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 78 significance meaning nature and intentional fatherhood. With my guest, Thomas King. Well, we go deep today talking about why it's critical to instill self confidence in our children as they grow, allowing yourself to feel control and express your emotions as a father and husband, rather than suppressing or repressing them. The need for leadership and intentionality when raising our kids, healing your inner childhood trauma and wounds, and how to grow into ways that are aligned with the person you are meant to be understanding what it is that we're triggering in our kids and what we're nurturing within them. The ability to substitute technology with outdoor activities that are more engaging than technology, so your kids learn to to them naturally and so much more. Tom Kingwell is from Cape Town, South Africa. He has four children, twins, aged 11, a six year old son and a three year old daughter who live with him and his partner in Bavaria, Germany. He has been a teacher for 16 years working with children of all ages. He's an avid outdoorsman, and passionate about inspiring other dads to get their kids outside and discover the wonder and benefit of nature. He's also committed to doing the deep mental emotional work needed for us to be the men we are capable of being. And to avoid the trap of making our wounds the wounds of our children. You can find him online on Instagram at the complete Dad, you can also find the complete dad network, which is a community of men doing this type of work alongside Tom and his partners at the complete dad.mn.co. That's the complete dad.mn co this guys was such an amazing conversation. I just love Tom, we get along so well, we are aligned in so many ways. And perhaps I'm biased because you know, we're basically doing the same sort of work. But man, I just would let this guy talk all day very well spoken a lot of experience with children, both as a teacher and with his own four kids. And he just takes the time to think he contemplates. And he does a really good job of explaining the things that he's thinking about in the way he's living his life in a way that I find very easy to understand. And that almost seems it just seems true. There's something about this, that just rings true for me. And I'm so excited to bring this to you guys. So if you would like to follow another father doing this type of work, please give him a follow on Instagram, join his network, if that feels right to you as well. And speaking of joining networks, if you have been enjoying what you hear on the podcast, if you've been following me on Instagram, if you're on our email list, taking the 14 day free course the better man better dad email series, if you've been joining all that and want to go deeper want to have a group of men around you to help support you and challenge you as you go along your own healing and growth journey as a father and a partner and a man. I wonder if you want to join us. We have waitlists going right now for our men's groups. We meet weekly with our men's groups. These are not free groups, there is a commitment and a cost involved. But from the testimonials we've received already, this is life changing work. And I know firsthand, because men's group was what changed my life perhaps most of all, we've also got the village, our online community of dads. It's a community of brotherhood and training, you got access to our courses, monthly workshops with experts, worksheets, a 24/7, online community to literally ask anything, give support, get support, share wins, that's open to you all the time. It's not on Facebook, which makes it all the better. And there's gonna be so much there's community calls, you can join a member led men's group, man, we just we just launched in earlier this month in April. And if you want to be part of the next intake, we're making sure we do this right to be sure that I can serve every man in the group that everything is smooth. We are going to be opening up for the next intake in a little while here. But if you would like to be the first to know and get a spot because I do think they will go quickly. We only let in a handful of men at a time. Please sign up on the waitlist at dad.work/village you can find the groups that weekly men's groups that meet very intimate dad.work/group Or join us in the Village dad.work/village. That's it for now really grateful for Tom for being here. And I think we'll probably have him back because man, there's just so much to talk about with him. That being said, enjoy today's episode with Tom King. Well, here we go.

All right, Tom, thanks for joining me again, I know we talked earlier and got some technical difficulties. So we're going to do this again. And the last time we chatted was like epic man. We talked about caveman parenting. We talked about supporting but challenging our kids. We talked about it the state of the world. And I'm excited to do it again and just like deepen this relationship because I love what I'm seeing from you're getting your kids outdoors teaching them to get the flip off of screens. So why don't we like actually the thing that I'm curious about first is how do Did you navigate becoming a dad because it looks like this is a pretty decent calling for you man like you're running the complete Dad, you're helping other dads now. Was this always like, I'm just the man of being a dad or was it?

Thomas Kingwell 4:44

Well, first of all, I want to apologize for losing the last tapes because that conversation was probably one of the best I've had on the topic and I think you may just click 100% So I'm hoping we can somehow do a justice and you know, lots happened since then. So hopefully we can add a little bit of value On top of that, and perhaps talk about some of those things. I don't know, you know, I, I started teaching at age about 2627. So that's my job. I'm a teacher, school teacher, primary school teacher. So I've had a lot to do with kids. I started with a grade four class moved into grade 675. So taught all around that age group, also great threes and stuff. And in my career, I've taught everything from three year olds to 18 year olds, actually. So I started to realize that that was something that came quite naturally to me connecting with kids. And I was very passionate about that, like I was, you know, that kind of teacher who was running surf clubs after school twice a week I started a fitness club for the kids I you know, I was the teacher invited two occasions for the kids there christenings, they are not christenings, what's it called, is that rigor, their confirmation things and you know, I'd go to their parents houses and hang out with the family got really close with them, I'm still in contact. In fact, when I went back to South Africa, the last time a bunch of kids rocked up at the airport for like, after 10 years, not seeing them and like, welcomed me back. So there was clearly something there. And when I was, you know, beginning my 30s, I really realized that that energy deserves to be given to someone who obviously have even more impact in you know, because I saw the impact that especially fathers had or did not have on their children at school, you know, I could see the lack sometimes with, especially girls actually, I can't say especially girls, but I saw a lot of lack of confidence and lack of belief in themselves as far as girls. And then I saw a lot of negative kind of behavior in boys in in Cape Town, a lot of kind of almost gangster kind of behavior within the within the kids in the class. And, you know, our kids came from a catchment area that wasn't in our local town. So it's quite interesting. We had a lot of kids from, you know, the townships living in extreme poverty, kids with no lunch, coming to school every day, then we had kids from these kind of, you know, there was some decent areas, but where gangsterism and drugs were quite rife, either around the corner, or on the streets they lived in. And you had some parents that were really doing a fantastic job. And when you saw fathers really present, I mean, surprise, surprise, when you saw fathers really present and attending their kids parent meetings and coming to sports events, you saw the impact that that had on their children. And the ones that I'm still in contact with shout out to Selwyn, and his twins that I that I coached swimming and did a whole bunch of stuff. I mean, those girls are have turned into amazing people. And it just showed me, he showed me the impact of a dad and I thought like, I you know, this is something that I want to do for myself. And I jumped in quite readily with twins, you know, so I got hit with a one, two with twins, they're born 10 weeks early. So to be honest, I wasn't ready. And I didn't know what I was doing.

