Curt Storring 0:00

Welcome to the Dad Work Podcast. My name is Curt Storring, your host and the founder of Dad Work. This is episode number 90 breakdowns breaking generational chains and homeschooling with my guest Locke Haman We go deep today talking about teaching our kids how to heal their wounds, talk about them and be able to feel all their emotions. Why it's okay for men to show and express vulnerability rather than suppressing or repressing their emotions, understanding our spouses traumas and being able to support them in their healing journey, realizing that the trauma that was caused to you as a child was never your fault, but it is your responsibility to move through it and heal your wounds, practices and methodologies you can use to heal your trauma and wounds. Why it's vital to join a men's group and commit to the group as a dad, and how men can maintain the balance between family and building a successful business. Locke Haman is an entrepreneur, a podcaster, and a coach. He is a homeschooling father of four, one boy and three girls. His mission in life is to help people Blaze their own trail in a world designed for conformity and break the chains holding them back from living an uncommon life. He is the co host of the trailblazers and chain breakers podcast with his wife Ashley, who also runs a coaching business with dedicated to being authentic and honest about his journey and his struggles. Locke feels that this honesty leads to more growth for himself. And to be of more benefit to his listeners. You can find Locke online at his website, trailblazerschainbreakers.com, or on Instagram at Locke Haman. That's LOCKE H A M A N. And you can find all of those links at Dad.Work/Podcast in the show notes if you want to learn more and reach out to Locke in listen to his podcast as well of course, which you can find on Apple, Spotify and everywhere else. This was a really fun conversation, guys, Locke and I get along very well. I love what he has to say. And I love the approach he's taking. And in fact, shortly after this, he ended up joining one of our men's groups, which is I'm just so humbled because he's such an awesome guy. And he has so much to share. So I'm really, really excited to share this because all the guys in my group, I have their backs 100%. And this is just such a great way to get Locke story and his impact in front of more people. And I really, really think you guys will like this. So if you're looking for more podcasts like this one that deal with this sort of deep, emotional and spiritual work to be an amazing father. And if you want to learn more about homeschooling, and living sort of an uncommon life, as luck puts it in the bio there, definitely check out the Trailblazers and Chain Breakers Podcast with Locke and his wife Ashley. Alright, that's it for right now guys, I'm gonna get you into this episode. And as always, if you liked this, please would you leave us a review, maybe this is the day I can get to keep asking so that we can get this in the hands and ears of more men. So if this has been useful, leave us a quick review and rating on Apple or Spotify. I would very, very much appreciate it. Okay, here we go for another episode of the Android podcast this time with Locke Haman

All right, dads are here with another episode of The dad work Podcast. I'm here with Locke Hamon. And I'm extremely excited to talk to you, man, because we obviously get along based on the fact that you talk about breaking the chains of intergenerational trauma. And that's like a really solid foundation to get along with someone with. And so I'm sort of curious where that came from, like, was it fatherhood for you that pushed you into figuring this stuff out? What's your what's your fatherhood story? Can we start with that?

Locke Haman 3:15

Yeah, sure. I think my fatherhood journey is probably similar to a lot of dads who might be listening to this, I started off with my head in the sand, you know, not really thinking about much in terms of like, the legacy you want to leave with your kids. And, you know, my, my main mission, when I when I had my first kid was, well, I want to teach my kids what I was never taught in school, what I wasn't taught, whether it's society, my parents, whether it's school, but it was really like an intellectual focus. So it was like investing, money management, you know, balancing a checkbook, it was finance, entrepreneurship, how to talk to someone, more, more skills, more kind of surface level stuff. And that's where I started as a father and it's kind of transitioned into as I've, you know, you mentioned breaking generational chains breaking, you know, the, this, this trauma focus. As I started to dive deeper into myself, I realized, if I wasn't healing myself, I was almost like a fraud and what I was trying to do with my kids, if I wanted to teach my kids what I was never taught by the school, my parents society, you know, that surface level stuff, that's great, the finance stuff, that's great, how to manage money. It's not taught, it's important. But if I'm not teaching them how to break emotional chains, big or small, if I'm not teaching them how to heal themselves, then I'm really, I'm really kind of skating over the surface level and ignoring what's really important, because what I found is you can be the perfect parent, and your kids are still going to have wounds. If you don't want to call it trauma, we'll talk we'll talk about the word trauma, because trauma is a is a scary word. It's like a dirty word. It's almost like this where you can be a perfect father, and your kids are going to have wounds. And we know we're not perfect. So this is just hypothetical. But you can be the perfect Father, I have four kids. And I always think of this example. We have, let's say cupcakes, there's only two cupcakes left, we need to split it four ways, I cut them perfectly into halves. And I think I'm doing it perfectly. But now I have to let one of them pick first. And whoever doesn't get to pick first is going to it's a small wound, but they're going to carry that wound, right. And if you extrapolate that to a bigger picture, we all have wounds from from our parents, and you can be a perfect parent, you're going to wound your kids. But if you're not teaching them how to heal those wounds, if you're not teaching them how to talk about that and feel their emotions, then you're not really breaking these chains, you're not really making it maybe in a in a financial or material way, you're you're making a better life for your kids. But emotional life is just as important. And so my journey, kind of the realization of that, and, and the realization of the things that I had to heal in my personal life went kind of hand in hand, my kids helped me realize that. And then as I realized that I have things to heal, that helps me be a better dad. And then they're, they're on to the next lesson that they need to teach me. And I think that, that, that's been, that's been the most important lesson that my kids have taught me. And they all come with different lessons, I think each each one of the four of them has different lessons that I meant to learn from them. But as a group, that that changed my life that taken me from the surface level of my fatherhood mission. You know, being a dad teaches the things that aren't taught normally, down to a deeper, more meaningful level, it was almost like, they showed me the way to actually heal myself.

