through friends, just those relationships. um We didn't have any kind of therapy um and mostly I just bottled most of it up and and kept it secret and just pushed it way down. And i I didn't tell anybody, I didn't want people to know um that that this was going on in my house. Because like I said, I went to you know a Christian school and we were supposedly a Christian family and so I had ah the people that I was
00:23:46
Speaker
within my day-to-day life, in my mind, their lives were so different. which you know I didn't know that and they probably had different stuff going on, but you know I couldn't ah couldn't let them know. so and that came That manifested in different ways in sports. I started ah smoking pot and drinking when I was 16, but it was it was just about finding a group that I could belong to. you know That could have been any group. i I got into the music scene a lot. like I played guitar, so I was in bands and stuff, which definitely helped the smoking of of pot and doing other things. That was just what we did when we were at practice. So I kind of went down that, but it's mostly just ignoring it and avoiding it in my life. So when, I guess that's a ah good way to kind of get into this part of it. When I was, like I said, I was raised in a Christian home. When I say that, you know, I live in the Bible belt in the South.
00:24:39
Speaker
It's a lot of Christian homes, but it's really more about the culture and tradition.
Faith and Healing
00:24:44
Speaker
I draw a difference between the Christianity I grew up with and what I call my faith today, because one of them is about traditions and a list of rules, or like a framework for ethics, and sometimes a framework for, unfortunately now, I think a framework for politics as well. To me, my faith is about ah a relationship with Christ and relationship with God, which is, I think, a different thing altogether than religion, so to speak. ah But around the time I was 17, that's when that came into play for me. So I had a really negative relationship like a lot of people do with the Christian faith and religion because it's like I have been really hurt by people who were supposed to be the Christians. I have seen that be a domineering thing. And you know, I could even hear my dad say,
00:25:30
Speaker
head of the household authoritarian kind of thing and I'm the way I am because you people are not submitting or or doing and so there was this really toxic element from what I think was an abuse of the religion or of scripture but Still somehow ah when I was 17 and it it kind of also goes into I was trying to find acceptance But I met a couple girls who were Christian and I actually knew back then which this is funny that Because I see my little brother do have has done this in rehab most girls who also have some kind of insecurity or trauma and if they can save a bad boy or someone who has trauma, that's a really good manipulation for the guy. If he's aware enough to realize, Oh, if they know that I have this sob story or that I'm an addict, I can position myself as the boy who needs to be saved. And that's how I started this and did not realize that, um, that those friendships that I ended up getting into.
00:26:30
Speaker
I was going to experience a different side of the Christian faith, which was a relationship with Christ. It was actually going to heal me. um So it's it was pretty gross, my thinking going into it. and then ah So I want to say this because it's it is the answer to how I coped with it. I caught on to this thought of if you feel like you're worthless, because when you go through trauma, there's a point of view that thinks like it's because there's something fundamentally wrong with me. you know Cecil didn't stay married to my mom and he kept doing what he did. like Maybe I was unlovable. Maybe the fault was here and not with him. and When you're young, it's hard to to tell yourself the truth. that Even as a grown man and I know that it was his fault, you still deep down sometimes wonder
00:27:11
Speaker
or you feel like it was you and this idea that God love knows everything about you, everything you were going to do and created you um and loves you fully and knows you fully. I'm like to be fully known which is a thing we all want in our life to be known by somebody and for when we present our like naked vulnerable self to be accepted and to be loved like that's the fear we have if I show that to somebody and they really know the worst parts of me I'm going to get rejected. Oh, sure. I'm going to be left. to go Yeah, absolutely. That's the fear. Ultimately is that they'll I'm unlovable. I'll be worthless. They won't be with me. I'll be alone. Yeah, absolutely. That's all that fear. Yeah. So that, that thought was like, I need that healing so bad. Um, I'm going to explore this further and you know, my life was hard. I couldn't take it. I couldn't handle anything fake like, Oh, I'm just going to give you this line. And if that meets your emotional needs because you're trauma, you're just going to buy into it. Like I tested it for a couple of years.
