Speaking Sessions
Speaking Sessions
Building Stronger Families with Purposeful Leadership
Ever felt like you had everything in place—a steady job, good health, active community involvement—yet something was missing? Join us as we explore the transformative journey of prioritizing faith, commitment, and family. We'll discuss the pivotal role men play in their households, sharing personal experiences and valuable lessons on becoming the leaders our families need. This episode delves into the true essence of leadership, emphasizing integrity, vision, and actionable steps to build trust and ensure family well-being. Whether you're single or married, this conversation will inspire you to lead with purpose.
NOTABLE QUOTES
"The most important thing to me was religion, was having a woman of faith." – Philip
"[As men,] as the leader of the household, you have to make that final decision" – Philip
"Men, step up, do whatever it takes to lead your family because you are destined to be the leader." – Philip
RESOURCES
Philip
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Are you giving it your all? Today I want to change up what I usually talk about. Normally I talk about public speaking communication, but I really want to talk to the men out there. I really want to talk to the fathers, especially out there. But this will apply to you, men also. Are you giving it all? Are you doing everything that is possible to change your life, to change your family's life? And actually this is going to apply to the single guys as well, because I want to dive in a little bit to what I did really to change my life, to set me up to be the man that was worth marrying.
Speaker 1:Too often times we think that we'll figure it out once we get there. We'll figure it out when things just kind of line up. We don't really actually take into account where we're trying to go, especially as men, especially men in their earlier mid-20s, us guys. It takes a while to figure that out and that's what it was for me. I remember going through and, you know, went on dates, lots of dates, dated different women and stuff like that, but I can never really get any of them to stick and I couldn't figure it out. I mean, I felt like I was doing all these things. I had a degree in electrical engineering. I had a good, stable job. I was in good shape, I was going to the gym all the time, I was going to church, all these things. That textbook looked great on paper but it took me a while to figure out that one.
Speaker 1:My focus was really in the wrong place. Figure out that one. My focus was really in the wrong place. I put too much emphasis really on the gym. And then the things that were really important to me, I would kind of try and push off, and for me that was religion. I realized that I would kind of avoid talking about that at the beginning of relationships. But all that changed when I decided that I was going to focus on that, when that was going to be my focus, and so that wasn't the only focus there. But when I finally decided to buckle down, I'm like, okay, I'm tired of just dating, I'm tired of this single life, I want to get married and I'm going to get serious about this now. And so I wrote down what are the things that are really important to me, and I realized that the gym wasn't the most important thing to me. The most important thing to me was religion, was having a woman of faith. And, long story short, after writing all this down down, I end up dating two different girls, and the second one we actually end up almost breaking it off.
Speaker 1:But I kept talking about it and bringing it up because I brought up a few times. I said how important it was and I said I was not going to get married unless if my now wife went to church and at first she started going and then she started backing off because I wasn't talking about it, I wasn't making it a point that this is the direction that I'm going in my life and you can come along with me or not. And so finally, rather than hey, we're just done, I was like you know what? I'm going to say it one more time, because in the past I would just end it, I wouldn't talk about it time and time again and not in an annoying way, but like hey, you know, this is me, this is where I'm going, this is who I am. You can get on board or not, and as men it's kind of a weird thing to think about, but that's the way that we as men should lead. Yes, there are times that we should consult, especially our wives a girlfriend a little bit different situation there. But when it's our wife, we should be consulting them, see what their thoughts are, especially on certain actions.
Speaker 1:But as the leader of the household, you have to make that final decision, and it may not be on everything For me. Cleaning the house, decorating the house, what the kids wear, things like that hey, cool, like, let's just not spend too much money that's about the only thing that I say like, hey, let's watch the budget, stuff like that. But other than that, that's my wife's domain. But when it comes to the decisions of our future, of our household, we're going to invest money, what we're going to do with our money, in the grand scheme of things, I'm the one making the direction on that. I'm the one bringing up hey, what about this? Let's talk through this, let's figure this out. It's not me telling her we're doing this, this is what's happening next. This is not a dictatorship. We are a democracy. We are going to talk through things.
Speaker 1:But at the end of the day, I'm the leader, I'm the one that has to lead my family and as a man, that's something hard to think about, especially if you're not used to that. If you have a father figure, you have a great father who's always been the one leading, and now you have to lead. That's a tough thing to do. I'm not going to lie, I still struggle with that. But the more I put into my family, the more I think about the future that I want for my family, the more I realize I need to lead, more, I need to be committed and I need to do whatever it takes to get to where my family needs to go to keep my family safe.
Speaker 1:And I can't help but think about the economy right now. The economy is not the best economy out there right now. So what can I do to ensure that my family is okay, that my family has a choice to do what they want to do? It doesn't bother me to the full extent to work well, over 40 hours a week, to work weekends, to not have too many holidays. Yes, I love my family, I love family time. But if I have to get rid of all of that temporarily to make sure that the family is okay, that they don't have to worry about anything, I will.
Speaker 1:And I think too many men out there are not willing to do that, and maybe that's you. Maybe you haven't dedicated yourself to your next version of you, to the vision that you have. It's a good idea, it's something that sounds good and that was me in my dating life, like I wanted to get married and I talked about that in my mind at least all the time, even when I was in college. So, early twenties, I wanted to get married and I talked about that in my mind at least all the time, even when I was in college, early 20s. I wanted to get married, I want to find a girl to settle down with. But my actions were completely different. The vision I had was not really there. I talked about some things here and there, but I never set a clear vision.
Speaker 1:But when I did set that clear vision, when I did finally say enough's, enough. Here's my priorities Two girls. I dated two girls, and that was within a year. And of course, I dated, brooke, dated and engaged. It was a little, it was about a year and a half, I think, total within all of that. But from the time I made the decision to the time that I got engaged to Brooke, I think it was about a year, a little over a year, but it was definitely under two years for sure, but I'd spent all this time prior to that and we got married when I was 28. So it was roughly about 26-ish when I met her.
Speaker 1:So from, let's say, 18, when I went off to college and that was the thing that I wanted to do was get married at some point, and wasn't ready at 18 for sure. But almost 10 years, or eight years, it took me to finally say this is it, this is what I'm going to do. But I had that vision, I knew where I was going and, because of my certainty, that created stability for my now wife. And every time that I'm uncertain of the future, I'm uncertain of the next decision that needs to be made, I'm uncertain of leading the family. That's when I start to see things going wrong in the household. That's when I start to see stress for myself, for Brooke, my wife, stress for myself, for Brooke, my wife, start to escalate.
Speaker 1:Because as men, we are the rock of the family. We are the firm foundation. Yes, god is first and foremost the foundation for us, but after God, it is us. We are the leader in the household, or we should be. We are the leader in the household or we should be. So how you set yourself up as that leader is by having a vision, having an end goal in mind, being focused on that, explaining what that vision is and going towards it and continuing to explain it. Much like a business, much like marketing.
Speaker 1:You can't simply talk one time about your product, your service, your business. You have to talk about it time and time and time again. And even when the world knows that you are Coca-Cola, you still have to say it over and over and over again. Because long until people forget what coca-cola is, how long until people forget what pepsi is, how long until your family forgets what the vision is for your household? Think about that, men.
Speaker 1:As leaders of the household, as leaders of your current or future relationships, you need to have a vision, an end goal in mind of where you're trying to go, and this can change over time as you get there. Start to cast that vision out further. That's okay and it's okay to pivot and change direction. But talk through that with your spouse or significant other. Don't simply hope they remember. You have to continue to market that message. You have to continue to share that message. You have to continue to live out that message, that vision, for your family, because you are the leader.
Speaker 1:You as the man are the leader and for the women out there, if you're a man is not stepping up, if your man is not stepping up, you need to tell him to step up. It's okay, it's going to be hard for a man to hear that. It's probably going to be tough for you to say that, because you honestly do not want a man that's not going to step up. But sometimes we need to be hit over the head with a two by four, sometimes literally, but most of the time figuratively. But we need to be slapped with reality sometimes because at the end of the day, we are leaders, and my wife and I were actually just talking about this on a date night that we had this past weekend and as we were talking about it, it's in.
Speaker 1:I don't know statistics on this, but there are statistics out there that talk about the importance of the father figure in the household, and why exactly? The only things I can think is possibly stability, because typically men are not emotional like women are and they're typically firm and disciplined, and here's where we're going. But for some reason, when the father is not in the household, if it's a single mother raising the kids. The kids don't turn out as well as if there is a father and mother relationship. And what's even more interesting is that if the mother is not in the picture but the father is in the picture, the kids still turn out pretty good maybe not quite as good as a two-parent household, but they turn out better than just the household with a single mother. And why that is, I don't know exactly, but I want to say this, not to say that men are better or something like that, but I want to say that that is what's important for you as women to make sure that your man is leading, make sure that your husband is leading.
Speaker 1:The Bible talks about submitting to your husband, and when we think of submission we don't think of that in a good context, but really that's about a man that is leading you, not about a man that's putting you down, beating you up or anything like that, but a true man of God, a man that is going to lead your household, that is leading you in a good direction, hopefully also towards towards god, not just towards riches here in this world, but towards god as well. So if you have a man that maybe they're not leading the way that they should be leading, or leading you the way that, perhaps that that you want to be led, because you feel like they're not leading in any direction. They're just kind of a bump on a log. One, have them listen to this episode, but two, tell them about it. Because, men, we want to make you happy, we want to make you happy, women, we want to make our spouse happy. But we can't just figure that out Again. We need to be hit by that, two by four sometimes.
Speaker 1:But, men, don't wait for your spouse to tell you hey, philip, I need you to do this. You're not doing this for me. You're not a little boy, you're a man. And, yes, we don't know everything. There are things we need to figure out and sometimes we need to be told these things, but you also, well, you need to go figure it out. I know, sometimes we just need to figure it out. We don't need to just be told it, we need to figure it out, we need to solve the problem.
Speaker 1:So, men, step up, do whatever it takes to lead your family, because you are destined to be the leader. But if you don't have that vision of where you're trying to go and continue to communicate that vision. It's going to be hard to lead your family, but start with that vision and start to communicate that vision with your spouse and start taking action on it. They're not going to follow you at first, I promise. If you've never been a true leader, if you've never had a vision or never executed on things and completed them, they're not going to follow you. They're going to be skeptical. Just like starting a new business, people are going to be skeptical at first until they start seeing that you're doing it and proving results. So cast that vision, communicate that vision to your spouse and start taking action and try and get results as you can, and they will start to follow. But you have to be crystal clear on your vision and communicate it time and time again.