Curt Storring 7:18

I relate so strong with that. I also had similar ideas, like I'm not going to do these things. And it'll be very practical, like, look at all these things. I can teach them. Wow, amazing. And it wasn't until I had them, obviously. And then things kept coming up for me. I was triggered constantly. And I had to change. Otherwise, my life was just continuing to get worse, my wife and my child's life was continuing to get worse. And I realized there was something that had to be done. But it took me a while to get there. And I wonder if you had a similar sort of journey where it was like you're banging your head against the wall, and you're not doing a great job, or if it was like you just sort of understood inherently. So what was that sort of understanding point like in your journey?

Locke Haman 8:07

That's a good question. So it, it happened slowly. And then all at once. I think that's a quote I forget who said that. Some some famous writer was talking about I think going broke, it happens slowly and then all at once. And I think that's a great way to kind of sum it up for me. I I had spent years pushing my emotions down. I think a lot of men do that, that kind of suck it up, man up kind of mentality, like feelings are don't screw feelings, don't feel feelings. And not wanting to be vulnerable in the sense of feeling my frustrations and my pains. And so after after years of doing that, after doing that in a lot of different capacities. I finally kind of hit a tipping point where it sped up. Right. So it happens slowly. And I'm and I've always been into I've always been a self help kind of junkie. It started off kind of success oriented. So I was an entrepreneur for a while. I still am an entrepreneur, I owned a business. I was in real estate. And it was a success mindset, just drive drive drive. And so I was looking at self help, like okay, how can I get better? How can I be better at what I'm doing? But again, like like I started off with with my fatherhood mission, it was surface level stuff. And I slowly dug deeper and I slowly dug deeper and then all of a sudden it sped up and I remember it was right after one of my my kids birthdays and actually so my my son I have one son and three daughters My son who's the oldest, and the second daughter were actually born on the same day seven years apart, which is a really cool story by itself. But, you know, here's, here's your birthday present, and you got a little sister. But I remember it was the week after their birthday. And I had, what I think any reasonable person would call a breakdown. And I resisted that word for so long. But what I realized was that I didn't really, I didn't love myself, I didn't even like myself at the time. And, you know, you can talk about needing to love yourself, and everyone knows that that's important. But the place that I was at in my life, I had, I had shoved my emotions down. So much, I had been burning myself out and ignoring my need for for healing, for realization, for just diving deeper, that it, it hit me so hard, that I kind of I actually had a breakdown, I remember trying to express to my wife how I felt, and just kind of, I had to just sit down and put my head down. It was just so overwhelming, realizing that not only do I not love myself, I didn't like myself, I'd spent my entire childhood hating a lot of things about myself, hating my name, right? Like kids can be kids can be kind of mean, I used to get made fun of for my name. And now I love my name, it's unique, people are gonna remember it, but at the time, it was a big deal, you know, hating my haircut, hitting my clothes, I was in the middle of three boys. So I had a lot of clothes on my older brother had worn, which is no big deal. But at the time, you know, these things just start to add up. And when you're telling yourself this story, that I hate this, I hate that I hate the way I sound or I hate the way I look today, it starts to your words start to become reality in your mind. And you start to actually hate yourself. And so I had done that for years. And it kind of became a self fulfilling cycle. And I created this.

It's not I don't love myself, it's not I don't like myself, it was actually hate for myself and the way that I was. And so, you know, my wife, in talking through this story has often said, she wishes she could have gotten me to realize, you know, that downward spiral that I was spiraling down at the time, because I wasn't very pleasant to be around at that point. And I remember Monday mornings, I used to start to notice that it was Monday morning, because my kids would kind of stay away from me because I had to go to work and I didn't want to go to work. And I was not, you know, morning, morning before having to go to work on a Monday when you're miserable. Your kids are smart, they're intuitive, they they're like, Okay, I'm gonna stay away from that. And, you know, she talks about how she wishes she, she could have helped me open my eyes without needing to break completely. But talking through that, we realized and I realized that's how it had to happen. I had to break so completely, I had to feel that pain so deeply, that it opened my eyes to the amount of work I needed to do on myself. And without that part of my journey without, you know, her spinning her wheels, and me just not being able to hear it without crashing so hard, I wouldn't be able to be the dad I am today, I wouldn't be able to rebound off of that. And you know, you use this phrase that the dark night of the soul. It's a really powerful phrase. And it kind of reflects how it has to be really hard. It has to be a really deep hole. To be able to turn that around. You have to feel I think I needed to feel that deep despair, of what the hell am I going to do? How do I fit like, look at what I've done. Look at look at how I've affected my kids how it affected my wife and not liking that. And turn that into that that deep pain gets turned into a fuel. Well, you know, fuck this. I'm not giving up. I gotta figure it out. I got I need to fix this because giving up is not an option. And if my eyes weren't opened with that pain, I wouldn't be here in the capacity that I am I wouldn't be doing what I'm doing. I wouldn't be raising my kids the way I'm raising them I wouldn't have the relationship that I have with my wife now. It none of it would have come together without that. That dark night of the soul and I think we, we talk a lot about the word trauma. So trauma can also almost be like a dirty word almost like it's, it's a sweater or something that people don't want to associate with. And I think a lot of us have heard this idea of big T trauma, like almost like trauma with an exclamation point, you know, if that's abuse of some kind, mental, physical, sexual, whatever. And then there's little T trauma, the stuff that it's, it's affecting you, but it's not like there's one specific instance that you can pinpoint in your life. And my wife, who shares a lot of her healing journey, she has big T trauma, she has a lot of big T trauma that that she's healed through. And it's been an incredible journey for her. I, I don't as much, I have this little T trauma that builds up over time. And I think a lot of people have that. And my realization, as I'm pulling out of this breakdown,