00:28:09
Speaker
And ultimately, I really found it to be true. It resonated with my spirit. um And that has been one of the guiding forces of my life ever since then. And that's my relationship with ah Jesus. So that is another way I have coped or I coped then was finding healing in this and that relationship. but that's That's love to me. ah So finding healing through love. And it was after that that I did start to open up and talk to people about what had happened to me. Well, and thanks for sharing that. I think, you know, hearing that for you, your journey of finding, you know, how you said love, like love is in this belief in this, the person of Jesus, right? That in a way i I am known and I'm accepted, which is a you know big shift from the shame messages of not enough, worthless, no value, not important, unlovable, broken.
00:28:58
Speaker
and that that you found some relief, sounds like relief there, some healing, letting go, where some of that self-blame from the trauma began to get released, it sounds like, some of that kind of energy was being able to kind of be, okay, that's not true. Here's the truth I know about me.
Marriage and Personal Growth
00:29:14
Speaker
And that can kind of in a way that shifts my perspective and my inner experience of these events. Is that kind of what I'm hearing? Is that a good way, a different way of putting it? Definitely. Yeah. And so that was the beginning, right? And so you've kind of been taking this journey from that point on and then becoming a dad yourself and kind of flash forward a bit to like, you know, present day Daniel.
00:29:37
Speaker
And maybe seeing some of that stuff pop up, you know, going back to the reel that you posted recently of like that, you know, the anger, the frustration, the impatience. And so any connection that you're thinking between the past or the present, if at all. So looking when I look back at it, because I've had to do this. a lot to try to figure and heal from things. you know When I went to Los Angeles when I was 21 and you know i was I was a new Christian at the time and I was living free with no responsibilities and I met my wife, um girlfriend at the time and we we were just in love and dating and there was nothing pressing that trauma in me. It was just living a good life you know and having fun. and I did not know this for years, but when I got married,
00:30:21
Speaker
something shifted in me. So we moved from Los Angeles back to my hometown in Memphis. What shifted is I went from present living in the moment like just wanting to be with Rachel and and having a good life too. I'm a husband now and ah we plan to have kids. I'm going to be a father. Now I have to build this life and I want to be everything that my father never was. Um, and so that was not a way I had ever carried before and didn't realize when I said I do, I stepped into this new weight. And what it did for me, the way that manifested was, you know, my dad was asleep on the couch all the time and he was always on drugs. He didn't work. He wasn't kind.
00:31:02
Speaker
And my mom did all that. so She worked, she did all like taking us to the practices and buying us things and doing the science fair projects. She did all of it, including absorbing a lot of his anger so that we didn't have to bear the brunt of it. And I was like, I will not be that way. And so I set out with a tenacity and determination to be a different kind of man. And the first thing that I thought had to be done was providing ah financially. I thought the emotional provision would just happen because we'd been dating. We loved each other. I thought it was fine. um You know, that was just a part of like the side effects of being so in love with the emotional care. So we moved back to Memphis and I started a business to be a self-employed landscape designer.
00:31:45
Speaker
And I started working like 60 hours a week, like just all the time. And I would wake up in the morning at 6 a.m. and just I was off. I was thinking about jobs and invoicing and employees and bill I was thinking about all this stuff. And so even when I was with my wife at that point, I was not present. I was always out there. It was almost like I was present with our future family. that I was building and that started to really affect our relationship slowly over the first couple years. We couldn't even pinpoint it because it wasn't like, you know, little tea traumatic at that point. It was just a subtle difference like like a 1%. I think of when you're saying that I'm picturing like 1% like a degree off of each other like two ships like they're one degree off.
00:32:26
Speaker
is you don't notice it but eventually sorry those that are listening have no idea what I'm doing but those that are watching to see my hands is like you kind of drift off where it's like you know within a couple years now you're there's a big gap between you two versus initially is like you can't even tell that's what I'm getting is that kind of the sense it's like small just a degree off Yes. So for her, and I don't want to put too many words into her mouth, what she felt was he used to pursue me as a human, like who I am and my emotions. And he used to love me. He doesn't pursue connection with me anymore. He's pursuing provision for me. And you know, so at the end of the night, I would be tired and she'd want to talk. She'd want to connect. Let's have dinner together. You know, the things you do when you're newly married and I'm like falling asleep or I'm too tired or my brain is still, I'm still carrying stress about some client who just text me or something like that. Like I'm just gone. And over a couple years of this kind of dynamic,
00:33:23
Speaker
that was subtle, but she knew something was wrong. you know that And because it's not obvious, it was easy for me to say, why are you putting so much pressure on me? Can't you see I'm providing for us and building our life? How dare you be so unsupportive? And in my mind, I thought, oh, she just doesn't understand one day she's gonna thank me for all the good work I did, and she'll so she'll see that she was just being needy and immature. And I never said that to her. um I was maybe a little more loving or kind than that, because I knew that that was you know that was a load of crap. like I knew that in my mind. But somewhere underneath it all, that's really what I was thinking. Yeah, you felt that. You were feeling that kind of defensiveness proving, right? You know you may not have said it, but you that was the inner experience.