But since then, I've learned a lot, you know, and those twins are from my previous marriage as well. So I went through the whole divorce dad thing, which really was kind of the impetus and the catalyst for me starting the company dead, which started as the dead Syndicate, which was for divorced dads, actually, initially, because I realized that focusing on aspects out of my control, wasn't really helping that much. And then focusing on things that were in my control, like creating a home for my kids, that they would feel safe in home where they'd feel like family was there was much more effective than getting angry with their mom and you know, trying to rail against the family court system, rather, like really build the relationship with my kids. And hence, I won equal custody with my kids. You know, because of that aspect. My kids chose to come and live with me half the time. And then I started to realize that all the things that I had done, to try and achieve that or to build myself up was were the same as what regular dads need to do, and that a lot of kids that do have their dads are part of a nuclear family still miss those aspects from their fathers, you know, presence intentionality. dads who are self aware who put their kids first to realize that you go to work to provide for your family, you know what I mean? You don't go to work to provide for your family, they actually don't provide what's most essential, which is emotional, and mental kind of support for your children. And, yeah, so that led to where we are today with a complete dead and the complete dead kind of just stands for that we recognize that there's not just one aspect of ourself, we need to develop as a man, you know, it's not about being a tough exterior and getting out there and getting off through it and Extreme Ownership and Manning up. That is part of it, and that we really do, we do push that but there is the deeper work that is probably at the moment, a major focus on what we do in our group that we have our community as well. Like I know you also have online community but that's what we do most of the time is to recognize that as men we've been kind of not prohibited but cut off from doing that deeper work and connecting with those wounds that we experienced as children. You know what I mean? Like when you start to watch your children grow and you see How much things impact them and you start kind of like reflecting back to your own childhood and you start to understand how much the environment you grew up and formed you and how that impacted you, in a positive sense, but also how that impacted us in negative sense where self esteem and you know, security and belief in yourself, you know, kind of took a lot of hits from when we were younger. And so we try to work on that, you know, and it's, that's the cool thing about doing these kinds of things like you do as well is that as you work on yourself, you able to recognize what you need to protect your children from, which is a lot protecting our children from ourselves. Which is, which is hard man. And you asked the question on the post the other day is like, should we judge parenting? And I think totally like you have to, and especially ourselves, and it's not in a harsh way of like I you screwed up, like you're useless, but just in a conscious way of like, okay, I took the moment to reflect on that I didn't do well there. I'm not a whole person. But I need to operate in a way that shows that I've, I've kind of taken responsibility for this thing that I've chosen to do. You know, I've chosen to have children, I've chosen to be a father. Now what just keep on being unconscious and going through life in an unconscious way way, I'm just going off to what I think I want and reacting to my kids and my wife in a way that just comes naturally to me, I'll be natural and spontaneous. Yes. And that was my problem. And that's been my, it's probably been my greatest challenge is to change that a little bit to realize that I'm not going to become boring if I actually become intentional. So that's a long answer. I apologize to your listeners for long answers. But anyway,

Curt Storring 11:44

no, I was just gonna say, please keep going. Because I don't even need to speak this is all like exactly why we can act so well. Particularly with a balance with the understanding that our childhood impacts us now, their childhood impacts our children. And like what could be more important when you realize that I don't, I don't think anything, because you could be the reason that your child has a huge father wound thinks he is a loser doesn't have confidence goes through becomes addictive in his behaviors. All of these things are like base level because you as a father didn't connect with him didn't get that secure attachment. And it's not just like you said about the money and showing up like that way as a father. And what you said about balance is like, basically why I wanted to do this, because I see guys on one end of the spectrum, and it's all about oh, just be better. Just go lift weights, just go be the alpha, just like crush those emotions down, bro. Like, you know, dude,

Thomas Kingwell 12:40

what is being bad? Like, I'm gonna be a bit of men 1%. But it's more and you like, well, what is better? What does it mean?

Curt Storring 12:46

Yeah, well, it's typically just like, being hard, not having any emotions, going to work crushing the gym, you know, trying to I don't know, like, get a hot wife, whatever it is. But then there's this whole other side, that's like, oh, just be in flow. And just like, be nice and just be in the spirit of the world. And like all this sort of flow stuff that has no direction. And so I like it. Just in my own life, I have experienced both of those. I was the hard charging type A like get shit done, build businesses. And then I spent the last couple years just like the flow space. And I'm like, okay, that doesn't neither of those extremes work. So what do you do? Well, you get grounded, and you center yourself in a way that you can choose when to access either side of those. And I think that for me, is like the fundamental principle of intentionality, awareness, conscious fatherhood, if you will. And I think that you just picked up on that as well. And it's interesting that that's been both of our stories. Because it's not like it's not a sexy thing to talk about, like, oh, just be in balance, just right down the middle. It's all good guys. It's like, oh, no, you need to give someone something to like grab onto right, but that's just the answer. So what does your come from the other side, you're like, super spontaneous, and harder to be intentional. I think I was the other way. I was like, very oh, let's do this. How do I become spontaneous? So we're almost like to two opposite polarities here. How did you work on that? Like, how did you become more intentional and slow down and just like, actually plan how you want it to be a dad?