is seeing the little T trauma popping up everywhere in my life. And I think a lot of people can relate to that. But maybe they don't like the word, trauma, right? You don't need to have big T trauma to need healing. You don't need to have a broken childhood, to have something that you need to go deeper inside yourself and address. And so for me, my parents, you know, I think my parents did a pretty good job raising me. But I still think that I'm carrying these generational chains of whether you want to call it little T trauma, or whether you want to come up with a different name, you know, I'm in need of healing. And I think of it like, like your mind is a computer program. Okay, and you're constantly writing new lines of code, based on your experiences, your brain, your mind is going to take what it perceives, it's not always even reality. And also what's put in it by your parents, by your your friends, by your school, by society by what you watch on TV. And it's going to write new lines of code that you're going to run for the rest of your life. And a misperception a perfect Series of Unfortunate Events, if you want to look at it that way. We'll write flawed lines of code. And your mind being a computer, it doesn't differentiate between flawed and unflawed lines of code, it's going to run what you put in it. And what the dark mind dark night of the soul did for me was it made me realize not every line of code that was flawed in my head, but how many there were, and how, you know, I'd been afraid of this word trauma. You know, I've been on the healing journey with my wife and I've had been hearing some of her trauma that she was sharing with me big T trauma. And I was like, I don't have that. Nobody did that to me. I'm, I'm good. I don't have anything to heal. And when I broke down, I started to look at well, two things where the hell did this come from? And what the hell do I do to get out of here, and the where the hell did this come from shine the light on how many areas there were flawed lines of code that my computer program of a brain was running. And I've been not perfectly, but since then, I've been trying to pick those flawed lines of code out and rewrite them to do the healing so that I don't pass those flawed lines of code down to my kids. And you know, a lot of those those smaller things just to give you a couple examples, like my inner voice is still atrocious. Sometimes the things I say to myself and when I catch those things coming out, I'm I'm writing that code into my kid's brain. You know, a fear of failure, lack of confidence, lack mentality around money. It doesn't have to be these big T traumas, like somebody abused me, or somebody attacked me. It's these. These can be obviously those are generational changes that can be passed down, right? You can have a family history of abuse, mental or physical or sexual it a lot of times abusers are abused. And that's a chain that needs to be broken. For me it was these chains, these these smaller T chains that that all add up, that are so much easier to let go under the radar for yourself and for passing on to your kids. And so when when you put my wife's big T trauma, together with mine, you know, for a long time I didn't want to, I didn't want to kind of belittle what she had Then through by using the word trauma, it feels scary to admit you've had trauma, but it also feels like maybe you're taking something away from somebody who has the big T trauma to you. But with her big T trauma and and my little T trauma now where we're putting that together, and we're learning from each other, and we're saying, Okay, our kids aren't gonna be perfect, because how can you ever have perfect kids, but we're catching the big generational chains, and we're shattering those. And we're catching the little generational chains. And we're making sure that that we don't let anything slip through the cracks. And like form, in my experience will build up over time and become this this dark night of the soul for our kids.

Curt Storring 20:44

Man, thank you so much for sharing all that. That was very well said the computer code is I don't even know if I've ever heard it quite put like that. And it just rings. So true. There's so much in what you just said that I relate to. So I'm just feeling really seen right now. Thank you for that. A couple of the things that are coming up, just like a quick point on one of the things you mentioned that you said perception. And I think that is the key to so called smalti trauma is like if you were perceived, or if you perceived as a child, that you are neglected or abandoned or like you know, forgotten about whatever it might be, the perception of that is enough to perpetuate the story. And so when people go like, Oh, I don't have any trauma, it's actually like, Well, was there never anything in your life that you perceived to be bad? And it's like, what are we gonna go with is, what I like to say is that it's not your fault that these things happened, right? That's a very key point. Because I think a lot of people get stuck in that. And they get this guilt and the shame. It's not your fault that it happened. But the truth remains, it's your responsibility to get out of that. And so a couple things came up for me, the first one is, how did you get support around this? Because I can only imagine a lot of people come to this realization, and they just tank and then they can't get out of it. And then bad things happen. And the second point I would love you to go into is like how have you actually been doing this healing? What sort of practices or methodologies or whatever have worked for you? So what support did you have? And what sort of how has been behind the scenes in your healing journey?

Locke Haman 22:20

Yeah. So that that's huge. What the support that you have, I think that's, that's one of we talked about chains that that are holding you back one, one chain that is still getting at me is this. And I know you'll appreciate this current, this lone wolf mentality I had for a while when I started to realize this, I thought no one else is going to understand this. No one else is experiencing this. I don't know where to turn in terms of, you know, my wife has has been incredibly supportive. And she has big tn little T trauma. And so she she can relate. But you need more than that. Right? And, and I didn't have people around me that I thought were doing the same kind of inner work, or could relate to that. And so in the beginning, it was okay, my masculine problem solving brain kicks in. Here's what I'm going to do. And I came up with a plan. And interestingly enough that I think that that plan was a great first step. And there's kind of a cool story behind that in itself. The day before, I had my breakdown, it was a it was a Sunday, the day before, on Saturday, I had gotten a book in the mail that I had ordered. And it was called Love yourself, like your life depends on it. And I don't know if you've ever read that. It's a short read. It's an easy read. It's fantastic. It's in its simplicity. It's fantastic. But in its overall message, it's great. And it I read it in one, I want to say like an hour and a half one sitting real quick read. And within that was the answer. So I hit bottom. And I said what the hell am I going to like how do you learn to love yourself? And then I thought I just got the answer yesterday, this book came. I read it in an hour and a half. And the bottom line message from it was or the piece that resonated with me there's more than just one message but you know, he talks about as stupid and silly as it sounds. Walking around saying I love myself over and over again in your head. And it's going to if we're going to go back to the computer analogy. It's a forced a restart of your computer, it's going to hammer that phrase, I love myself, I love myself, I love myself into your brain. And he talks about saying that over and over again, consciously, until it becomes the number one thought that's going on in your brain unconsciously. And I said, Holy shit, that's the answer for me right now, right, the beginning step. And so I started doing that. And that was the first step that was, that was huge for me, I got over my ego, I got over the pride of admitting that I didn't love myself, I got over how silly I felt. And I started repeating that, that phrase over and over and over again, as I lay in bed, going to sleep at night, I would say it to myself, every time, you know, I build it into my routine, I put the kids to bed, I go stand in front of the mirror. And I'd stare at myself saying I love myself. And it was freaking weird, at first, and then it became this piece where if I didn't do it, I kind of felt like I was missing something. And so that was the first thing. But then I got stuck into this kind of lone wolf mentality. I don't see other people around me doing this, I don't have other men that it feels like are looking to grow, that are committed to their family, that are committed to growing themselves. And so