00:34:13
Speaker
Yes, which lays the groundwork for a bunch of really nasty arguments where my wife wants to come and say, I have a need. Can I talk to you about my need for connection or intimacy? And as soon as she says it, me getting defensive and making her feel like the bad guy for bringing that stuff up to me so that now she feels like I cannot talk to my husband about anything. He'll make it about himself. or he'll turn it around on me. And and i wasn't that it wasn't like I was mean or evil or vindictive. I guess I was working 60 hours a week. I thought it was motivated by love. I was too burnt out to to understand what I was doing, to have the energy to even engage in that kind of emotional depth um with her. um So I had good intentions. I was just lost. And like I said, you can see how it's tied back into this unhealed trauma that I had ah growing up. and
00:35:09
Speaker
that was just That was before we had kids that this started coming up. As soon as you have kids, it becomes really obvious. You get squeezed and the trauma and your inadequacies and your emotional problems, they really start just pouring out. And so that was this the the foundation. and then And then kids, and you're right. it's to like, you know, once you have kids, yeah, everything is like 10 times, whatever you're experiencing prior, you are tested, you know, now you're not sleeping, you know, now you're, you know, you don't, your time is no longer your own, to some degree, you know, and so you're right, it's it's pressure cooker. So if you, you know, if you want to be tested, have kids, like if you really want to put yourself to the ringer, you know, have children, um which I have three kids, so I love my children, I won't change any other way, but really, it does, it takes all those
00:35:56
Speaker
pains, imperfections, I'm gonna call them growth, areas of growth, opportunity, right? um The chink in your armor, those things get exposed every possible weight that you can imagine. And then I'm guessing that's when things start to kind of ooze out more, yes? Things start to come out a bit more at this point. Yeah, i yeah imagine my wife in this situation where for the last two, well, really three years, she has not felt pursued or desired, and that is one of her love languages. um words of affirmation, physical touch and she's having to pursue me and often be rejected and so she's not getting her needs met. She's not getting filled up as a person and then all of a sudden she has a child who she's emotionally dry because of our dynamic and now she's being called upon to pour out into this human being
00:36:46
Speaker
And then because it's when we had our second child that it really started to become something that we're either going, we're not going to make it if we cannot figure this out. And one night, I remember she said to me, we have two different memories of this conversation. It's funny, she she thinks she was mad. I think she was just sad. But she said, I feel like the entire emotional responsibility of the home and caring for the kids falls onto me.
Work-Life Balance Challenges
00:37:10
Speaker
And it did, because I thought, she's got this, I've got that. I had segregated it in my mind. And so that was a new layer of loneliness. There was the lack of connection and intimacy in the loneliness between us. And now she felt like she was alone with
00:37:26
Speaker
raising our children or at least alone in the emotional responsibility of like owning it. It's like I helped. I did dishes. I held the babies. I wasn't an absent father, ah but she knew it was really falling on her and she was going to have to be happy with what she could get from me. And these new layers of loneliness were not sustainable for ah marriage And of course, it it continued to aggravate things. So of course, I'm looking at it and in my good heart and my best self, I'm feeling helpless. Like I thought I was going to be, I thought my wife was always going to feel loved. I thought I was never going to raise my voice. That was going to be this present father. I am failing at it, even though I'm doing everything I can to be the good man. What is going on and feeling guilt and shame. But to her, it was always expresses defensiveness and anger. It got rough.