Thomas Kingwell 14:16

To be honest, just by fucking up so many times, you know, it's like, your life, you know, to be honest, like, it came to the point where I realized that it's too important not to do something about it, it's too important to just allow these emotions to just arise and to have no control over them. Now, it's a slippery slope when we talk about controlling emotions because a lot of people then repress their emotions or push them down. I don't mean that I mean, utilizing emotions as a dashboard as a sign of what is going on inside me as a sign of the pain that I'm experiencing as a sign that I'm not really pissed off at my kids being late for school that I'm not really pissed off because they are back chatting me that I'm upset because there's something deeper and so a lot of my You know, it was this realization that I'm so one dimensional in my expression of my emotion, it was anger. So I wouldn't cry, I wasn't really sad, I wasn't really depressed and realizing it's all coming out as anger. And that's what happens to us a lot as men, because anger is strong, right? So for me, I can deal with anger. So if anyone threatens me, I respond in anger, because I'm being the man. When I tell someone, hey, you know, that really hurt my feelings. It's, it doesn't come natural to me or even to my kids, you know. And then as you start to play around with a little bit and start to witness, like what your anger is doing to your children, not just the anger directed towards them, but the anger that they're witnessing, whether you're driving in the car with you talking to their mom, whether you're talking to their stepmom, and in my case, I have two little other kids that are from my, from my relationship with prisons, so the half brother of my older ones. And you know, when you start to look at the impact that you start to have, when you don't become more self aware, when you're not realizing that your reactions to things that are happening around you are impacting these little people. And back to your point about that. I mean, I don't even know Gabor Matta, you must know him. You know, the work that he does, I mean, it's, if you are someone that subscribes his point of view, and I think that he's done a lot of research, and I really I do. I mean, people think that ADHD is a genetic thing. In his opinion, ADHD comes from the wounds we experienced as children, the insecurity that the angst that they see the, the mistrust that they feel from their mothers, especially, you know, in his case, he has he was in Hungary, Hungary at like the end of the Second World War, when the Nazis rolled into Hungary, Budapest, I think it was, and he was crying like non stop, and his mother went to the doctor, the doctor said, were all my other Jewish babies that I see are crying. And they were like, well, they obviously don't know what's going on. But they could sense what was happening in their mom. And when you start recognizing yourself, because then I then I went deep, and I asked my mom, what was happening when I was a child, because I can only remember up to five and also what was happening. And then, and then I'm speaking to and I get goosebumps now. Because I'm like, Oh, my word, mom. So there is the source of a lot of these things that I'm experiencing that I can't explain. You know, when I look at my life on the outside, dude, I mean, I'm one meter 89, I've done triathlons. I'm a teacher, I'm successful, I've got a beautiful house, I've got a nice car, I've got a beautiful wife, I've got four amazing kids. So where does this come from, it's clearly not coming from the present version of myself. It's coming from all those hurts and wounds. And when you think about that, then you realize, and you know it, I mean, I'm talking to the converted here. But if you're listening to this, then you start to realize how impactful we are as parents, and what we're doing is forming and sculpting these little beings, especially before they reach that conscious stage. Because then they can't even they can't even kind of compute, or they can't rationalize, they can't analyze it, they just are this little being soaking it all up, then you start to realize, hang on, man, do you can't just be this way. And I thank my kids for making me who I am today. And I'm not not by no means like, where I need to be. And I suppose we'll never get there, bro. I think that that's another thing, you start to realize this is a never ending journey, you know, we're not going to arrive one day and go oh, you know, sweet man, I'm the perfect dad. You know, I think that this is a continual Dad.Work You know, your one is your name is Dad.Work as a complete dead, because to become complete is, is never going to happen, which is a strange thing. You know, but doing the work on ourselves is so essential. Because if I look at myself and the hang ups that I have, and the issues that I have, I can't explain them because they aren't linked to like tangible things I can even remember. And so then you start to realize, Hey, do the work, man, take stock become more self aware, stop, be present. And most importantly, be able to feel bad, be able to feel sad, be able to grieve, to be able to be the weakest you've ever

been. And sit with that and go through it. Because the only way you deal with a feeling is going through the feeling you can't go around that you can't push it down. You can't throw it out. It's never gonna disappear. But it isn't every man every man because even though we'll try Curt, you know, we'll never be perfect kids, we are going to give our kids woods. But I think we should try and make them as little as possible because then then we're dealing with addictions down the road, then we're dealing with teenage pregnancies, then we're dealing with confusion about who the hell they are. Because we haven't done the work. And I personally would like to do my part in, you know, making that as little as possible that I have to cure or I have to solve problems, but then I'm a little bit more pre emptive in preventing as much as I can. And you know, you everybody listening, we want our kids to be happy. That's what love is right?

Curt Storring 19:49

So if you're listening to this, just rewind that, listen again, at least four times, because I think you touched on like almost every important aspect that I like to talk about and then I have seen To be true as well, from the trauma, leading to all sorts of psychological conditions, which are now being told as genetic or something else. And, look, there's probably some that are, there's probably some that, you know, develop with a hormonal imbalance and stuff like that. But for the vast majority of things, I mean, even, you know, trauma, you can call it trauma, I tend to refer to it as like that. There's social conditioning, family conditioning, there's also toxic shame. And all of these things lead to, I think, ego defense mechanisms. And so you are like you are today because you're your inner ego, which you're protecting your inner child from experiencing the pain of childhood, whether you can remember it or not. And so much like you, I had to look back and going, like, what was my childhood even like, Oh, my dad divorced, my mom is when I was three. And she had a brand new baby, and she was like, beside herself. And I don't remember that. But man, do I ever feel it? You know, when I connect to those things, it's like, oh, shit, man, like, there's so much there. And like you say before you can even become aware of it before they can rationalize it. That's why I see the difference in my youngest son, compared to my two older ones, because I knew this time around how important it was for me to behave. I can remember where I heard this, but I treated him as though he was on a psychedelic trip his entire life so far, as much as I could, like, so slow, so soft, like so safe. Like I hear you, I see you, I'm going to do this. Now. We're going to change this diaper, really calm, and that really helped you. Now he is the most securely attached kid I can even possibly imagine. Like, he's so calm, and he's so chill. And he's so happy. And this is in stark contrast to my other two, where I came at it with fucking fear. Like, what do I do? I'm so triggered all the time. I'm angry, I'm this, I'm that. And you can just see how they react in their bodies. It's way different. And it's not too late to fix that. Because I have done a lot of work, like you said around that. But it is so our responsibility as fathers to not just check out because the consequences are fucking severe. Yeah, like you said, there's confusion. And the thing is to like we have to do double duty, because in a world where that confusion is normalized, we have to not only make sure our kids aren't confused, but that if they are we are there to support them in that, which is leadership, which is just leadership and intentionality. So I don't know. Do you have any anything else on that? Because I really want to talk to you about going outside. But I don't want to I don't want to talk about getting off track.