I started trying to do it all for myself. And I'm I'm at the point right now, where I've known for a little while that that's no longer going to cut it, that the next step for me, and I know you'll appreciate this is is I need, I need to get in a group of other men that are doing the same work, that are owning their shit. Because that's going to take me to the next level I've done as much as I can by myself, and I need to swallow my ego swallow my pride. And, and get in a group that's going to hold me accountable, but also accept me completely. And, and I need to find that, right? You do that with your groups. If you can't find it, and physically near you find it online. And that's, that's the point where I'm at, because what I do now is great stuff, you know, I will I'm I'm a visual person, journaling for me is huge, I will feel myself triggered, I will sometimes lose my, my composure on my wife, or one of the kids. And I'll feel like shit, and I'll sit down and I'll start journaling and writing stuff out, helps give me clarity on a where a lot of it is coming from. I'll get in a fight with my wife, we were both very strong personalities, we homeschool our kids, we run a business together, we can't get away from each other. And sometimes that's, that's fantastic. And other times, it's, uh, you know, we'll just, we'll just get into it. And we'll have this, this blow up. And I'll sit down, and I'll start writing and I'll be mad. And I'll be like, thinking, I'm going to write down everything I want to say to her, all the hurtful things, all the things she did wrong in this argument. And this little voice in my head will say, okay, that's fine. Now, what would it look like if you took 100% accountability for yourself, and it will start to change, you know, the words that I'm writing won't be the words that I'm thinking all of a sudden, I'll start to say, you know, you really shouldn't have said that to me. But

I kind of asked for it. Here's what I did. And it will help me kind of recompose myself. Because one of the things that that my wife has taught me with her big T trauma is she has a phrase from her healing, that when she gets triggered, she goes into tunnel, this this idea of the tunnel. And when your kids lose their shit, you can see your kids go in the tunnel, they're not there. They're gone. It's a form of disassociating it's a for my wife, it was a defense mechanism. When when you're a victim of abuse, you have to separate yourself from the physical and air quotes not be there. And so when we get into it, she her tunnel looks like she's gone. There's no way to talk to her. You can talk to her, but it's going to be angry, and there's not gonna be any resolution for me, my tunnel and one of the little T traumas that that I have that I'm healing and you kind of talked about it was I feel like it's perception. It's not reality, but I feel like in my memories as a kid I was always battling for attention with my two brothers. How are you not in reality, but perception wise, with you know, a busy parents and two other brothers. There's an Not enough attention, there's not enough time in the day to make that each child feel perfectly paid attention to. And so my tunnel, if you want to use that phrase, when I get triggered when I, when I, when I'm gone, I guess is I want to, I'm going to follow you, I'm going to dig in, I'll fix this because I want the attention now. And so finding journaling and being able to ask myself, what does it look like? If I take 100% accountability and, and all these questions What I want to say to her, that gives me that's, that's the balancing act between her tunnel and my tunnel, I'm doing something about it, I'm lovingly acknowledging my need for attention from my childhood, while respecting her need to get the hell away from me to calm it down a notch. And so you know, stuff like that has been really helpful for me going back and revisiting memories, and asking myself why they make me feel this way. Or, you know, I look at my kids, and one of my triggers with my kids is when one of them is, is being almost, I don't wanna say, a bully, but almost bullying one of the other ones. And it triggers me because I was there, I was there on both sides of that, I received it, but I especially gave it and that to, and I'll be honest with you, that is one of my biggest regrets in my life is that I can't go back and be a better brother to my two brothers older and younger, because I picked on them differently. But I gave it worse than I got. And so seeing that triggers me and so now I sit down, and I'm like, okay, so and so just did something to so and so. And I feel like this, and I all of a sudden have a memory of something that I did to one of my brothers that I you know, I've been kind of trying not to think about, because it makes me feel so horrible that I was I was so mean. And that kind of reflection is has been fantastic. But back to the point of of lone wolfing, it can only get you so far.

Curt Storring 32:07

Yeah, wow, thank you for sharing all that. And I relate so much, especially to that last piece, just thinking back to the way that I treated my sister to try to get some sort of power over my life when it felt out of control. I look back now and go, Oh, my goodness. And I've apologized to her for the brother that I was because it feels so bad to think about that. And similar to you, I get more triggered than anything when the kids start fighting. And like there's this limit between wrestling and roughhousing. And when I start feeling like there's bullying going on, and it's like, Nope, I just, I, you know, I go into that place the title, if you will. And I really love what you said about the loving yourself piece, because this was something and this is something that I hear a lot of men go like, Okay, well how like, what does it even mean? So I love that you gave that example. And I went through something similar, where my first step was coming up with a so called Power team. And it was like a couple of people or an animal who you just feel so safe with whose only job is to be visualized in such a way that is supportive. And so for me, it was like this gigantic Tiger, I don't know why you just came to me supported me and my most compassionate self. So if you stripped out everything about me except for compassion, this is like the perfect incarnation of that. And that was one thing that I did to help but I also did similar to you, I would be in the shower, and I would sort of smack my head smack my body and say, This is my head, I love my head. This is my shoulders. I love my shoulders because I tapped all the way down my body. And it's just like such a weird thing. And I think you're right, like it feels so awkward. But it works. It really truly works. This was vital in my sort of self love journey as well. And Locke, there's a great men's group, I don't know if you've heard about the Dad.Work men's group for fathers. And anyone listening is invited to join as well at Dad.Work/Group. Obviously, we're almost full in a couple of our groups, but we've got two spots left I think in each one. Anyway,