00:38:15
Speaker
Yeah, and that's what yeah, and and and thank you for sharing that because I think it's ah the experience I think of a lot of men is that we get stuck or we can get stuck in this like, hey, I'm trying to be better than my dad, like, I'm trying i'm trying all these things. And I really, and to some degree, you are like you were different, there was a change. um And at the same time, also being stuck now and then feeling defensiveness of trying to prove yourself like, hey, look what I'm doing. I'm different. I'm better. I'm with the promise you made or the you know, I'm gonna be different, I'm not gonna yell, and then you find yourself doing it, and then the shame comes up, and then maybe you can fill up with the wife, like, wait a second, like, look what I'm doing, and and I'm glad you said that there's there is this kind of helpless feeling, that that you said my best self, like, is like, there's this this true helplessness behind defensiveness and the anger, which is really, I think, the real experience, is like, that's what's really going on, now she didn't see that, she sees the defensiveness and the anger, rather than the, that helpless peace,
00:39:11
Speaker
um And so it sounds like this might have been an impetus to change too of like, was this the point at which you were like, I need to do something different. Yeah. and That's a ah good conversation. This is what i I've been wanting to have with men a lot. So it's it's really complicated. So you might have to, we might need to come back and like dissect this a little bit. You could do the idea. You could do like a bullet point. We could do a second conversation on this, but like, what's the bullet point? um many many In that situation where you're feeling like a failure, you know i the question that rests on almost every man's heart to an extent, whether he's aware of it or not, is, am I enough? we all want that you know When the weight of the world comes onto me and it's my turn to be a man, can I carry the weight or will I fail?
00:39:56
Speaker
um yeah and We will cling desperately to the appearance of being enough even when we feel like it's falling apart. This really goes back to not having a father. this you know We call that the father wound because it's the father who's the first man to address that. So mine didn't. I was carrying that question in. Good morning, buddy. Travis has a little one with him. Eli is my second. Yeah, good morning, bud. I'm wrestling with that question and working to prove that I am. And I was, like I said, working 60 hours a week because I thought this business that I was building was going to provide all these good things. And what I didn't, it's easy. Let me go back. It's easy for us as men when we're failing at home to find validation and that answer to that question of, am I enough at work?
00:40:42
Speaker
Cause there's quantifiable metrics like I make this much money. Um, I got this promotion, I get this affirmation or accolade or whatever it is. And so you can almost cling to it because it's a lower hanging fruit to being enough than, um, you know, having a good relationship with your wife and kids. But what I realized is that was insufficient for our life. All right. So. What I did in that moment was we sold a significant portion of my business. like this is This gets really practical. It's not so much emotional healing. it's like yeah We can't sustain what we're doing. and it's like My wife needs me to be more present. Time, like hours spent at home, more energy at home, um and I want to be at home more too. so We had a conversation of how much money do we have to make?
00:41:30
Speaker
in order to live and have our bills paid for and not have financial burdens on us. um And so we came up with that number. And then we looked at my work and said, how much work do you have to do to meet that need? Or how can we get to that number? And it only takes 40 hours a week and not 60. So that was a, I sold part of my business, let go of this thing that I was building that was my whole provision for our family's future. went down to this kind of boutique landscape design business, which is ironic because that's that's what really has set up my future um but so that I could be home more often. And switching from 60 hours a week being dead, burned out and exhausted to a 40 hour a week job that had an income that did provide, just didn't provide a lot extra, changed everything.