Thomas Kingwell 22:35

Yeah, no, I just, you know, the work that we've tried to do, and that I did this week in my journal is just the word identity, you know what I mean? And it's like, the things that we kind of accept as identity. And this is the exciting part about childhood trauma is that it's childhood trauma. It's not you, dude, it's not you. It's not, these aren't like things that are genetically programmed in you that you can't change. Because you can't really change who you are, genetically or how you are predisposition. But you can heal yourself, and you can grow into ways that are more in line with how you are meant to be. But you have to understand that this childhood trauma, you got to be able to look in the mirror and say you are broken you are you have been rejected, you have been hurt. You have been a loser sometimes and be able to go well, you know what? That's not me. That was done to me. And that's the thing that was really, you know, well I say this quite often but if you watch Good Will Hunting, the movie Good Will Hunting. And there's a scene with Robin Williams where Matt Damon comes into his office at the end close to the end of the movie, Robin Williams, obviously Matt Damon's been abused as a child beaten by his father. And you know, as you can see, it's showing up on I recommend guys watch that movie if you haven't, because it shows you how a super intelligent good looking, you know, give to the gap kind of guy is still so broken inside no matter what is out of things on his talents. And so at the end of the movie, he goes into Robin Williams, and I don't want to, you know, ruin the movie for you. But Robin Williams just said it's not your fault. And he goes, you know, stop fucking with me, man. He goes, it's not your fault, not you don't fuck with me, it's not your fault. It's not your fault. And he just keeps saying this. And you can see it's, you know, he wants to block it out. And eventually he just breaks down and he cries and he hugs him and he's like, it's not your fault. And this is not a abdication of our responsibility because we have to take responsibility for these things, even though it wasn't our fault. But realizing, number one, you are biologically, you know, your mom and your dad, you know, the genetics that have been passed on. And then number two, you've got the nurture of how you were nurtured and how you were raised and the act and the environment. So nature and nurture has come together to produce good it's come together to produce Tom, it's come together to produce your kids and it is producing them and is happening right now. You know, and so when you start to understand that you're like, oh my god, it really isn't my fault. Those things happen to me like the way teachers like I've got memories of in playgroup. And when I was a young kid at school how teachers responded to my slightly aggressive kind of behavior and not really fitting into the run of the mill other kids, you know, I just didn't and so what I was always done done is just removed from the group removed from the group removed from the group go home, mom and dad are fighting trouble in their marriage since day one. What do you expect? What do you expect, man and so your whole life you gotta feel bad feeling bad about just creating these identities? You know, it doesn't matter what it is, I'm angry. I'm I'm a dick. I'm mean to people. I'm unkind. I've got no patience. I'm, I'm an alcoholic, I'm I am. I don't care about other people. I've got no compassion and empathy. And you keep believing that about yourself saying it or just thinking about yourself, what do you become? You know, because you've been taught that that's how you are, you know, I'm not good enough. I mean, how many guys you know, that's, that's the whole overarching thing is a guy just wants to know is good enough, a boy wants to know that he's got what it takes. How many of us are like, I don't have what it takes? Because someone told us that, are you weird, you're abnormal, you you don't fit in. I mean, it's crazy, man. You wouldn't think this but you start talking to guys on a deeper level. And you hear so many guys think they don't belong in anything. And everyone thinks that that day, the only one but most people are like disconnect, most men are so disconnected. It's because of our identities that we have taken on. And so that for me is like a powerful thing to write down, like, what are these negative identities that I've taken on? And then go to yourself and think like, is that really me? Is it really me? Or is that because of things that I took on or things that I experienced or the way that my parents were with each other when I was small, and you know, Gabor Matta talks about that very deeply is that, you know, when we small there, we just have no control over that, and those things that we just grew up with. And so you'll see, you know, the same, it was so interesting when he said, You know, I also want to get on to the going outside stuff as well. But this is super important is that, you know, they looked at this gene and aggressive, overly aggressive children.

And then they found the same gene in seriously the commerce children. So kids in the middle didn't have this, like genetic disposition, the ones that were like the most calm headed than the ones that were most aggressive had it and what was the difference, the environment that they grew up in, they were super sensitive people. So people that grew up in an aggressive family, they became super aggressive, because that's what they were sensitive to. But the other ones that grew up in a super calm, loving environment, became really calm. And so that's what we have to understand is that, what are we triggering in our kids? And what are we what are we growing? And what are we nurturing within them? And are we noticing certain things and being super honest with ourselves? Because we don't want to admit, hey, I'm doing that. And so I think it's like this double this dichotomy of working on ourselves and working with our kids. And that's why the complete dead we work on ourselves. First, most of the work we do we have non dads in our group. Why? Because the work that you do as a father and yourself is the same as for a guy that wants to be the best version of himself. And the number one thing to becoming a great dad is becoming the complete man. So that's what you have to do. And then from doing that, and working on your identities, you go, what identities Am I growing within my kids, and you need to spend time with them and see how they feel about themselves and see where those negative aspects come in, like cut them off, like I was cutting the trees before I came in. It's so funny. Maybe that's why I'm so hyped up. I was up in the tree here, like trimming the freaking trimming the apple trees outside. And then it started to hail. And then it started to snow. And then I came inside, I was just like, but I've been wanting to say that on a video and say, you know, there's trimming of the trees, it's like, you know, you cut those things out. There's things that are just taking up energy and time, those raw false identities that our children have that we have. So important man to do that and, and one way of doing that is you know, getting outside

Curt Storring 28:47

want to transition. But seriously,

Thomas Kingwell 28:48

bro because it is it's like too much bullshit surrounding us with phone and technology and like the kids are inundated with these, seeing people on the screen and wanting to be like them and comparing themselves to other friends on social media and getting bullied on. Like parents are like, what my child was getting bullied for years. I'm like, okay, so then we're getting bullied for years, but they had like their cell phone and you just let them and you weren't like watching them what they were doing on Tik Tok and Instagram and all this stuff. I'm like, I'm like, No, dude, you got to be present, you got to watch that self and where they're getting their identity from. We are so much more important than their peers and we need to be as important to them as long as we can. Because the safer the home is. You want to bulletproof your kids, you make your home a safe place you make your home a place with His love and, and connection and acceptance and stuff. And I'm not saying that if a kid gets bullied, I'm blaming you, but I'm saying I want to do all I can so that when my kid comes home, they're just like, Wow, man, my dad loves me. My mom loves me. And so you know, those things of, of technology and stuff. You don't have to get rid of them, dude. You just have to replace them with like nature and doing stuff together and getting outside and building a shelter and let you know I take my kids for eight hours the other day My six year old son, we just go up the mountain here a little bit, and we build shelters and make a little fire. We make steaks and we cut stuff down. We build like teepees. And you know, and the kids are there, and they're not asking me for TV, and we get home and they go to bed, you know. And I think a lot of parents, we talk a lot about screentime. And I'm like, Dude, your kids want screentime and they're so addicted to freakin TV and being on their cell phones, because they're not connecting with what we connected with for like, 97% of our like existence, or more.