Locke Haman 34:14

I do want to do want to say that shameless self promotion. I love it. It's I wanted to say something about this, too, because it's interesting how my journey has happened in and you know, back to like how that book arrived the day before I had a breakdown and within it contained the answer and and part of the realization from that is, you know, I've never been religious. I've always been pulled towards spiritual, but as an adult, I've been discovering and you can call it whatever you want. I think all of the words are referring to the same thing, right the universe, God's Spirit, whatever religion you follow, I think the the I was distracted by and turned off by the dogma of manmade religion are a way or else that religion isn't right. But it was like something that you won't call it the universe, God, whatever, gave me that book and said, Well, I love you. Here's the book, here's the answer, you can do it. And so something similar, you're mentioning your men's group, something similar happened with, just recently with with this idea of I've been dancing around this for the past month or two, I need this, but I'm scared. I know, it will help me. But what if, you know, a group of men? Like that's going to take me to the next level? But then what's my excuse? Gonna be them? Right? If so, all these things, and I've been dancing around it. And then, you know, a couple of things popped up little signs here and there. And I'm like, nah. And then you asked me to be on your podcast and was like, Oh, shit. That's, I'm so thankful for the opportunity. I love the podcast, I love your work. And your group has been has been in the forefront for for this whole kind of thought process. And I'm like, okay, yep, that's the universe reaching down God, whatever you want to call it smack me upside the head and saying, alright, what are you waiting for? Join his damn men's group already. So I appreciate the opportunity. But I also appreciate that what I think your role was in playing the the hand of the universe reaching down to say, Stop dancing around this, because, you know, once once we're done with this conversation, I will be joining and I will see you there. And and I appreciate it. I don't want to get too religious, because then maybe that turns some people off. But I think that I think that there are these signs around if you're, if you're paying attention, and so if even just one person listening to this, is dancing around this idea of a men's group, I'm not getting paid to say this, right? I've been in sales. I know, I know how sales works. I'm not getting paid to say this. I'm not, you know, promoting your group specifically at all. I know, there are other men's groups out there. But if if there's anyone listening to this, who's who's been dancing around this, you know, Kurt, you were the hand of the universe that that smacked me upside the head to make me listen to finally commit to this, maybe maybe we can be that voice, this episode can be that voice for someone else who's dancing around it, who knows they need that, but is having the same fears that I had, you know what I'm now I'm not going to have an excuse. Somebody's holding me accountable. You know, now, now I can't hide from this, what's the next step gonna bring what's the next step going to uncover in my head that that I need to heal, those are all real fears. And, and I finally had to just get smacked upside the head to get over it.

Curt Storring 37:48

Man, thank you so much for all of that. And that really feels, oh, gratitude, overwhelm, appreciation, all of those things. And I'm actually very tender to all of that right now. Because I just had a closing ceremony in my in person group. And I received a lot of love. And so my heart is overfilling. Just in reception right now. So thank you. Yeah, thank you very much. I agree with you specifically around the distaste of dogma. But the reality that there is absolutely something, you know, I've experienced it in meditation in paying attention to my life so closely in each moment in breathwork. In men's group in plant medicine ceremonies, there is so much that we can access in this normal waking consciousness, that when we tap into these things, it's very clear when you notice them the synchronicities as you found it, there's no question. And so can we be open to seeing those can we be open to noticing them is, I think, a very good question that I'm battling with. And what does that look like? Man, I just, I feel really full right now appreciate. I want to get into homeschooling though, because I was gonna like, I was going, like, how do I ask this guy if he's just like, super religious and weird. And because that's where like, most people I talk to get into homeschooling. And I think they're doing it for the right reason, in a lot of cases, but I've talked to so many people lately, who are like, we are not religious, we just don't want to be part of whatever it is. And I want to make sure that I don't throw shade at people who are religious doing this because they're probably doing it for the same reasons. They just saw it way before I did, which is that the public system and the government run system is really broken and terrible in a lot of ways. So, you know, without without putting words in your mouth. Why are you homeschooling and just let's walk through this journey because there's like, what have you learned? How do you stay present? How do you stay calm when your house is always full of kids? There's a lot but let's just start with the why and see what happens.