00:42:18
Speaker
I had time for self care. I had time to give her some self care. I had energy just to wrestle with the boys. Um, that it actually took a couple of years cause I was in, I couldn't just walk away from it. yeah Um, like I was committed to the 60 hour a week thing to give us the money. So we spent a couple of years shifting from workaholic Daniel seeking validation through work to My work now serves my family. My family does not have to be oriented around my work. And that's a shift that I had to make. That was ah an important part of it. So once I get i gained at the time, because it's hard to do the spiritual work and the healing work if you can't even think. Yeah. And I think to your point, um, and, uh, that was a fun little way of seeing my son came in and he asked some questions about the lights off. It was fun. Um, Hey buddy, he's cold. So he's laying on the couch. Um,
00:43:09
Speaker
um Yeah, I think that's a real thing of like, you're right. you too I think that's a good point. One, you had this realization that you got to the brass tacks of, hey, what basic changes do we need to make? Because right now it's not sustainable. yeah And so you're willing and able to say, okay, like, let's shift this. Something inside of you is like, you're right. theyre that While you're still not fully healed and working, it's like, okay, i that part of you that knew something needed to shift, clicked in, say, okay, let's look at this. How do we just afford to live or i have more time? and i think you're right because at 60 hours at burnout you can't really care for yourself effectively because there's there's not enough recovery and restorative time to connect to your family your wife your kids let alone yourself like actually do your own work because you need that energy you need the mental capacity the emotional capacity if you're on empty every day
00:44:00
Speaker
There's nothing left. And so we have to get to a place. And I know for some people out there, for some guys right now, you might be in survival mode where you may not have the luxury of stepping back. And I think there's that's also a real, for some men and women, a real reality. right? Where there isn't a lot of wiggle room right now but there might be some like you might be able to create that maybe soon and for you you have that ability to step back and do something different which we need that space to actually do the healing work otherwise you know and I'm kind of blanket statementing this otherwise we're just in strict survival mode so we can't really do a lot of restorative healing work we're just trying to get through the day and survive to the next moment, yeah right?
00:44:41
Speaker
And I think it's different for every family, you know, on my Instagram page, I'll have, I'll give this kind of message and I'll have wives say, you know, actually I'm totally fine nailing down everything from the house. And my husband works 60 hours a week. And I'm like, it's what you said. If you guys, if your family dynamic supports that and you're not in survival mode and y'all are happy. that I am happy that you are. That's awesome. Right. um i I would argue, yeah, I'd want to talk to that guy personally and check in with him a bit and say, hey, you know, let me walk me through your actual routines of the day. what What's your formational practices of assessing, checking with yourself, your wife and family with that? And maybe if he's doing that, like you said, all power to you, man. If that's like restorative, you're right. I'm not gonna
00:45:24
Speaker
If it's working effectively, I'm not going to argue and say, I'm not going to try and change you. Like, but i I'd want to have the real conversation when I hear that too. My, my, my radar goes up and like, what's he really doing at 60 hours? But again, he could be doing all those things. So anyway, um, I know you're laughing cause I think he resonated with that one. Yeah, I do. Because even if it you do, if you're working 60 hours a week, I'm like, well, you are still present somewhere else and not present with your wife and kids. And I think that's the best gift you're going to have in your life. I don't think you'll ever look back at 90 and say,
00:45:57
Speaker
I'm glad I worked all those extra hundreds of thousands of hours instead of building memories with my children. I can't imagine a man saying that. Uh, you know, I can't either. Uh, you know, I, yeah. So again, um but until I talk to that guy, you know, I can't, I can't fully make a good assessment, but I can, yeah, I'm i'm with you. I think we're on the same boat. Like you said, if you only make, you know, and this sounds bad, I really don't mean anything bad by it, but it's a reality. If you have a $20 an hour job, And you have two kids, you might have to work 60 hours a week, especially depending on where you live. um And that's a reality. It's like, you know, Daniel, Travis, you guys sound great, but you don't understand. I can't work less than 60 hours a week or we won't be able to eat. I think it's like you said, every man in that position, um going connect connecting it to your earlier comment.
00:46:45
Speaker
I would say that's fine. Let's look at three years down the road and you and your wife talk about what moves can you guys each make so that in three years because you have a two and four year old now, you're still going to be wanting more time with them when they're four and seven and they're still young. So how do you change this? Do you go back to school? Do you work towards self employment? Do you save? Do you work 60 hours a week for the next two years and make a savings that helps you make a different jump? Do something to work towards a better work-life balance that's oriented around your family and not around your need to be enough or surviving that survival mode phase.
Redefining Success and Self-Worth
00:47:28
Speaker
Let me say this about the need to be enough thing because this is really important. If your father and you're working in your husband,
00:47:35
Speaker
I would submit that every man comes to the point where they're not enough. Life has too many demands. Our current culture where we raise kids, isolated in our homes and not in a tribe, and we work the way we work, it's just every man will come to that point. And it's what you do with yourself when you realize, I can't be enough for everything that really matters. um For me, I just had to accept that truth. And you can either get prideful and say, oh, I am enough and just be in denial. You can kind of be in pity and say, oh, I'll never be enough and feel sorry for yourself.
