Sol (00:01)
Welcome to Coparenting Beyond Conflict. I'm your host, Sol, founder of the BestInterest app for co-parents. At BestInterest and on this podcast, my goal is to help you find peace in the storm. Today, I'm joined by Larry Hagner, host of the Dad Edge podcast, author of The Pursuit of Legendary Fatherhood. Larry has built one of the most trusted communities for fathers who want to show up better for their kids, their relationships, and themselves.

If you're a dad who's ever felt beaten down by the process, wondered what good enough even looks like anymore, or you're not a dad and you want insights into the experience and struggle that dads face, this one's for you. Let's dive in.

Sol (00:43)
Hi Larry, welcome to the podcast. It's so good to have you here today.

Larry Hagner (00:46)
Sol, what's going on man? It's good to be here.

Sol (00:48)
Larry, I have been really excited about this interview because all the people that I know that are working in this space that are speaking directly to dads, you just have amassed this incredible audience and so many really helpful teachings. It's just an honor to have you on speaking to us today. And

getting your thoughts on what dads can do in these situations.

Larry Hagner (01:09)
Awesome, I'm glad to be here, man.

Sol (01:11)
So you have a book out, The Pursuit of Legendary Fatherhood, that I'd love to speak a little bit about. And in particular, the term 'legendary' strikes me. As a co-parent, it's hard to sometimes get to a place of feeling legendary. Sometimes you're really just feeling beaten down. So what do you mean when you talk about legendary fatherhood?

Larry Hagner (01:33)
Yeah, great question. I just want to validate what you're saying. That is hard for us. In fact, we usually always think the opposite. And even though I wrote a book on this, I usually think that way too.

always thinking I'm screwing up. I'm not doing this right. It sometimes it feels very unfulfilling. There's these moments of absolute fulfillment and joy and connection and all those things. I was talking to, my therapist about this, cause I see a therapist just every now and again, just to keep myself sharp. go through seasons of things, as a dad, a husband, a father, a leader,

the one thing he said to me that I thought was really, really interesting is your kids always see you in a better light than what you see you. And they're actually always rooting for you more than what you think. That really, really hit me because I even looked back on my own life and my own childhood. And I remember

always giving grace as a kid, to my parents. I wouldn't say so later on in my later on childhood, just because things got really chaotic and really bad and really abusive. So that did swing to the other direction, the older I got. But I remember,

my grandfather father figure, to be He was the only steady male role model in my life. And he was a very affectionate man and he was a man's man. He was a truck driver. He was rough around the edges, but so affectionate with me, so affectionate with my grandmother. You never doubted for one second that the guy loved you, but he also had really bad moments. He drank a lot, but he was also one of those sort of happy drunks. wasn't a drunk, but like when he did drink too

much he was more happy and loving than anything. I look back on him, my grandfather was far from perfect. He had some really big moments where he would get upset or angry or lose his patience with me or lose his patience with my aunt or my mom or his own kids. And you're like, "Whoa, who is this guy?" But the thing is, I'm sure that there was probably a part of him that came down on himself when he

lost face a little bit or something might've happened. But I always knew he was a great guy. It was always all forgiven. There was even one time where he took me on a fishing trip and had a little too much to drink. And I remember my uncle who was his son got really mad at him. And they got in this argument, it was more of my uncle who was yelling at him. never forget, seeing my grandfather

pretty intoxicated and it made me uncomfortable. And the next morning he walked with me and he put his arm around me and he said, "Hey, grandpa had a little too much to drink last night. That's not the grandpa Grandpa wants to be. And I'm really sorry about that." And it was wiped clean immediately. There was no even

grudge, it was almost like this sense of relief. And I bet that that was really, really hard for him. I think living a legendary dad life is being able to connect with your kids on a level that maybe most dads can't or don't, or maybe it's also being able to have deep conversations where a kid has no doubt in their mind that you have their best interests. You've got their back no matter what.

It's also guiding them through life and not necessarily always being the guy who's going to tell them what to do, but to ask really, really good questions, to get into their world, to really understand them and how they operate so they can make good decisions. But I think being a legendary dad is a dad who can make their kids feel seen, make their kids feel heard, and most importantly, make their kids feel safe.