Locke Haman 39:52

Okay. Yeah, I think that you know, the first, the first place to go with As most people look at parents who opt out of the government run schools as being against education in general, a lot of times you have the stereotypes of the religious people that are doing it for those reasons. But I think that this, this stigma, whichever one you want to choose whichever stereotype you've heard about homeschooling parents, I think, first of all that there, like you said, there's so many people doing it now, especially in the last two years, that that's changing. But also, you have to ask yourself, is that true? Why, why would that stereotype exists? Well, you're, you're, I'm a little bit of a fan of underdogs. I teach. We, my wife and I teach our kids think differently and question everything. So it's like, well, who benefits from that, that stigma, the government run schools do? You know, it's, it's like, you gotta, you gotta go a level deeper. But if we go back to this idea of being against education in general, let me let me start off with, I'm not against education in general, I actually was a teacher. For a number of years, my father was a teacher for almost 40 years. My brother was a teacher, my mother was a librarian in the high school where my dad was a teacher and I grew up on campus in New England prep school, living in the first floor of a dorm. For the first half of my life, my aunt was a teacher, my brother is now a librarian. I have tremendous respect for teachers, and I know a large number of fantastic teachers. But the system is broken, the system is broken. Now it was broken. 10 years ago, it was broken when I started in school, and it was probably broken before that. Even though there are great teachers out there, a huge number of them are retiring, or being forced out. If you're, if you're paying attention to the school systems, there's a lot of teachers either saying screw this, or I disagree, and then they're getting ousted. And so the system is breaking more. And if we go back to the roots of the system, I don't want to go deep dive into the idea of the Prussian model of schooling. But the surface level of the Prussian model, which was, which is a couple 100 years old, obviously, from Prussia, it was specifically designed. And this is the model of schooling that that most of the, I guess, civilized world will call it follows. It's specifically designed to turn out kids who are obedient workers and soldiers. And being at having been a teacher having been on the inside of the system to see how broken it is, as well as a student and feeling like the system is broken. As well as seeing some of what's happening. Not to my dad, but some of his colleagues and friends who had these situations where they they kind of got railroaded, and knowing these are some great men, that that shaped me growing up. They were fantastic teachers, and the system is kind of chewing them up and spitting them out. I don't want I want my kids to think for themselves. I want them to question everything. I want them to have an entrepreneurial mindset, even if they choose to be an employee. I want them to have that skill set. I don't want them to think inside the box. I don't want them to obey. I don't want them to conform. And sometimes, you know, teaching them to question everything comes back to bite me in the ass because they start questioning me. And I have to I have to kill my ego, teaching them not to blindly obey results in a lot of conversations, why they should listen to me and them trying to tell me why I'm wrong. But that's that's what I want. Because that was not I'm not saying that my parents were sit down and shut up. Do what I say parents, they certainly weren't. But that's what the system is like. And, and even if you have a friendly teacher, it's the school's way or the highway. There's no different speeds for different kids. There's no flexibility. Everything is standardized. We wanted to get away from this idea of standardized, each kid is different. Each kid learns in different ways they learn at different speeds. And that should be okay. And I'm not saying that the teachers are unaware of that fact. But having been a teacher, when you're teaching 35 kids

and you have a couple of really gifted kids, you have a bunch of kids kind of in the middle of the pack and you have a couple kids who are are lagging behind what the school system has defined as that years kind of milestones I'm not saying it's impossible, but it is hard to teach to all those different levels. You can do it but but it takes a special, it takes a special teacher. And so I'll give you an example with with our oldest two. So I have an 11 year old and an eight year old, a four year old and a two year old, the 11 and eight year olds are reading, when we taught them to read. We tried at the kind of societal societally prescribed time grade level to teach them to read. And Good lord, it was like banging my head against the wall. I remember with our son, our oldest, I had to just be like, Honey, this is you to my wife, I can't do this, I'm gonna kill him. Because he really resisted it. And so that it really taught us the go at different speeds. So each one was different. But also, just because school says they need to read at this grade level doesn't mean anything. So we gave him a break. When we first tried, they both resisted. And we gave them a break. And then we came back and it just clicked, they were just ready. And if we had if they had been in school, they would have been labeled as deficient or behind whatever level. But as soon as it clicked, as soon as they were ready, they instantly leapfrogged within, like a week or two leapfrogged where they in air quotes should have been according to their grade level. And since they since it clicked, since they were ready, they both read way above their grade level, our son, especially when he when it clicked, he went from, like the cardboard, like little kid books, he was reading Harry Potter to himself at age eight, he was he had read all of the books like seven or eight times, he would read a Harry Potter book in a day. And we were like, Should we tell him to take a break? Like, you know, it was almost too much. When you give a kid the room to move at their own speed, it's going to catch up, and there'll be right on track. You know, there's no, there's no society defines a certain time that you need to, to learn to read or a certain test score that you need to get in a certain subject. It's not true, we don't have to accept that. And so if we had forced them into a box, what kind of damage would we have done by telling them, even if we're homeschooling them and forcing them into a box, you have to read, you're behind. So you're not reading at the right grade level? It was it would have done, you know, we go back to the generational chains, it would have created some kind of wound in them. That said, Okay, you're not good enough. And they would have continued that flawed line of code would have been in their computer program. And they would have run that for the rest of their lives. And there's obviously other ways that you can create that. But that's one of the big reasons that we chose to homeschool. It's not because we're completely against education, we're not against teachers. We're not, if you want to look at the stereotypes, it's not like I've never met anyone, homeschooling for religious reasons that is like just shuts their house off and doesn't socialize with anyone else. But we're not doing it for that reason, either. It's the flexibility. It's the freedom. And it's the bottom line fact that no one is going to love our kids, and give them a loving environment the way we can to learn what the way that is in their best interests. And, you know, I think that in and of itself, is one of the most important lessons we've taught our kid it reminds me of a Mark Twain quote, where he says don't let schooling interfere with your education. Okay, school and education are not the same thing. We've become synonymous they become, well, how do you know, they've got to go to school to get their education? Well, some of the biggest lessons I've learned in my education didn't come from school. They came from other places. And so that's what we're trying to do with our kids. It's out we're taking them out of the box, we want them to, and so we don't have to go into the nitty gritty details of how we homeschool. We've actually on on my podcast with my wife. We've actually done a couple episodes about that, where we go into a little bit of detail, but

Curt Storring 49:32

we will put those in the show notes. Yeah. So

Locke Haman 49:36

it's the idea of right now the way we see it is let's do less school, in air quotes like traditional schooling, let's do less school. And let's give them the freedom to educate to learn in a way that resonates with them. My son loves math. He loves sports. So he's constantly doing batting percentages. You know the football stats. Let's let's turn into that let's let him learn math that way. He's he's at the point. And he has been there for years where he can do math, if not just as quickly in his head as I can, but faster. My daughter is, is was born an entrepreneur, she's up my butt, about planting seeds in our basement under some grow lights, because she wants to sell the vegetables at the end of the growing season. But she wants to also sell the plant start to like the baby tomato plants at the end of our driveway. And she will not let it go. She wants to she's not greedy, but she wants to make money she wants to she wants to design the systems and makes, you know, achieve success. How can we turn into that and let her learn through that entrepreneurship, doing that is going to be way more important than plopping them in front of a computer, or forcing them to follow this curriculum or that curriculum. And, and that's kind of been our journey. To where we are now it's been ever changing. But it's always been on those principles of freedom and flexibility.