00:48:10
Speaker
and like ah Or you could continue to pursue, when I get to this milestone, I will be enough. So I'm going to drag my family along with me until we finally get there and they'll finally see. um yeah i just that's ah that' that's That's a losing battle right there. It is. I think if a man realizes this idea of enough is one that I'm placing on myself that is unnecessary and unattainable. So I did share for me that if I was really going to believe this whole relationship with Jesus thing, it says you you are enough. Like that's why I believe in that specific belief system. It's like you don't need to earn grace and love. It's freely given. You just have to accept it. And my wife is not perfect. She doesn't have perfect unconditional love, but more than any other human in my life, she has a measure of that for me. I did not need to be enough.
00:49:02
Speaker
for Jesus where I said I was getting validation from. I didn't need to be enough, and in many ways, for my wife that I thought I needed to be. so I just needed to accept, like, look, I'm loved. I'm certainly loved to by my children. I don't need to be enough for them. If I loved and adored Cecil, who was an addict, who had multiple affairs, who ended up going to jail for murder, certainly I ki am loved and adored by my own kids. yeah um And so I let go of this thing. I'm like, you know what? I was not able in the first few years of our marriage to build the business I wanted to build with my skill set and my energy level. I just i couldn't do it. I didn't do it. and So I failed at that. But now we have two kids. We're drowning. I had my time to build that. And since I did not have this skill set or whatever it was to be able to do it,
00:49:52
Speaker
need to reassess, quit looking to be enough there and say, well, what can I do? I can make X amount of money working these hours and be present at home and that is that is what I'm doing now. I'm letting go of that thing and I'm coming back to this. Later in life, if I want to try to be a bazillionaire and have a huge company and do all these things again, I can do that on the other side of kids if my wife and I feel like it's healthy. But when I have kids and my wife is drowning in motherhood, and all that stuff, like I gotta let go of these faulty places to find affirmation and come back home to them. and So that's, man, that that question of being enough is a really important one for a man to wrestle with and find a healthy way to handle that. Does that make sense?
00:50:40
Speaker
Yeah, no, it does. And I think that would be one we should we should explore it more deeply, I think, on the second conversation, because there's a lot there. And and yeah just to kind of, you know, wrap that piece up and and begin to wrap up our conversation today, is that you're right that that's a, really, that's a, it's a ah bottomless pit. And I think a lot of men get stuck in the cycle. And there's been a lot of research talked about this. Brené has got a great book, Brené Brown, book on daring greatly. And she has a whole chapter dedicated to men and her research on shame and how men often find their worth through production. If I produce enough, if I achieve enough, then I have volume enough, you know, if I have this bank account. And that's it. And it's's the goal post just keeps moving. It doesn't ever stop. So once you get there, it's just, it's the next thing and the next thing and the next thing. And and that's it. And we also live in a culture in a way that promotes that ideology as well. Like, especially like, in you think of a sales job, right? What's, if you make sales this year, well, what do they expect? You got to do more to have this job. And then do you got to do more again and then more again. So it's, it's at least in that type of job,
00:51:38
Speaker
It's constantly pushing you to do more and more and more and more and eventually you you have a breaking point and you got to jump ship and go to a different company. I know guys that do sales, it's like they got to move because eventually the numbers get too, the expectation gets too extreme to a point where you just can't you can't get there. yeah i and And if you buy that in, if that's your identity. You're stuck, man. And that shame message is gonna take over and you're gonna be stuck in that endless, vicious cycle of you know shame. um And it's gonna manifest in a lot of ways. So you know as we wrap up, there's so many amazing, one, I just wanna thank you just for sharing. But before we totally close out, and there's things that just due to time I couldn't jump into that I would love to jump into with you, but um two questions I'm thinking of right now. One, which is, this is a total shift.
00:52:23
Speaker
By the way, but an important one, especially someone who was in music in high school and played in bands. what What current, what are you spinning right now? Like, what are you listening to? what What's speaking to you? What kind of music is, his you know, getting you moving and grooving? That's funny. These days as an old man, I feel like I'm listening to more like acoustic country bluegrass, bluegrass kind of stuff. ah So like, I like, so it's funny. If you ever listen to a guy named Sturgill Simpson, it's so country. ah But somehow I think it's nostalgia based. I do still listen to a lot of nostalgic music from ah the 90s. So that but that would be like old grunge music and stuff. Like the concert I went to this year was the Goo Goo Dolls. We have concerts at the at the place I work. We also have a concert venue here. Oh, nice. That's awesome.