Curt Storring 30:29

And I saw you say it, and I heard it from John Eldridge as well. Yeah. Yeah, well, at heart in the back of that I saw you said to, you basically have to give them something better than a screen. Like, don't tell them all. You can't do this. Just be like, why would you want to do this versus all the amazing stuff we do together? So if you get them outside, if you get them loving nature, if you get them excited about real life? Yeah. Because this thing like I don't know, whoever's listening, maybe check in with yourself, do you realize Facebook's not fucking real? And one of the ways that you can think about this is 14 out of the top 15. I think it was like Christian groups or something like that were fake, like Russian troll farm fake. And like 18 of the top 20 African American groups on Facebook fake. So everything you're interacting with that, that makes your nervous system tick, or not tick or get angry or get sad or whatever. That is not fucking real. And if that doesn't drop you in to the fact that like this device, this screen is bullshit. And you want your kids to start living in this metaverse. Like, why? How could you possibly think that's okay? And so do something about it and do the work. This is what you're saying is like, yes, all the other things that happened to you weren't your fault. But you're the only one responsible for doing anything about it. There's nobody coming to save you. And that's hard to realize if you haven't realized that yet. But get into that immediately. Because the same thing is going for your kids. You're not going to like nobody's gonna save them when they're stuck in the metaverse because you haven't done anything to excite them. Yeah. And so I love seeing how intense you go. Because it inspires me. I don't know how to do all this shit. Like, I never learned how to do any of this like bushcraft stuff. And I'm trying to learn, and I'm trying to learn how to like fish with my son, because he's super into that right now. And I'm wanting to do all these things. And you're inspiring a shit man, like the way that you go out the way that you cook with them, the fire the shelters, it's incredible. So like, I don't know what the answer is other than take the four walls away and raise your children. But how do you think about that? Because I people can follow you on Instagram, obviously, where you post a lot of this. But can you go into the importance of outdoors and nature. And like we talked about last time, caveman style parenting style, how,

Thomas Kingwell 32:42

first of all, we don't post on I hardly post on Instagram at the moment because I just I don't know, man, there's just something that's, that's not interesting to me about that. Like, I want to get guys to join the group. And I want to reach out but there's something that disturbs me about using the actual thing that I don't want people to be on. And you know, think that it's a waste of time, like in our group, we encourage, you know, go under 30 minutes on your cell phone, like don't be on your phone, first hour of the morning, don't be on your phone, when you arrive home, leave it in the car, don't be on your phone that can hour before you go to bed, you know, it's you know, you just have to observe yourself. It's this dopamine like cycle that we just get on, you know, our brains, you got to, I'm actually really interested in studying the brain. I haven't started yet, officially, I've done a bit of psychology studying for my educational degree. But I really want to get into that a little bit more. Because I think when you start to understand how your brain functions and the neurotransmitters in the synapses, and how you create these pathways, and what starts to happen with these these chemicals, such as, you know, the dopamine cycle, and how that is released every time you look at your phone, and what that trains you to be like, It trains you to basically be unhappy and to be an addict. And you know, we think of addicts as people that are addicted to alcohol addicted to drugs, or you know, addicted to food even we don't even think about that. But there's millions of people addicted to food. Why do we have that? Why do we have that we have so many psychological and emotional problems that people are eating their pain away, they're doing all these things that pain away, they've suffering their pain away. But what happens once a dopamine starts to decrease, we need the next one. And we need the next one. And that's why you'll reach for your phone, reach over and reach for your phone reach for your phone. And so that's something that I at this year, I really decided like more almost like going primal, like going back to the roots. Because if you actually think about human beings, or not human Yeah, human beings kind of in the state that we are, we weren't, you know, Homo sapiens, as long but before that we were hominids that were kind of similar to us. And it's like they say that, if you take a 24 hour day, since the agricultural revolution, it's like three minutes in a 24 hour day in comparison with how long we were hunter gatherers. Now if we were living is that long as hunter gatherers that means that we've changed so quickly and because our brains are wired to improve and be efficient, we just look at these as well as the roses and is Book welded, like we found improved means to an unimproved end. So all we do is keep improving, improving, improving, has life improved and I would actually say life has not improved suicide rates are skyrocketing depression. People going to see therapists skyrocketing obesity skyrocketing. Is it a surprise? No, because we are keep on thinking we improving at the end of the day, we're not improving our lives. Because when I say What do you mean about being a better dad? What do you mean about being a good dad? What does that mean to you? What is what does success mean to you? And that was when I started to start thinking about okay, what is success to you? Is it making a lot of money? Is it climbing the corporate ladder? Or is being able to go up the mountain with your kids cut up some stuff chop some stuff, you know, build a little build some shelters sleep out there in the in the freezing cold that you have to like, come home at 12 o'clock at midnight. It happened to be with them one night was like one degree and it was like started raining. And you know, we were like, okay, okay, it's 12 o'clock. We tried to make it there. But we are sleeping bags weren't as good quality. So you do have to get the right equipment. That is important. But you can learn like it's so easy to learn to there's so much information and people will go to information and go to the internet whenever they want to find out some useless bullshit or what some stupid video that gives them a few moments, please now look at this. But to actually go and learn a skill or to go and find out how to do so often. I don't know how to do that. I don't know how to do that.

I don't know how to dry it and not at the bushcraft. I did Scott's when I was a kid, and I've always been into nature. So I've got like a natural. I don't even know if it's natural. But it's because in my child, at least my parents pushed me there. I grew up in South Africa very rough. I had a lot of freedom. As far as just getting outside and being on my own, like, you know, buschbeck Bundu bashing, they call it up mountains and stuff. But I didn't have the skills. And so what I've done is my son and I learning the skills together. And the coolest part is, you know, I just bought myself awesome hatchet. And I went and bought the basically one of the best hatchets in the world because I wanted to symbolize for my kids like, Hey, this is something that we take seriously, we're not just going to buy the cheapest crap on the market. We buy the big best TVs, we buy the best laptops, best phones, but we don't want to put money into like these kind of things. We want to last forever, that somehow as a man, dude, when you hold the hatchet in your hand from Sweden, and it's handmade and that hickory handle, and it's like this beautiful thing. And when you chop that when you start chopping down little branches and stuff that how it slices through that there's something that within us connects with that primal version of ourself, the caveman, it just is like, Man, this feels amazing. And then when you when you light that fire from the like fire steel, instead of just using matches or with paper and you light it on to like, like this, this fuel that you've created or this this fungus, you can buy this as much from that you can find that you can actually burn in a fire and then you can carry it with you. And you light it in the sparks. And my son, my son is living made fire the other night for us, like just with a fire steel on that. And how do you think a kid feels when he's doing that? You know, everyone can sit on a Playstation and play for hours and like, okay, great. I've got to the next level. But how many kids can go into the world, start a fire and cook cook food at the age of 11? I would say very, very few. And this is something that I'm just committed to because I know that for me, in my own experiences. When I'm walking in the woods, when I'm in the surf. If I'm walking in the snow, if I'm mountain biking, anything to do with nature, there's just such a net like value to that right? I mean, you can just feel it, you become a more calm person, you become a more tranquil individual, you know, and when I noticed the last weeks when I was sick for two weeks, dude and I didn't get to do sports and I kind of let my structure fall away and I didn't get outside what do you know, some of the old bad habits and the bad emotionals the pattern started to come back because I wasn't doing that and you know to think about this day and age the kids are not going to get out unless we take them on and unless we are outside and doing it ourself kids are going to be like why am I got so Dad You just sit in front of the TV you sit on your phone the whole time? You're at the office every day, you coming home at like seven eight o'clock you know if that if they see us putting the effort and the time and seeing that family and the home is our priority because dude what what is it like? What is what is valuable in the end of the day? This is when you go back to caveman thinking as well. What do you really need? You need significance? So where do we go try find it we got to find it outside. We try and find it in sex and woman we try find significance in fame. We even try find significance through what we're doing right now. In creating these groups for dads like we want to be significant, but where is the number one place that we used to be significant? And we still are? When we were just tribal. We were significant because we were the provider we were the protected. We were the ones that went out there and got food and we were significant because if we died or if we weren't there. The shit hit the fan right? And it's not changed, and we want to get the significance out there. But

the significance that was the way we're going to be the most significant. So many guys are abdicating their significance at home for significance for strangers. And you go Hey, and then. And then the second one is, what is the second one thing we need connection? So what do we do? We try to connect with like, everybody on Facebook and LinkedIn and Instagram. And then even just in real life, we spend hours talking to other people at work instead of doing our work that we so we can free up time when we get home as a teacher, especially if I don't do the work at school and I waste time there. Look, you got to have friends, you got to have a tribe, it's good to speak to other men, I really encourage that. But do we need to connect with like 100,000 people? Do we need to go out all the time? Do we need to have social events with other people? No, because in the old days, who did we connect with? Once again, we used to connect with our wife, or the woman that was the mother of our children, I'm pretty sure they didn't get married there, whatever, but a woman or whatever it was in those days, and we connected with our children, and we connect with the other men, we went hunting with that small group of people that were our tribe, we didn't even know what was happening 10 kilometers away, probably little. And we didn't know like what's happening in Ukraine, or with the truckers in Canada, or Coronavirus in Brazil or the rainforest happening there. Now, I don't think it's wrong to know what's going on. But we put so much fucking energy into all that shit outside, and we can't even make our own bed by making my own bed. I mean, make your home a place. That is right. And I get caught up in this just as everybody else listening. And I have to remind myself, Tom, turn off that stupid YouTube video because what you're doing now is you're worried about this thing over there and this approach to Corona over there and I get riled up and then I go, time, energy attention given to something that I cannot change that I have no control over. So I wrote on Facebook there that I said, hey, when you're gonna post, you're gonna interact on here, ask yourself two questions. Number 1am. I contributing to anybody's well being with what I'm going to say. And number two, could I be using my time more effectively? And then I wrote at the bottom? The answers to this for me right now is maybe, and yes, so I'm going to go prune the apple trees outside. You see so so this whole getting into nature and getting away from these things is connecting with who we used to be and connecting with what's valuable to us. You know, when you spent eight hours in the wilderness with your kids. You with them in nature? What do you think that connection? What memory are you creating in that moment for them? They'll never forget the shit that we've done there. They'll never forget it. Yes, it feels uncomfortable. And yes, my little son was going, I'm cold. I'm cold. And I said, Help us get firewood. He's like, No, I'm not get firewood do then we can actually start the fire, we can make you warm. And eventually we started the fire. His hands were warm. And then he was eating like, perfectly cooked steak brew. So then he was not saying anything anymore. But then they saw. They saw, they saw the fruits of the labors. They saw we worked hard. We like carried carried water, chop wood carry water. It's so fucking simple. But we make it so complicated. You know what I mean?

Curt Storring 42:45

And I was thinking the other day, and like, obviously, this is not going to happen. Obviously, I don't condone this happening. I was like, if something just wiped out all fuckin digital technology, the world would be a way better place. A way better place to switch from analog to digital and all the shit that came along with it. It's, it's terrifying. It's terrible. And I'm not even going to try and follow up with you just because I was fucking epic man. Like, unbelievable. So thank you for going there. One of the things that that is coming up for me is my my son last night. He was like, Okay, so on Fridays, the teacher asked us what do we want to do go to the forest because there's the forest behind the school, or free time. And he's like, obviously, I want to go to forest. There's like, Well, yeah, obviously like, why does she even give you the choice? Because what do you do in free time? He's like, Oh, you know, the iPads come out. And then we can just like build Lego or like play toys. I'm like, what? That's even an option. Why wouldn't you just take you to the forest. It's like, literally 100 meters away. And he's like, Oh, well, she wants to make sure everyone's like happy and everyone gets a say. And so we vote. And nobody except for him. And like one of his friends votes for forest. And so he's in there suffering as everyone's playing iPads, because that's what they think is fun. And it's really challenging for me. So I saw it as an opportunity to be like, Okay, let's talk about influence. Let's talk about salesmanship. How can you convince your friends enough of your friends to vote for for us? And so it was an interesting sort of lesson for him to learn another skill, but it was also like, Man, this is what most people are wanting to do these days. And I think the reason that I want to talk to you about this is because it is so important. And it's so basic, it's not easy, but it's simple. And like you said, chopping wood and carry water man, if we just did that more often, the world and our souls would be a much happier place. And even like for you and me, like having a couple 100 followers, having a couple 1000 followers is the most unnatural thing in the world. Like you were saying we grew up with an influence of maybe 20 People maximum. If we were the the leaders or the Chiefs or whatever of the tribe, there wouldn't have been many more than a couple dozen people who relied on us. So to be seen, and to be pedestals by 1000s of people. What does that do to your ego? What does that do to your image? self importance? What does that do to what you think is important? I've struggled with this going like, Oh, I gotta get that post out because hundreds of people are going to be like, Yeah, dude, good job. And it's sick. It's not real again. And, you know, how do we balance this need to do the work with dads, while also building our local communities have just like the handful of close connections? Have you thought about that? Like, what are you doing locally right now?

Thomas Kingwell 45:28

It's a tough man. I mean, with a German in Germany, it's a bit different. Because culturally, I'm not that similar to the guy somehow, you know, I mean, I'm a South African guy do connect, or do you find myself I mean, I've got German friends and stuff, but it's a different kind of expression of fatherhood. And it's very comfortable. Yeah, you know, it's quite a different thing to what's happening in America, you know, and what's happened is, I forgot Australia, like a lot of our guys are from those countries. So, you know, I haven't started anything in anything, as much local, I mean, I ride with a couple of guys, and I've had like, my little influence on certain guys, like just encouraging the guys that ride mountain bikes to get up early, and, you know, take the time in the morning, and to experiment with those things and try and influence those guys. And then at work, it's a bit tough, you know, sometimes, I chat to guys and refer them to certain people, but at the end of the day, you know, people need to do the work themselves, you know, and I think that, like, a lot of my best mates are not in Germany as well, you know, and building those, those those connections is super important. And that's why it's good to kind of build them when you're younger. Because if you do move countries, it's very difficult. You know, I've got a couple of friends going through things. So I'm, I'm pretty much as far as local goes, I'm just there for some of my mates, one of my mates went through divorce, and he's got custody things. So there's a lot of that kind of swirling around, but locally, not much yet. You know, at the end of the day, I'm trying to get the thing launched online with a community and really grow that and do the deep work with with men that we're doing in the group. And it's, it's amazing what you can do. And I think, you know, it's quite interesting, because I think that online allows a bit of and not anonymity, but more freedom for people to express themselves. So there is one thing that I do think about technologies that allows men to feel more safe in inverted commas are more able to tell people what's going on in an online group, then sitting with a real guy face to face. I think a lot of us struggle with that. I'm not saying that it's right. But a lot of us can start like that. And obviously, I want to eventually have the guys come over here for a meetup and then start getting guys, little satellite groups where we because we got guys in Australia or New Zealand, we've got guys in America, Canada, we've got quite a few guys. So wherever they are men to start having satellite groups that meet in person, because I do think that that's important, but kind of connected through what we're doing here. And yeah, I guess one day, we'll branch on, as I said, I'm almost a full time teacher as well. And I got four kids. So when I put my energy, you know, you got to ask yourself, Where do you want to put your energy where you're going to be more impactful, and that the present, I think that putting that energy in really trying to get guys to join the group in my area before really kind of getting the online really going? Well, because once the online is really going well. Like I've got some actually, it's actually it's interesting, cuz I've got some guys, a guy from my work also is part of my group now as well. So perhaps it is like that, you know, I don't know, it's a kind of what have you got going there in Canada, or where you live?

Curt Storring 48:07

Yeah, that's, that's so. So similar to my setup, to be honest, I have the hardest time, or I have had the hardest time connecting locally. And part of the reason for this was because I never had, you know, showed to me by my father, I was reflecting on this just yesterday, going like i My dad never had a single friend that I remember. And so it was very natural for me to just be the lone wolf. And I have only recently and this was in a local men's group. I actually just had my birthday last week, and a bunch of guys from men's group came. So that was one way is just joining a local group and starting a local group. But one thing that I have been thinking about is like, how do I reach out to the other fathers in my kids schools? Like, can I just extend the invitation while trying to go deeper eventually, or even just like starting it. And it's uncomfortable for me, because I don't know how to do it. I've never done it before. And I'm just going to have to do it. And very similar to you, when our group continues to grow. And as our group continues to grow, we're going to have local things. And I would like to host an event locally, depending on travel restrictions and stuff, which are still brutal here in BC and Canada. I would like to have that where guys can come and we've got a guy in the States when everyone else can travel who's willing to host this big meetup. And so I'm very excited about what's going to happen in terms of like in person, but it is a new thing. And it's not necessarily the easiest for me to put my energy in because it's a lot easier, like you said to be online sometimes. And I've had that exact same feedback from a man in my group, which is like yeah, it's it's actually a little bit less threatening. And so I am just I'm going to connect to guys today who live in Calgary in to my group I've never met, but I'm going to do that there's a couple of guys in Virginia, going to get them connected. So like it's starting to happen, which is really exciting. And now it's a matter of like, how do I do that locally for myself, and then find the time because like you said, you got to make sure that it's all balanced with what's important. But here's one, here's one interesting aspect. I don't know if we really want to get into this, I know we're almost, we're almost coming up on time. But when I lived in Thailand, I was one of the only flags as they call us, foreigners, obvious foreigners, because you know, my my skin is a different color, and I was very easily pointed out is different. And when you're in a position of being different, it's very easy to find similarities between other people who are different. And so even if I would never have been friends with someone in Thailand, who was I played hockey with or whatever, like we would have just passed each other on the street. Now, it's like, oh, you also were charged double price at the local shop, because you're a foreigner, Oh, me too. And we've got this shared bond. And it was this differing level that allowed us to bond and what I'm finding now is the people who do not accept the overreach of government. And I won't get too political here. But the people who reject things like mandates, for example, whether or not you would like to choose to do those things yourself is fine. But the people who reject mandates, it's very easy to make deep connections now, because we find one another. And we have this shared deep belief in the share value. And so personally, that's where I'm finding a lot of new contacts. And a lot of new people, especially at the schools, our kids get along, we get along, and there's these developing friendships. So it's a silver lining in all of this, to find who your community truly is. But I just thought I'd drop that in because it's real for me.

Thomas Kingwell 51:49

Hmm. Well, it's interesting for me, because I'm obviously a teacher, my kids come to my school. So that's been a little bit of a barrier, almost actually, to start in the group at school, because I would love to and actually was funny, because I didn't think of it as when you asked me that initial question. But I'd like to start that for dads, because I'm at a private school. So a lot of wealthy parents, but that doesn't mean that there are kids that don't have issues and their own parents doesn't mean that kids aren't having the same kind of lacks that kids that are from a poor community come from, you know, it's slightly different. But it's still, you know, there's a Attention Deficit Disorder, you know, a dad Attention Deficit Disorder, so to speak. So, yeah, you know, I mean, I wanted to backtrack on something you said earlier, is like, you know, your son was, you know, just him and a friend out of the whole group were wanting to go the forest. And it kind of just is one thing that I'd like to say is that we don't want to be like everybody else, you don't want to fit in these days. And it's kind of like a good thing to teach them, like, you know, what? Well, that, you know, it's good that you're recognizing that. And it's and it's fine and be comfortable being like that, because too many times, we as fathers, and we as people fit in with the status quo, because it's safer, and it's easier, and follow. I don't want to say I don't want to get political either, but follow the narrative. And then we go along with it, even though we think it is detrimental to our kids. And at the end of the day, we want to teach our kids, by example. And by word. And by pointing out what they doing, they're going along with the crowd, and being like everybody else is not what you want to do. Why do kids get bullied? Why do kids feel like depressed and stuff and feel left out, because they see being left out and being different as a negative. And the more I get older, and the more I want to look around the world, I want to be different, and I am different. And I revel in the fact that I'm different. And I revel in the fact that my kids are different. And I want them to be different. I don't want them to be into everything that everybody else's kids are into. You know, maybe in the old days, when everyone was riding their bikes around the neighborhood and going to the beach and hanging out, yeah, cool, then they do it. But at the moment, you know what you said about your son, it's like a perfect example to just go well, you know what that's that just shows you man, like what's going on? It's a little example. But that is what's happening in the world today, our kids are not choosing what's best for them. That's why they need parents. And these days, they want to let children choose a whole lot of things that they aren't actually able to choose. That doesn't mean we don't listen to their feelings. Totally, totally the opposite. You connect with your kids, you're checking with me check how they feel about things. But man, if I had to listen to my feelings all the time, what would I be doing? What would I have achieved in life? No, it wasn't easy to study that kind of thing. No, it wasn't easy to cram the night before. You know what I mean? There were a lot of things in life that took hardware. In fact, the things that I regret the most in my life is not working hard all the time is when I took the easy route and go, Why did you take the easy route? Think about it. Guys that cheat on their wives took the easy route. You get what I mean? So teaching our kids to do what is not expected and what is different and what is what is going against the grain. And that doesn't mean just being a rebel the whole time but I am a bit of a rebel. And I'm not ashamed to say I'm a rebel. And in this Corona time and what's been happening, I have been a rebel. And people haven't liked that A times. And they need to accept that we all have different opinions, just like I have to accept all these other people having different opinions to me. But I just think that we can, we can leave it with that. It's just, you know, it's so powerful to teach your children be yourself. But in the best sense of the word, not be yourself. And I'm just gonna listen to how you feel. And you want to eat ice cream, okay, fine. And you want to go in front of the TV, why, and sorry, guys, if you're going to get offended, I don't really care why your kids watching TV and on the iPad all the time, because it's easy. Because you're not because you because it's easy. And sometimes it is hard, and I'm not gonna kick your butt. Because at the end of the day, I let my kids watch TV sometimes. And sometimes we let them watch. But there's a major balance. And if I wasn't doing the other things, then I would really have to check that. And that's the thing. It's easy. And guys, if as parents don't take the easy route, it doesn't make you feel good either. When you look back one day on you, as you as a father, when your grandfather, and you look at what you passed on to your kids and how they pass on to York, and what they pass on to the kids, you know that you're gonna look back those times when you took the harder route, when you put away the iPads and got outside and kick the ball around when you went up the mountain instead of putting it turning on the TV when it was cold outside but instead of that you went and chopped wood and made a fire and set it on the fire reading the Road by Cormac McCarthy even though it was completely inappropriate for their age.

But things you know, and guys, it's not easy, and I want to just put this little caveat there. That doesn't mean deal with your emotions doesn't mean ignore your mental health. It doesn't mean like I'm hard and I'm tough I'm just gonna take it out no, we are able to do hard things because we're able to do the hardest thing of all which is go under the armor under the hard exterior under all the defense mechanisms the ego and see that we're just little boys that are broken and are hurt and need to heal ourselves. And that has to happen. But you still need to do fucking hard things and you need to get over yourself and you need to get up off the couch you need to get out of bed early and you need to do the work so that you are healthy foods that you stop eating that shit because why? Because you want to be a grandchild grandfather one day that is not sitting in the corner having everyone cleaning up for him and and doing everything for you want to be the grandfather that's able to help your children they can look after the kids one day when your son is stressed when you're when your daughter is at age because he's got four kids and they're running around and she's having a hard time at work and in the world that is just putting stress upon stress upon stress. Guys we haven't made this world easier for us of the ease of the world has made life harder and more stressful and more depressing for people and the way that you can't act that is by start doing harder things getting deep with yourself getting honest with yourself and being able to realize man I need to do some work on myself and I was messed up as a kid as well and I'm not going to do the same to my kids as my as far as I can you're going to do it anyway and we're going to mess up and I'm probably going to go mess up upstairs when I go upstairs in some way. Maybe not today but I'm gonna do it one day but realizing hey let's it's not let's pay it forward in a positive way let's take the strengths that we have passed those on to our kids. And and yeah, I mean and then and then say it as well with my soul man like To me that's what I've been thinking you know, that is that is success that is a better man when I can sit down and go is well with my soul as well with me like I'm still you know, and I'm not a Christian but there's a saying in the Bible that says Be still and know that I am God. Be still a no like I'm God and whether you believe in God and I'll just be still and just know that everything's gonna be alright as long as you do the work and as long as you as long as you realize what, what is valuable to you. And I don't understand why we are so confused about that these days. I don't know about you, but there's so much confusion as to what we really value why are we all chasing after emptiness? So strange, right? I mean, I've done it my whole life chasing the chasing after things that don't bring satisfaction at all. When the satisfaction was like right within you like the whole time anyways, nom, nom, rambling.

Curt Storring 59:04

Reach, man. This is incredible. Yeah, so I saw something. I'll just wrap it up with this. I saw something the other day by someone with an Instagram account called raised good. It says, like parenting should not be about what you want. It should be about what your children need. And I think that's sort of the base level responsibility that we need to take here. And everything you said, Man, I just echo 3,000% That's incredible. Where can people find more about you the complete dad, join your group work with you on the Instagram which you won't be checking because I will check it I will take it out there.

Thomas Kingwell 59:37

I'll check it but I'm not other the thing that I'd like to do the most is he's guys with Join the group on mighty networks, the complete dead network on mighty networks. You know, if you want to connect those and get the link and go on Instagram, check out a couple of things. We do a couple of posts, some leave some comments and connect with us there. Obviously I'll connect with people on Instagram but it's one of those things that I want to try and grow this without having to rely heavily on social media. You know that's why we formed the group and that's where we do all the work so that's basically where it is the complete dead and then we'll have a website up eventually still work to do bro still work to do and get it out there you know but as I've said before family comes first and my kids come first and I'm and building this group is also secondary to my family like what's the point of going oh I don't have you ever get this like I'm putting so much time into this helping other guys be better dads that I'm actually I'm renaming my like role as a dad in my family that's why I cut I didn't do podcasts anymore and I don't do podcasts with guests very often anymore because I found that I was rushing downstairs because the time difference to do podcasts and I'd be like I can't live with you as much now and then I can let's read this book quickly because I got to go on my kids told me like that like what's up with that? And then I realized no so I wanted to connect with you and I made the time today but I do that even less because everything we do should filter into that that's what I mean that's where that's where happiness and life is man like when you can have your kids like around you and you become a patient calm loving father that's the complete that's the complete package man who needs and then you see your job but like anything can go to your job happy and feeling like fulfilled because you know when you get home that that's fulfilled

Curt Storring 1:01:14

Yeah, man this has been inspiring as hell. Probably Probably maybe the best episode I've ever done like this was obviously nothing to do with me you fucking killed it. And I love what you're doing you're extremely inspiring for me and I know this is going to land really well so dude, thank you so much for showing up.

Thomas Kingwell 1:01:35

Cool dude awesome to connect

Curt Storring 1:01:43

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