Curt Storring 51:05

Man, the thing that's coming up is, you might be the invisible hand of God or the universe for me, pushing me to actually do this because my wife's been talking about it a lot. And I've been a bit resistant, because what I want to hear more of is like the how not in the like specifics, but how you, as a man, as a father, deal with everyone being around all the time, like you've must, there must be sacrifices in terms of your own personal space. How is your time, by the way? Because I know it's top of the hour?

Locke Haman 51:36

I'm good. I'm good with whatever you need? You good? Yeah.

Curt Storring 51:39

Okay, let's try and do like 10 more minutes, then if you're okay with that. Yeah. Because I would love to know, like, I think we before we started recording, it's like, how do you stay cool and calm? When there's no downtime, other than, you know, the you go out? Or your kids go out? And they play or whatever, but like, you're always together? What is that sort of aspect, like in your life? And how do you maintain that balance?

Locke Haman 52:03

Yeah, that's a great question. And there's no simple answer, the thing that I've realized is, without even knowing it, I have, I have created an environment where I can no longer hide from well from my kids, right, but also from, from my flaws. And that has been huge for my healing. And, you know, like, like I said, I run a business with my wife, and we homeschool. Technically, only two of them are doing school, but all four of them are home. So they're tearing around the house. They're loud, and we want to let them be loud. We don't want to do what, you know, for me, it was like, I'm afraid to be loud. Because at some point in my life, I had some kind of kind of experience where it was like, Man, I'm too loud, people aren't gonna like me, I gotta calm it down. We don't want to do that to them. And so how the hell do you balance not just not just homeschooling, but running your own business with your wife, four kids. And, and working on yourself. Right? And, and what it comes down to is it, it makes it so in your face, that you have to do something about it. If you've made the commitment, and I know Kurt, you have if someone has made the commitment to growing themselves, if you start homeschooling and your with your kids almost all day, if you're running a business from home, if you're you're running a business with your wife, any combination of those things, you can't hide from these flaws, and you're committed to fixing them. So it brings them up right in front of your face in a way that if I if I and I worked, you know, I owned a real estate brokerage. And I was there, you know, not always nine to five, but I was there a lot during business hours. If I had something that that was triggering me. You know, maybe my wife did something or one of my kids did something and I got triggered, I could kind of ignore it for a couple minutes because I knew I was going out the door. And then I could be wrapped up in my work at the office all day and not have to think about it. And by the time I came home, it wasn't a big deal. I'd forgotten about it, they'd forgotten about it, they probably hadn't even noticed. And I didn't have to do anything to heal it. I could just let it ride. And that's part of what contributed to just shoving everything down, contributed to me ultimately breaking. And so it's been there been struggles. Without a doubt. It's been rocky at times. But it was ultimately it was a vote of confidence in ourselves, to be able to handle it to be able to continue healing through it to be able to find a balance To

kind of when we encounter these giant flare ups to, to handle them in an appropriate way, a way we would be proud of, by the end of the day, at the end of the day. And so, you know, in terms of finding balance, you know, at one point, I just, I just said, you know, I get, I got my two year old loves waking up early, for a while she was waking up at like, 430 in the morning, and it was really miserable. She sleeps much later than that now. But, you know, I just had to start getting up earlier. You know, I, if I was working a different job, you know, I, maybe I got a night shift, and I gotta go, I gotta go put the hours in and come home to see my family during the day, because I'm not willing to not see my family. I'd be up early. So, you know, get up early, do some work before the kids are up. We my wife is. And this is a great thing. She's fanatical about taking time for herself. We came to this agreement. I've heard a lot of other people talk about this. But I think it's worth worth restating we've we came to this agreement, like our kids are incredibly important to us. In order to show up as the best parents we can we need to take care of our relationship, our relationship has to come before our kids. If we take care of our relationship, we show up as better parents. And even if you want to say the parents that your parenting is the most important piece, you got to take care of your relationship. The next level up from that is in order to show up in the relationship as best you can. You need to be healing and growing yourself. So you have to come first. And so she she has been fanatical about taking me time, I need to get away, I gotta go away by myself or I need to get out every every Monday, she gets out of the house. Every Friday I get out of the house. And then during the day, you know, that's non negotiable to have those. Get out, I don't care what you do, get out of the house get away. During the day, we have times where it's you know, this is I need to be doing work, you need to be doing work, we need to set these boundaries. And again, just like the healing, it forces you because it's so easy to get distracted. It forces you to be more intentional, which is a huge word for us intentional to be more intentional about what you want. To me being intentional means knowing what your values are, knowing what your your vision is. And then using that values and vision as a filter for everything in your life, every decision in your life. So an opportunity comes up, does it fit my values and vision? No, sorry, can't do it. And it's it goes, you know, you got to take time, because my values and vision part of that is growing a business that allows me to work from home, to homeschool my kids to be financially independent, to be able to do all of this healing work on myself on my relationship with my kids. And to do that, it sounds almost paradoxical. I need to take time away from my kids to build his business. Right? And that has to come first. That's my purpose. If I don't have my purpose, as a man, I'm going to feel lost, I'm going to be a shitty husband, I'm going to show up as a shitty ANGRY DAD. And so you you get forced into this prioritizing your values and your vision. Because they're what is going to feed your ability to homeschool your ability to work from home. If you don't have that, then it's going to be chaos. And there are data don't get me wrong. There are days where it is chaos. I was telling you when we started, you asked me how my day was, well, my day has been good. My day has been very loud. Because you know the kids are tearing around the house. And it makes it really hard to get some stuff done. So it just makes me need to focus that much more. You got the word intentional, I said is has been huge for us if you're going to do any one of these things, that that you know, my crazy wife and crazy me are doing all of them at the same time. You have to be intentional, and it forces you to be

Curt Storring 59:06

man, I love that you're doing all of that. That is so rare for me to find someone who's like oh my goodness, I think they're doing more than I am. Because I feel like I'm always you know at the grindstone. I'm doing a lot I'm doing a lot of good work but you guys well for kids homeschooling, building business doing a podcast loving each other loving yourselves. That's phenomenal man. Like what an inspiration to be honest.