Sol (04:47)
Yeah, many of our listeners who are divorced fathers struggle with a lot of guilt for being in this position. hard to go through a divorce and then walk away feeling clean and good. In fact, there's this common belief that it's better to stay together for the kids.

And I know you have some strong feelings on that. Can you share more?

Larry Hagner (05:09)
I don't think you should stay together for the kids. But I also think you should stay together for the kids, if that makes sense. But I don't think that should be the one reason. I don't think that is the ultimate reason that we stay together. In some relationships and dynamics, we're talking about two different individuals, a man and a wife,

who come from two totally different backgrounds and totally two different experiences of life, both who have experienced good times and trauma. And they're trying to understand and operate within the world that they know how best to do. Sometimes those two highways don't really collide very well. It can be really, really messy. So when people say, "I think we should stay together for the kids," I actually don't agree with that. And let me explain why.

If we know we're in a marriage that's toxic, that isn't healthy, it's not healthy for them either. And when we say we're going to stay together for the kids, we have to remember that we are a walking, talking, 3-D motion picture at all times of what either good looks like or not good looks like. And our kids are taking meticulous notes.

They're absorbing everything. I have a 10 year old and I sit here and I think, he doesn't see any of this stuff or he's not observing. He sees everything, everything. And he's a pretty quiet kid. But when he speaks, I'm like, Holy cow. He saw that he observed that, he took that in. They see it. They feel it. The thing that I remember from my own childhood, my mom was married to a man from the time I was five until the time I was 10. And that

marriage was absolutely terrible. I mean, it was horrible. And I think my mom and my stepdad, because they got married and this guy even adopted me, they thought, we really need to make this work. Because I think my mom was like, "this is my second go around with this. If I don't make this one work... I got to stay with this guy for my kid." But I remember,

Sol (06:47)
Lot of pressure.

Larry Hagner (06:49)
I was 10 when they got divorced. I was the same age as my youngest. And I still remember being absolutely relieved that they had parted ways. I was also broken too, because I was like, I don't have a dad anymore. After that, I never saw him again, which really sucked. But I remember feeling that relief of, okay, well, I'm not going to feel this feeling when they're arguing. I'm not going to feel this feeling of when they're around. I remember being at the dinner table

and you could cut the tension with a knife. As a 10 year old, you can't be like, "what is this all about?" Or "I think I understand this." You just know that you feel it. And that's a really uncomfortable thing. For a kid, it's unpredictability, it's unsafety, and they really don't know what's going on. They don't know really how to even respond to it. So do I think people should stay together for their kids? I don't.

If you're going to stay together, you need to somehow try to make it work and make it work in a healthy way. But if it doesn't, you might be better off actually just being co-parents because you can be a great dad and still be a co-parent. You can be a great mom, still be a co-parent.

Sol (07:45)
I'd like to hear more about that term "great dad", because I think no one ever really told us what a great dad was. And like you said, we're looking to our parents, who may or may not have been good models and we're taking everything in without any knowledge of good or bad. And here we arrive in life with kids and we may not know what we're doing.

We're showing up every day. know in your book, you talk about fatherhood being a skill and the skill that isn't necessarily innate. Can you share more about that?

Larry Hagner (08:19)
is a skill, so is marriage. But we don't perceive them in such a way because we're just like, everyone figures it out. Everyone just wings it. I can't think of anybody who did anything great just winging it. Maybe every once in a while you might win a lottery ticket, but that usually doesn't happen. Think about this.

I have a four year degree in health and ⁓ nutrition. So I know everything about the body. I know everything about nutrition. I can tell you exactly how to get really, really lean. I can tell you how to put on muscle. I can tell you what injuries are. I can tell you all about anatomy and physiology. Before college, I didn't know any of that stuff.

And before I started doing this work, I got into the medical field, but even in the medical field, I used to do medical device sales and we had to go through a 90 day days before they even let you set foot in an OR, and be shoulder to shoulder with a surgeon and be able to tell him what to do and how to use your devices. And even after we got done with 90 days, what they told us was "okay, congratulations. Now you're really dangerous. You know, just enough to be useful,

but you know just enough to fall in your face really badly too." So now you have to go take this training and go experiment with it and go baptism by fire and learn on the job even more, Most of us have high school diplomas. A lot of us have bachelor's degrees. Some of us have master's degrees and some of us have PhDs. But last time I looked, I'll give you an example. I just

ruptured my patella tendon last May. Worst injury I've ever sustained in my life. the guy that I went to go get surgery probably had the worst bedside manner of anybody I've ever met.

But he also works on all the professional athletes here in St. Louis. So I knew I had the right guy. I'm not going to go to a surgeon who's like, "I've read a few books. I think I can, I think I can fix this." No, I want the guy who has not only has had hands-on training, but experience as well.

When it comes to marriage and when it comes to parenting, we walk down the aisle, we say "I do", everyone gives us a hug. "Hey man, it's best time of your whole life. Don't worry. You'll figure it out." And there's, there's a small percentage of us that do this thing called marriage prep. That's usually like six weeks and it's for like an hour a week. And you go over sex, finances, parenting, alignment, faith, all that good stuff. That's about it.

And unfortunately that is a recipe for disaster. Everyone knows that the divorce rate is 50%, but what a lot of people don't know is the stats of people that stay together. John Gottman did a study on this. And what he found out was, there are couples that live in three different camps who stay together. The first camp,

one-third of people that stay together can actually identify their relationship is working. They wouldn't want anything better than what they already have and there's a common denominator there that I'll get to in a second. The second camp is more roommates. We've settled,

the intimacy really isn't there. We get along, we co-parent pretty well, we're friends, sex isn't really happening, deep conversations aren't really happening, everything feels really logistical. And then the last one third is complete and total disconnection. These are two people living underneath the same roof that are living two separate lives. And the only reason that Gottman found that they stay together number one, "we got to stay together for the kids." And number two, "it's too financially devastating if we get divorced." But going back to that first camp, what is the common denominator

of couples that are happy? It's couples that actually continue to learn and grow together. That is the common denominator. These are the couples that go to counseling. These are the ones that go to marriage retreats. These are the ones that hire marriage coaches. These are the ones who are constantly sharpening the saw of their marriage constantly. Those are the ones that are the happiest and it's because they learn the skills to do so.

Sol (11:39)
Yeah, repair is such an important thing. And when you were talking about your experience with your grandfather and your uncle, that sounded a lot like repair and repair in relationship. In my current relationship, we're so good at repair, and that creates intimacy. It also is really important with kids too. We can make mistakes and then we do the work,

and we repair them. So the thing that you're talking about is, helping marriage can really help us be a better parent, be a better father.

Larry Hagner (12:07)
Completely, yeah. Obviously there's a lot of single parents or co-parenting situations that listen to the podcast. Usually you show me a man who's got his marriage on point, he's probably gonna be a little bit more of a patient father. A guy who's got his marriage on point is probably gonna have

better feelings of mental health and even physical health. But usually that's the first domino for a guy anyway, to start feeling pretty darn good about life.

Sol (12:30)
Having a good relationship that's, like you said, on point. Yeah, and even

having a peaceful life, a peaceful home, even if you aren't married. I know for myself, having created a home where I can come home and I feel safe and I feel like my kids are calm and I can be present with them and that we've created peace here. I think is so important. Looking back and what it was like in the marriage that I didn't have that, I didn't have that peace.

And I think that that is an aspect of

of creating a happy life, post-divorce.

Larry Hagner (13:02)
I would agree. From what I understand and what I know about, especially men, that's the thing we crave the most. Whether we're married or not, is coming home to that peace, that feeling of decompression, that feeling of I can be authentic, I can just be myself. I can be relaxed. I have peace in my home.

Sol (13:20)
Yeah. Now you do a lot of work with fathers in helping navigate their work life balance. I was hoping you could speak to us a bit about how many of us are entrepreneurs, we have busy work lives. Maybe we're even paying child support. These are a lot of stresses that tend to also seep into our home life.

How can we show up in a good way for our kids and be present with them with all of that happening outside of the home?

Larry Hagner (13:46)
I think that's one of the hardest things for us guys to do. a lot at play there.

So take a guy who might not be performing well at work. If a guy is not performing well at work, he starts to think that there's all the areas he's not performing well in. He carries that into like, "well, if I'm not doing well at work, then I'm just not doing well." We don't compartmentalize those things. We tend to use them as an extreme of well, it's this one thing and it now affects everything, which it kind of does. It really taxes a man.

Even take a man who doesn't feel good in his physical body, who's very self conscious about the way he looks physically. He has that feeling of "I'm not doing the best that I possibly can." We'll joke about it be like, "it's a dad bod, it's this," but deep down we know that there's things we're leaving on the table. The same thing with, ⁓ even cultivating a relationship with our kids. Our kids, They don't care how much money is in our wallet.

They might ask for like their video games and "I want this, and I want that." They don't really care about that stuff. They don't really care if you're an under-performer at work. They don't care if you suck at your job. The only thing that they care about is are you here with me? Cause kids spell L O V E, T I M E. The gap there usually is when I do have that time, how do I release all those other stressors so I can be present here? And the one thing

that I'll share with you, and I actually have a free training on this - it's called Full Presence Training, totally free on my I know this sounds really odd, but it's something I did years and years ago. I was putting one of my kids down. He's 12 now, but I think he was probably seven at the time.

I was putting them down for bed and my head was just an absolute mess. I was thinking about all the problems that I had had that day, the things that were going on, the things that I needed to do when I got out of his room. And I stopped for a second, cause here's the thing. Guys always ask, how can I be intentional in the moment? When we say "I just need to be present intentional,"

that's like going to the doctor and the doctor is looking at your blood work and he's like, "I need you to get healthier." And you're like, "what does that mean? Do I need to lose weight? Do I have high cholesterol? Do I have cancer? What are you seeing?" "No, just get healthier." When people say I need more present and intentional, that doesn't work.

What I train guys on, this is gonna sound odd and funny, but try it. I was sitting there with my seven year old and I think he was reading me a story and I wasn't even listening to him. I was off in La La Land trying to solve the problems of the world. And suddenly I just closed my eyes and I just listened to his voice and

here's what I found when I did that. This sounds woo woo, but it works. I closed my eyes. Because I have two older kids than him, I knew his voice is not going to sound like this forever. So I just started listening. What does his voice sound like right now as he tries to even sound out these words? This sweet little voice.

What he sounds like right now at this moment, seven years old. He sounds much different at seven than he does at 12, because he's 12 now. So I started listening to his voice, then I opened up my eyes and I looked over at him and I just watched him and listened he read. I'm hearing the voice, I'm looking at his face, I'm looking what he looks like.

at one point I looked into his eyes. He's got beautiful blue eyes. I'm like, look at this kid. He's trying to sound out these words. And then I put my arm around him and I just kind of like grabbed him a little closer and I'm like just listening to him, holding onto him as he's talking. And then as lean over, I could smell the bubblegum shampoo he had in his hair, from the bath or whatever. I used my four senses.

That's really what it boiled down to. I used my four senses of sight, sound, touch, and even smell. By the way, you probably don't want to smell your kids all the time, but that's something that happened as my head was kind of resting on his and boom, I was a thousand percent in that moment and there was nothing left on my mind. Cause the brain can only focus on one thing. All those problems went away. I know it sounds

simple, but using your senses to get really entrenched in that moment will work, and reminding yourself, this is a moment I'm not going to get back. Let me see what it looks like. What does it sound like? What does it smell like? What does it feel like? And that is what will get you intentional and present.

Sol (17:33)
That's an incredible image that you just provided us. I'm definitely going to take that to heart when I'm with my son. And I can see how giving him that gift, it's really a gift for me because it sounds to me like in that moment of presence, you just felt a lot better. Instead of being in your head, you're just there and you're experiencing the...

Larry Hagner (17:53)
there.

Sol (17:55)
the specialness of that moment. Beautiful. Thank you for that.

thinking about even our conversation yesterday. You interviewed me for your podcast and how we are talking about emotional regulation and getting into one's own somatic experience. We're going through these really tough experiences with our co-parents, or even with our kids, that can bring up a lot of stuff and we can end up feeling it in our bodies in ways that,

maybe we can feel pain. We talked about that, you and I, on going into the pain and being present with that pain. so when you're describing being present with your son, it's similar to the way that many therapists talk about going somatically into the pain that you might experience in your body. Just being really present. It's not about diagnosing. It's not about am I feeling this emotional pain right now? It's just about

being there and being present. And I think if we can invite more presence into our experience, our outer experience, the inner experience, it can really benefit healing. So I just made that connection. I think it's a useful thing to underline.

Sol (18:55)
As a co-parent myself, I know how difficult communication can be. That's why I created Best Interest, the co-parenting app that uses advanced AI technology to automatically filter out all negativity, promoting positive communication and helping you create a healthier environment for your family. Try it now and get with code Beyond10. Link in the show notes.

Sol AI (19:17)
And now, back to the show.

Sol (19:19)
I'd like to understand more about your take on these deep conflicts that we can have with others, with our ex. I know you advocate for a pause, putting a pause in between the stimulus and the response. Can you tell us more about your thoughts on that?

Larry Hagner (19:34)
Yeah, I'll go a little deep on this one because I think this will really help people. When it comes to conflict, or when it comes to triggered conversations, the amygdala is really the one that's in the driver's seat and that's the fight, flight, or freeze. So that's the, I'm gonna fight or I'm gonna run away or I'm just not gonna say anything and just stonewall.

That's not a good driver when it comes to conflict resolution. That's actually the wrong driver. Think of your amygdala in the middle of a fight, but he had about 12 beers and now he's trying to solve this conflict. It's not gonna work really well. From a science geeky standpoint, you gotta get the prefrontal cortex in the driver's seat. And how do you do that? You need to use logic and reason.

I know this is going to sound kind of crazy, but we've done a ton of research and we do a lot of training with our guys and our group about this on conflict resolution. When we fight, think about this. We're actually not fighting for what we want. We're actually fighting for what we don't want. "I don't like when you do this. I don't like when you do this. When you say this, it makes me feel like this. When you do that, I feel this. I don't like that." Right?

There's one big missing ingredient there. We were taught this skill by a group called Clear Leadership and it's ClearLeadership.com. We always have to give credit where credit is due. They are the ones that taught us this skill. It's not our skill, but there's an incredible skill called The Experience Cube. And it's a four-step process for conflict resolution: observations, thoughts, feelings, and wants.

Let me go back to how people normally fight. When we go in for an argument, number one, what's happening in our body, somatically? We're in fight or flight, our heart rate's up. Our palms are probably sweating. We're coming in with a lot of energy and we're coming in with a lot of direct force. The other side is just going to fight back and they're going to shut down.

So the whole point of conflict resolution is number one, how do I use logic? How am I clear with communication and how do I keep this person actually on the offense and not the defense? Because here's one of the things we say all the time in our you want to be right or do you want to be effective?" You can absolutely be both, but you can be right and completely decimate a relationship. You're right, but what did you win?

You won the argument. Did you win the relationship? Probably not. It's more important to be effective than it is to be right. Because at the end of the day, what we really want is resolution. So what do we need to do? We need to get really, really clear

on what you want and not just what you want, but why do you want this? Break this down. When you go to use something like the Experience Cube,

you're making an observation first. And observations are not opinions. For instance, you're wearing headphones, yes or no? Yes, I'm wearing a hat, yes or no? Those are observations, it's common ground, there's no opinion. Now, if I were to say, I really like your headphones, is that an opinion or is that an observation? It's an opinion. So we want opinions out of it. We wanna make observations.

Sol (21:57)
Yes.

Yes.

That's my opinion.

Larry Hagner (22:12)
Let's talk about like the easiest thing in the world for a guy to talk about, which is your sex life. If we haven't had sex in two weeks, we go and we're like, "Hey, why haven't we had sex in two weeks? I feel like you're not attracted to me. Am I doing something wrong? Do you not want me anymore? What the heck is even happening?" Those are all thoughts and opinions that are kind of fiery and triggering. But if you were to say, "Hey, I've noticed we haven't had sex in a couple of weeks."

She's going to agree to that and so are you. It's an observation that we can both see for what it is. We don't have an opinion on it. It just is what it is. Now you get to thoughts and feelings. People get this screwed up all the time. "I feel like I really like your headphones."

It's not a feeling. So thoughts are a sentence and a feeling is one word. "Hey, I really like your headphones and when I see them, I feel happy." That's the difference. The most important thing when you state a thought - a lot of people screw this one up big time. They'll say, "hey, I've noticed we haven't had sex in two weeks. And because you're not having sex with me, you make me feel unwanted."

Sol (22:44)
Yeah,

Mm-hmm.

Larry Hagner (23:02)
That's not a thought, that's an accusatory opinion. So instead, when you go to state your thoughts, you have to own your thoughts. And you usually start a thought with saying "the story I'm telling myself is..." or "my thought around this is..." or "I think this." What you're doing is you're taking the onus off the other person, and you're like, "you have nothing to do with this thought." Sometimes when I'm sharing thoughts like this to my wife and my kids, I even say to them, "this is not you.

This is my story has nothing to do with you." Even if it's super insecure, this is the dumb story that I'm probably telling myself, that you don't want me anymore. But that's not her thought. That's mine.

It's most important to own our thoughts. When we say "the story I'm telling myself is we're both really, really busy. And by the time we get to the evening where it's time for us to maybe intimate, we're both maybe exhausted. And here's another funny insecure thought Jessica," and I've actually told my wife had the same dude for 30 years. You gotta be sick of me by now."

But then when I get to the feeling, I'm like, "when I have those thoughts though, and we haven't had sex in two weeks, I feel a little concerned because here's what I really want." And this is the wants. This is why it's really important to go three layers deep with what you want. You can't just say, "I want to have sex with you." You have to say, "what I truly want is to be intimate with you more often, because when we are intimate more often, we communicate better, we feel better.

We're more patient parents. We feel more aligned. And you know what? You're my ride or die. You're my one and I love you. When our intimate relationship is fulfilled, I just feel like we're on fire." So what I just did there is I took you through the entire cube. About 90 % of the time when you state that want like I the way my wife responded was "I want that too."

And I'm like, "great." And then the next conversation is, "how do we get there?" So it's a much different conversation than when you go in fighting with the amygdala. That's why I always say these are skills. Skills will override feelings.

Sol (24:40)
Yeah, it brings both parties into collaboration. I'm listening to this as a co-parent, thinking about one of the most challenging relationships in my life. It's not my partner, it's my ex. And it's hard sometimes to find that collaboration. Yet also, the collaboration really is that we both love the kids.

So I could see how I could apply that model to that with the understanding that we both love the kids dearly and we want the best for them.

What are some other ways that we can navigate conflicted situations like this?

Larry Hagner (25:13)
That's probably the most effective way. But I think a better answer to your question is, how do I prevent these things from even happening? It's one thing to resolve conflict, but how do we prevent it all together? We're never gonna prevent it all together, but how can you minimize it? There's a lot of different things that I think is super important when it comes to

couples and communication. It's being really authentic with what it is that you want and need, and not from a place of, 'if you don't give this to me, this will happen.' Like there's some horrible consequence. Because here's the thing, you can state what you need or want and the other person has every right in the world to be like, "I don't want that." Okay, that's fine.

One of the biggest problems in relationships, it's not necessarily unfulfilled expectations. It's unfulfilled, unsaid expectations that the other person should just know. The one thing that I think that couples need to stop doing immediately is, "we've been together this long. You should know better." I don't buy that. People change, people evolve,

there are other things that happen in life. We're not mind readers. We might've known each other for 30 years, 20, 15 years, whatever it is, but we're not mind readers. My job is if I'm going to potentially hold some resentment against you for something that you're not doing, I have to communicate that to you.

When someone says, hey, I'm not up for this, that's okay. What are you up for? And let's explore what that could even look like.

Sol (26:24)
Well, to dive into that a bit more, it's a very common experience like, if I make this request, she's probably going to say no. So I'm not going to speak up. But when you are not speaking up, you're just self-rejecting.

Larry Hagner (26:38)
Yes. Well said. I think that's, that's the exact same thing.

Sol (26:41)
When we know that we can hold ourselves in disappointment, rejection, then we know we can ask.

Larry Hagner (26:48)
Right.

Sol (26:48)
Beautiful. Well, this has been a really enlightening conversation and I'd like to move on to our lightning round. So for this, I'm going to speak a sentence and you'll fill in the blank and we'll discuss, okay? All right. A child's sense of security comes from...

Larry Hagner (26:54)
Sure.

Okay.

Safety.

Sol (27:04)
And how do we establish safety?

Larry Hagner (27:05)
Creating environments of psychological safety is being able to meet a kid where they're One of the things that I love to ask my kids every single day, "what'd you fail at today? What challenged you today? How did you get knocked down and get back up again?" It's a really hard thing for a kid to do.

I think every parent, when your kid is 17, 18 years old and they've had too much to drink at a party, you want them to call you in the middle of the night and say, "I need a ride." Kids will never do that unless they feel safe.

Sol (27:30)
A father's most important legacy is...

Larry Hagner (27:33)
to make sure that you've raised a human being, a good, kind human being that can operate a life that is fulfilling to that kid and that young adult without you.

Sol (27:44)
Now for the father who's listening right now or the mother and they're just feeling really defeated and maybe they're just stuck in conflict, struggle at home. What's one thing that you can tell them right now that will help them feel a little bit better today?

Larry Hagner (27:58)
So today is a moment and everybody has bad moments. Everybody's going to have a bad day. I heard this quote and I think it: really rings okay to have a bad day." It's okay to have a bad day today. It's okay to be in a bad head space today, but how do we get in a better head space in a better situation tomorrow? When we start asking questions like that, 'how might I', or 'how can I' versus 'why can't I?'

That's a more powerful question. And just to really hit this home, the quality of our life, the quality of our relationship depends on the quality of our questions. So if we're in a bad head space and we say to say to ourselves, "why can't I get out of this? Why can't I do X, Y, and Z?" You need to reframe that question to how might I. if you just blew up at your kid, and you're like, why can't I be a more patient father? Instead,

moving forward, how might I be a more patient father now and tomorrow? And when we start asking those questions, really incredible answers start to come back. Well, maybe I'll watch a YouTube video on patience and resolve and emotional resilience. Maybe I'll read a book on how to be more calm and a patient father. Maybe what I'll do is go repair.

Sol (28:59)
So important. Larry, thanks so much for being on with us today and sharing your wisdom. For those that would like to connect with you, hear your podcast, find your book, how can they reach out to you?

Larry Hagner (29:08)
The podcast is great place to start. Everything is at The Dad Edge. So TheDadEdge.com, @TheDadEdge on YouTube, @TheDadEdge on Instagram and Facebook and all that. I just launched this book, Pursuit of Legendary Fatherhood. If you go to TheDadEdge.com/LegendaryBook.

I actually am giving away two things on that landing page and I'll send you a signed copy of the book. I have two courses on there. One might be really meaningful for your audience, the other one might not. The one course is Creating More Patience in the Heat of Chaos. ⁓ I charge $500 for that course, but it's free if you buy the book.

Then, Creating Extraordinary Marriage Through Elevated Communication, Connection, Intimacy. And I'm not sure if that course is for your listeners, but if they're pursuing another relationship, it might be a really great course to tackle. And I'll send you a signed copy of the book as well.

Sol (29:53)
Well, thank you, Larry. I really appreciate your time today and your wisdom. Thanks for joining us.

Sol (29:57)
Thanks for joining us on the Coparenting Beyond Conflict podcast. To support our show, subscribe or leave a rating. Links for all books and resources mentioned on appear in our show notes or on CoparentingBeyondConflict.com. See you next time.

Sol (30:14)
The commentary and opinions available on this podcast are for informational and entertainment purposes only, and not for the purpose of providing legal or psychological advice. You should contact a licensed attorney, coach, or therapist in your state to obtain advice with respect to any particular issue or problem.