00:53:15
Speaker
But yeah, I like a mandolin orange is one of my favorite bands, the milk carton kids, but they're very kind of like indie low key acoustic stuff.
Daniel's Music Preferences and Content Creation
00:53:24
Speaker
Very calming. Like that, that makes sense that that's what I want in my life as a grownup. ah Cause my kids are all about the high energy stuff that they hear and it's always like the Pokemon theme and so much noise. Yeah. No, it's helpful. I'll check them out. So what was it? Sturgis? What? What was that guy? So Sturgis Simpson, if you really want to go into some deep country, but if you haven't checked out a mandolin orange or the milk carton kids there, ah especially mandolin orange, I put them on a lot. I think they changed their name recently and I i can never remember what they changed it to, but I'll check it out.
00:53:58
Speaker
No, it's helpful. I always like, you know, for me because i i um I love music and I always love hearing what is influencing people now and I agree. I'm i'm in more of the, I have some loud stuff my kids listen to but I also do a lot of stuff, you know, a kind of acoustic-y vibe, calming, just like, let me just slow down, I think. But I do get my grunge on and I have moments in the car when I just want to just kind of like listen to some loud stuff and just kind of get energy out or if I'm working out or something, I'll do that. I'll do that and um you know kind of want to listen to something hard and loud. and Because I think when I'm working out, I don't want to listen to something soft because I think I want my blood flowing and moving me to get the stress out. So I definitely put on music differently. but And what where can we find if people want to reach your content? you know I know you you said it earlier, but can you share that that stuff again? you know Where to find you on Instagram and everything else to follow you and get some and get some inspiration and wisdom?
00:54:54
Speaker
ah Yeah. ah So it's only a couple of areas. you know I didn't know this was going to turn into a thing. It really just started with Instagram. So it's honest underscore fatherhood. So the honest fatherhood Instagram page, I started sharing that stuff to my Facebook page. If someone wants to find me there, that's just Daniel Gross. And you'll see the clips on fatherhood if it comes up. but um So there's that. And I recently just started putting my stuff on YouTube. and The reason is this this is a message for fathers. But if you look at the stats Instagram, ah the majority of the users are women. ah and And that's great. I definitely don't have problem with women watching my stuff. That's awesome. But it's ultimately for fathers and YouTube is more male dominated. So I've started just started putting my message there on YouTube. I haven't quite figured YouTube out yet. But it's also honest fatherhood.
00:55:42
Speaker
uh with no underscore just straight on his fatherhood on youtube and a lot of my same videos will go up there that those those are the only three places at the moment don't mind my son who's wearing a pirate hat right now in the morning you know this is just boy life so we're in the pirate phase right now turn five and everything was pirate themed so anyway and those that are watching you get a preview of my life in a minute here It's a lot of fun, though. It's actually totally fun. I get to swing swords around. And, well, Daniel, thank you so much. And everyone listening, by the way, all of Daniel's links will be direct in the and the bio here. If you're watching on YouTube, again, it'll be, i'll direct I'll link you directly to his YouTube channel, his Instagram account. Those listening, it'll be in the description to click on it. Clickable link, take you right there to follow his content.
00:56:24
Speaker
um And I think as, you know, a guy to guy, you know, dad to dad, I think I'm trying to also generate just, hey, I want to share. It's not about just me what I'm doing or just Daniel, but it's about going to kind of earlier in a way kind of ah a community of men and fathers trying to make this change because we need all of us. It's not just about one man, one dad, but about a community of men and fathers showing. the difference in how to heal and grow and change and and point to other people's work to say, hey, look at all these other men doing the work. And I think that's what we need is ah is a village, right? And even if it's virtual or across the across the pond in different countries or even in the United States that we need to kind of point and say, look at all of us trying to do this work and connect and bridging the gap, I think is needed to to to kind of model that with to the men, to other kids, to to moms, all that.
00:57:14
Speaker
So Daniel, I thank you for your time today and have a great rest of your day. And I thank you so much for just opening up and just being yourself, man. So thank you. Thank you too, Travis. Have a good one.