Locke Haman 59:26

And well I just doing it perfectly. We're not doing it perfectly. That's the most important. Thank

Curt Storring 59:30

you for going No, I

Locke Haman 59:31

appreciate you. I appreciate you giving us that that shout out but at the same time and I think this is what most people miss. When they when they think about whether it's it's role models or whatever phrase you want to use. Like I want to be like that person, right? You look at someone and you think that what you see is is the entirety of their life. Part of our mission in our podcast and our business is to be open about you know, we screw some stuff up. We really like sometimes big time, we we're not perfect. And if you think the people that you're watching on whether it's TV, social media, wherever you see them, these gurus, these people that you're taking as role models, if you think they're perfect, You're crazy. You're getting a curated, highlight reel social media version of them, and you don't have to be perfect to homeschool, you don't have to be perfect to, to run a business from home, your your you have to, I don't want to use the phrase you have to, it would help be helpful to you to realize that, that those imperfections are how you get better if you don't screw something up. So when I told the story of teaching our son to read, we screwed that up for a couple days, we pushed him harder than we should have pushed him. And we we were most definitely not as nice as we should have been about it. And it created more resistance to the reading than he would have had. And finally, thankfully, my wife was the one who said after about a week, Okay, we're done. You know, I had to walk away, I was like, I'm gonna kill the kid. He's not obeying me, right? It was still stuck in that. But we had to experience that to realize, okay, obeying is not what we're trying to do here. forcing him to read at a certain time is not what we're trying to do here. So those imperfections are where you get better. You have to acknowledge them and grow from them.

Curt Storring 1:01:25

Yeah, and thank you for saying that. And that's why I like to try and throw in like, the mistakes that I make doing podcasts on the times they yelled at my kids. Like this last week, I've had two instances just to be like, super transparent. So nobody thinks like, I'm supposed to be a guru or anything. Yeah, like my wife. And I got into it. And it was a misunderstanding and communication, expectations weren't set assumptions were made. And it ended up being very defensive. And I was feeling overwhelmed. And so I needed it to end and she was feeling unheard. And so it got to a point where we were speaking very disrespectfully to each other in front of the kids and everything. And so just a great example of screwing up and then repairing like, that's the thing, we screw up so much, but we also repair just as much as we screw up. And that one to one ratio is essential in my life. Now, even this morning, as well, like I was overwhelming in my need to tell my son not to parent, his younger brothers. I was like, Dude, you're not the dad. But it was it was like scary. You're not the dad, like please eff off. I didn't say that to him. But that's what I was feeling. You know, get out of my lane. And I didn't want him to take that responsibility, because that's what I felt as a kid. I needed to be the dad. But my dad wasn't there all the time. You know, so it made some sense. But I'm like, Dude, I'm right here, stop. So it's interesting, what fear came up from that. And I've got some work to do now. Like, I can see what happened. And I will journal on and I'll think on and I'll meditate on what happened. And I think like, yeah, you're right, it is so important to make sure that there's no perfection assumptions. But also to know that if you're doing it in a way that is enriching, you're also apologizing along the way, and repairing those ruptures.

Locke Haman 1:03:09

Yeah. Especially to your kids. Apologizing Absolutely. Your kids. So you said the one to one ratio. I really liked that, you know, coming back and making up one of the things that that my wife and I have talked about, because we've like you just admitted we've gotten into it in front of the kids and they've seen us get really fired up. And I don't know if it's a one to one ratio, that that's why I like that that phrase so much because I don't think we're there yet. But they also see us come back and just like we lost it in front of them, they see us talking to each other, talking it out, figuring out what happened apologizing to each other. And and one thing I'm I still struggle with but I'm getting better at is apologizing to them. You know, I'm sorry that I lost it on you. Here's what's going on with me. Maybe you don't understand it. But here's what's going on. I really like what you just said there.

Curt Storring 1:04:01

Thank you Well, Instagram posts for later today then. Alright, man. Well, this has been really phenomenal. And I've enjoyed this a very much and just like feel very much kinship with values and vision by the sounds of it. And I would like you to just make sure you tell everyone where to find you. You've got an Instagram where we connected you're gonna podcast. What else? Where can people find all that?

Locke Haman 1:04:22

Yeah, so Instagram is a great place. My My username is my name, loc ke ha ma N. Also, our podcast is called trailblazers and chain breakers. So there's a couple different places you can find that you can just search the name in whatever podcast app you're using, you can go to trailblazers, chain breakers.com. And also, if you if you are interested in you can also find us on screw status quo.com That's another place that you can find us we have a free ebook that we're putting out on how to break the chains of status quo. And yeah, I'd love to hear from everybody on On Instagram that's that's probably the best place to interact and connect and, and get to know me a little bit more what what I'm doing what my wife and I are doing together I would say go to Instagram and listen to the podcast and you'll get to know us pretty well where we don't hold anything back.

Curt Storring 1:05:17

Yeah, no that's one of the things I love most is like you're interacting with me and I checked it your stuff out and it's like oh, okay, like super vulnerable, very honest, very transparent, very candid. I will put all of that in the show notes at Dad.Work/Podcast so you can check that out and Locke this has been so cool, man. I really appreciate the time.

Locke Haman 1:05:34

Yeah, it was a pleasure. Thank you so much, Kurt.

Curt Storring 1:05:43

That's it for this episode. Thank you so much for listening. It means the world to find out more about everything that we talked about in the episode today, including Show Notes resources and links to subscribe leave review work with us go to dad.work/pod. That's DAD.WORK/POD type that into your browser just like a normal URL Dad.Work/Pod to find everything there. You need to become a better man, a better partner and a better father. Thanks again for listening, and we'll see you next time.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai